Do identical twins have to share a Soul?

[cthulu2016]

If any of these "personhood" laws ever pass the courts will have their hands full.

For instance, identical twins are not conceived as identical twins. Conception happens (person-hood!) and then after conception of the one "person" happens the division into identical twins occurs.

So neither of the two lives really began at conception... unless we say that each only has half a life, which seems quite unfair.

Neither twin is the original. There's no such thing. They are equal. The original person-hood person divides into two persons. So does the soul that entered at conception go with one or the other and than a new soul comes in?

Philosophy was much easier before microscopes!

[JaneQPublic]

1. It's like a time-share.

All joking aside, that's a very intriguing question -- sure to render a few anti-choice folks speechless.

[RC]

2. Seeing as how some believe the soul enters the person at conception,

this topic could prove to be quite interesting.

Never mind the First breath thingy in the Bible.

[Kalidurga]

3. Wow, that is an awesome question...

I have to admit when I saw the header I was perplexed. I was prepared to be snarky until I read the whole premise. Anyway, I think the soul would split the same way the cells split. Ok got the snark back. I am not convinced souls exist, but I think this is a good question to ask RWers it might possibly make their heads explode.

[LongTomH]

8. This will really be a mind-fuck for the theologians!!!!

They haven't settled the "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin" problem!!!!!

[Scuba]

4. Simple to resolve in the "mind" of a conservative....

... since the zygote could become twins, triplets, etc., abortion should obviously be considered mass murder.

[Freddie]

5. What about all those fertilized eggs that never implant?

At least half of fertilized eggs never implant for natural reasons and are flushed with the Tampax. What about their souls? In the sewers?
If every fertilized egg is a separate unique fully formed human being then God is pretty cavalier with them.

[Mariana]

20. That's OK because it's Gawd's Will.

All those fertilized eggs that get flushed go to Heaven to be with Jesus.

So do aborted fetuses, I've been told. One wonders why the fundies fight it so hard. Isn't going to heaven a good thing? If those fetuses were born, they might go to hell.

[PassingFair]

45. What about all of the NON-FERTILIZED EGGS!?? Pray for the PRE-CONCEIVED!!

[slackmaster]

6. They have to split one, so each of them gets only half of a soul

Even less than that if they have red hair.

[SheilaT]

11. Why? Does red hair make some of the soul-force flee?

Last edited Mon Sep 3, 2012, 03:01 PM - Edit history (1)

Where does it go?

These are very perplexing concepts.

Typo fixed on edit.

[randome]

13. Wait a minute. I had red hair when I was born.

Did I lose something since then? Gain something? I'm so confused!!!

[OriginalGeek]

24. It's common knowledge!

Gingers have no souls.






that's why I like 'em!

[Trillo]

7. It's a slick bit of semantic phrasing, and appears related to "corporate personhood",

Get people used to the idea that "personhood" means anti-abortion, so some, particularly women, will hear the phrase "corporate personhood" and automatically be against it.

Additionally, the word corporate means, per Wordnet 3.0:

corporate
adjective
2. possessing or existing in bodily form (Freq. 2)
- "what seemed corporal melted as breath into the wind"- Shakespeare
- an incarnate spirit
- `corporate' is an archaic term

Thus, "corporate personhood" may refer to a soul in a body that is considered a person.

The republicans against abortion have a hidden agenda to keep the corporations having personal rights. The use of the term is highly dualistic, and will cause needless confusion.

[cthulu2016]

18. I am pretty sure that the soul entering the body is "incorporation"

[Retrograde]

19. So if the twins form a corporation

how many votes do they get? If there's one soul, does the souled twin get the vote and the other doesn't? Does this scale to identical triplets? (It's believed that there's been at least one set of identical quintuplets born, so this partial personhood gets dicey)

And what about conjoined twins? Or the chimeras, where one fetus absorbs another possibly non-identical twin early on? Do they get one or two votes?

Biology is a lot messier than Fundamentalists like to think.

[Trillo]

21. It is confounding there is so much overlap of the terms relating to corpus (and corpse)

versus non-living paper entities.

[Agnosticsherbet]

9. If person-hood relies on a soul, I would demand scientific evidence of a soul...

Like most religious concepts, belief in a soul requires faith. I have seen no evidence of a soul's existence.

Being an agnostic, that doesn't mean they don't exist, but it does create a high bar of proof if one is going to enshrine that notion into law. If it is a law to protect life, then why is a human ova more worthy than a chicken egg of life? How dare we grind up a grain of wheat to make bread. it is, after all, alive and has the possibility of that wonderful plant within it. How dare we destroy millions of microscopic lives to homogenize milk or make cheese. What gives us the right to wash our smelly bodies with soap, that scent is created by the growth of life in our sweat.

If only humans or worth of this protection under law, then irrefutable evidence of that thing that separates us form all other life must be dis

[chknltl]

10. A most profound obsevation indeed!

So, nobody has any evidence as to when the soul/spirit enters the body...especially the Christian Pro Lifers who claim this happens at conception. This proves that they not only had it wrong but as we already knew, they pulled their 'proof' out of the same hole their heads already occupy. When one considers the grief they have caused to this nation and to this planet.....

Will we survive to see the day of peace on earth that will come when the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest? Not if they can help it I expect.

[randome]

12. Any time theologians try to use evil science to support their loony ideas, you know...

...they have already lost the argument.

But as to the question itself, I'll ask my daughters and get back to you on that.

[nolabear]

14. LOL! K&R for the clever.

[pokerfan]

15. Life begins

three and half billion years ago.

[Odin2005]

23. *NITPICK* 4 Billion *NITPICK*

[Grown2Hate]

28. Also, that should read, "here on Earth, anyhow". ;)

[pokerfan]

31. I always heard 3.5B

http://gizmodo.com/5940376/were-now-pretty-certain-life-on-earth-is-35-billion-years-old

I'm sure we can agree it's more than 6,000.

[Odin2005]

35. There are indications of photosynthetic life in 3.85 b.y. rocks in Greenland.

[pokerfan]

40. OK

From now on, instead of 3.5, I will use 3.85.

[Iggo]

41. Yeah, but that was like fifty years ago...

...so we're at 4 billion now.

[pokerfan]

43. Thanks

I will be more careful in the future.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

[mysuzuki2]

16. Obviously 1 twin has a soul and the other doesn't.

Hence the term "evil twin."

[RagAss]

17. More importantly, what about that fucking list to Santa Claus ?

[Odin2005]

22. I give the fetus-worshipers the same question. It shuts them up fast.

And I love the flabbergasted look on their faces.

[NutmegYankee]

25. They would have separate souls in classic religious tradition.

The soul wasn't given to the body until the Quickening.

[kestrel91316]

26. I want to know how these fetal personhood laws will deal with:

A) A person with a mostly resorbed twin (but that has extra body parts BELONGING TO ANOTHER PERSON attached)

and B) A pregnancy that turns out to be a molar pregnancy, where the "person" basically becomes a malignant tumor, but it is genetically a distinct person from the mother.

I'll be waiting for the fetal cell worshippers to respond.......

Oh, and let's not forget the joined-at-the-head conjoined twins that partly share brains.

[BlueStreak]

27. They don't have to share. They can each buy one.

But they should be the same model year and color, of course.

[dimbear]

29. The Mormons and lots of other religions believe you get your soul at birth.

No problem whatsoever. Except.... they're kind of stacked up in line, which is why Mormons have so many kids.

At least that's the way I heard it.

[dmallind]

30. Depends; as in many cases, the Bible has it both ways

There are two different words which are often translated as soul; in transliteration nephesh and ruach. In some passages the spirit or soul is breathed by God into the baby after birth, which gets everybody a soul but pisses on the Wheaties of those who use the soul to condemn abortion. In other passages it is allocated pre-conception, in which case the best option for twins is that they have a divided single soul. It's plausible perhaps that soul-mitosis creates two fully functional souls, but they would still be identical to the original shared soul. This leads is to wonder how one twin could be saved and the other damned. Would the original soul be in Heaven or Hell?

[surrealAmerican]

32. I suppose that would mean, that in a state with a "personhood" law, ...

... they would only get one vote between them.

[Haye444]

33. why they need share

i don't think they need to be share

[DonRedwood]

34. What about conjoined then?

[Ikonoklast]

36. That's an easy question to answer, what's the matter with you?

The twin that's the better dancer got the soul.

[bemildred]

37. Souls are infinite and can occupy many bodies at the same time.

In fact there is really only one which we all share.

[AnnieBW]

38. Not the ones that I know

They're identical, but they look somewhat different. One of them got all of the brains, and the other is a Republican.

[Fla_Democrat]

39. No, but they have to share

a room till they are 13. At least, that was how I always heard it.

[Raine]

42. I'd ask my grandmother who was an identical twin but she's passed on

I have twin cousins too. I guess it doesn't matter whether they have separate souls or not because they were or are all liberal Democrats who deserve a place in heaven (if it exists)

[Llewlladdwr]

44. Why are y'all making this so hard? Of course they don't.

Rationally, if the spiritual side of things works as postulated in Christian theology then in such a case two souls would be placed into the physical matter that will eventually develop into two persons. It's not like the Deity is unaware of what's going to happen. In the case of twins, in a spiritual sense, from the moment of conception there are two unique individuals present in the womb.

That's one way to answer this question coming from a Christian perspective. Other religions and belief systems will of course lead to their own answers.