If the soul added at conception...?
should read, "if the soul IS added at conception...?
and that egg splits into 2 or more identical twins a few days later as they sometimes do, do the twins share a soul?
should read, "if the soul IS added at conception...?
and that egg splits into 2 or more identical twins a few days later as they sometimes do, do the twins share a soul?
YY4Me
Favorite Answer
If someone believes that humans have souls, when do we get them? Does a soul enter the egg at the moment of conception? If so, what happens in the event that the resulting zygote splits into two zygotes, or three, or more, as in identical twins, triplets, etc.?
Do all of the zygotes share one soul, or does the original soul stay with one zygote and the other zygote(s) get its/their own? If the zygotes each get their own soul at the time of splitting, and they later fuse and become one zygote again, does that zygote have more than one soul?
If a god removes the excess soul(s), why did it implant the souls so early to begin with, especially considering that an all-knowing god would have known which zygotes would split, and which zygotes would fuse after splitting?
Where, in a human, does the soul reside? Does a fetus with two heads, but only one body, have two souls, or only one? How about a fetus with one head, but two bodies?
If a god creates humans so that we may have a relationship with it, and souls are implanted in eggs at conception, why do so many pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion (miscarriage)? If it's simply that a god wants those souls to be with it, couldn't it make them without putting women through the ordeal of miscarriages, or giving birth to deformed infants that cannot survive? Is a god incapable of creating a soul unless there's a zygote in which to implant it?
Aside from the fact that there is absolutely no evidence for the existence of souls, if there were souls, wouldn't it make more sense that they would enter bodies at birth, if not later? In fact, doesn't the christian bible say that "god" breathes life into an infant at birth?
* * *
http://www.cronaca.com/archives/001331.html
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=412
.
?
You are misinterpreting the meaning of the word "conception", in Catholic teaching "conception" is the moment when God creates the soul and infuses it into the body not the moment when the egg is first fertilized. Doctrine doesn't specifically define at what point in the gestation process conception actually happens, that is a point that has been debated since the time of St. Augustine, but if there are two viable embryos then there would certainly be a separate soul in each, we can assume God would ensure that.
?
Is it when the sperm has fertilized the egg that the soul is sent down to inhabit it or is it sent down when the sperm first attaches itself to the egg? Or is it not until after the dna from the sperm and the dna from the egg unite to form a new cell that is unique - is that when they send down the soul? I'm confused as to exactly when that happens.
beait
Wow!
That just blew my mind!
The thought of one soul is hard enough to comprehend, but a shared soul? I must admit, even for an atheist I have never even considered this.
Now I'm going to have to go hunting for info!
You naughty person ..lol
juano19
What about a situation where two zygotes combine to create a chimera, sometimes called a mosaic? Are there two souls in one body?