From what I’ve read, there is an interest for this and science progresses, keen to achieve them. I’ll ask questions about them, because what I’m writing about has deep spiritual and even supernatural meaning…
1)Cloning Technology
If we could clone people what would it mean? Do/Will clones have souls of their own? Will they be humans, like us, or just biological products? How would this affect religion?
2)Physical Immortality
There are articles and rumors. I even saw a TV show. Scientists plan to either stop our bodies from decaying or transfer our brains/consciousness on different supports(computers, robotic bodies, even virtual realities). I doubt this will be achieved in our lifetimes, but when/if this will happen, what would it be like? People will not die, so there will be no afterlife? Or is this a trick and our souls will still go to heaven/hell, while the things that get transferred isn’t really ” us”, but artificial intelligence forms, something that looks like us, but is non-human?
I know these are very hard questions, but I also know, based on my previous use of this and the other site, that there are people here who are really wise and know what they’re doing/saying!
Thank you for taking the time to read this!:)
Asked by blacktiti89
2 replies on “What Would Be The Spiritual Implications Of Such Technologies As Cloning Or Physical Immortality?”
Hi BT, you ask such interesting questions. Let me have a bit of a rant first. 🙂
Do you want to live forever, in that limited, damaged body, with that limited damaged mind, with your limited understanding of the universe, of creation, God by whatever name, with a mind that fractures over time .. for no person’s body is meant to continue forever, and even cloning will go wrong. What sort of monster would you become, when insanity takes a hold .. and it will, because we are NOT these bodies and these minds, we are a being far better, brighter, smarter, clever, kinder, more loving, undamaged by either our choice or natural selection. These bodies are simply like a suit of clothes, we wear them for a while, until they are old and worn out, and then we become our TRUE selves again, the self that this personality is only a tiny part of, and a very limited one at that.
We need the time ‘between lives’ to integrate and truly understand everything we have experienced and learned in each lifetime, and then we create a new vehicle for the next life. Take that step away and there will be no ‘learning’, no breaking of old patterns of behaviour that do not serve us well.
No, I do not want to ‘live’ forever in this skin. I look forward to returning to my true spirit-self, the unlimited, unconditionally loving person who lives in a ‘world’ without pain and fear, without war and hatred, without emptiness, for we are made ‘whole’ when we return home, and here we are only a fraction of a fraction of ourselves.
When people fear death they create ways to defeat it, but they do it from fear, not love. When people welcome death as a ‘stepping stone’, rather than something terrifying, in a long and gloriously fascinating spiritual life, then things like cloning become a silly concept, transferring our brain does not transfer our spirit, the brain that is transferred has been slowly dying since it reached puberty. The pathways of thought and feeling are deeply embedded, and often cannot be changed. None of us was meant to live forever in these bodies, nor were we meant to see them as the ‘only’ chance to exist. It’s already been proved that reincarnation is real, if we want to return .. why keep an old and broken model when we can have a brand new ‘car’ .. all the mod cons, without too many of the attitudes and beliefs that destroyed the old one? Heck no, let’s take those attitudes and beliefs into the cloned body and destroy it too .. no thanks.
As to religion, it, like all other human made things, is only a set of beliefs based in false assumptions, or ‘oral’ traditions, given to us through the memories and beliefs of the speakers and writers .. each of them with their own ‘agenda’ for the message they transcribe. That’s been proved of the Christian bible, if nothing else. God is God, by whatever name or nature we ascribe to it .. but no one truly knows God without the learning that comes from multitudes of lifetimes, looking within ourselves, for God lives within each of us, and we exist within God, or Goddess, or Allah, or whatever name you call it. Even Satan has a purpose, but that is not the true name of the dark.
Does a clone have a soul? Will it be raised in a vat, or be given birth to by a person. Define the cloning process? Does Dolly the sheep follow her ‘parent’ in every action and reaction. I’ve never read that so I don’t know. I doubt very much that a ‘clone’, even given birth to by the female half of the process, would exactly follow the parent either. The child would not be raised the same way as the parent was .. and nurture has been proved to have as much influence over a person as ‘nature (inherited)’ does.
And then there is the ethical issue of destroying a perfectly good person, clone or not, so that the ‘parent’ can transfer their brain into the body, to continue that life they cling to so hard. Like I said, wouldn’t that make the parent a monster, that it would destroy its offspring to perpetuate its only life. Is a cloned person any less human than its ‘parent’? What happens if it does have its own personality, rather than just being a vacant husk, like a dress shop dummy?
As to transferring a person’s personality into a machine? I hope it comes with a delete button the personality can push from the inside. I remember a Dr Who program I watched only a little while ago. Clara making soufflé because she didn’t realise that her mind had been transferred into the Darlek’s body. She blew up her entire race. She wasn’t crazy, just horrified beyond belief .. and think of the limitations .. no thank you.
There is no ‘afterlife’ because even as we live this one, we are still the spiritual beings we are ‘between lives’. Life, the continuation of our spiritual self, never stops, until we choose to return to Source (that which created us), and even then, if we got really bored, we could come and do it all over again. That’s the joy of being a human spirit, rather than being any other sort of creation .. humans were created to create .. and sometimes we create mistakes, and trying to extend one life into forever, really is a mistake – and so very unnecessary.
When you and I are dead, BT, we can go and have coffee anywhere, and any ‘when’ in the world we like, if the world is still here, if humanity hasn’t destroyed itself by then. Wouldn’t that be more fun than both of us catching a plane somewhere, that takes time and money, when both are in short supply? Who wants a limited human body when we could both have wings and FLY!
Love & Peace
Ama
What a great question, blacktiti89
1) Cloning technology
A Fin Dorset sheep, called Dolly, was cloned here in the UK in 1996. She was 100% created by mans influence, technology and science. She was, to all intent and purpose, manufactured. But, she still had a personality. She still behaved like a sheep. There was obviously some natural elements to her persona, most likely a combination of nature (DNA) and nurture (copying what other sheep did in the flock). But, she wasn’t a soulless zombie of a sheep. Infact, she went on to give birth to 6 lambs, and died in 2003.
Dolly was euthanised because she had a progressive lung disease and severe arthritis. A Finn Dorset such as Dolly has a life expectancy of around 11 to 12 years, but Dolly lived to be only a month over 6.5 years of age. The down side to cloning???
So, regards the question of whether something that has been cloned has a soul, I would say most definitely yes.
How would it affect religion? No differently from the great science/theology divide at the moment. Some will always believe the earth is only 4000 years old (or, whatever) and others will always go with the scientific view point of millions of years old.
2) Physical Immortality
I’m with Ama on this one – why in all that is in heaven and on earth would we want to live for ever in a single ‘vessel’? What can we learn in only one life time with only one body? To me, being ‘trapped’ in a single body for ‘an eternity’is not to stay alive. No, it is as bad as what the earthbound spirits have to endure, until they are rescued from their bindings and released back into the light.
If we’re talking transferring brain-waves to computers to store memory then, that is all it will be. A record of our life’s experiences. There won’t be a soul there, just our ‘photo and video albums’ of our experiences whilst we were living on this earth.
What a great question – thanks
AJ
x