Does cloning threaten religion?

No my friend, this is not about twisting ideas, although I thank you for the backhanded compliment; a "god made body" such as Adam does NOT have a soul, it IS a soul - the difference is VERY important.

The Hebrew religion believes that every soul that has ever been or will be has already been created and resides in heaven. Upon birth the chosen soul enters the body. Since the soul is, while in heaven, aware or knows all he it must be made to forget. It is said that the lord touches him under the nose to make it forget. Hence we all have an indentation under the nose and above the lip.

au, I think that indentation was made by a gun in our ears. DON'T SHOOT! c.i.

Dolly the sheep has been found to have "old" DNA. The Doctor of Biochemistry who told me about it didn't even fully understand it herself, but needless to say cloning is at this stage still a flawed technology, which is going to create flawed organisms.

Cloning doesn't threaten religion, but it threatens human decency and life as we know it, IMO. Religion threatens spirituality, IMO

It is quite a stretch from The Wheeled Cart to The Automobile. The ability to effectively and efficiently clone and engineer lifeforms will not take near as long to come about as did The Sport Utility Vehicle. Humankind has made greater technologic advance in the past hundred years than in the previous 100,000.



timber

To me, cloning is just another way of having a baby. I would not see anything to complain about, except, I seem to remember that a clone's cells age and deteriate much more quickly than than those from a normal birth. Therefore, it would seem a clone would have a miserable life and probably not live very long. Not being a scientist, I may not have my facts down, however.

Oh. Looking back, I see this point is already being covered. Never mind the slow kid. Just throw him a nod every once in a while.

I don't think cloning threatens religion, or individual spirituality, because if it's real and you feel it in your heart, nothing can threaten it. But, as Lash Goth said, it does threaten human decency and life as we know it. The idea of cloning humans brings us closer to the concept of creating a master race, Hitler would love it, amongst others, and that's very dangerous indeed. To me, it's just putting certain matters in the hands of man that man is not equipped to justly handle. All hell will surely and eventually break loose. IMO

I perceive cloning to be viewed as a "Threat to Life and Civilization as We Know Them" for much the same reason things like electricity and the internal combustion engine were first distrusted; they were new, not widely understood, and in fact promised to change the course of the way folks would lead their lives. Humans have an instinctual dislike of the unknown.



timber

Creating the master race? It does not seem so much likely. Cloned individuals have DNA impaired from the moment of birth by ageing of the prototype , hence they are a priori less viable than the people being born in "natural" ways, i.e. as a result of sexual intercourse or in vitro insemination. This way we may create only the inferior race. I agree, that this is not so nice either.

Where did you find anything of the like in the Old Testament (TANAKH), Au1929? As far as I know, the Old Testament is the main religious source of Judaism. The story that you have quoted sounds more like a Hasidic fairy tale than the quotation from the Bible. Such fairy tales exist in many ethnic traditions without any connection to any religion. For example, while being a very small kid, I read some tales "explaining" why do the elephants have long nose (trunk) and why does the spider have slim waist.
By the way, such an ethnic entity as Hebrews does not exist any more. There are Jews. Those that speak Hebrew in everyday life are called Israelis (well, some of them speak at home different languages, from Yiddish to Amharic, but the official languages of Israel are Hebrew and Arabic). And the name of the faith is Judaism, and not a "Hebrew religion".

c.i., you said "I always thought our genes & environment had something to do with it."

The creation of us included the placement of the genes that would make us exactly how we wanted to be. Seems to me we do agree to take on whatever life we have, or will have.


c.i. also said: "If God created man's soul but man is able to clone a human with a soul, isn't there a conflict?"

I don't know, c.i., but a soul has to want to enter a newborn's body, begin the breathing. Nobody makes anybody do anything here. Some babies are born stillborn.

Bib: Isn't the creation of Eve from Adam actually "cloning?" Even if it is we don't know enough to create life. It's cruel. The lady I saw on TV telling her story looked a lot like a vampire.

I agree with Lash Goth that "cloning threatens human decency while religion threatens spirituality." But...mostly, religion chases us to where we should be, a healthy understanding of our own spirituality.

steissd.
It may be a Hasidic fairy tale to you however that is what I was taught and before you ask I went to a Hasidic yeshiva as a youngster. I should remind you that there are many explanations or if you will footnotes to the old testament i.e. Rebbi Rashi for one. I understand that is where it can be found. It is also believed that all that has and will happen from the beginning of the world to the arrival of the messiah is written between it's covers.
Concerning the use of the word Hebrew. My dog tag was not stamped with a J for Jew but an H for Hebrew. I don't know what is popular in Israel however my birth precedes the birth of the state of Israel.

Everything in life threatens religion
at this point in time.
The vast majority of people seek
what they formerly looked for
in religion - in NEW places now.
Everyone has feet of clay
Better to stumble on our
own feet than the feet
of another fool's
And why belong to a group who
wants your money for "what"
Money & religion should never
have met, but since they have
it's all over but the funeral

Religion, I'm most familiar with Christianity, is nearly always threatened by any new scientific knowledge. Such knowledge is in the beginning opposed by religion as godless. Then, after the new knowledge has been accepted by the population in general, the religious leaders finally come around incorporating it into their theology, and generally claim that they accepted it all along, and that onlya few misguided fanatics were originally in opposition.

There are certainly some big ethical questions connected to cloning, but I think these are going to have to be worked out as we go along. I do not think we ought to try to prohibit all cloning.

Steised has stated the perfect approach to cloning for the religious mind. He said that cloning represents "diversification of the human reproductive mechanism," and, as such, is not some special usurpation of God's creative process. I think this is a well reasoned solution.

However, I suspect that Christian fundamentalists will say that God only intended for babys to be made the old fashioned way, and that cloning is nothing more than human tampering with God's plan.

The big change will come for the fundamentalists when cloning is perfected and safe. Then large numbers of in the fundamentalist congregations will avail themselves of the benefits (especially in the development of stem cells for the cure of disease). The leaders will be forced to change their theology just as they did when the people in the congregations began to prefer the use of chloroform when they had to undergo an amputation. It will be remembered that the theologians thought that the use of chloroform thwarted God's intention that humans ought to suffer.

Yikes! Is that for real?! The chloroform story?
Good point Hazlitt. Doesn't sway me but it's a very good point.

Isn't it ironic that man tries to reproduce our form of animal while at the same time the suicide rates in many countries are increasing - especially in Japan, and those extremist Muslims that wants to kill as many innocent people as possible, so they can go straight to paradise? When will this madness end? c.i.

CI: what conclusion or consensus do you think you're contributors have reached?