Quoting:
I heard this group Clonaid believes that the human race was cloned by aliens during the 1970's.  I will believe this in a couple weeks when the proof comes out.  Does a cloned human have a soul?
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... and do the scientists playing God have souls?

Quoting:


... and do the scientists playing God have souls?
End Quote

I lack of morals maybe. just because we can do something doesn't mean we should.

Quoting:


I lack of morals maybe. just because we can do something doesn't mean we should.
End Quote

Exactly. Too bad the ppl doing this don't realize it.

Quoting:
I heard this group Clonaid believes that the human race was cloned by aliens during the 1970's.  I will believe this in a couple weeks when the proof comes out.  Does a cloned human have a soul?
End Quote

Actually the Raelians believe we were cloned by aliens and set down on the Earth 25,000 years ago, and one day they're going to come back to get us. That's the core of their belief. As for whether a cloned human has a soul, well, a clone is still a human being. It's not a machine. It's a living, breathing, thinking entity so yes, it the 'soul' exists, a clone should have one. However, it might have a serious problem with its identity.

Quoting:
Does a cloned human have a soul?

Probably not.  But then again, they probably don't make up invisible, fictional body parts - like souls - either.
End Quote

Quoting:


However, it might have a serious problem with its identity.
End Quote

And problems with its health, if the scientific community is to be believed.

Quoting:
Does a cloned human have a soul?

Probably not.  But then again, they probably don't make up invisible, fictional body parts - like souls - either.
End Quote

I never said a soul was a part of the human anatomy, now did I?  @ss

Quoting:
The soul is over-rated. Most humans don't have one anyway 8)
End Quote

James Brown must have gotten mine.

Is that elephant calling me names?

Quoting:


James Brown must have gotten mine.

Is that elephant calling me names?
End Quote

Only because you deserve it.  :)

Quoting:Clonaid president Brigitte Boisselier said on Thursday that the tests had been postponed in order to protect the parents' identities. This follows a Florida lawyer asking a state court to appoint a legal guardian for the baby girl, nicknamed Eve. Boisselier claims the parents are concerned that the person appointed to carry out the DNA tests may have to reveal their identity to the court.
...Lawyer Bernard Siegal says he filed his petition to the Fort Lauderdale court because, if true, the cloned baby was an "abused child that was being exploited by Clonaid" and needed court protection. The petition alleges that, if the child is cloned, it "is at risk of having permanent genetic defects, imperfections and mutations".

He says a hearing has been scheduled for 22 January should reveal the parent's identity. "Their failure to appear amounts to giving consent of an adjudication of the child to a guardian. They have to appear," says Siegel.End Quote

Should we ban human cloning?  If America was to go that route we'd have no control and no voice over the research.

This is from the same site, discussing results of primate cloning:

Quoting:
A high percentage of cloned monkey embryos that look healthy are really a "gallery of horrors" deep within, says a researcher at Advanced Cell Technology, the company that last month published the first paper on cloned human embryos.
This could mean that there is something unique about primate eggs that will make cloning monkeys or people far more difficult than cloning other animals. At the very least, the experiments show that there's a lot to learn before primates can be cloned.
To try and figure out what was going wrong, Dominko looked at 265 cloned rhesus macaque embryos created by nuclear transfer - plucking out an egg's nucleus and then adding a nucleus from a donor cell. She followed development of the embryos through several divisions, from the two-cell stage until the 32-cell stage.

Though they appeared superficially healthy, the cells in the vast majority of Dominko's embryos did not form distinct nuclei containing all the chromosomes. Instead, the chromosomes were scattered unevenly throughout the cells.
"The surprising thing is that these cells keep dividing," says Dominko. Some embryos developed to the stage known as a blastocyst, but by day six or seven they had started to look abnormal.
The cloned human embryos created by ACT didn't even get this far. Only one reached the six-cell stage.End Quote

Quoting:
I hope some of these people understand there is a difference between understanding a technology and using it. End Quote

They do, but they don't care. For them (the Raelians), this is a scientific coup they can use to help prove their belief that humanity was cloned by aliens. Most religions are built on faith and don't necessarily require proof -- faith alone is proof enough. But the Raelian sect is based on a scientific principle, so there is a need to prove what they claim. However, they appear rather reluctant (unsurprisingly) to allow secular scientists to prove their "proof". If it turns out that they are lying (and they probably are), it will destroy any credibility (ha!) they may have as a religion/scientific organisation. What it boils down to is making ridiculous claims you have no intention of proving. If they have done this, and done it successfully, despite it's sheer adaucity and ignorance of convention, they are eligible for a Nobel Prize. But I bet they don't get one. Self-indulgent and arrogant Frankensteins simply don't deserve one.

Quoting: But do we have a right to children?  End Quote

I think 'right' implies that there are things that we as a species are entitled to and things we're not. That can only happen if there's an overall authority (call it God or Government if you want) who can give out rights.

If you don't believe in God, or an overall higher authority, then rights become irrelevant - we have a right to everything we can get. If we can't get it, we therefore have no right to it. I suppose then, that we have a right to reproduce if we can find a way of doing so, whether it's the old fashioned way, or through cloning or other technology-assisted way. If God wants to stop you, presumably It'll stop you.

So as far as I can see, you've got a right to children if you can find a way of having them. A right isn't the same as a moral right because morality is something you create for yourself (inspired by the morality of your community or commonly shared belief system more often than not).

Just a slightly drunken thought.

Quoting:


Do we have a right to reproduce by any means imaginable?


End Quote

Sure.  That's why we have 70-year-old in vitro fertilized mothers :P

Quoting:


Sure.  That's why we have 70-year-old in vitro fertilized mothers :P
End Quote

Haven't heard about that one.  In vitro fertilization isn't cloning, though.  As it stands, primate cloning is more difficult and less successful than cloning other mammals.   I've also heard that Dolly the sheep had old "cells"; she was cloned from a six-year-old sheep and that made her physically different than other lambs.  
It seems to me the problem is this: If the developed countries totally ban human cloning, they lose control over something that is going to go forward anyway.  The state of the art, and the knowledge base, of human cloning is so primitive it's morally wrong to attempt it.  At best, it's eugenics by another name.  If the developed countries go forward with research, at some point they're creating human embryos and terminating their existence before developing viability, in the name of scientific inquiry.  Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Quoting:
It seems to me the problem is this: If the developed countries totally ban human cloning, they lose control over something that is going to go forward anyway.End Quote

This is exactly what happened with drugs. Now the drug problem is out of control, because government sought to be reactive rather than proactive. They should learn from this and develop strategies to handle research into human cloning before it balloons into an underground and illicit enterprise. Banning something as important as this is just turning one's back on a problem without trying to come up with a solution. It's not going to go away now, so we have to deal with it.

Quoting:
We have experimented with human cloning to the six-cell stage, but even that raises issues similar to those in the abortion debate.
When does a cluster of dividing cells become a human?  When does the termination of an experiment become termination of a human life?
End Quote

Heh. That goes right back to the previous argument about the "soul". It's as much a moral dilemma as a scientific one. If you believe in the existence of a soul, when does the soul come into existence? At the time of conception, or later? There's no guarantee that a cluster of dividing cells will become a human being even in a normal pregnancy. Even if it becomes an embryo or a foetus, there's still no guarantee that it will be born into this world. And if the foetus dies in the womb, why shouldn't we experiment on it the same as we do on cadavers?

That's not to say we should deliberately abort a foetus to conduct an experiment, however.

Quoting:


Heh. That goes right back to the previous argument about the "soul". It's as much a moral dilemma as a scientific one. If you believe in the existence of a soul, when does the soul come into existence? At the time of conception, or later? There's no guarantee that a cluster of dividing cells will become a human being even in a normal pregnancy.End Quote

 True.  But, in the normal course of events, that dividing cluster develops into a human being.

Quoting: Even if it becomes an embryo or a foetus, there's still no guarantee that it will be born into this world.End Quote

Again, in the overwhelming majority of cases the foetus develops into a human being, in the normal course of events.

Quoting: And if the foetus dies in the womb, why shouldn't we experiment on it the same as we do on cadavers?

That's not to say we should deliberately abort a foetus to conduct an experiment, however.
End Quote

Are you familiar with this story?:
In a scientific effort to determine if any consciousness remained following decapitation by the guillotine, three French doctors attended the execution of Monsieur Theotime Prunier in 1879, having obtained his prior consent to be the subject of their experimentation. Immediately after the blade fell on the condemned man, the trio retrieved his head and attempted to elicit some sign of intelligent response by "shouting in his face, sticking in pins, applying ammonia under his nose, silver nitrate, and candle flames to his eyeballs." In response, they could record only that M Prunier's face "bore a look of astonishment."  

Experimentation is fine, but where do we draw the line betweeen scientific inquiry and morbid curiosity?

Quoting:

Experimentation is fine, but where do we draw the line betweeen scientific inquiry and morbid curiosity?
End Quote

I tend to think of human cloning as akin to the nuclear bomb, in that it should be allowed as a technology but only used as a last resort.  Knowledge is important; using that knowledge in a positive way is even more so.

Quoting:


I tend to think of human cloning as akin to the nuclear bomb, in that it should be allowed as a technology but only used as a last resort.  Knowledge is important; using that knowledge in a positive way is even more so.
End Quote

Well, we've kept the nuclear genie in the bottle for over fifty years.  I wouldn't give you odds on it staying in there for another fifty, though.

Quoting:


Well, we've kept the nuclear genie in the bottle for over fifty years.  I wouldn't give you odds on it staying in there for another fifty, though.
End Quote

Actually, we fearfully put the genie back into the bottle after we unleashed it without fully realising what it could do. I hope this doesn't happen with human cloning.

Quoting:
Seems like Mr. Holmes was carving out a Nietzsche for himself there.
End Quote

A Nietzsche? you mean niche,don't you? or are you just speaking
some French there? ;D ;D

howard

Quoting:


A Nietzsche? you mean niche,don't you? or are you just speaking
some French there? ;D ;D

howard
End Quote

He was making a pretty witty pun, Howard (for an Australian).  Nietzsche was a philosopher, and a lot of his ideas were adopted by Hitler and the Germans.  http://www.click-smilie.de/sammlung/cool/cool030.gif

Quoting:


He was making a pretty witty pun, Howard (for an Australian).  End Quote

I don't know whether to thank you, or hit you.

:P

Quoting:
Geez, Howard.  Now I don't know whether I should thank or hit you.  
End Quote

you punch me,I sue you.
No,just kidding. ;D

howard

Quoting:


I don't know whether to thank you, or hit you.

:P


End Quote

No offense was intended, Goreripper.  I guess I've never forgiven Australia for Paul "Crocodile Dundee" Hogan.  But that's my problem.  Sometimes the bile oozes out.

You know, maybe if Australia gave us more people like Nick Cave and quit vomiting out the likes of Rubert Murdoch and Steve Irvin... ah, heck, I guess you oughta hit me.  Careful, the expensive dental work's on the left hand side. Just as long as we shake hands afterwards. http://www.click-smilie.de/sammlung/cool/cool030.gif  

Quoting:


No offense was intended, Goreripper.  I guess I've never forgiven Australia for Paul "Crocodile Dundee" Hogan.  But that's my problem.  Sometimes the bile oozes out.

You know, maybe if Australia gave us more people like Nick Cave and quit vomiting out the likes of Rubert Murdoch and Steve Irvin... ah, heck, I guess you oughta hit me.  Careful, the expensive dental work's on the left hand side. Just as long as we shake hands afterwards. http://www.click-smilie.de/sammlung/cool/cool030.gif  
End Quote

Hee hee. That's a fine thing coming from a representative of a culture that's thrown up the likes of Jerry Springer, Lafayette Ron Hubbard and Benny Hinn, to mention but a few.  ;)