[QUOTE=Lemur866]
My sisters are clones of each other, it’s just that the cloning occured by accident.
So which of my sisters is the one with the soul and which one is the soul-less zombie?
[/QUOTE]
I hope you don’t think I was implying that. You know your sisters better than I do. Are you merely expressing long held doubts? 
I read here that monozygotic twins are not literally identical. Who knows if that would be true for human clones?
[QUOTE=Triskadecamus]
…As a result she not the direct genetic descendant of any individual human who ever existed, but is rather only the daughter of mankind…
[/QUOTE]
Re-reading the OP, I think this is the key, operative part. If all her alleles are in fact found in some human or other, I don’t see why she isn’t 100% human. It shouldn’t matter what the process is that gets those particular alleles together, since they all started out as human alleles.
But, if we start creating new, non-human alleles and inserting them into human ova/sperm, then at some point you have a non-human. I’m not sure what that point might be, but maybe when the creature created is not able to reproduce with humans due to genetic incompatibilities. But then, all that might really mean is that we have another species in the genus Homo. How religion would handle that is unclear to me.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I think the real question is how would organized religion adapt to animal-human hybrids.
[/QUOTE]
I had a distant cousin who spent a lot of time researching that. At least that’s what he said at the trial.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I know all that, but when he said it, the way that he said it – with such deadpan seriousness and trepidation and with a total absence of content or explanation – it was funny. He sounded like Bela Legosi delivering a speech in an Ed Wood movie.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, it was a rather odd thing to bring up, more or less out of the blue, in a SotU speech.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
You’ve observed souls flitting in and out of people? Did you take any pictures? Maybe you should alert the scientific community.
[/QUOTE]
That’s just what I was thinking. What possible observations of fetuses could you have made that led you to a conclusion about when a soul enters a body? Is this “aura” type stuff? I suspect you might have let your imagination get a little too much authority in the thinking process here.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I know all that, but when he said it, the way that he said it – with such deadpan seriousness and trepidation and with a total absence of content or explanation – it was funny. He sounded like Bela Legosi delivering a speech in an Ed Wood movie.
[/QUOTE]
“These geneticalists are trying to show the world that that can be its master! They want to perfect their own race of people. A race of atomic supermen which will conquer the world! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
[QUOTE=CarnalK]
What possible observations of fetuses could you have made that led you to a conclusion about when a soul enters a body? Is this “aura” type stuff?
[/QUOTE]
I want to live where soul meets body…
-Death Cab
[QUOTE=CarnalK]
That’s just what I was thinking. What possible observations of fetuses could you have made that led you to a conclusion about when a soul enters a body? Is this “aura” type stuff?
[/QUOTE]
Actually thinking it over it can’t be “aura” type stuff. If that was the case you’d have to think that an ultra-sound machine could pick up and image an aura, yet still leave it only visible to those attuned to it, and that would be patently ridiculous.
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
…I think, based on observations of micropreemies, that the soul goes in and out for quite a while until it decides to stay in the body…
[/QUOTE]
Oddly enough, this is empirically identical to the complete absence of a soul. Don’t you find that strange?
It’s not “aura type stuff”. I posted it abiding by the “rules” of the thread - that we’re taking religious stuff as granted and not debating about that. I wouldn’t post it anywhere I was expected to defend it, because I can’t. It’s my personal experience and nothing else. It’s a sense that isn’t covered by the labeled seven, and “saw” is just the best English word I have for it, but it did not involve awareness gained through the ocular nerve.
[QUOTE=Lemur866]
My sisters are clones of each other, it’s just that the cloning occured by accident. So which of my sisters is the one with the soul and which one is the soul-less zombie?
[/QUOTE]
Easy way to tell: they must both be locked into a cellar. The first one out is the zombie (they have more strength and devious ingenuity). As soon as she comes out hold her down and tattoo Z on her forehead so that you’ll know in the future.
Wait, you are talking micro-preemies there so I take back the ultra sound thing.
eta: WhyNot, the rules of this thread take a God/religion as a given but it kind of specifically rules out “observing” a soul entering the body. If you could simply observe then there’s no reason to search your beliefs as to whether someone has a soul.
[QUOTE=cosmosdan]
I hope you don’t think I was implying that. You know your sisters better than I do. Are you merely expressing long held doubts?
I read here that monozygotic twins are not literally identical. Who knows if that would be true for human clones?
[/QUOTE]
Of course identical twins are not literally identical. But human clones are going to be LESS identical than identical twins, because even though both types of twins have shared identical genes, twins share many environmental characteristics that clones would not. Twins share the same uterine environment, they are raised by the same parents, they have the same brothers and sisters, they grow up in the same town in the same decades, and so on.
A clone will have a different uterine environment (even if they share the same gestational mother the gestation will be at different times), all the other environmental factors are likely to be different. And the other factor is that the clone is likely to have different mitochondrial DNA than the nuclear donor, unless care is taken to choose an egg/cytoplasmic donor that has the same mitochonrial DNA as the nuclear donor (ie, the egg donor is a female relative through the maternal line of the nuclear donor).
Cloning simply creates an identical twin that happens to be of a different age than the nuclear donor. It doesn’t create a copy of the nuclear donor, any more than one identical twin is a copy of another.
I’d treat her as fully human, until and unless there arose some clear reason to doubt that she was. Many of the “improvements” you mention are differences in degree, not in kind, from the rest of us: some of us already have much better immune systems than others. That she’s not the genetic descendent of a particular mother and father in an ordinary way doesn’t bother me: I don’t think genes determine the soul. (Otherwise, wouldn’t identical twins share a soul?)
[QUOTE=CarnalK]
…and that would be patently ridiculous.
[/QUOTE]
Ding! We have a winner.
Atheist here.
AFAIK, the Catholic Church argues that the body is an relatively unimportant given, hardly more then a vessel for the soul. In the OP’s case, that would mean that the enigineered body was just like any other body. If a soul entered it, then that sould would be just like any other soul and subject to all the privileges of souls, including being loved by God.
The Catholics have taken explicit stance on when, precisely, the soul enters the body, in the abortion debate: :
Missed edit window.
So, if the body is genetically engineered, all of the engineering will have taken place before a soul has entered the body.
The only remaining question then is if God has allowed that soul to enter that body (and therefore has given it a stamp of approval), or if the soul has chosen that body itself, as the fallible soul may have made an error in choosing.
I remember hearing that before, Maastricht. Does anyone know if there is direct or indirect biblical support for any of those positions?
[QUOTE=Bricker]
I think that where there’s sentience, there’s a soul.
[/QUOTE]
Does your definition of “sentience” exclude chimpanzees? If so, would you mind expressing it?
[QUOTE=Lobohan]
Ding! We have a winner.
[/QUOTE]
decided against it…