Darias wrote:
marketandchurch wrote:
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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.
The bible is only taken literally by those who wish to abuse it, or dismiss it. This is as true for Islam, and Christianity, as it is for Atheism.
Situational Ethics = Being Real:
It is in a sense situational, and practical, but just because it is situational does not mean that the text doesn't have an overall position against it. The truest and most accurate way to assess morality, is to consider: Context Determines Morality.
Take for example the case of Lott. He screws his daughters over by offering them up to the hoards to be raped, and is in turn, gets screwed(literally), as he is laid by his daughters without his consent. The tradition does not look down upon what happened here, because the situation makes the actions of Lott's daughters understandable. They've just seen destruction unlike anything any human has ever seen before, they are in shock, they had just lost their mother, their entire family, their husbands, and the only world they ever knew are wiped out. It is fair for them to have assumed that humanity would restart again between the three of them, and having lost all of their family, they weren't going to leave anything to chance, and took it upon themselves to lay their father. It's not a beautiful account, it isn't exemplary, or ideal, but it's real stuff man… put in the same situation, and the same moral dilemma, it is very difficult to argue that any of us could rise above the fray, considering the limitations of human knowledge, 3000-4000 years ago.
There is very few absolute rules in the bible, that cannot ever be betrayed, no matter what the context is. But for the rest, from capital punishment to adultery, context determines morality, and just because it is situational doesn't mean that one is weak in their upholding of the commandment or prohibition… all it means is that one is real, to the nuances and facets of everyday life, and all its possibilities. Context determines whether an act of taking a life is killing or murder, just as it determines whether relations was ethical intercourse, or rape.
Can The Family Unit Survive, Sexualized?
Do you think the family unit can survive if it is not fully de-sexualized? Can the family unit survive healthily, in a society that permits incest, if blood lay blood, a father forcing a daughter, or a brother with a sister, or a mother with a son? What even of a father with a step-daughter with no coercion involved? What of a son and dad's new hot wife, that's 20 years younger then dad is?
I mean, I am describing the premise of many porno's, but there is a place for fantasy, and then there's real life, and considering the individuals in your own life, not the society at large who you may not have a personal attachment to, can your family survive a case of incest? Even if you approve of the concept of incest, do you think that the okaying of that sexual avenue doesn't legitimize sexual tensions between persons of the opposite sex?
Complications:
What of the potential conflicts that may arise, in a society that permits incest as normative & ethical behavior, between a father, having second thoughts, about leaving his new trophy wife, home with his unemployed 23 year old son? Should uncles and aunts have to think twice about inviting over nephews or nieces who can be sexual active with their own children? What of a mother worrying about possible romance between a daughter and her new husband? Can the family as a unit survive such challenges, and… more importantly, can a society with families that have incest as a legitimate alternative, survive, without the nature of the family changing entirely?
We're not just talking after all, about a physical act that is pleasurable. We are talking about relationships here where trust is central to its function, and these are the most crucial relationships that are the bedrock of society. That is what makes incest morally problematic, in the view of the text. You may have a brother-sister relationship here, and an uncle-niece relationship there, that are truly beautiful, and meaningful, etc. But for every example you cite of beautiful love, you are enabling an onslaught of complications that may arise from the sexualizing of the family unit, that will destroy this institution's strength of the family surviving.
Male Sexual Nature:
There is a statistic out there that I read some time ago, that 30% of women have been sexually assaulted in their lifetime. I personally think that the number is much higher, but underreported for obvious reasons. The sadder aspect of it is that these women weren't raped by a stranger, but by someone they knew, and a lot of cases included a family member. How do you factor male sexual nature, and all of its capacities into this. Especially considering the history of the male creature?
Taboo-Stigma's Importance:
What has kept people from even considering sexual intimacy with another family member is the prevailing mindset that the act is objectively disgusting and immoral, which is perpetuated on by an arbitrary taboo, that says its disgusting and immoral. The family espouses that tradition, the community espouses that tradition, and the society espouses that tradition. And though the tradition has lost its initial meaning, to desexualize the family unit, it has still achieved the same ends, by keeping familial relations non-sexual, allowing the family unit to be strong in it's lifeline, from one's youth, through marriage and adulthood, to being grandparents. There are softball and soccer coaches who have had relations with females they coached, but never in their minds did the possibility of seeking a relations with their daughters occur. And it comes from this rigid, societally, communally held value, of not laying with one's own blood. I'm not justifying their relations with other high-school minors, I'm letting you know the power of stigma & taboo.
You don't think what happens in a family won't affect society? You don't think that a society who states incest as a possible and legitimate way to couple with another individual isn't dropping the walls of illegitimacy for everyone, irrespective of whether they approve or disapprove of incest? Yes, you and your family may preach to your kids not to view each other in that way, because you said so... but your children know it's okay by everyone, and what happens when they grow up... will the strength of your opposition to the act survive a generation? Forgetting whether your children have incestuous relations, what's there to keep your preferred taboo alive? What if they don't transmit that unto their own children?
To Conclude:
My position against the act is the bible's, in which a sexualized family unit cannot function properly, and family creation largely follows societal preference. Irrespective of what a specific families position may be on the issue of incest, the challenges to its rigidity is not only added pressure, but it's insulation against it can only last so many generations. Incestuous families is the story of humanity. Legitimizing it so long as there is consent is still legitimizing it, period. There is a disgusting stimga surrounding the sexualizing of one's parent, or sybling, that makes one never consider looking at one's parent or sibling, in that light. I prefer to keep that, and the family unit cannot survive without it.
I'm not asking any of this to challenge you, I merely want to understand a pro-incest position that takes all of these things into consideration. You are articulate, you make great cases for the things you believe in, so I'd like to hear you out on the matter. I would also love others who support dropping the stigmas, taboos, and laws on incest, to react to this as well.
