Christians would be angry about Cloning?

[YoungAtheist]

Well, I was having another debate with my friends about Cloning. They said it would never happen while I said it would. And I mean human cloning. They have done it with blood cells and such. But anyways, they said it is impossible. When it does happen christianity will change. When it happens they have to admit there is no such thing as a human soul. The entire religion will change, possibly forever. Can we please come out with it already so half of the world comes out of a world of ignorance.

[OldGit]

I wish I could share your optimism, YA.  Yes, human cloning ought to have the effects you describe.  In fact, the faith-heads will find a way around it.  Many will simply throw cloning on the 'evil' heap with all the other reproduction-related issues.  They can then label cloned people as non-human.  Or they can simply state that the new foetus does get a soul, like natural ones do.  I expect some will assign cloned souls straight to hell for some reason.

They don't have - or need - evidence for all the bilge they believe in now; why should they let another little bit of logic bother them?

[Tank]

Just as a matter of interest you can't clone red blood cells as they have no genetic material in them, they are just a slightly squashed bags of hemoglobin. All the cells in your body with genetic material are potential donor cells for the cloning process so you could use a white blood cell. But the best cell to clone from would be a 'stem' cell which has yet to be differentiated into a specific cell type.

[ThinkAnarchy]

My guess is crime will simply be blamed on all the soulless clones running around.

Kind of like this Glenn Beck clip, where he links a brutal beating to atheism.
Skip to about 3 minutes if you want to skip the graphic clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhbbGF4Y9yI

[Whitney]

Considering that a genetic close wouldn't have the same life experiences and would still be born naturally, a Christian would just assume that god placed a soul in the clone while it was in the womb.

Now, if we start growing clones without the use of anything that resembles the natural process of birth then they might start having issues reconciling cloning with their belief system.


But this is all theoretical because I'm pretty sure human cloning will never be legal since so many slippery slope arguments surround doing so.

[Tank]

Considering that a genetic close wouldn't have the same life experiences and would still be born naturally, a Christian would just assume that god placed a soul in the clone while it was in the womb.

Now, if we start growing clones without the use of anything that resembles the natural process of birth then they might start having issues reconciling cloning with their belief system.


But this is all theoretical because I'm pretty sure human cloning will never be legal since so many slippery slope arguments surround doing so.

I agree that it will probably not be legal in our life times. However the human desire to live will create a huge pressure from the ultra rich to create cloned spare parts. There are already companies that will freeze the placenta and umbilical cord as they contain undifferentiated stem cells. At some point a small island state (or possibly Switzerland) will allow therapeutic cloning. Reproductive cloning is another matter and it would only be a vanity issue as the 'child' might be 100% nature but its nurture will be utterly different from its parent.

The most problematical moral issue associated with genetics will be 'improving' embryos before implantation, now there is a can-of-worms!

[Stevil]

If they extracted your DNA from your blood cells and created a life, would you consider it to be your own child?
What if they extracted your DNA from blood cells, split it and merged it with someone else's would this make you think of the new life as your child? How would this be different from merging sperm with egg?

What if they merged with same gender person? Would this make you think the new life is less than your own child?


The vastly more interesting concept is that we could potentially have a YY human. Probably wouldn't look or act any different from an XY male other than only being able to produce male offspring.

[Tank]

AFAIK a YY human is possible but not viable as the missing X chromosome has genes essential for life. You can get XYY and XXY humans but all viable humans need at least one X chromosome.

[YoungAtheist]

My guess is crime will simply be blamed on all the soulless clones running around.

Kind of like this Glenn Beck clip, where he links a brutal beating to atheism.
Skip to about 3 minutes if you want to skip the graphic clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhbbGF4Y9yI

I watched this, and I love glenn beck just because of how much of an idiot he is. He is saying just because songs include god that means he is real. People say that about the bible and it makes me laugh. Wait, what aas the original point again? Oh yeah, cloning. Hopefuly they do come out with stem cells at least