Originally Posted by
RachelGrey
I think the spark of life is the soul. The energy that coalesces in our cells and unifies those cells into a single living organism, I think that energy is a part of what the soul is.
I believe that yes clones have souls too, but whether they have the original soul is questionable. Ben Reilly is a clone of Peter Parker and I believe Ben has a soul, but not the same soul Peter has.
I believe that Laura has her own soul, independent of Logan.
But what happens if you push the core identity of a being into a body at the moment of animation, if that person is dead but the sum of all their identity, personality, and animus is transferred into another body, could that perhaps also transfer their soul too. Is that core identity itself the soul of the person?
The duplicates that were created by the 5 had a spiritual element to it, but also there was the presence of at least two mutants that can alter reality. Proteus, and Hope who can use and guide Proteus' powers. Working in tandem and linking all 5 mutant powers together, and then having Xavier use Cerebro to transfer the core identity into the mix, is it possible that the original soul is pulled back into the world because all of the conditions are properly in place for it to return.
Obvious a duplicate that is created while the original is alive would have a different soul and a different core identity. It might believe it is the original at first, but eventually it would find itself not feeling exactly the same. Finding out that it is a duplicate would probably shattering to his psyche. But that duplicate has a soul too, they just don't have the original soul.
All of this even depends a little on your own religious beliefs, do all souls have individuality? Or do you believe we part of a great oneness and are linked in infinite representations of that oneness. Perhaps when we die we just become part of the universal cosmic life force and our sum identity and memories become part of the overall experience of the entire universal energy.
There is also the atheist perspective that life simply ends at death and there is no afterlife. This is the base cycle of existence, there is life, there is death, and there is rebirth in that new forms of life rise from our death. When we die our decomposing body provide the nutrients for the life that follows us. We live on because we become part of the life that follows us, but not because our core identity remained after our death.
In the Marvel Universe there does appear to be some afterlife and your soul can go to places where your faith and belief leads you. The Asgardians represent a path, the Seraphim (the Angels) represent a path, but these so called higher beings are not servants of God, they are in a sense evolved beings who behave like Gods. They are caretakers of some of the entrances to the afterlife, be it the paradise of Valhalla or Heaven, or the places of evil like Hel, Hell, or the Demonic Underworld.
Jane Foster was a servant of Asgard so when she died the gates of Valhalla opened for her. Now she has become a Valkyrie because in her life she has served Asgard and that is where her beliefs have taken her. Dani Moonstar is the same, she believes in Native American religion and culture, however, she made herself of service to Asgard and through that service she has become linked to Valhalla as one of it's guardians a Valkyrie. Because Dani took on this responsibility in her life, to guard the gates of Valhalla, when she dies she will more than likely pass into Valhalla rather than the realms of the Grandfather Spirit.
There is so much complexity to it, even in Marvel Comics. It's possible that the soul lingers for a few days after death, and then it might sense on Krakoa this egg that contains a vessel that perfectly matches it's previous vessel, so rather than moving on to the afterlife that soul chooses to inhabit this new vessel that so closely matches the previous one. It helps when there are powerful mutants creating a spiritual connection to the universe working together that encourages that soul to take the replacement vessel and be reborn again.