What exactly defines playing god? GE crops? Going into space? Organ transplant?
Its a stupid term, humanity survives buy defying the natural world
The line is drawn, I would argue, with the manipulation of other human beings in ways that are de-personalized or de-humanized. I'm not talking about genuinely therapeutic medical interventions,since this is all legitimately orietnted toward restoring the human being to normal healthy function: curing diseases, correcting disorders, healing injuries, etc.
When I'm speaking of "manipulation," I'm talking about interventions that do not restore the normal healthy function, but tend toward redefining what it is to be human (as if we were nothing but malleable "material.")
To give an example which distinguishes the one from the other: say a couple suffers from infertility because the wife's fallopian tubes are blocked, and the husband's hormone profile is out of whack. Surgery to unblock the fallopian tube, and hormonal therapy to get the guy's hormonenumbers up where they should be---resulting in their ability to achieve pregnancy in the normal way ---would be absolutely legitimate.
But artificial reproduction technologies which do not repair sexual intercourse, but replace it ---say, laboratory-based baby-making--- would not be legitimate.
Why? Because such techniques do nothing to heal their sexual reproductive function, but replace it in a way that does not restore their marital sexual wholeness.
That' s not "playing God", exactly. That's more like failing to play human.