Soul Brothers?

Now that we have at least two different ways to clone animals, the question arises, Would a clone have a soul, and if so, at what point would the soul enter the body?
For the non-religious, At what point does a clone become a human being/
At the scraping of the cell from the body?
At the first division of the cell?
What about the cloning of certain organs?

Shouldn’t this have been “Soul Brothers-in-Law”? :wink:

Anyway, when it is human? The same time a fetus is human. And if you can get people to agree on that, call me!

A clone is as human as it original. The clone and its “parent” are just like identical twins, just born years apart.

Identical twins are equally human; one fetus doesn’t lack one just because they originated as one fertilized egg.


I looked in the mirror today/My eyes just didn’t seem so bright
I’ve lost a few more hairs/I think I’m going bald - Rush

mildly off-topic, have you read “Joshua, Son of None”? It’s a fictional (or at least, that’s what they said) account of a doctor at a Dallas hospital who works the emergenry room on Nov. 22, 1963 when JFK is brought in. The doctor snips a bit and clones JFK.

The clone, named Joshua, grows up, finds out his origins, and has various soul-searchings, including wondering if he has a soul to search.


and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel to toe

AWB has it. Whatever the “soul” may be, it is a reasonable assumption that it is individualized and, during life, associated with the body matching its identity. (At least, I don’t see any beliefs by anybody, anywhere in the religious-belief complex, that suggest that more than one person shares one soul at a given time. A clone is a distinct individual sharing a common genetic code with its progenitor, just as an identical twin is, relative to its twin.

But the question isn’t Does a clone have a soul, or is it a human being?
The question is When?
A clone is not a twin.

When it pays taxes.

Genetically, a clone would be an identical twin born later in time than its genetic progenitor. I have no clue what God’s process is for assigning souls, but it’s clear that identical twins are distinct individuals; the same would be true for a progenitor and his clone. (Using “clone” in the popular sense here; you are aware, I presume, that biologically a “clone” is a group of identical living things, not a single unit from that group?)

On the more practical question of when, if ever, does a clone become a human being, I would assume that the answer would be, at the same point in its development as any other human does. Opinions on this are going to vary all over the map.

No, that was the point at which one sells his soul

Mike! Good to see you back! :slight_smile:

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Hey Poly! Thanks. Yeah, it’s been a while. I got pretty tied up in things over in “pounder land” and kinda got “backslidden” over here. :wink: I’ve taken a short break from LBMB for various reasons and was having MB withdrawl. So I came here for my fix. :smiley:

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I think we all agree that a clone would have as much of a soul as the original (in my opinion, I contend that would be none at all).

As to when personhood would be assigned, I’d say at the moment of self-awareness.