An important dialogue between a believer and a non-believer has developed in the past two years in the conversation between Pope Benedict XVI and Marcello Pera, a member of the Italian Senate and a distinguished philosopher of science.
In a recently published book, Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, Benedict makes a proposal that echoes Pascal: "Even the one who does not succeed in finding the path to accepting the existence of God ought nevertheless to try and direct his life...as if God did exist."
To which the non-believer Pera replies: “This proposal should be accepted, this challenge accepted, for one basic reason: because the one outside the Church who acts [as if God did indeed exist] becomes more responsible in moral terms. He will no longer say that an embryo is a ‘thing’ or a ‘lump of cells’ or ‘genetic material’. He will no longer say that the elimination of an embryo or a fetus does not infringe any rights. He will no longer say that a desire that can be satisfied by some technical means is automatically a right that should be claimed and granted...He will no longer act like half a man, one lacerated and divided.”
That's a dialogue full of promise, because it begins from the common premise that the human person is not the random product of galacitic biochemistry.
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