Keep
your eyes open!...Keep
your eyes open!...Cloning:
A Diabolical Counterfeit
of Eternal Life
Scientists clone first adult mammal
Say process could be
applied to humans
February 23, 1997
Web posted at: 1:20 p.m. EST
LONDON (Reuter) -- British
scientists said Sunday that they have cloned an adult farm
animal for the first time, taking medical technology a step
closer toward mass-producing animal herds that can be
farmed for milk, blood and organs.
The researchers who replicated the adult sheep from a cell
said the procedure opened the door to more efficient
production of animals used to make health products.
But other experts said the technique was potentially
applicable to people and could confront mankind with
major ethical questions.
Ian Wilmut and colleagues at the Roslin Institute in
Edinburgh, working with biotechnology company PPL
Therapeutics, said the female sheep, named Dolly, was
born seven months ago.
Beyond embryos
Last year the same team made headlines around the
world when they cloned sheep embryos. Two of the
embryos made it to adulthood and one is now pregnant.
Other teams have cloned frogs, cattle and mice but Dolly
is the first animal to be grown from the cell of an adult
animal.
Wilmut's team took a normal embryo cell from an adult
sheep and removed its nucleus, which contains the
genetic material. They then took a cell from another
sheep's mammary gland inside its udder and fused it to
the emptied cell.
"The nucleus goes into the empty egg," said Dr. Ron
James, Managing Director of PPL. "It behaves as if it has
gone right back to the start."
All cells contain the genes to create a whole animal or
plant, but normally a skin cell divides to make another skin
cell, a muscle cell another muscle cell and so on. Roslin's
fusion process makes the emptied cell with the new
nucleus act like an embryo, and it starts growing an animal
from scratch.
Genetically identical
"They found a way of stopping the clock and programming
the genes so they go back to the beginning," James told
Reuters in a telephone interview. The findings will be
reported in the scientific journal Nature next week.
James, whose company was formed to commercialize the
discoveries made at Roslin, said the findings opened up a
far more efficient way to farm genetically engineered
animals.
The company now uses technology developed at Roslin
for the genetic engineering of animals that produce human
proteins in their milk. Their main product is AAT, a sheep's
milk now in clinical trials for use in treating cystic fibrosis.
Dolly is genetically identical to her Finn Dorset mother, but
has not been genetically engineered. She is a normal
sheep.
James said the next step was to make a clone of a
transgenic sheep. For commercial reasons he would not
discuss what products might come of this but said some
examples could be human blood clotting factors for
hemophiliacs.
Ethical questions
Patrick Dixon, author of a book on modern genetic
techniques, said the breakthrough "will bring with it a huge
number of ethical questions."
"My view is that this allows us potentially to produce
replicas of any living human being and also to recover the
dead by using frozen material," he said.
"The work has been done on sheep, but almost any
technique that can be done with a mammal can be done
with a human."
But James said people were becoming less critical of his
companies' activities. "I see much less of the 'yuk' factor
than I did a few years ago," he said.
Wilmut said he did not foresee a "Brave New World" in
which humans were genetically engineered and cloned as
in Aldous Huxley's novel.
"Cloning people should be in the realm of science fiction,"
he said. "All those involved in this research would find it
unethical."
Copyright 1997Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
The announcement of the ability to clone a living mammal from a single cell is a major affront in the spirit of antichrist's plan to replace God.
5 "For God knows
that when you eat of it
your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,
knowing good
and evil."
(Genesis 3:5).
4 Who opposeth and
exalteth himself above
all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God
sitteth
in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
(2 Thess 2:4)
It is part of the timeless quest for eternal life and the fountain of youth. The spirit of antichrist can now offer fallen man the precious commodity it has been striving unsuccessfully to offer from the beginning of time: eternal life. Mankind now has an alternative to God and His moral standards with the same final result of eternal life. Obviously, this form of eternal life is a rank counterfeit of the everlasting life offered to us by God:
For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. (John 3:16)
14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. (John 4:14)
24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24)
The following news releases document two possible uses for this ungodly technology.
Mr. Mubarak, meet Mr.
Tutankhamen?
Egypt dithers with talk of
cloning pharaohs
March 12, 1997
Web posted at: 7:13 p.m. EST (0013 GMT)
From Correspondent Gayle
Young
CAIRO, Egypt (CNN) -- For
decades the mummified remains
of Ramses II have rested in the
Cairo Museum, and hauled out occasionally for the
viewing pleasure of visiting dignitaries.
Like his fellow pharaohs, Ramses wanted nothing more
than to live for eternity.
Now, some 3,000 years later, some observers speculate
that maybe the ancient Egyptians, with their determination
to preserve their bodies, were not so much prone to
wishful thinking as they were to thinking ahead.
Reports that Scottish scientists have cloned an adult
sheep named Dolly have led to rampant speculation that
humans could be cloned as well.
This tempest in a petri dish is
heading to Egypt. For the past
several years, scientists have
been extracting samples of
DNA from mummies.
"For example from the teeth,
for example from the skin, from
the tissues, soft tissues and
from the bones and from the hair," said mummy expert
Nasry Iskander.
The question now is whether such DNA could be cloned
so the great Ramses, or perhaps Seti I or even King
Tutankhamen, rise again and have the life-after-death they
so desperately craved?
"It is too early to speak about this," Iskander said.
The Cairo Museum says it knows of no program in the
works to clone mummies. The DNA that has been
extracted from dozens of bodies is being used to unravel
who fathered whom in the tangled ruling families of Egypt.
But the idea of mummies
getting a second lease on life
certainly gave tourists at the
museum something to think
about. They had a range of
reactions.
"Go for it, see what happens,"
said one man.
"I think it would be unethical to bring someone back in this
kind of culture. I don't know how he'd handle the traffic of
Cairo and things like that," said another man, laughing.
The Great Ramses in a Cairo traffic jam? Actually, that
doesn't have to be imagined, since his statue sits in the
city's busiest square.
As for his being cloned, for once in Egypt that involves a
mystery of the future instead of a mystery of the past.
** 4. SADDAM TELLS SCIENTISTS TO CLONE HIM
Iraqi scientists have been
given the mother of
all biological challenges
- to clone their leader, Saddam
Hussein.
A
prominent Iraqi doctor, who
has just arrived in Britain from Baghdad,
told The Telegraph last week that the
dictator
is fascinated by new
discoveries in genetic research. The
doctor, who
would not be
identified, reports that Saddam has
set up a cloning
laboratory in
Baghdad, the Iraqi capital.
After
studying reports in British
newspapers about the successful
cloning of "Dolly", the sheep
produced earlier
this year in a Scottish
laboratory, the Iraqi leader summoned
his scientists
and questioned them
closely about the possibility of
cloning humans.
Saddam has also been encouraged by
reports that
Western scientists had
the technology to create human clones
within two
years. The procedure is
said to be straightforward. Doctors
in Belgium
claim that they cloned a
twin boy, four years ago, "by
accident"
Saddam, 60 on Monday, has become
obsessed with his own mortality. The
possibility of making a team of
identikit dictators
to continue his
legacy is clearly too hard to resist.
News of
Saddam's interest in
producing clones of himself will
undoubtedly reinforce
the international
clamor for experimentation with human
cloning
to be banned. Experts have
already argued that the technology
could be dangerous
in the hands of
"unscrupulous scientists".
That
certainly applies to the
Iraqi experiment. Saddam's only recorded
achievements in the world of science
to date have
been his ongoing
interest in nuclear engineering and
germ warfare.
Iraq
is said to have enough
biological weapons to kill the world's
population several times over.
The
report produced by United
Nations weapons inspectors following the
Gulf war revealed that Saddam's
scientists had
managed to build a
formidable nuclear and chemical
weapons arsenal
from limited resources.
Saddam
would have no shortage
of uses for a clone. For years the
dictator has escaped assassination
attempts, and
boring public
engagements, by using a double whose
face has
been surgically altered to
make him look more like his leader.
His son, Uday,
also uses a double.
Clones would be simpler than surgery.
The
production of Saddam clones
would also enable the Iraqi leader to
indulge further in one of his
favorite pastimes
- dressing up. Visitors
to Baghdad are always taken aback at
the number
and variety of
photographs of the Iraqi leader that
are posted
throughout the city,
showing him in a number of guises,
from leader
of the armed forces to a
simple desert tribesman. By having
any number
of readily available
clones at his disposal, Saddam would
save himself
the inconvenience of
having to dress himself in these
exotic outfits.
Recently two of Saddam's son-in-laws
sought political asylum abroad
after falling out with the dictator
and his son.
Saddam lured them back
to Iraq, then had them killed.
Relations made
to his own specifications
would be less likely to be disloyal.
Clones
would be a more reliable
alternative to Saddam's presidential
guard. Supposedly hand-picked for
their loyalty,
last year the elite
force attempted a coup against their
leader. As
punishment, 122 were
executed.
Dr
Al-Rubeai, an Iraqi scientist
and reader in bio-technology at
Birmingham University, said that
Saddam would
find the idea of cloning
intriguing. "He considers himself the
father of
science in Iraq and is
interested in any technology if it
could help
him or his regime to
survive. It would be in Saddam's
interests to
explore this technology.
It is not too costly and does not
need sophisticated
equipment, it would
be tempting for him to try."
But
however much Saddam may
need clones to prop up his regime, few
experts believe his research will
lead anywhere.
Their
leader may dream of hundreds
of mustachioed Saddam-lookalikes with
an identical penchant for invading
neighboring
countries, but Iraqi
scientists have neither the expertise
or technology
to make his dream
come true.
Professor Robert Winston, Britain's
leading expert on fertility, said
the project would also be difficult
for practical
reasons. "You have to
examine the logistics," he said.
"Given the failure
rate in previous
published cloning experiments, Iraqi
scientists
would have to transfer
genes to the uteruses of 40,000
primed women to
produce one hundred
Saddams, then they would have to wait
30 years
before they look much
like Saddam.
"Even
then Saddam may be in
for a shock. Clones cannot replicate anyone
emotionally or culturally, only
physically. You
cannot create another
Saddam Hussein. He is unique."
{SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
(London) 4/27 C|H}
Other
shocking consequences of
human cloning include the fact that men would no longer be necessary
for
the propagation of the human race and that a non-miraculous virgin
birth
is now possible.
(Gen 4:2)
And she again bare his brother
Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the
ground.
(Gen 4:3) And in
process of time it came
to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto
the LORD.
(Gen 4:4) And
Abel, he also brought of
the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had
respect
unto Abel and to his offering:
Later when Abraham showed his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac, a lamb became the substitutionary sacrifice.
(Gen
22:7) And Isaac spake unto Abraham
his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he
said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt
offering?
(Gen 22:8) And
Abraham said, My son,
God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both
of them together.
(Gen 22:13) And
Abraham lifted up his
eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by
his
horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a
burnt
offering in the stead of his son.
In introducing Jesus, John the Baptist first referred to him as the Lamb of God.
(John
1:29) The next day John seeth Jesus
coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away
the
sin of the world.
(John 1:35) Again
the next day after
John stood, and two of his disciples;
(John 1:36) And
looking upon Jesus as
he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!
The
references to Jesus as a lamb
are perhaps most prominent in the Book of Revelation where the word
"lamb"
occurs 31 times in 29 verses. Was this frequent use of the
word lamb
in this most prophetic of books meant as a clue as to the nature of the
desolating abomination?
Satan soon followed this with his attempt to pollute the seed of man via intermarriage of the daughter of man with demons (Genesis 6:2). God once again answered with unequivocal fury sending his flood to destroy all of mankind save Noah and his family.
Next came mankind's attempt to reach the heavens via the Tower of Babel. God's answer was sure, swift, and severe: He scattered man throughout the earth and confounded their speech. No longer would all the earth be of one tongue (Genesis 11:1)
Scientists are trumpeting the wonderful potential of this new technology without careful consideration of its terrible moral implications. Only God is the author of life and man, his greatest creation, was made in His own likeness. Cloning allows man to create man in his own image.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Gen 1:27)
But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body. (1 Cor 15:38)
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? (1 Cor 6:19)
Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." (John 2:19)
Reaction from religious leaders from the Judeo-Christian sector was prompt and uncompromising.
A SHEEP NAMED DOLLY: CHIEF RABBI SPEAKS OUT
Israel's Chief Ashkenazi
Rabbi Yisrael Lau said
yesterday that while there
was no specific prohibition in Jewish
Law against
using artificial genetics
to reproduce a human being, it was
entirely against
basic Jewish conceptions
to do so.
"The Torah gave a specific
dispensation for doctors
to use their knowledge
to cure, and even to lengthen life,
but the formation
of new life goes way
beyond that. We have no permission to
enter the
domain of the Creator on
questions of life and death," Lau
said.
He did not know of a single
rabbi who permitted
genetic engineering in this
manner.
Lau's comments came in the
wake of the debate sparked
by the cloning of a
sheep by Scottish scientists. The
successful experiment
has raised concerns
that human being would be next on the
cloning
agenda.
The Pope has also spoken out
against human cloning,
and some countries have
outlawed research involving human
cloning.
Pope denounces
'dangerous experiments'
on life
March
2, 1997
Web posted at: 9:45 p.m. EST
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- A few
days after the Vatican called for a
ban on cloning humans, Pope
John Paul II denounced
"dangerous experiments" that
harm human dignity.
In his Sunday address to
thousands gathered in St. Peters'
Square, the pope focused on the biblical story of Jesus
driving money changers from the Temple of Jerusalem.
John Paul decried the "temple merchants of our age" who
make "the marketplace their religion, until they trample ...
the dignity of the human person with abuses of every kind."
"We are thinking, for example, about the lack of respect for
life, which has become at times the object of dangerous
experiments."
The pope did not mention specifically the news last month
that researchers in Scotland had cloned a sheep. On
Wednesday, however, the Vatican newspaper urged
governments to quickly pass laws banning the cloning of
humans because people have the right to be born "in a
human way."
John Paul also denounced environmental pollution and
"the merchandising of sex" as damaging to human dignity
as well as the exploitation of children and the poor.
Copyright 1997 The Associated Press. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast,
rewritten, or redistributed.
To announce the ability to clone humans is the ultimate desecration of God's temple: the human body.
3 Let no
man deceive you by any means:
for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first,
and
that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
4 Who opposeth and
exalteth himself above
all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God
sitteth
in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. (2 Thess 2:3-4)
What is the temple of God referred to above? Classically it has been interpreted as the rebuilt Jewish temple. I would argue however that the New Testament gives a different meaning to the word "temple". The definition of the New Testament temple is each one of us individually and as a body.
Know ye not that ye
are the temple of God, and
that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
17 If any man
defile the temple of God,
him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye
are.
(1 Cor 3:16-17)
19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? ( 1 Cor 6:19)
And what agreement
hath the temple of God with
idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I
will
dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they
shall
be my people.
(2 Cor 6:16)
19 Now
therefore ye are no more strangers
and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the
household
of God;
20 And are built
upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief
corner
stone;
21 In whom all the
building fitly framed
together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
22 In whom ye also
are builded together
for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Eph 2: 19-22)
One must ask whether at this point in God's revelation to man He would consider any act at a physical temple to be an abomination.
(Mat 27:51) And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
(Heb
10:18) Now where remission of these
is, there is no more offering for sin.
(Heb 10:19) Having
therefore, brethren,
boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,
(Heb 10:20) By a
new and living way,
which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his
flesh;
(Heb 9:6)
Now when these things were thus
ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle,
accomplishing
the service of God.
(Heb 9:7) But into
the second went the
high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered
for himself, and for the errors of the people:
(Heb 9:8) The Holy
Ghost this signifying,
that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while
as
the first tabernacle was yet standing:
(Heb 9:9) Which
was a figure for the
time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices,
that
could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the
conscience;
Simultaneous with Jesus' death on the cross the veil in front of the Holy of Holies was rent signifying that God was giving everyone access to His throne through Jesus' sacrificial death. Significantly, for forty years after the death of Jesus the Talmud records that God gave miraculous signs of the ineffective nature of the Jewish sacrifice on Yom Kippur.
"Forty years before the destruction of the Temple the western light went out, the crimson thread remained crimson, and the lot for the Lord always came up in the left hand. They would close the gates of the Temple by night and get up in the morning and find them wide open. Said Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai to the Temple, 'O Temple, why do you frighten us? We know that you will end up destroyed. For it has been said 'Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars' '" Sotah 6:3
Surely a reinstituted animal sacrificial system would mean as little to God today as it did in the years immediately after the atoning death of His only Son.
