Q&A: Cloning
Cloning
Question
The Rabbi writes in his book God Plays Dice that the reason to prohibit human cloning is the understanding that this right is reserved for God alone. I don’t know under what value to classify such a prohibition, but it is not a moral value.
The question is: who set the boundary for human beings? Did God write anywhere which rights He kept for Himself and which rights He gave over to human beings? (“and the earth He gave to human beings”).
Alternatively, many medical treatments are based on the same principle as cloning, even if they are not full cloning. So the question is why we should not prohibit those treatments as well. Are such treatments not also reserved for God?
Answer
I don’t remember writing any such thing there. Not because I remember everything I wrote there, but simply because I have always been puzzled by this nonsense (which is usually supported by Nachmanides’ comments on the prohibition of mixed species).
Discussion on Answer
Indeed. I mentioned that argument as an example of religious terminology used by atheists. The reasoning itself is nonsense, in my opinion, but I wasn’t discussing the question of cloning itself there.
(It appears at the end of the first chapter.)
Maybe I misunderstood, and your intention there was to present the argument of those who prohibit it without agreeing with it.