Cain & Abel's Incest.

[Liv]

In the early days of humanity, the human genetic code was not corrupted to the extent that it is today. Therefore, it was safe for close relatives to marry and have children. There was little risk of genetic abnormalities in their children.

Isn't this conjecture? I mean. Does the bible explicitly say this, or is this how you speculate it must have been?
Maybe God built the whole darn race on dirty DNA? Maybe he likes it like that? Who are you to say?

[Liv]

Liv, I really doubt there is a such a thing as a universal truth in your world of relativity. Just because you attended church and did "church" things doesn't really give you any insight to how Christians would think in hypothetical situations.

Wow am I being attacked?

I just think Cain & Abel's incest paradox might be hands down one of the most convincing arguments, that most "literal" believing Christians could not explain away without accepting the fact Incest- a very taboo, even disgusting act by most standard & is endorsed by the Bible.

I don't see how attacking my upbringing, or previous belief system has any impact on my ability to rationalize current mythological texts. Quite honest, if there's someone that's going to understand your beliefs more than anyone It's me. The problem for you is you don't have to be the Baker, to eat the bread. To believe the bread is flesh as you do requires me to pretend to believe something I know cannot be true. Sometimes you tell a lie because the truth carries a consequence you're not willing to accept. Sometimes you'd rather lie about cheating on your wife, then tell her the truth and lose her. Eventually, the mind, may accept the falsehood as truth in time replacing the normal need to rationalize how you got to your delusion. Eventually the lie becomes the truth. It's a rather simple Jekyll & Hyde complex. At some point in your life you chose to be a Christian despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Rather then question it, you ignored the scientific reasoning. Why?
Was it for the wife, was it to appease your family?

I mean psychologically speaking the only other rational reason for such a need to self-brain-wash is complete psychosis.

People don't become Christian when they're previously not, unless something is wrong.

[Nfidel]

The problem for you is you don't have to be the Baker, to eat the bread. To believe the bread is flesh as you do requires me to pretend to believe something I know cannot be true. Sometimes you tell a lie because the truth carries a consequence you're not willing to accept. Sometimes you'd rather lie about cheating on your wife, then tell her the truth and lose her. Eventually, the mind, may accept the falsehood as truth in time replacing the normal need to rationalize how you got to your delusion. Eventually the lie becomes the truth. It's a rather simple Jekyll & Hyde complex. At some point in your life you chose to be a Christian despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Rather then question it, you ignored the scientific reasoning. Why?
Was it for the wife, was it to appease your family?

A most awesome post, Liv. This is one of the best explanations about belief I've read in quite a while. It's also what I came to realize myself when I "lost my religion". What's funny is sometimes someone will point to my ex- beliefs as proof that their current beliefs aren't silly. I then explain that at the most I was 15 years old when I believed this. I grew the hell up.

[Sanjuro]

The problem for you is you don't have to be the Baker, to eat the bread. To believe the bread is flesh as you do requires me to pretend to believe something I know cannot be true. Sometimes you tell a lie because the truth carries a consequence you're not willing to accept. Sometimes you'd rather lie about cheating on your wife, then tell her the truth and lose her. Eventually, the mind, may accept the falsehood as truth in time replacing the normal need to rationalize how you got to your delusion. Eventually the lie becomes the truth. It's a rather simple Jekyll & Hyde complex. At some point in your life you chose to be a Christian despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Rather then question it, you ignored the scientific reasoning. Why?
Was it for the wife, was it to appease your family?

A most awesome post, Liv. This is one of the best explanations about belief I've read in quite a while. It's also what I came to realize myself when I "lost my religion". What's funny is sometimes someone will point to my ex- beliefs as proof that their current beliefs aren't silly. I then explain that at the most I was 15 years old when I believed this. I grew the hell up.

Absolutely. Pretty well thought out stuff there Liv.

[A Person]

Was it for the wife, was it to appease your family?

There is another option - there are several, but one major one - is that if you don't like yourself very much, the salvation message is pretty compelling. It doesn't matter how sinful or degraded you are, by the simple act of opening your heart to Jesus your sins can be washed away and at least one person will love you unconditionally.

I don't think it's coincidence that so many evangelists claim "I was once an atheist like you, denying God so that I could pursue a life of crime/gambling/womanizing/drinking/drugs". They seem to feel it gives them street cred to show what bad-asses they were. Personally I find it condescending and insulting.

[Liv]

is that if you don't like yourself very much, the salvation message is pretty compelling

I don't know. As someone who's suffered, and yes, hated themselves in previous incarnations... I never found the answers religion gave me a solution to it. In fact It was the unanswered questions that led me to take it upon myself to initiate changes, becoming the vessel of my own change... as prayers had no effect on the "real" world.

I do see how it works though for alot of people:

1) Wavering person has child who is sick. Person says they'll pray, just by some off chance it works. Child gets better, and this affirms prayer, and thus god is there and works.

2) Option dos. Kid dies, and wavering person can't accept that child (or loved one) is no longer alive so they as a criteria of mental stability affirm religion beliefs so in they in essence in their mind allow their "child" to continue to live.

So which one is it BHL? Did you lose a loved one, did you "almost" lose one? Was it you met a "Christian" girl?

I'm certainly not meaning to offend... but I'm guessing very highly some major event surrounds your transition from atheist to follower.

[Nfidel]

1) Wavering person has child who is sick. Person says they'll pray, just by some off chance it works. Child gets better, and this affirms prayer, and thus god is there and works.

2) Option dos. Kid dies, and wavering person can't accept that child (or loved one) is no longer alive so they as a criteria of mental stability affirm religion beliefs so in they in essence in their mind allow their "child" to continue to live.

You forgot a third one that's a biggie. "GOD WAS TESTING ME". My whole family started going back to church when a nineteen year old uncle accidentally shot himself and died. I was told the return to church had two main reasons. One, that God was testing their faith and two, that the death showed them how close we all are to hell. I was 4 years old. I wonder if these things affected me mentally?

[Liv]

I've often wondered if church goers also have some sub-trait of social deficiency. The inability to form and maintain relationships outside of church which is such a good mechanism for a lot of people to do. Perhaps you could even say marriages of the church require the functionality of the church in order to maintain their external marriage.

[Guest]

I can relate to what you've been through - I happen to believe in reincarnation, but in the metaphorical sense. I think that people take on a million different identities throughout their lifetime and that you HAVE to reform yourself in order to meet changing situations. I have had multiple reincarnations, and I don't think that anyone is ever unilaterally one person. I think that we are a complex of myriad personalities and aspects, so there is no way to define a person as a singular identity. This is why I disagree with the conventional notions of psychosocial theory, because they assume that a person retains a static identity throughout their lifetime. But this contradicts the central imperative to evolution: that we HAVE to change in order to adapt to changing environments. If our species was an arrested development, and never evolved past our level of acquisition in, say the neanderthal period, we would never have developed the innovation of technology and thus would still be at the level of primitive existence. This also is the case with identity: if every person remained the same person throughout their entire lives - employing the same methodologies over and over again without any realization for innovative techniques - it would affect the entirety of the advancement of our species. We would never acquire innovations, and we would never advance to another level. In consequence, our species would remain incapacitated and dysfunctional throughout the rest of its existence. Therefore, the dynamics of change are imperative for advancement, on both a microsocial (individual) level and a macrosocial (collective, encompassing our entire species) level.

This is why I am an evolutionary theorist, and am very skeptical of the conventional philosophies of psychosocial theory today, which view identity as a static thing. This is also why I disagree entirely with the conventional methodologies employed by the psychiatric industry in diagnosing people, as they fail to account for the vagaries of human beings, and that they can, and DO, change. The psychiatric industry incurs a fatal error in diagnosing people with conditions based on past precedence, because they fail to conceive that human behavior can change. I also think that disorders such as ADHD, OCD, and even bipolar and high-functioning autism (the really high-functioning form) are fabrications of the psychiatric industry to lure susceptible people into thinking that they have something wrong with them, when in actuality they don't. I was thought to have bipolar and high-functioning autism when I was younger, but it was confirmed after re-evaluations that I didn't have either of them. I was just going through a rough time; and I just perceived things differently. The crux is that I don't believe in any kind of collective, conventional philosophy as it tends to be errant, and 9 times out of 10, it is often employed for insidious purposes. This is the case with every government-run institution, especially in the case with insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies. This is the reason so many disorders are misdiagnosed, because the psychiatric industry is working in tandem with the pharmaceutical companies. Never...ever...ever trust a label given by an institution. They no almost nothing about the human mind, and they can't tell you who you are - you know much better than they do.

The same is true with fundamentalist religions - they only exist to brainwash people and to ostracize and suppress those with differing beliefs. Fundamentalist religion is not just the opiate of the masses, but a weapon of mass destruction that will bring them down. It is such a deviation from the original belief system, and has been so tainted and contorted by the influence of power, that it has become a divisive instrument to ostracize those who are different, and suppress entire nations. All religions need to revert to their original, peaceful form before they were corrupted by government institutions and imperial entities. Although it will be a long, arduous process spanning many generations, the process needs to be reversed, and religion restored.

Government + Religion = Disaster

[Sanjuro]

I do see how it works though for alot of people:

1) Wavering person has child who is sick. Person says they'll pray, just by some off chance it works. Child gets better, and this affirms prayer, and thus god is there and works.

2) Option dos. Kid dies, and wavering person can't accept that child (or loved one) is no longer alive so they as a criteria of mental stability affirm religion beliefs so in they in essence in their mind allow their "child" to continue to live.

So which one is it BHL? Did you lose a loved one, did you "almost" lose one? Was it you met a "Christian" girl?

I'm certainly not meaning to offend... but I'm guessing very highly some major event surrounds your transition from atheist to follower.

You left out substance addiction. I've seen MANY people give up addiction to drugs/alcohol for an addiction to jesus.

[Liv]

Wow, guest just took the conversation to a whole new level.

Yes, Sanj. AA (and NA) perpetuates that as a function of the church.... I've never been fond of those programs because of it.

[A Person]

But this contradicts the central imperative to evolution: that we HAVE to change in order to adapt to changing environments.

There is no imperative to evolution, central or otherwise. Changing environments result in differential reproduction rates from a pool of existing variation.

[C. Alice]

Was it for the wife, was it to appease your family?

There is another option - there are several, but one major one - is that if you don't like yourself very much, the salvation message is pretty compelling. It doesn't matter how sinful or degraded you are, by the simple act of opening your heart to Jesus your sins can be washed away and at least one person will love you unconditionally.

"the only time that these people give their lives over to
Christ is when they have furked everything up so royally that nobody else will
talk to them. Nobody gets saved on Prom Night."-Dennis Miller

[Liv]

I'm going to disambigulate for a while:

Cain & Abel -> CAIN ABEL -> CAINABEL ->CANNIBAL

The Irony.

[royaldiadem]

,..... that was all right in them days because they were (nearly) perfect and the fall hadn't caused all those recessive genes yet.

And you call the Bible wrong because of what objective universal standard?

Sterling

[A Person]

And you call the Bible wrong because of what objective universal standard?

Sterling

Reality

[royaldiadem]

And you call the Bible wrong because of what objective universal standard?

Sterling

Reality

You are wrong.

[A Person]

You are wrong.

Deep, that's very deep. How can anyone argue with that. You can tell you do this for a living.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

You are wrong.

Deep, that's very deep. How can anyone argue with that. You can tell you do this for a living.

Apparently, there are some people who think that he know deep, secret stuff...

[YourAnswer]

Maybe you can point to ANYWHERE in ANY translation of the Bible where incest between a father and daughter is forbidden

I take it that's a 'No' then?

perhaps you should read my posts....

I did, but I didn't see a direct reference, only vague assertions that some obscure verse says you should follow a countries rules in which you live- and this is the best bit -you can ignore it if you think they are against gods law. The only problem is, everything is so subjective that perhaps raping daughters IS part of god's law. Don't believe me? Well it doesn't say NOT to do it, so it MUST be true!

I've know where it says it. But first, let me say...

Apparently many of you think that just because someone is unable to answer a question that it proves what they believe in is false. On that same note, many of you seem to believe that simply because something raises questions, or doesn't make sense initially, that that is proof enough of it being untrue.

Hmmm. Perhaps you could be... wrong? How much do you really know? I mean, truthfully. You have limited perception and incredibly limited knowledge. Yet, many of you like to behave like otherwise.


Leviticus 18:17 begins with, "Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter." Then goes on to say the same about her grandkid, no matter if from her son or daughter.

So think then; how is anyone a guy's daughter? By blood and/or marriage. Either way, the guy who is the father will have had to had sex with the daughter's mom... do you follow? So if a guy sleeps with his daughter as either kind of dad, they would be having sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter, just as Lev 18:17 forbids.

Make sense??


So then how is it, that you failed to see the simple answer, staring you square in the face the entire time? How is it that it zoomed right over your heads each and every time? Perhaps... it's because, some of you are not nearly as smart as you all would like to think?


As for the other subjects of debate, there are answers. But I'm not here to do your thinking for you. Just stop playing naive with yourselves and admit that you prefer certain explanations and stop there simply because it pleases your current "got it all figured out" mindset. ...which apparently amounts to squat cause you can't even comprehend what you've just read.



As for me, I didn't see it. Did NOT see it. The next day, God had to spell it out to me. Yeah, that's right. God spoke to me. If you need to laugh go ahead. Yeah, that's right. I'm the "fool" even though none of you "wise" guys could see what was right in front of your faces.

Of course I didn't see it either. But that's the point. Are we so wise and have it all figured out? Especially if we stop so easily in our "questioning" what we see and what we are told?

[A Person]

So think then; how is anyone a guy's daughter? By blood and/or marriage. Either way, the guy who is the father will have had to had sex with the daughter's mom... do you follow? So if a guy sleeps with his daughter as either kind of dad, they would be having sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter, just as Lev 18:17 forbids.

Make sense??

Yes. Congratulations.

So then how is it, that you failed to see the simple answer, staring you square in the face the entire time? How is it that it zoomed right over your heads each and every time? Perhaps... it's because, some of you are not nearly as smart as you all would like to think?

Perhaps... it's because some of us just didn't notice, like you. Unlike you, God didn't deign to materialize and spell it out. That includes a professional Pastor and the resident fundamentalist. .

Are we so wise and have it all figured out? Especially if we stop so easily in our "questioning" what we see and what we are told?

Who stopped questioning? What was lacking was meaningful answers.

Apparently many of you think that just because someone is unable to answer a question that it proves what they believe in is false.

Not neccessarily, just that they are unable to justify their beliefs. It does weaken their position though.

[Liv]

The next day, God had to spell it out to me. Yeah, that's right. God spoke to me.

I assume literally? Or is this one of those metaphorical "I had an epiphany" things? It's hard to judge the value of your evidence without further details. I would say your proof is unacceptable as evidence in the court of law...

[Questioner]

Taken from APErson's favorite website....

http://www.gotquestions.org/close-relat ... nship.html

Question: "Is it wrong to have a relationship with a close relative?"

Answer: The relationships that God forbade in the Old Testament Law are listed in Leviticus chapter 18, verses 6-18......
So there is nothing essentially evil about marrying a close relative. The reason we should not do it is that it is unsafe genetically......

I agree with most of your answer, BHL, but given that Leviticus does say that the forbidden relationships are an abomination, I would disagree with your statement that there is nothing essentially evil about incest. In fact, Leviticus forbids many relationships beyond parent/child/sibling/grandchild/uncle/aunt relationships--and calls these relationships "wickedness". It also forbids the kind of relationships that are likely to engender blood feuds such as adultry with a neighbor or a brother or sister-in-law, or a son or daughter-in-law. Certainly we know these relationships forbidden because of their likelihood to produce hatreds and killing feuds within the tribe (this greatly increasing the chance that the tribe would fail--and this is the essence of evil because it would inevitably lead to violating the command to go forth and multiply). But the Jews also recognized from observation (of other cultures such as Egypt that had incest) that inbreeding leads not only to genetic anomolies, but to a very high rate of miscarriages and weak infants who are very likely to die in infancy. Additionally, we also know that the children born of incestuous relationships may be fine in the first generation (eg a brother/sister or parent/child or first cousin mating), but the second and third generations in which incest is continued leads to a very poor breeding success rate and high rates of both genetic anomolies and mental illness among the progeny. By the way, this can also be seen today in animal populations.

The inbreeding among dogs and other animals in breeding operations that are trying to breed perfect animals has led to purebred dogs (and other animals) with extremely unreliable tempraments, to low breeding success rates, and to high rates of both infertility and miscarriage. Yet these same animals that can't seem to breed successfully when bred to a close relative seem to have very high success rates of breeding when a non-related mate is used. In any case, whether you believe that the Jews knew of the evils of inbreeding from God (as we Christians do), or because we do know the Jews were excellent observers and very smart about health effects of human behavior), clearly these kinds of incest were viewed as evil in their nature.

[dreadrocksean]

So if God told you your sister's genes weren't "unclean" and told you to procreate with her, you would?

Then God would be lying and God doesn't lie. The only "clean" person ever on the earth was Jesus.

On what grounds are you judging that statement to be untrue?

[Guest]

This conversation is amazing. I am glad I stumbled across it. You haven't reverted to calling each other derogative names or insulted each others' intelligence. I can feel the tension between all of you and I am relatively amazed this hasn't come to blows yet.

I dislike religion. I'm putting it out there.

On the subject of Cain and Abel; if this really did happen (which I highly doubt) then it was incest. Cain and Abel were incestuous. Let's look to the definition of incest:

"Engaging in sexual intercourse with another family member."

Now, let me see... I'm sure Cain/Abel fills in that definition.

On the subject of the Bible saying incest is or isn't forbidden - I do believe someone supplied a biblical statement which ended this conversation.

Also - previous Guest, I think I love you.

That is all.