Beyond the obvious legal and moral and cultural controversies regarding a certain lab created synthetic microbe called Synthia, the success of such a man-made life form evokes fascinating spiritual questions. The DNA in this tiny creature was hand stitched in its entirety from scientist-created bits. What will happen when our human DNA is eventually re-created molecule by molecule in the lab, resulting in a complete living and breathing person?  This would not be a clone per say, but a completely synthetic human being. Beyond cyborg, as cyborgs contain mechanical or robotic parts along with the biological, and even far beyond babies created from eggs or sperm grown from stem cells. The DNA of these beings would have never, at any point, been human.

Synthetic human blood is already a reality.

Will scientists be able to resist such a Frankensteinian act of creation? Will cultural morality and global law bind them? Will we as humans be able to reach a level of moral maturity that can manage the ethical, spiritual, and cultural subtleties of such a “being” walking in our midst?

Without direct proof, it has proven difficult for many of us to accept even the possibility that we humans have souls: would be able to conceive of these synthetic humans as entities that contain souls of their own?

…And, if they are bearing souls, would these people enter into the cycle of death and rebirth with us, and if so, will they then actually become us?

 

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