Or simply one who does not feel that faith should compromise scientific endeavor.
You know, it's interesting, because when looking back at history, and how religion has held up science, one thing becomes apparent: even if you are very deeply religious, you should have the common sense to realize that halting scientific progress might not be doing the Lord's work.
I recently commented to Reason about Mercator, the famous 16th century mapmaker. He was incarcerated, and very nearly tortured and killed, for creating maps based on science and surveys rather than the Bible and religious doctrine. I think of Galileo and Copernicus.
In the case of Mercator, the Catholic Church was looking out for their political interests, and we see that sort of stuff today with the stem cell debate: the arguments against it are pathetic and hypocritical when you look at the administrations total agenda.
In the case of Galileo and Copernicus, their ideas challenged the core of Creation, at least as far as the Church was concerned. The Bible was accepted as scientifically accurate, and therefore the validity of the Bible itself was being challenged.
But there's something to learn here. First, there's the issue of taking the Bible literally. But even more than that, there's the issue of interpretation. God created the world in "six days". What's a day? A human day, 24 hours? Or a day in the life of a planet, measured literally in geological timescales: millions, hundreds of millions, even billions of years.
No, if we're going to learn from history, we must learn that opposing science on purely ideological grounds is wrong at best, and deadly at worst. Opposing science for moral reasons is at least a step better: opposing the use of slaves, or Jews, or prisoners, as live test subjects, for example. These are things not limited to religion, but to the moral seed planted in every heart.
Here there is of course a gray area: all but the sociopaths have morals of some kind, even if they are codified in no more complex terms than "do unto other as you would have done unto you".
If there is indeed a "correct" religion (which I hold mine to be, and yet I cannot deny the possibility that it is incorrect without myself becoming a hypocrite; therefore, I do admit it *could* be wrong), then in theory, there is a "true" set of moral standards, which I assume that most of us threw out the window long ago.
However, in light of what modern society is, the best we can hope for is a reasonably acceptable minimum set of standards. Back in my agnostic days, I held to the mantra that the government should not inflict morality upon its citizens. I still hold to that today. We must set only a minimum level in law, and this minimum level should be allowed to "slide with the time".
Luckily, many "moral" lines are drawn based on "rights", such as the right not to be raped, murdered, etc. Clearly these laws started out as moral ones, but in light of the erosion of morality as a justification for laws, the "rights" prevail as the legal justification.
Anyway, random ramblings. I don't think that research should be stopped on ideological grounds, and only on moral grounds in exceptional cases. In the ESC debate, I don't believe the moral objections are anywhere near exceptional, and so we should proceed.
Jay Fox