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[Charles Austin]

And here's a better idea, Peter, one that I think you would like a lot. Supposing We do nothing about the environment. Supposing then you live 35 or 40 more years. Supposing then as you come close to your dying breath, a breath which will be of clean fresh air and fresh water soothing your dying throat, wouldn't it be nicer for you to be able to say "Charles was wrong."?

[Dan Fienen]

And here's a better idea, Peter, one that I think you would like a lot. Supposing We do nothing about the environment. Supposing then you live 35 or 40 more years. Supposing then as you come close to your dying breath, a breath which will be of clean fresh air and fresh water soothing your dying throat, wouldn't it be nicer for you to be able to say "Charles was wrong."?

Charles, has anyone here said that nothing should be done about the environment? Surely you do not contend that either one must embrace all the draconian nostrums of the far left Green New Deal in their entirety or one does nothing to preserve clean air and water. Care for the environment is not an all or nothing proposition.


Much has been done to combat air and water pollution. Much is being done to reduce green house gas emission. There is considerable disagreement about what is most important and what efforts will produce the most important results. But the attitude that either one is completely aboard the most draconian efforts or one is doing nothing actually hurts efforts.

[peter_speckhard]

And here's a better idea, Peter, one that I think you would like a lot. Supposing We do nothing about the environment. Supposing then you live 35 or 40 more years. Supposing then as you come close to your dying breath, a breath which will be of clean fresh air and fresh water soothing your dying throat, wouldn't it be nicer for you to be able to say "Charles was wrong."?

Why wait? If you think "doing nothing about the environment" now will lead to me having plenty of clean, fresh water and air 40 years from now, it seems to me you've already seen the error of your ways. Either way, I doubt I'll be thinking about this election or you and your opinions about in 40 years. I'm not for "doing nothing," by the way, but I am for getting out of international agreements that do not actually accomplish anything but put a lopsided burden on us, and I am for energy independence as opposed to dependence.

[Brian Stoffregen]

Pastor Fienen:
Does virtually the whole medical community include the doctors who are actually treating Pres. Trump?
Me:
No, because I'm not an idiot.
If it included every doctor in the world, I wouldn't have said "virtually" would I?
Then, as I thought was commonly understood, that V-word is sometimes used as an intensifier, rather than a numerical derivative.
(Note to self: figure out a way to start charging them for these English lessons.)

So the doctors who haven't treated him or spoken to him are basically in agreement that he should be in the hospital, but the team of doctors who actually treated him and interact with him on an ongoing basis are basically in agreement that he doesn't need to be there. Begs the question of why anyone would go to the doctor at all when an internet poll of doctors can treat you just as well.

The team of doctors who are actually treating him are limited by their patient as to what they can say. The doctors who are not treating him - many of whom have treated many, many COVID-19 patients - are free to offer their expert opinions. As I recall, we have heard very little about the details of the President's condition. Other experts would like to know what the x-rays of his lungs showed. There are details about blood tests that are unknown.

So, we should listen/give credence to doctors who have no information about the patient?  That seems pretty stupid.

We should listen to doctors who are the most knowledgable about the disease affecting the patient.

Ah, you would treat the abstract (the disease) rather than the concrete (the patient).  I would rather have it the other way around.

I'm not treating anyone. Yes, I listen to experts on "the disease." I try to be well-informed. It seems that every news outlet has their own team of medical experts on the disease as well as the national experts, like Dr. Fauci, who inform us about what the disease does, and also the effects (good and bad) of the drug therapies that are being used.

[Brian Stoffregen]

So, we should listen/give credence to doctors who have no information about the patient?  That seems pretty stupid.

And here is a doctor (former White House physician to Presidents Obama and Trump, no less) who says that "something is not right" with Mr. Biden.  https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/something-not-right-says-obamas-white-house-doctor-about-biden-hes-just  So, I guess we can follow the same course with regards to concerns about him having dementia as you are doing regarding President Trump's COVID-19 infection.  That is, throw it out there as if it is credible and then demand for someone to prove it is not true.

Wait, here's another: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article245043195.html Well, we seem to be closing in on "virtually the entire medical community" agreeing with the assessment that Mr. Biden is suffering from some sort of mental impairment!

Seems to me, Pr. Bohler, that you should have heeded your own advice, which you gave in the top quote, before posting links to bogus medical assessments by hyper-partisan GOP politicians (who also happen to be non-attending physicians) in the bottom statement.

I, for one, was impressed by VP Biden's stamina and mental acuity during last week's 90-min. debate. Where was "sleepy Joe"? On the other hand, I have been deeply troubled by the president's behavior, in the debate and on many other occasions.

Matt Becker
P.S. I realize you were being facetious in that second statement above, but there are enough people out there who really do think Mr. Biden suffers from mental decline that it is important to point out the extreme partisan bias of both of the non-attending doctors who are quoted in the articles you referenced.

And do you really think those CNN doctors are not partisan?  That there is no agenda they are expected to follow?  Do you still believe in the tooth fairy too?

And you still believe that truth is not subjective?

[Weedon]

FWIW, Dr. Sander is a former member of St. Paul's (and has joined us at the dinner table; as his mom still does regularly), and is not only a mayor dealing with the political policy implications of COVID 19 but also holds an earned doctorate in virology. It's longish, but informative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBUKm1yssz4&feature=youtu.be

[RogerMartim]

I cannot say whether Trump may have known this or not, and if he did, I don't think it would have bothered him all that much: Regeneron, one of the medications that he was given at Walter Reed is made from embryonic stem cells. He now claims that Regeneron has cured him. These stem cells are harvested from human embryos in their blastocyst phase which is four or five days after fertilization. The blastocyst is destructed in this process. This of course is raising a whole slew of ethical questions and concerns. As stem cell research continues in providing advancements in medicine, there will be continued discussions on this subject. They won't be done though by calling out folks baby murderers, etc.
(One could say that I am an anti-abortionist but I don't believe that cessation in abortions can be done by fiat. It will only be achieved by education and resources provided to those who find themselves in an untenable situation. So, not being an one issue voter, I have no problem hoping that Trump is thrown out on his keister on November 3.)

[James J Eivan]

So, not being an one issue voter, I have no problem hoping that Trump is thrown out on his keister on November 3.)

So having never supported the president, your statement is simply ... well nothing new.

[Charles Austin]

Let's see what the pro-life people say about his plan to create and give "everybody" a vaccine created from embryonic stem cells.
   But... Regeneron says that antibody cocktail was not developed using human fetal or embryonic stem cells, but it did use "immortalized epithelial cells" commonly used in research that were originally derived from human embryonic kidney cells at Stanford in the 1980s. Regeneron told Heavy that these were "immortalized epithelial cells" and not stem cells.
   Is this a distinction without a difference? I don't know enough about the biology of the matter to know.

[The Yak]

Let's see what the pro-life people say about his plan to create and give "everybody" a vaccine created from embryonic stem cells.

"Created from embryonic stem cells" glosses over far too much.  There are some candidates out there where embryonic stem cells were used at some point in the development, but the realities are far more complex.

Here's a helpful, well-sourced article written from a Catholic perspective on the ethics of using the proposed vaccines.

[Charles Austin]

Thanks for that link, Dr. Yak; it was good reading.
But it seems that all ethical and moral questions are either not fully answered or answered in ways that some who are opposed to fetal stem cell research might not accept.
I suppose we need to stay tuned.

[James S. Rustad]

I cannot say whether Trump may have known this or not, and if he did, I don't think it would have bothered him all that much: Regeneron, one of the medications that he was given at Walter Reed is made from embryonic stem cells. He now claims that Regeneron has cured him. These stem cells are harvested from human embryos in their blastocyst phase which is four or five days after fertilization. The blastocyst is destructed in this process. This of course is raising a whole slew of ethical questions and concerns. As stem cell research continues in providing advancements in medicine, there will be continued discussions on this subject. They won't be done though by calling out folks baby murderers, etc.
(One could say that I am an anti-abortionist but I don't believe that cessation in abortions can be done by fiat. It will only be achieved by education and resources provided to those who find themselves in an untenable situation. So, not being an one issue voter, I have no problem hoping that Trump is thrown out on his keister on November 3.)

Regeneron is a company, not a drug.  REGN-COV2 is the drug developed by Regeneron that Trump was treated with.

Regeneron freely stated in April that they use human embryonic stem cells derived from in-vitro fertilization for some research.

Currently, there are limited research efforts
employing human-induced pluripotent stem cell lines derived from adult human cells and
human embryonic stem cells that are approved for research use by the National Institutes of
Health and created solely through in vitro fertilization.

Regeneron states that REGN-COV2 development did not involve human embryonic stem cells.

"This particular discovery program (regn-cov2) did not involve human stem cells or embryonic stem cells," wrote Regeneron spokesperson Alexandra Bowie in a statement.

[James S. Rustad]

Let's see what the pro-life people say about his plan to create and give "everybody" a vaccine created from embryonic stem cells.
   But... Regeneron says that antibody cocktail was not developed using human fetal or embryonic stem cells, but it did use "immortalized epithelial cells" commonly used in research that were originally derived from human embryonic kidney cells at Stanford in the 1980s. Regeneron told Heavy that these were "immortalized epithelial cells" and not stem cells.
   Is this a distinction without a difference? I don't know enough about the biology of the matter to know.

I think you should have cited a source.

Regeneron told Heavy that their antibody cocktail was not developed using human fetal or embryonic stem cells, but it did use "immortalized epithelial cells" that were originally derived from human embryonic kidney cells at Stanford in the 1980s. Regeneron told Heavy that these were "immortalized epithelial cells" and not stem cells. These cells weren't used to create the antibody cocktail itself, but they were used to test its potency.

I design and write software.  Other people test the software.  Testing is done during development to find problems before the software is finished.  Testing is also done one last time at the end of the process to see if we have missed anything.  Testers don't write software that ships to customers.

If a technology derived from an evil source was used to test the software, is the software itself evil?

[Mike Gehlhausen]

I think you should have cited a source.

Regeneron told Heavy that their antibody cocktail was not developed using human fetal or embryonic stem cells, but it did use "immortalized epithelial cells" that were originally derived from human embryonic kidney cells at Stanford in the 1980s. Regeneron told Heavy that these were "immortalized epithelial cells" and not stem cells. These cells weren't used to create the antibody cocktail itself, but they were used to test its potency.

I design and write software.  Other people test the software.  Testing is done during development to find problems before the software is finished.  Testing is also done one last time at the end of the process to see if we have missed anything.  Testers don't write software that ships to customers.

If a technology derived from an evil source was used to test the software, is the software itself evil?

In my opinion, it depends all upon whether it is a matter of "was used" or "is consistently used".   If the matter is that an evil technology was used for testing, then this is a past event.  It can be regretted, but I would not feel the software itself is evil because it is a finished product.  The evil has ended and is not ongoing.

However, if continuous testing with the evil technology is done to validate the software as a part of its development, then I would say that does make the software evil

So, if the vaccine would not be a finished product and embryonic stem cells are needed to validate the efficacy of the lots of the vaccine in some way, then I would be concerned.   My health would be benefited by the death of unborn children.  That is one of the concerns I've always had about the use of embryonic stem cell research to find a cure or treatment for things like Parkinson's.

I don't know if I would look at such a situation as sinning boldly and trusting in God's grace even more boldly or if I would have the courage to hold out on being vaccinated until a more ethical vaccine existed.  Herd immunity from those who have been vaccinated would also be a factor.

[peter_speckhard]

https://gbdeclaration.org/