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U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

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Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel the same way about other life saving technologies such as seat belts and motorcycle helmets? What about hitting the anti lock breaks when a semi pulls out in front of you? The same philosophy can be applied to other life saving / extending measures such as adjustments to diet, or taking high blood pressure medicine.

No. None of those safety implements you describe are things that alter the structure of my body, they are applied to augment the safety of existing pieces of external technology. So if they symbolize something negative, it would have to be along the lines of "constraining worldly authority" which could be argued to be a natural precaution, or an overprotective tyrannical overreach, but the nature of it is not the sam…

>> things that alter the structure of my body

Lol...the structure of your body is "contaminated"/changed all the time. You are living in an continuously changing ecosystem. The clothes you've been wearing all this time changed your body structure. You are pretty much a byproduct/result of the ecosystem. I'm sorry to disappoint you but your faith is a "change" as well given by people around you. The key(word )that you've been looking for is "delusional". Find its meaning and it will set you free the way the creator intended

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#303
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pigs are really common in biomedical testing. They are physically a similar size and weight to humans. They also reach maturity in about 6 months. Much cheaper to raise than primates, and more likely to get approval for testing. My friends in biomed grad school named one of theirs cyber pig because it has about 30 different experiments ran on it before it was killed, and afterwards it was portioned out for further te…

Weird how this is said without a shred of sympathy or concern for an intelligent, helpless creature. Weirder how it can be said without a sympathetic or concerned response. I hope we can someday move beyond seeing animals as a mere resource.

my thoughts exactly, these animals are even smarter than dogs and according to some studies smarter than 3-year old children, which makes this even sadder. We have one as a pet in the family and they're so chill.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#304
post #26

You might be asking, why a pig? I don't know, but forever ago I wrote software for a cardiovascular imaging lab and pigs were their primary test subjects. I was like, "why pigs?" and the PI was like, "Imaging-wise, pig hearts aren't too different from humans. Plus, we can give them a heart attack in the scanner and not go to jail. Some labs use dogs. I just can't do that."

I was only recently acquainted with the idea that there are many people on the internet who become very angry that some people eat dog meat, but do not with say cow meat or pig meat. — I find this rather strange and do not understand this.

It's all cognitive dissonance in the end. People are quite happy to have illogical and inconsistent beliefs because it lets them remain entirely ethical in their heads.

They will even become hostile when you challenge this because you are threatening the foundation of their ethics and mental health.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Wycliffe (1340 AD): "How should God approve that you rob Peter and give this robbery to Paul in the name of Christ?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_rob_Peter_to_pay_Paul

Yeah, except we are not talking about two people. We are talking about killing a pig to save a human, potentially thousands of humans.

Is this so much worse than killing pig and salivating its meat and devouring it? Think about it, you are killing a living animal for your one meal when you had all the options in the world. Many people are not even eating it fully and simpply just tossing it away literally in a trash. As usual, I am sure a lot of people will run to Bible to justify this.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd want to question why I'm doing it. For example do I have kids I need to stick around to support? Or am I just going to be discharged to mostly play video games, alone? Because I don't see a need to extend that life. Then I'd want to think about what it symbolizes. Is it really so irrational to just let my body die when my God-given guts fail instead of depending on the hands of man to possibly convert my body int…

> Imagine, God is calling me up to Heaven because it's my time, and this machine holds me down here on earth! This logic only seems to work if you believe the pacemaker is more powerful than your god’s will.

God's will is not so forceful as to supernaturally reach into the world and kill someone clinging to life, even if by evil means. If it were, and He reached down and destroyed the device every single time, you'd be likely to rebel all the more, calling Him a tyrant! No, this monk was truly no fool, he must have been a wise, simple old man who lived his life humbly doing his best to love those around him.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#307
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was only recently acquainted with the idea that there are many people on the internet who become very angry that some people eat dog meat, but do not with say cow meat or pig meat. — I find this rather strange and do not understand this.

Dogs are carnivores. It is incredibly inefficient to raise dogs for meat, because you have to feed them meat to do so. This pretty obviously isn't what people are principally reacting too, but it is massively understated when people get into "why do we eat A and not B?"

This doesn't seem to explain the reaction to even the smallest amount. I don't believe for a second that even 1% of the anger is because the consumer has wasted resources on their food. Or people would be furious about beef when chicken is massively more efficient.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#308
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rowboats, helicopters etc. in a flood, prima facia, seem to be more in character as a deliverance from a natural disaster. Sure. But how we define "abomination" comes down to what we're used to. Is taking a cheap statin that will improve your length of life subverting God's will? If we're saying something is resource intensive and you don't give much back to the world in comparison to the resources used to prolong…

>how we define "abomination" comes down to what we're used to. If a person believes scripture is only a cultural document and not divine revelation then that would be the definition of abomination. I have to personally disagree with that assessment. >Is taking a cheap statin that will improve your length of life subverting God's will? It could be, depending on what it means in the bigger picture. I believe we know ve…

> > how we define "abomination" comes down to what we're used to.

> If a person believes scripture is only a cultural document and not divine revelation then that would be the definition of abomination. I have to personally disagree with that assessment.

That's not what I claimed. But to claim something is "abomination" based on your own personal recoil from it isn't very useful as a moral framework.

> and accepting death if it appears to be the due time for it anyways.

What's the "due time", though? Biblical figures lived for hundreds of years, supposedly. And it takes extraordinary efforts to have as low of an infant mortality rate as we do.

Surely the heroics in the NICU are how we move the time of death from what would happen on its own the most, and some of the more expensive medical care given. Hey, many of those babies will never repay to society the resources they consume.

What you seem to be saying is that it comes down to some mix between a reflexive judgment and cold utilitarianism.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. None of those safety implements you describe are things that alter the structure of my body, they are applied to augment the safety of existing pieces of external technology. So if they symbolize something negative, it would have to be along the lines of "constraining worldly authority" which could be argued to be a natural precaution, or an overprotective tyrannical overreach, but the nature of it is not the sam…

>> things that alter the structure of my body Lol...the structure of your body is "contaminated"/changed all the time. You are living in an continuously changing ecosystem. The clothes you've been wearing all this time changed your body structure. You are pretty much a byproduct/result of the ecosystem. I'm sorry to disappoint you but your faith is a "change" as well given by people around you. The key(word )that you…

Come now, do you think the gut flora that naturally interacts with my body, etc. and lives and dies (death being explainable as a consequence of the fall anyways) is on the same order of meaning to me as the changes enacted by God-image bearing man? It's not comparable to me.

The change brought about in my faith is a divine change given by the Divine Persons from outside this temporal universe who love me! Yes! A salvific change! To those who cannot see this light, it understandably does look like a delusion, and I don't blame them for seeing it that way, that's part of their own personal life.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not gloating. I genuinely enjoy eating pork and meat in general. It's the most nutritious food a human can eat in my humble opinion. I hold no shame in eating and enjoying meat. If I was a scientist and a piggie died as part of an experiment or whatever. I would do my best to eat the piggie and not let any part of it end up in the trash and going to waste.

> It's the most nutritious food a human can eat in my humble opinion. Citation needed on this one. I'm curious.

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