Does human cloning disprove God?

Great Debates
#1

Hello! First post in GD.

My limited knowledge of Catholicism states that God comes down and puts the soul into the womb at THE moment of conception. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Now, if we succeed in cloning a human, would that show that the soul is not put there by God? Could an argument be made that he doesn’t exist because of this, or at least the Catholics version of God must be wrong. Or, conversely, wouldn’t it be freaky if for some reason we were NEVER able to clone a human…would that then prove God’s existence (to an extent)?

I don’t know how profound this argument is, but I’ve wanted to post in GD for awhile, so here’s my shot at it.

Take care-
-Tcat

#2

ted turner propsed the argument that since the catholic church had not been burying fetuses when women had miscarriages then abortion must be OK. he does have a point.

the occult crowd says the soul already existed and entered the body at birth. hence astrology based on birth time.

encountered 2 sources that say one of the largest astrological libraries in the world, is in the vatican. you don’t suppose they are keeping something from us.

Dal Timgar

#3

No, cloning doesn’t disprove God.

We ALREADY have clones. My sisters are clones. And I’m sure every Christian out there believes that they each have their own soul.

Cloning presents no new ethical issues, it merely requires us to use a little logic to apply our current ethics. Cloning creates a human baby, therefore all our rules for human babies should apply to artificially created clones. Issues of parenthood are the same as for other children created through assisted reproductive technology. We have egg donors, sperm donors, surrogate mothers, adoption. Parents can have clones created for selfish, abusive, or narcissitic reasons, but they can also have regular children for the same reasons.

Cloning presents no new ethical issues.

#4

Help me out here- Your sisters are clones? I suppose you mean twins? The two twins stories I know are that two eggs are fertilized, or one fertilized egg splits somewhere down the line. Couldn’t God of put two souls into those situations?

I’m talking a situation where egg does not make the aquaintence of sperm…Hmmm…now that I think about it, are you suggesting that in the case of the zygote splitting and creating two babies, cloning is essentially a delayed split? That at age 1 day or 34 years, someone takes or ‘splits’ a piece of themselves into a new person? Therefore God jumps in and provides the new soul?

Thanks so far-
-Tcat

#5

Except, if you were to somehow clone an unfertilized egg, all you’d get would be two unfertillized eggs. Cloning is when you take complete cells from a living organism, and cause them to develop into living organisms, themselves.

#6

A Christian would call me an atheist. I’m probably closer to an agnostic. Be that as it may, I’m sorry to tell you that there is nothing that can disprove the existance of a Christion God. You see, those wacky Christians have this thing called faith. Their faith expressly dictates that God exists and that is their highest authority. Nothing is going to shake that. If you could wave your arms in the air, cry, “Hocus Pocus” and come up with clone of Captain Kangaroo it still wouldn’t disprove a thing.

The only thing you can do is stick to your guns (if those are in fact your guns) and state unequivocably that there is no God. But, it still doesn’t prove a thing.

#7

Yes, my sisters are the product of a single fertilized egg. That egg began to develop into a single individual. For reasons not well understood, that individual embryo split into two individual fetuses. Where there was one unique individual human being, now there are two. And it’s all God’s fault!

And my sisters are much more alike than most other clones would be…they share the same cytoplasmic factors like mitochondria, the same uterine environment, the same family, the same schools, they were born at the same time, had the same friends, live together, etc. Most clones would not share the same things, and would be more different from each other than my sisters.

**

I don’t believe in souls, but if twins have their own souls then clones would have their own souls. Insert whatever hocus-pocus you wish to attach said souls to said individuals. And what about cases where the twins DON’T split completely…where you have genetically identical twins that partially share the same body? Conjoined twins? Does each twin have an individual soul, or do they share a soul? I think most christians would hold that each conjoined twin has an individual soul, not a shared soul or no soul. Clones would be no different.

#8

Naah, one of your sisters doesen’t have a soul. Put a mirror next to her, no reflection!

What I mean to say is, what catholics say about that is superstition to explain why. I mean if some guy trys to explain something religiously it doesen’t disprove his religion.

#9

Cloning no more disproves the idea of God imbuing an embryo with a soul than in vitro fertilization does. After all, when we harvest a human egg and a teaspoon of sperm and put them together in a petri dish, it’s still conception.

#10

Welcome. It’s the best forum :slight_smile:

**
Heh, I’ve thought about that. We pull a “Dolly the Sheep” special on some dude, and the resulting person is totally sans personality. It’s living, breathing, totally functioning, but it has no… humanity.

Wow, that’d knock my belief system for a loop. I wouldn’t go join the nearest church, because maybe science did something wrong, or maybe Allah didn’t put the soul there, etc. But it’d be a mindfuck, that’s for sure.

Quix

#11

…because it can’t be done. Here goes:

Imagine that we’re all in a box, and let’s call this box the Observable Universe. No matter what you do, you can never see, hear, feel…you can never get any information from outside the box. Inside this box we use science to explain what we see in the box to an ever-increasing level of accuracy. Science uses testing and repeatable results to “prove” things.

Religion, however, talks about what is outside the box. As a logical person uses science inside the box, a religious person uses faith outside the box. And there’s no problem with either one - no matter how much fun I poke at the fundies - the problem is in using faith (outside) in matters of science (inside).

Cloning, demonstrating evolution (it’s been done), quanta, nothing will ever disprove the existence of God.

#12

I think the OP is making entirely too many assumptions, namely, that a womb has to be present for what he thinks Catholics believe in. I would suggest that he do a little research into whether he wants to refer to Catholics, Christians in general, etc. I would then suggest that he be more specific and factual (cites?) in regards to the beliefs held by this group, and what needs to occur for someone to have a soul (according to this group).

#13

Conner, buddy, big guy- let me guess, left-brainer, right? :stuck_out_tongue: If I wanted to sit at home with my computer and only find this out for myself from multiple cites, I would have! I’m looking for a little conversation, find out what people think, ya know? And so far, its been pretty enlightening.

Although I could have been more specific in the OP, I thought I made up for it a few posts later. I wasn’t talking about sperm and eggs in a container (womb, petri dish, whatever) but actually taking a cell and cloning a human from the DNA. Catholics and Christians do believe in souls, so what are their explanations for how the souls get there? This argument is used by Catholics against abortion- that the sperm and egg are a soul-filled human from the moment of conception.

Unfortunately, it seems that only scientists are answering, when in reality I’d like to hear more from the religious side. What do they have to say? Where’s that Daniel guy when you need him?

#14

wow, starting with Lemur866, pretty much everybody has either not answered or (seemingly) willfully misunderstood Tomcat’s question.

If God is the one who designed us as creatures and as spiritual beings, that means he assigned each of us a soul, and created the proper and true method for creating new people. He’s somehow the one who steers the one sperm to the one egg to create a host for the soul he has made.

But cloning is a process humanity has forced onto life. Humans are (soon) going to be wrenching life into existence through means other than the tried and true sperm-meets-egg. So, if this is not how humans are intended to be created, and God didn’t have souls ready, then a human should be born soulless.

Now, if a human clone is created in a lab, and the clone grows up and is no different from the rest of us, and is capable of moral judgement etc, then the above theory is false. God doesn’t work that way.
Would this disprove God? No, it would mean that the model of God is wrong. Or, that God had the knowlegde that somehow humans would start cloning in the future, and therefore designed from the very begining some kind of clone soul instigator.

But if the latter were true, then much of the current religious objection to cloning (Cloning is against the will of God, we’re trying to do what is God’s job) is flat out wrong.

Yes, Tomcat, if cloning were successful, then many ideas of God would be proven wrong. In fact, as phouka pointed out, in vitro fertilization invalidates your given model of God placing a soul into the womb at conception.

jbconception

#15

Whoa! That’s a pretty big assumption about the nature of the soul, whatever that is, that you’re making there. I am under the impression that moral judgment and reasoning are conducted by the same mechanism that governs other judgement and reasoning. Namely, the brain.

In fact, you don’t even need to produce clones to test this. Just look for people who have suffered damage to specific parts of the brain. Study the affects of the damage. Does damage to a specific region result in loss of specific abilities? Furthermore, is there any area which, when damaged, leads to loss of “moral reasoning”?

Guess what? Its been done.

Guess what else? There is.

So, does that mean none of us have souls?

#16

Maybe cloning just allows us to figure out a little more about life and how complicated and amazing it really is.

#17

jb_farley:

My point is that the “one egg and one sperm makes one soul” theory has already been proven false. The proof is my sisters, who are “no different from the rest of us, and [are] capable of moral judgement etc”, even though they were created from the same egg and sperm.

We don’t have to ask any more. Let’s stipulate that souls exist (of course I really don’t believe in them, but that’s irrelevant for this discussion). Artificial cloning would be no different than a combination of IVF and identical twins. Since IVF children have souls and twins have souls (according to all people who believe in souls), there appears to be no reason that clones would not have souls.

Obviously, God can do whatever He wants. Maybe an identical twin IVF baby wouldn’t have a soul. God could make people born on Tuesday at the North Pole soul-less. But there is no reason to suspect that would happen.

#18

Depends on if you decide what creatures have souls and which do not.

There are some creatures that can reproduce asexually in the abscence of one sex, even change sex to suit.

Aphids can reproduce asexually thus the offspring only have the genetic coding of the parent and so are clones.

In fact what has a soul and what does not, does all life have them and if not what qualifies for a soul, is a soul necessary for life ?

If you are a believer then you might have some answers - look forward to hearing from you.

#19

If a builder steals the architect’s plans does that mean there is no architect?

#20

…and if the building turns out to be a crock why does the architect blame the builder, who blames the sub-contractors who blame the users of the building, y’know the victims who got hurt when it all fell down.

Pity the plans went missing, maybe the inquiry could have found out who was really responsible.