Technological developments recorded in the fields of medicine, biology, and genetics have reached a level at which they shape the entirety of the human being’s biological and spiritual constitution, including human genetics itself. Perhaps the most fundamental question of science, philosophy, art, literature, and religion is the problem and inquiry of what it means to be human. The attainment of a technological stage at which the existential nature of the human being can be altered and regulated by technology renders it impossible to respond to the question of what it means to be human through conventional discourses any longer. One of the most significant developments attempting to shape and design the biological existence of the human being is the phenomenon known as cloning. Cloning refers to the exact copying and creation of the biological structure, particularly the genetics of a human or another living creature, as a separate entity. Today, efforts are being made to clone our genes, our cells, and our entire organism. Through cloning technology, it is possible to reach the depths of the human being; all biological elements, including genetics, can be intervened upon, and genes can be extracted, altered, corrected, or shaped. Cloning virtually eliminates the individuality and genetic uniqueness of the human being. Cloning signifies that the human being can no longer control the interior and exterior of their biology and has lost the opportunity to have a say or make decisions regarding their own biological existence. Cloning means that we have entered a new era where our status as unique and singular beings is lost, and where many identical versions or likenesses of ourselves exist. As a development that eliminates our unique individual humanity, cloning essentially renders the very question of what it means to be human meaningless and obsolete. Cloning eliminates the common fitrah and existential individuality of humanity. By erasing our original individual humanity, cloning gives rise to a destructive and deeply troubling question: what does it mean not to be human? The elimination of our original individual humanity through cloning, in fact, brings to the fore the danger of the emergence of a standardized, herd-like humanity by which all human beings will be measured and evaluated. The cloning of human beings according to specific standards and criteria may pave the way for the cloning, determination, and design of everything about the human being, including sexuality, marriage, education, and political and social preferences. Cloning is not merely an intervention directed at our biology, our bodies, and our genetics. It signifies a radical intervention into our sexuality, our relationships, our sociality, our culture, and our psychology.
All human beings are equal individuals endowed with dignity, freedom, and rights. All human beings, with their bodies and souls, are honorable and perfect beings. Cloning undermines the human being’s position as a dignified, free, rightsbearing, equal, and honorable entity, reducing them to the status of a very low-level object. The cloned human being is no longer the former dignified, original, and free individual. Rather, the cloned human being faces the danger of being understood and perceived as a mere imitation and repetition, a human draft, whose dignity, freedom, and legal standing have been stripped away, and who has been reduced to the condition of a debased and oppressed creature. The protection, development, and renewal of the human being’s biological, spiritual, and social existence is a condition desired and pursued by all fields of human experience, foremost among them philosophy, science, art, and morality. Religion approaches scientific and technological interventions into the human being’s biological and spiritual existence and creation with caution. Technologies that alter the human biological existence are, in fact, interventions and manipulations directed at human existence and creation itself. Religion is concerned that cloning technology may reduce the human being to a distorted and inferior level of existence. For this reason, it defends the preservation of the human being’s perfect creation, transcendent essence, and human dignity against all initiatives and technologies that corrupt the human being.
The cloning of human beings and other living creatures means that those individuals and cliques who hold technology and science in their hands are overstepping the limits and bounds proper to human beings. Altering human biological creation and imitating it as another being is not a human activity; it is an act of creation that belongs to God. Insofar as cloning involves the human attempt to recreate the human being, it represents an initiative and activity that demonstrates the blurring of the boundaries between the human and God, and the human being’s attempt to wield new, superhuman powers. The attempt by human beings to recreate human beings is an endeavor that no one should ever undertake. Such states of transgression, in which human beings exceed their limits, as in cloning, produce no result other than the squandering of human knowledge, labor, talent, and power. Humanity must abandon this deviation and obsession. To protect the biological, psychological, and social well-being and health of the human being, humanity must distance itself from and purify itself of initiatives such as cloning.
The human being is endowed with magnificent biology. Behind this biology lies the soul, which possesses a profound existential foundation and realm. Attempting to recreate and imitate a person’s external self, the body, and their internal self as a second being through cloning does not bring happiness, serenity, peace, or well-being to the human being. Initiatives such as cloning, in which human beings overstep their limits, drive humanity toward deep anxieties, fears, and concerns regarding their existence and future. Through initiatives such as cloning, the human being’s attempt to play god in fact means the violation of the primordial promise and covenant of living in peace and balance with nature and other living beings. Cloning can give rise to certain delusions by creating the illusion that human beings possess complete control over themselves and other living creatures. Yet the fact that human beings have no absolute control over any living being, including their own body and genetics, stands before us as a stark reality.
There is a profound and natural relationship between the human being and other living creatures. Cloning is, in fact, the human being’s detachment from themselves and from other living beings, and their alienation from them. A human being cannot establish the same warm, emotional, attentive, and intimate relationship with a being that is copied and imitated from themselves as the relationship they establish with themselves. A sheep produced through cloning, such as Dolly, has no emotional or imaginative counterpart in human memory and experience. The cloning of the sheep named Dolly is frequently cited as a great technological achievement. Human beings establish very special relationships with animals and other living creatures. In works such as La Fontaine’s Fables, human beings narrate and construct their own world by projecting it onto the animal world. In a world of cloned beings, however, there is no fable, story, literature, philosophy, art, music, or spirituality through which human beings can relate to themselves. The fact that cloning abolishes the human being’s innate relationship with other human beings and with other living creatures constitutes an existential distress and a profound problem. Cloning may be interpreted as an indication that certain powers are attempting, by using technology, biology, and medicine, to create a rivalry and conflict between God and the human being. There is no need for the human being to compete with or enter into conflict with other human beings or with nature. Humanity has no need for such displays of power or for initiatives of this kind. The fundamental need of the human being is to be human. Humanity does not need initiatives such as cloning that are capable of stripping the human being of their humanity. It is by no means forbidden for human beings to work, produce, and expend effort in order to protect, develop, and complete both themselves and nature. Yet, human beings must protect human health, to struggle against diseases, and to engage continuously in scientific and technological activities and productions for the preservation of biological diversity in nature. Science and technology are not a game for human beings. An activity such as cloning has gone beyond being a legitimate scientific and technological undertaking. The instrumentalization of science and technology to play dangerous games such as cloning opens the door to a destructive process of domination by human beings over both other human beings and other living creatures. Attempting to reproduce and imitate the biological existence of human beings and other living creatures as another being is not work or labor, but a destructive game. In the face of the phenomenon of cloning, humanity needs to recall and comprehend once again this fundamental reality: creation and the act of creating are not a game! Human beings are responsible for actively participating in the formation of nature and history and for protecting them. Cloning, rather than being an activity that constructively contributes to the course of history and nature, possesses the potential to lead humanity and nature toward destruction. Human beings must carry out their scientific and technological contributions to nature and life within a moral, legal, natural, and spiritual framework, guided by a sense of responsibility. Cloning technology, which aims to control human beings, other living creatures, and nature, and to establish domination over them, lacks a moral, legal, natural, and spiritual framework. Seeking to control human beings, living creatures, and nature, and instrumentalizing them for the satisfaction of our desires for wealth, lust, and domination, are not genuine human values or needs. The transformation of cloning technology into an initiative conducted without moral and legal dimensions, and pursued in an unlimited manner over genes, cells, and organisms, gives rise to profound concerns regarding what kind of future awaits humanity, nature, and the world.
