marketandchurch wrote:
[
Replying to post 10 by McCulloch]
McCulloch, I want to hold out a little big longer case I actually get a secular atheist who opposes incest, who can provide for me a great, secular case, against incest.
McCulloch, the case against Incest is littered all throughout Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. Just as you should not marry a woman who your father had known, and divorced, because you might see his nakedness, it is made routine, over and over, that the family unit cannot be sexualized, or it will cease to function properly.
Again, I don't want to go too deeply into anything, until I've gotten the answer I'm looking for, it is all within the text, if you read it with the right scholarship & commentary.
Incest was clearly part of Yahweh's plan in propagating the human species, if the Bible is to be taken literally. Any latter instances of labeling incest as immoral or sinful indicates to me that Yahweh's view on the act is clearly situational and thus the morality of such, in terms of religious views, is neither objective nor consistent.
The only way to argue against incest in a non-theistic way, is to take a utilitarian and consequentialist approach.
Assuming everything is consensual, one still has to consider how such a relationship would affect the family. One has to take into account the effects this relationship might have, not only on the family but themselves and -- even their potential offspring. One also has to accept the risks and the responsibility of creating a genetically handicapped offspring (assuming the relationship involves heterosexual persons).
But all of these moral considerations aren't really anyone else's business. The decisions you make in your life really don't affect anyone else, but your immediate family and your children.
In keeping with the type of reasoning mentioned earlier, another reason not to make this a national issue is based on how rare these things are. It's not just a cultural taboo -- biologically, most people have mechanisms that recognize relatives and that attract them to strangers. It's extremely difficult to find a valid argument against incest, but due to biology, it's just irrational to fear this as something that could be taught, or that could become common in society. This issue is of no consequence for most people in society.
I personally don't care what other people do, so long as no one's consent is violated. While arbitrary age markers like 16 or 18 make this issue a little greyer -- it's clear that children don't have the capacity to consent but 21 year olds do.
While brainwashing for a future relationship is also a concern, if you're 21, you really can't claim you can't give consent (unless you've been trapped in a basement all your life).
But if it's truly consensual, and all care is taken not to bring a life of suffering into the world, and they're open with it to their family, then it's fine.
A similar issue presents itself when consensual step-siblings are involved. They're not related by blood, but would any relations they have destroy their family? I don't know; I don't think so.
I don't really find it all that morally different than two adults who wish to marry between two different religious families (to the great distress of the other families) -- and whose children turn out to have genetic diseases even though the parents weren't related (because the parents failed to get genetic testing prior to deciding to have children).
But anyways, I'm more interested in why you're interested in this issue than in the moral implications of incest, given its exceeding rarity as a societal issue.
