Before I say anything, this is NOT a shot at any religion or believe in afterlife. It's just something that I thought was worth discussing.

When I read the article about cloning the cancer sniffing dog the other day, I thought about the cloning of humans. In spirituality, every person is unique, possibly because of his soul. It's our key to how we are in life, and our key to reincarnation and/or heaven. But if you clone a person, you have an exact copy of him/her. I doubt that that would mean you can clone someones soul. And I know, atleast as far as we know, they've never cloned a human being before, but they have with animals and in the line of reincarnation, souls attach to both human and animals alike, so it is possible. This would pretty much mean that a persons character, and every good and bad thing about this person, is all determined by DNA and genes, and not by his soul. And no soul would mean no afterlife.

I'm not sure if this has been brought up before, if so, sorry. It's pretty crushing for the hope in a higher goal and afterlife. I would like to know how others think about this.

hmmm, interesting question. I believe that each body gets its own soul, so to speak. And cloning can only copy DNA, bones, tissue, basically only the physical parts. The mind would initially be identical, but as people grow and have new and different experiences then different neural pathways develope. Therefore the clone would be different than the original. Sorta like identical twins, physically the same but with different minds. And i think that the brain has a lot of input towards our sense of "self". Therefore it would seem to me that your brain would also have influence over your soul.(or vice versa if you prefer) so basically i think a clone would get its own soul. Thats just my opinion though

What I find interesting is that me and my dad are quite alike. We even share the same mental qualities. We both have similar interests in music, women, restaraunts, colors, and attitude. However, the person I am is completely different from my dad, not just because I am different person, but because my experiences have shaped me into who I am today. I find it impossible to duplicate the same experiences to the tee. Therefore, cloning does not prove or disprove the existence of a soul. It only clones a person capable of experience. I believe it is the living God that makes souls, and even if men clone, they are cloning God's creation.

Yes but dont you find that amazing?? that man can now create humans without God? so to speak??

Well they don't grow clones out of test tubes.

But there will come a time when we can create machines that are smarter and better than us in every way. Then we'll see what intelligent design really looks like.

IMO God is responcible for evolution and all that evolved over billions of years <--personal belief

So if and when man creats machines that are smarter than us...man will always be his/her own worst enemy...making man obsolete...or feel as such...how ironic and so stupid...

man wanting to play god <--old news

I think first we would have to quantify and learn exactly what a soul is, where it comes from and how it interacts with the environment - some, dare I say 'proof' that it actually exists. Then we could consider if cloning indeed has any impact on the soul. For now it is quite a nebulous and ill-defined type of thing that nobody is really clear on. Least of all me

twins are in essence clones but each is concidered to have their own soul I think the same would apply to lab clones they may look alike but I feel they would be given a soul of their own

Nope. I admire the natural process. Its beautiful in the utmost way. It builds anticipation. And its likely that if you saw a beautiful scenery everyday and knew nothing else, you wouldn't think of it as beautiful as one who comes from city would. The same is with natural birth, it allows 'beauty marks' that are the most precious flaws that they are counted as perfectly beautiful. Creating perfect humans make us already lazy humans more lazy. We won't have to worry about taking care of anyone because everyone will be perfectly fine. That means that none of us would have learned a thing about love, mercy, or grace. The proud would not be humbled, the hateful would not be accountable, and justice would just be a chemical flaw that would need to be corrected in the cloning program. Then, men would become perfect clones who have not experienced undeserved love, attention, and help. That, in my opinion, gives humanity a very bleak future.

And seeing that man is flawed, I believe the cloning business will be flawed as well and inevitably fail.

I would like to add that i personally don't see much point in cloning an entire human. Cloning organs for transplants and such, yea, sure. As long as we have sexual reproduction, why clone an entire human? And genetic manipulation could be done much easier in the womb if thats the reason for clones. I'm not making a statement here, just asking a question

Actually the lack of evidence for a soul disproves a soul, but people still cling to it. Cloning wouldn't be such a nail in the coffin.

Oh i don't know. But then the primary question is "what is a soul".

If you take it as a metaphor for who and what we are, sure you can say we have a soul, but there are other names for it. If you're talking about an invisible, immeasurable essence that's part of us and survives our death, then no. We have found naturalistic explanations for all the natural phenomenon we've investigated thoroughly, why would consciousness be any different? Why invoke something for which there is no evidence just because we haven't worked something out yet?

perhaps demons will inhabit the bodies...

The afterlife is not really affected by cloning. What happens in the womb? Cells devide an grow into a foetus. In cloning it is the same it just happens to be the genetic material from an already alive person.

Actually thats no different then what happens in a womb. Even if you could create a human from the basic elements in a lab ( by lettting them react until you could ge DNA and then building a body from that) it would not really discount souls and an afterlife.

It seems that a soul could be dark matter connected with normal matter and when the normal matter expires the dark matter could go on its own until it can connect again with normal matter.

Quantum physics also suggests that many forms of matter could be within a single atom making it possible for a human to have a soul that could exist apart from its body.

(I might not be phrasing this last part right about dark matter and forms of matter but I hope you will get the drift of my thinking)

I am not saying that one or the other is true only that cloning is no different than what happens in the womb it is just artificial.

Followers of Abrahamic religions define soul as unique personality of every human being or that which remains when body is destroyed but in ancient Vedic tradition these are only illusory layers which cover the true nature of Atman.
Atman resides above physical, subtle physical and even mind principle (manas) which is also considered to be material due to it's dependence on sensory experiences. Jivatma or individual soul would therefore be that which is unaffected by movements of material, subtle physical or vital -mind nature. Primal emanation of universal all-encompassing Brahman. Individual but not in material sense, not as person with name and form but that which uses name and form to express various aspects of being.
When Jivatma merges in Brahman it is called Nirvikalpa Samadhi.
"Once a salt doll went to measure the depth of the ocean. It wanted to tell others how deep the water was. But this it could never do, for no sooner did it get into the water than it dissolved. Now, who was there to report the ocean's depth?"
Ramakrishna Paramahansa.

From this perspective cloning only creates vehicles for expression of higher principle on material plane. There is a number of cloning references (engineering humans inside pods ) in Puranic scriptures so the concept is really nothing new.
In Bhagavata Purana God is not creator of various forms of life in the universe. Ishvara created only first living being the "engineer demi-god " whose mission was first to visualize various forms of life and create first humans who were given the task of populating the Earth.
Therefore the soul according to Bhagavata is neither earthly personality nor it's subtle emanations ( ghosts, apparitions etc), it is not experienced during OBE but only when material, subtle physical and vital (astral) body is discarded.
There can be no evidence for soul outside of oneself because it is Jivatma who observes the mind.
Not as thought observing thought but as higher principle observing movements of lower.

I suppose that it is because people have found out something unproven. So only few believe it.

For the sake of brevity I'll say that cloning doesnt prove there are no souls because a soul may very well choose or be directed or forced by God or whatever you wanna call it to use a cloned body as a vehicle for spiritual progression.