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55 Wednesday, December 28, 2005 - JOAN OF ARC, AND STEM CELL RESEARCH A noted bioethicist, a minister, recently asked me to put together my "problems with conservative religion"-why I do not trust them with the future of stem cell research. I have been remiss on answering his request: partly because the subject is vast and very sensitive, but mainly because of my natural aversion to work. But I will try. A couple disclaimers: First, I believe in God. One small nightmarish example, foolish even, but real to me: I had a dream in which my son's body was lying on a football field. He was wearing shoulder pads, everything, full football gear. But his head was several feet away. His head was upright on the grass, and it spoke to me: "I'm all right," he said repeatedly. I woke, shaking, sobbing in the moonlight, while Gloria also woke, and comforted me. A few weeks later, my son was paralyzed on the football field. Was I being given a warning from above? I have no idea. But I do believe in God, as the source of all. Second, if I pick on Catholics and Protestants more than other faiths, it is because they are my own. My family is Catholic; I was raised Protestant. I do not imply other religions are superior, merely that my ignorance about them is more pronounced. As to which religion I most "like", I would have to say Deism, the faith of America's Founding Fathers. Jefferson, Washington (also Lincoln, later on) were Deists. Deism basically said, God created the world, and after that, He observes, and we have free will-so everything is up to us; we cannot blame Anybody Upstairs for what goes wrong. Deism, having no official organization, was not attractive to those who like to use religion as a power structure, in which they can rise, grow rich, and dominate. The only mark Deism left was an invisible one: the Constitutional separation of church and state. Which was very wise. Because some religions say they speak with the voice of God-- and therefore cannot be wrong-- and may not even be questioned. Which seems to me like a modern-day version of the old Abbott and Costello baseball comedy routine, "Who's on first? What's on second?". Me (to religious person): How do you know you are right? Religious Person: God told me. Me: How am I supposed to know what God told you? Religious Person: Because I told you what God told me. Me: But- Religious Person: Are you questioning God? Me: Um-- Religious Person: It is simple. Listen to me, and do what I tell you, which is what, after all, God told me to tell you. Consider, instead, what happened to Joan of Arc. Everyone knows the basic story, how a 12 year old girl had a religious vision, and angels told her to drive the English out of France, (which they militarily occupied) and the little girl said, "Okay." And Joan from the province of Arc gathered an army, and went to war. The funny thing was, she won. Battle after battle. Once, outside the famous walled city of Orleans, (from which New Orleans takes its name) the fight was not going well. Again and again, with great loss of life, the French soldiers were turned back by English defenders, firing crossbows from the safety of the walls. Finally, Joan herself was shot in the shoulder, and knocked off her horse. She lay on the ground, seeming dead. Some of her soldiers, thinking the battle was lost, panicked and began to run. But Joan woke, and looked around, and had herself lifted back on her horse. Her battle flag was put in her hands again, and her voice rang out across the field. "When my flag touches the wall," she said, "We will take the city." A few hours, Joan rode into Orleans. The English hated her. An occupying army being defeated by a little girl? Even great Shakespeare behaved disgracefully; in one of his plays, he called her a prostitute. When Joan was finally captured, the English wanted the French church to deal with her. They did not want her just dead, although that must be done; they wanted her discredited, so the people would not follow her example, and go back to being passive. So the Church obligingly held a "trial". On one side were sixty of the best lawyers money could buy. On the other side was Joan, now fifteen years old. She had an attorney, of course-controlled by the church, spying on her, and advising her to do what her enemies commanded. They loaded her small body with chains. At night, she was fastened to a log brought into her cell, to prevent her (they said she was a witch) from turning herself into a bird and flying away. Five soldiers were detailed to her jail cell at night, where they would curse crudities (she could not abide foul language)- and poke her-- and not let her sleep. Sleep deprivation leaves no mark on the body, not killing right away; but it is one of the cruelest and most subtle forms of torture. The human brain must rest in slumber. Denied sleep, either the body dies-or the mind becomes insane. For many weeks the trial continued, lawyers shouting or whispering questions, seeking to bully or deceive, Joan's every word recorded, and studied: as the Church looked for ways to justify killing her. Denied sleep, tortured (at one point her already broken foot was squeezed in a vise) still she fought back, and for a long time, they could not defeat her. Her faith was simple, and unshakeable. She believed the voices which told her to liberate France were from God, and she would not change her mind. They had to make her seem the very symbol of evil: a witch. (Great numbers of men and women were slaughtered as witches, followers of their own beliefs, a faith called Wicca, hence the name. This was known to L. Frank Baum, author of the Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum, which is why he included both good and bad witches in his immortal story-remember Glinda, the witch of the North?) And at last the cleverest of the lawyers-a man named Cauchon-- came up with a question, he said, that she could not answer correctly, and that would condemn her as a witch. The question he planned to put to her was this: "Are you, Joan, acting in the will of God?" If she said yes, then she was a witch and must die--because how could an unlettered teenager know the will of God? If she said no, then she was going against the will of God-and was therefore am admitted witch and must die. They called Joan in, and put her to the question. "Are you, Joan, acting in the will of God?" said Cauchon. And Joan answered: "If I am, may God keep me in the right. If I am not, may He show me the way." The court recorder wrote an aside on the official document, "magnificent answer." But the verdict was already fixed; there was to be no escape. They tricked her into signing her name, the one phrase she knew how to write: Jeanne d' Arc, Joan of the village of Arc. The document she could not read said her voices might not have come from angels. When she realized what she had done, she recanted it-- And the kindly church condemned her to be burned alive. They tried to pretty up her death later on, even making a painting of a Bishop giving her a last blessing, nobly pushing a cross on a pole to her face over the flames, at considerable risk to his overfed self. But that was a lie. It was also said (and this I hope is true) that a soldier gave her one small comfort. At her request, he broke a piece of wood in two, tied the pieces together, and put it in the folds of her clothing, so she could die with a cross close to her. Joan was tied to the iron stake, and the wood was piled, and the flames roared up. She cried out three times from the smoke and the fire, saying: "Jesu! Jesu! Jesu!" And when the flames had done their awful work, the fire was stopped. Her poor burned body was examined: to prove she was a woman. Then it was cut into small pieces, which were burned, and the ashes scattered into the River Seine, to erase forever the memory of Joan of Ark. It did not work out that way. The people of France rose up in a fury, and drove the English out. Shall anyone now deny the Church made a mistake, ordering the death of Joan of Arc? Joan's family sued the church. They could not bring their daughter back to life, but they wanted her good name restored. The Church allowed a change. They said that Joan was not a witch, but was actually a Saint. Even an infallible church, it seems, can make a mistake. And today, when a religion uses its powers to try to stop embryonic stem cell research-perhaps condemning millions of people to suffering and needless death by blocking the development of life-saving treatments and cures-shall this mistake be allowed as well? Don Reed - www.stemcellbattles.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn