What a pity so few intelligent comments have been made to this excellent post by David.
He speaks with facts and evidence while most of those commenting clearly lack anything worthwhile to say except to attack David for being a Christian and having a valid viewpoint.

By the way Kenny - man has not successfully cloned animals let alone humans.

HenryV111 - It is not 'gods' that cause trouble it is humans, humans who often think they are god - the irony is they usually don't believe there is a god because they are humanists. Not one tyrant of the last 100 years was a Christian.

Lastly - DavidJS - The Ten Commandments do mention the issue of cloning – No 6, "Thou shalt not murder", covers the issue because embryo stem cell research involves murdering a human embryo – which, of course, is a developing baby!
No 10, could also be sighted, dealing with coveting, – so often the driver of such research is the desire to have what nature cannot give us naturally.

According to Salty "...so often the driver of such research is the desire to have what nature cannot give us naturally."

You mean like immunity from diseases like smallpox, cholera and other epidemics which are now, thankfully, history? Like the ability to fly across the globe or to the moon? Like IVF, vision correction and neurosurgery?

Whether this sort of research Van Gend tries to debunk can deliver anything worthwhile (and we don't know unless try), I would have thought it obvious that all scientific research was about attempting to improve on nature. And incidentally Van Gend and his Australian Family Association cronies are not above using pseudo-scientific fraud to try to get gays become heterosexual (read some of his other writings on this website).

I don't absolutely know whether cloning is ultimately useful. But I certainly am not convinced one way or other by arguments from the Bible anymore than I am from astrologists or believers in witchcraft.

What does the Bible actually say about cloning (human or otherwise)? What was Jesus Christ's position on cloning? Why isn't cloning mentioned in the Ten Commandments?
DavidJS,
As un-religious as I am I think your query falls into the category of "it goes without saying".

David,

You easy assumption that a cloned pre-embryo (or any pre-embryo) is a human being is almost certainly false. How do you justify it, in the face of the arguments about twinning and the fact that every pre-implantation embryo divides? Do you hold that the placenta and the extraembryonic membranes are part of the foetus? And if so, what do you say of cases where two foetuses share one placenta?

And what do you make of the arguments that say that we are brains; that we die when the brain ceases to function, and begin when the brain starts to function?

Moreover, if a set of totipotent cells (and not just pluripotent) could be made in the new manner, would that set count as a human being in your view? Or if we could make a set of pluripotent cells that between them could be nurtured to form an embryo, would that count?

In other words, how do you jusitfy your moral outrage?

Uh, Salty, I'm not sure where you're receiving your information, but there's been plenty of cloned animals. They're already debating legislation about cloned meat.

Heck, here's an article which shows how far the debate has come. There are plenty of cloned animals out there.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/021080dnbusclones.38f2060.html

Evidently, you're a tad behind the times. Since Dolly, there's been plenty of cloned animals.

The debate is now focused on how to keep the bred stock from cloned animals identified within the food chain.

They've even created genetically modified pigs for use in farms. Google 'genepacker' and pigs, and you'll find plenty of examples, there's even a product listing on the monsanto site. They're designed to have more litters of piglets, with more surviving piglets in each litter.

It's for reasons like this, that I'm somewhat dubious of the claims made by Van Gend - not what's said, but what's being left out.

I've read similar articles from him before - he never touches on the reasons why there is still significant debate in this area of science.

As much as he would like to believe the debate is over, it isn't. There are still many reasons why the controversial areas of stem cell research are continuing. It would appear he would like to jump in and halt any research along these lines before the total case is debated.

In order to make a persuasive argument, Van Gend would have to touch on these and provide compelling evidence as to why these reasons aren't valid. As it stands, he attempts to ignore and pretend there is no debate, thus, I can only discard this article as commentary driven more by ideology than science.