Dueling Quotes on Religion and AI

From Futurepundit:

The development of true AI will likely shake up religious believers most of all. If a computer can think like a human the obvious implication is that human thinking not by itself evidence for a soul. If a machine can think as well as a human then why should we expect humans to have souls? I'm not saying there isn't an answer to that question. My point is that the question will become important once we achieve AI.

From Past Master by R. A. Lafferty:

The spirit came down once on water and clay. Could it not come down on gell-cells and flux-fix?

On the other hand, previous attempts at building an Artificial Person produced soulless monsters. In any case, the entire argument might be rendered moot if Intelligence Amplification outpaces Artificial Intelligence.