If the creation story is true, and our morality came from god, when did incest become immoral? We know today that incest is wrong because of the horrifying effects it can have on the offspring of such unions, but if the creation story is true, the world was populated twice by incestual unions. (Noah's family after the flood). So if that's the case, how do we have such genetic diversity today. And when did incest become a sin in god's eyes? At what point did he say, "alright, that's enough humans, incest is off limits now." ?
Now one could argue, "well the fall of man brought sin into the world, so it was wrong after that." But once again, god intended the world ve populated by incest. So are adam and eve in hell? For obeying the "go and populate" command?
I've heard it said that perhaps there were several years before the creation of man and the fall, which would have given them plenty of time to populate sin-free. But that means that incest was not immoral until people made it so. And if our morality comes from god, then incest isn't immoral.
So i guess at the end of it i just have to ask: What makes incest immoral from a christian perspective?
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Oh, but there were incest long after adam and his wife, lots of it.
Christians just don't have a real answer to this. I've heard it discussed several times among them and the end result is always the same.
Yeah, the bible is big on incest. Jesus' own direct ancestors include Judah and Tamar. Tamar was Judah's daughter-in-law, but he had sex with her because she was a prostitute. Then when he found out that she had been a prostitute he ordered her burned to death, even though HE is the one that had sex with her. She had a baby from that sex that wound up being a direct ancestor of Jesus. So Jesus was "conceived in sin". Without chronicling all of the other examples, through Judah and Tamar alone Jesus is the offspring of prostitution and incest and of a murderer who burns women to death for having sex with him. Some son of god Jesus turned out to be. At best he was the son of prostitutes and incestuous relationships, not some super-being.
I agree, John. Well said.
That is some dark shit.
Well, Incest was a big thing in the past, even after Jesus.
Because through incest, bloodlines would be kept pure, like the Egyptians, sometimes Greeks and Arabic nations, also including the Romans themselves and the Norse. Incest was the answer to avoid "spoiled blood".
To answer your question, the case of incest being Immoral to Christians is nothing but a "out of the blue" decision made by Christians. Whenever you ask a Christian or any other Religious person, also including Non-religious people, you'll just get the answer "it's wrong because it is" , "because God prohibits it", "because it causes genetic problems", etc. There's no answer to that because Christians apparently don't record the entirety of their holy stuff, and now that particular answer regarding Incest is lost. Whoever wrote that Incest is wrong, kept his entire reason to himself, just as any other self-proclaimed Prophet.
Eve was created from Adam's rib, which means they were genetic identical twins. That's about as incestuous as you can get.
Not to mention Adam and Eve having sex with their children, and their children having sex with each other.
Well, strictly speaking that's inaccurate. The only woman Adam is said to have had sex with was Eve. However, the Bible hints that he had sex with all of the animals but couldn't find a helper comparable to him. That's why Eve was created. The Jewish Babylonian Talmud says that Adam did have sex with all of the animals.
Able didn't have any children. He was the first prophet.
Cain had a son by his wife in the land of Nod. They then built a city. So it should be obvious that there were other people in Nod. It's unclear how Cain got his wife.
Seth, Adam's and Eve's third son, also had had a herd of insignificant children besides the well-known Enosh.
Now remember, besides Nod there were also Assyria, Persia, Arabia, and Ethiopia when Adam and Eve were naked in the garden.
The Adam & Eve story, as well as all of the other biblical characters, is about the Israelites/Hebrews/Jews. It is not about Gentiles and world history.
Lot's of differing notions of the veracity of this Jesus character afield. All of them assume the cat actually existed. I question their credibility.
http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizrael/jesusrefutation.html
http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arian_controversy
http://www.bidstrup.com/bible2.htm
Regarding incest, again Leviticus 20 deals with it as a sin and prescribes the consequences. Life has no purpose outside of a simple existence in relativist terms though so what is the big deal about incestual relations? Yes, the Creationists and Noah story adherents have some 'splainin' to do but that's their lot. I don't care what they have to say. None of it ever occurred in my own history of the world so it simply isn't on my human timeline of factual events.
The internal conflicts of the bible are many but they don't matter because the bible doesn't matter. It's clearly a collection of many disparaging stories all seeking to coalesce into broad brushing the existence of the characters and the biblical meme, yet by the same intent it immerses the follower in confusion, deception and, ultimately, doubt.
It's the doubt that remains the bible's only true worth. It relieves the mind of assuming there exists an unerring supernatural entity that only faith, in absence of revelation, upholds as factual. Ironically, borne upon the display of familiar human failing lives the doubt about biblical veracity. It's that irony of familiar doubt that imparts to us an escape mechanism only truly free thinkers will recognize and bring to the fore. Apologists will deflect that same doubt by further displays of character weaknesses, specifically, the inability to metabolize the thought of mortality, but the doubt is the only reality that matters and it lives large in all apologists. This is the bible's only genuine virtue. I think laughable is probably still too stinging a word to describe theism but one day that word will be in common usage.
To bring the various discussions of conflicting biblical topics to an atheist forum, by both atheists and theists alike, seems rather trite. But, I suppose it's blasphemous to engage in that at the bible boiler rooms. One would hesitate to argue in a forum where fact is dispensed with to salvage the story. There is no logic to bring to bear that cannot be twisted and tormented to suit. Still, even here those discussions always result in lesser or greater pissing matches that cannot, nor ever will bear fruit.
So, we engage in them for what ROI? Isn't it enough to grasp the other person's perspective without challenge and understand that without fact only fantasy can take center stage? Enough playground pretense, already.
What about Noah and his sons, repopulating the entire Earth after the flood?
The Noah story is simply a war story. It describes an enemy invasion that destroyed everything. Noah's great-grandson Nimrod controlled Babel and other towns in the land of Shinar and he built Nineveh in Assyria and other towns there. And guess what? Assyria existed before Noah's flood and it was never flooded as described. So there were men and women galore.
The Abrahamic religions are focused on obeying God not morality. Incest is OK when God says it is and is immoral when God says to stop. Same with killing.