Human cloning: it's the soul, stupid

Regardless of whether a cloned human being was actually born as claimed, our society should use this disturbing report constructively by hastening our ethical evaluation of human cloning.

If the Raelien cult's claim is false, it's only a matter of time before it happens. After all, the Raeliens are not the only ones engaged in this horrifying enterprise. A fertility clinic in Italy and an embryology laboratory in Kentucky also claim to be close.

Brigitte Boisselier, president of Clonaid, the human cloning company engineering this process, appears to be right out of "The Addams Family" or "Munsters" TV series. And the Raelien cult, with which Boisselier is associated, believes that the human race was begun by extraterrestrials some 25,000 years ago. But we shouldn't let the comical aspects of this insanity overshadow its grave implications.

In all seriousness, just who do we think we are? Are we so self-absorbed as a species; have we become so coarse, so vulgar, so narcissistic that we can't recognize that our scientific capacity exponentially exceeds our moral maturity? Shouldn't we come to grips with where we've put God in this equation?

While we may have made scientific advancements of godlike proportions, there is one of God's prerogatives we'll never have the remotest license to, and that is His authority over our souls. We should fear His judgment as we erect the ultimate Tower of Babel in usurping His sovereign power to create humankind by duplicating babies as if from a Xerox copy machine.

When are we going to take the time to have this moral discussion? A perfect illustration of how casually we've approached this subject is that the one body claiming to have authority over the legality of cloning is the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA). I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read that this paragon of unelected bureaucracies, the FDA, contends that it is the body that must approve any procedure aimed at human cloning.

The more scientific advancements we make, the greater will be the temptation to ignore their moral consequences, because these advancements will bring seductive promises of ever-increasing benefits to the human condition.

Our opinions on this issue will emanate from our respective worldviews. Since I am a Christian I won't presume to speak for others, but my understanding of the Bible compels me to conclude that human cloning is utterly violative of God's law. Other Christians may disagree.

The Bible reveals that God created us in His image and that He desires a personal relationship with us. We cannot attain a relationship with Him without humbling ourselves and surrendering to Him. By creating human life through cloning we have done just the opposite in the grossest imaginable outworking of human pride and the greatest conceivable affront to God. We have not only put other gods before Him; we have made ourselves those gods.

The Clonaid group says its purpose is to achieve immortality by creating carbon copies of humans, then "uploading" the contents of the original person's brain into the clone. Nothing better demonstrates their contrasting worldview.

Aside from the fantastic notion that they can upload brain contents and personal experiences from one brain to another ala Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie "Total Recall," how are they going to create a true continuity of consciousness? What happens when two identical beings coexist? How do they avoid the pain and horror of repeated physical death in their little immortality scenario?

Much more significantly, they are neglecting that little detail we refer to as the soul. Cloning advocates such as Clonaid can't possibly believe in the biblical concept that God creates unique human souls in His own image. Even assuming they can precisely duplicate a human being physically, what about his spiritual aspect? Will he/it have a soul? This is humanism at its most obscene. We are just masses of tissue to be manipulated and reformulated at will -- our will.

When the God of the Bible tells us through the prophet Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart," I think He's referring to our souls, our essences, not our yet to be fully formed brains. It is a chilling thought that His Jeremiah statement may not apply to beings that He did not form in the womb but that human scientists did.

We better quit ignoring these pressing moral issues, because we can be sure that science is not going to wait for us to catch up.

3 separate counterexamples/domains for illustration of different issues.

1) Human twins. Good area of study and a fair amount of theological discussion, observation and consideration has been made onthis topic over a thousand years. Probably some good insight available in this domain.

2) Dolly,..the sheep ewe clone. Issues regarding body and breath(pneuma) associated with certain aspects of the soul, but distinguishable from the human spirit.

Demons fled from the demoniac and occupied the swine, so possession of animals is possible, yet animals are understood as discernible from man in that upon their bodily death they return to body, to dust, and do no ascend to heaven for they lack spirit. Care in reviewing these issues is important because the words soul and spirit are frequently used in different fashions in different languges and circumstances,....or perhaps I am simply reflecting my lack of uderstanding onthe issue.

3) Cloning of humans. Spiritual issues regarding salvation of humans are difficult enough for many to understand, but now further obfuscated by identification issues in language and assocation of person's identities between body, soul and spirit. Body might be cloned with respect to DNA and cloned persons might have identical DNA, but the reverse relationship that a cloned DNA results in a cloned person isn't known aprior. All the more reason to have the alleged human clone available to rigorous scrutiny in an appropriate setting.

Scripture is clear that the spirit is God created. There might even be situations where individual animals have been given spirit to serve God's will,...Ex, Balum's donkey, Demonized swine...

In this situation, the 'human clone' is not given a spirit by God, becuase not of the same body, soul and spiritual seed as the rest of humanity, then a counterfeit facade might exist which isn't human. (sans soul or sans God breathed spirit). Within man's domain, where unbelievers will consider the Holy Spirit and spiritually discern things to be foolish, they might be oblivious to any discernible distinction between the clone and any other man.

However laws and even Divine Institutions created for man, would then be received by the clone equally, but perhaps unwittingly inappropriately.

Many of these same doctrinal issues gave basis for the thematic significance of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. Intersting how so much attention was refocused in Hollywood several years back on this novelist without rigorously discussing those points..

Outstanding post. If I may be so bold...

Background ..see
http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Hebrew/heb.cgi?number=05315&version=kjv

Also see pneuma and pneumatikos for New Testament verses
1) We might associate this with animals and above

2) Also the same animal life reproduced itself.

3) Man became a living soul,...particular note might be made in that Scripture is written from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit through human writers. The sense and language provided is consistent and provides enormous insight to the nature or essence of understanding Christ. Consider the point communicated in each verse in context and then consider the dual of the argument, how it wasn't said to help in discernment. The understanding will arise from the walk with Him.

4) Life of the flesh is in the blood. Note that when a believer sins, falls out of fellowship with God, then the only rightoeus, holy life available to him is in the blood or body to offer for atonement, as the spiritual life is separated by sin from perfect Righteousness of God.

5) Dead body. Death frequently in Scripture is better understood as separation,...separation from God, separation of soul from body, separation of spirit from body. They became defiled by touching that which had been separated from God, in this case in particular a fleshly body separated from the soul.

6) Separation of soul and Spirit. Note here the importance of understanding a continual consciousness, separate from the body associated with the person, awareness, yet linked to a God created spirit or life. The importance is that from Scriptural perspective inspired by Spirit, the same indwelling nature of man by the Holy Spirit may be separated from the consciousness or awareness of man. There may also be a separation of the spiritual domain from man's soul leaving him only to perceptions of the flesh, wherein he has lost his flesh. A scarring of the soul from while he was alive may remain with the soul upon separation of the body and without spirit, unable to endure except for an eternal torment.

7) Every living soul died... Perhaps more closely associated with the separation of soul from body rather than soul from spirit, closer in nature to the frst use of the Word in describing creation of whales.

Hope that helps a little,...I'm stil learning and growing on this one.

As far as Catholicism goes, I guess once the process is more-or-less perfected, it will probably accept it as it managed to accept heliocentrism.

It's not fair to criticize you for believing such things, since the secular media and educational establishment try to brainwash people into believing that prior to the "Enlightenment" men knew nothing about the universe. But such was not the case.

Try reading St. Augustine, the greatest of all the Church fathers, and the greatest mind of antiquity. He took exception to the pagan philosophers who believed that the universe was infinite in time and space. He demonstrated that the universe might be unimaginably vast, but it had a definite starting point in time and a definite limit in space.

The so-called "enlightenment" philosophers and scientists believed the Aristotelian view. It took Einstein to demonstrate that Augustine (in the year 400) was right, and the modern scientists of the 19th century were wrong.

I would tend to buy the clone is a twin and has a soul argument, although I will admit it is disturbing to not know for certain.

For me, the bigger issue is the health problems that the sheep Dolly has.

If we replicate those health problems in Humans just to satisfy our egos with replications of ourselves as clones, well, that is just bad.

I don't know whether taking the chance that your offspring will have serious health problems, is the height of ego or the height of apathy towards your own descendants, or both.

But what do you mean by "perfectly" demonically possessed?

When there is "perfect" demonic possession, then the demon has total control of the body, mind and will of the person. "Im-perfect possession" would mean that the demon is influencing the person, but the person still has control of his will.

That's my recollection from reading "An Exorcist Tells His Story" by Fr. Gabriel Amorth. Highly recommended reading! An outstanding work of theology. I was afraid it would be mostly sensational anecdotes, but it was nothing of the sort. His explanation of the presence and influence of demonic spirits was sobering and enlightening.

The problem is that we have no idea as to the current market value of a soul. Who knows what Satan has to pay these days? Where's the aftermarket in soul trading? Is a soul indivisible, or can you sell shares in it? What's the discounted future value of a soul? Is there an intrinsic interest rate?
Until you can answer these questions and many others in a prospectus, your Souls-R-Us IPO is going nowhere.

Good questions. Right off the bat I can say that you can sell divisible shares in any indivisible entity. And if an individual soul has a low market value, you can also package several into securities. Just like they package up mortgages into securities all the time. And as for creating new, innovative markets, I'm sure there are lots of laid-off Enron traders who would love to resurrect the dream. :-)

(Ah, Enron. If only they hadn't been corrupt at the top, they'd have gone down in history as one of the most innovative companies. <sigh>)

Okay, all religious arguements aside, what is the need for cloning again? Did I miss something? Are we running out of humans? Do we need more? What's wrong with the old way of making them?

It seems that there are three reasons most people would want a clone of something. From easiest to hardest technologically, they would be...

1 - The first would be to replace something that is lost by making carbon copies. A son. A spouse. A cat. I doubt that, aside from being a comforting thought, would translate into a comforting reality. Americans hate to think about death, and loss of loved ones. This won't, sadly, change that reailty.

2 - The second, probably the oldest fantasy around, is immortality. "I'm getting old, but my no-nerve cell clone is almost fully grown. Another few years, and I'll just have my brain and spinal cord transplanted on over. Why not? Its my DNA."

3 - The third is manipulation. Hey, parents, its about that time, to start thinking about a boy, or a girl? Which do you want? Want blond kids? Smart kids? Good athletes? Good divers? Tall? Want them to look like famous celebrities? (I'm sure Hollywood, the NFL, the Army, and a good number of other organizations would love to put in some orders, as well.)

So, all soul considerations aside, would this lead to a better world? Or would it lead to a kind of Michael Jackson-ization of our gene pool, where the whims and vanities of a decidedly whimsical and vain culture evolve themselves into absurdity? Where are we going with this?

Thanks for the compliment and the time you took to lay out your points.
I'm thinking however, that the examples I gave were not spiritual symbolisms, but instead relating to the physical. Excepting the "asunder" verse. Which is precisely why I chose those specific verses. It is interesting at least, that the same word is used to describe aspects of what we call the soul, as that for animals, the physical life that blood gives, life in the sea, and even a dead body.
I'm not seeing much of a spriritual element there, and I do see spiritual elements clearly expounded upon elsewhere.
Using strictly the bible as its own dictionary, it's easy to conclude that a soul is not what the prevailing assumption is. And let's face it, it's definitely a big assumption that society applies to the concept of a soul.
A definition which is used often and rarely investigated
Most people have this vagure idea of what a soul is. Often times seeing it as a physical and a spiritual thing, when no one confuses the phyiscal with a spirit. If a spirit is clearly and only a spirit, then what really is a soul?
I'm asking rhetorically because I do not believe a soul is spiritual in any sense, except the modern usage and most probably misusage of the word.

Well, I guess Catholics are somewhat embarrassed about the Galileo incident but the point still stands - most religious institutions, the Church included, tend to accept modern ideas after some polite period of denunciation. Lest you think I'm engaging in garden-variety Catholic-bashing, I'll note that the Russian Orthodox, when first confronted with West Europeans, thought that the ability to project an image with a lens was a trick of the devil. I'm guessing that's not an official position of the Russian Orthodox today.

I am definitly not well-versed in all the details. But as a Bible believing Roman Catholic, I can offer my two cents.

I believe life begins at conception, when the sperm and the egg come together the life is born and at that moment it is given a human soul.

Cloning is different, it doesn't have that act of conception really. Cloning in my opinion is photocopying the genetic material, but the genetic material is just the earthly body, their is so much more, the soul, which comes from God. The Scientist cannot grant a soul, it is only from Him who made us.

I do not believe the clone has a soul, and that is precisely why this scares me so much. Once we take creation out of God's hands we are creating a whole new Tower of Babel. God Bless

Vocatus Atque Non Vocatus Deus Aderit (then again, this statement might imply something)

I tend to partition experience and memory into the physical world, the mental and the mystical as explained in secular layman terms. I tend to associate the physical with the body, mental with the soul, and spiritual with the mystical,...in the past. Yet today I find that my partitioning of that experience is probably much more scarred by natural and fleshly interpretation of those perceptions than remaining guided by the Holy Spirit, righteous and holy in all things, only then able to properly discern the truth.

For myself, this is a ripe study.

With respect to separation of body and spirit or discernment of body from spirit, I have to admit I have observed some phenomenon which indicate perhaps otherwise.

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