Incest is best for me, says academic

Here's my question, though: If God doesn't exist (that is, if there is no such thing as absolute moral truth), why shouldn't the woman have sex with her brother? They're careful not to risk reproduction, its always been consensual, they enjoy it, and they don't feel guilty. So what's the problem?

I agree with ossicle - there is no problem under those circumstances. The brother would be well advised to have a vasectomy, were it to become a permanent arrangement.

If God doesn't exist, then why would consensuality, pleasure, or guilt matter? After all, those things are just neurons firing in certain patterns. Ultimately, whether someone nukes the world or not is irrelevant, too.

There's God or there's nihilism. There's no in between, but most people live as if there were a middle ground.

There's God or there's nihilism. There's no in between, but most people live as if there were a middle ground.
Posted by: James P. | July 16, 2008 5:32 PM

Well, if they are happy living a middle ground, then who are you to go around making them unhappy by pointing out that they are wrong?

Phil: Well most people aren't quite sure so they hedge their bets, choose their battles so to speak. If anyone were completely 100% sure then they'd live like a saint, not take any risks whatsoever, nothing that could possibly jeopardize what awaits in eternity for the sake of some minutely short pleasure on earth.

Me: Saint James' epistle calls this condition being "double minded." We wretched humans.

This is not the kind of thread worth sowing here. My next door neighbor's brother ate his own excrement for decades but that is hardly relevant to the lion's share of humanity. I dare say sibling 'incest' is pretty common prepubescent-early among brothers, but I cannot see this as a mainstream adult issue by any stretch.

I'm with Phil. Ewwww.

"I dare say sibling 'incest' is pretty common prepubescent-early among brothers, but I cannot see this as a mainstream adult issue by any stretch."

No offense, but MAN am I glad you're not my older brother!

Erin, careful with the "marriage" question, you'll have the Prideful Ones screaming at you while clutching their pearls.

I gays can redifine marraige, so can siblings.

If a man wants to divorce his wife and marry their daughter (not adopted daughter, btw) or a woman wishes to divorce her husband and marry their son, what possible reason does the state have to stop them? It's all about LOVE, remember?
Posted by: Erin Manning | July 16, 2008 5:40 PM

Grown son or daughter? Over 18?

"Here's my question, though: If God doesn't exist (that is, if there is no such thing as absolute moral truth), why shouldn't the woman have sex with her brother?"

On their comments page there seems to be atheists saying it doesn't matter, but I think even without God it could matter.

One there's psychology. The sibling relationship is already, in some sense, an intimate one. A sibling will normally know things about your childhood and psychological formation that a spouse, even one you've known since infancy, will not. Adding a sexual component is like closing off into a potential "emotional black hole" which can harm your ability to relate to others outside the family. (Her story clearly has elements of this whether she acknowledges this or not.) Granted my guess, this is just a supposition from the story, is that she likely had difficulty relating to people outside her family anyway. Still I think this would remove or weaken one reason to get to know un-related males. Leaving her, and possibly both of them, socially retarded.

Two there's genetics. Contraception isn't a 100% percent effective. Although siblings wouldn't necessarily or inevitably produce an ill child, and obviously I think ill children deserve to live, the chances of a recessive condition being expressed are higher.

Neither of these related to God or religion so far as I can see. (In most cases reason, experience, natural repugnance, and tradition can get you most of the way on its own. God or religion, in a way, just give a greater emotional urgency and impetus on such matters.)

Popular culture is to taboos as Royal Dutch/Shell is to Nigeria

This is what we've come to: we are not even confident enough in our moral beliefs to claim without equivocation that brother-sister incest is instrinsically evil.

Rumor has it that Rowman Williams is not sure if it's wrong until he consults the local imam. :-)

If I were a betting man, I would bet that this writer is certain that racial profiling is wrong. :-)

Max, that crack is insulting to imply I was speaking cavalierly regarding my own experience. First I have no brothers and second, that comment (which no few men would support were it not impossible to ever get men to be forthright about their sexual pasts) was based on no few studies I researched in in the course of prebubescent sexuality that was necessary in order to become a councelor. On safe sex pratices in an era of Aids. Hello?

Try a little tact, huh.

Well, I

Jillian: It's a bigger God that allows for the possibility of finding Him/Her in the eyes and affection of a sibling. Rulebook God is for spiritual adolescents.

"Come on, Sis, let's be spiritual grown-ups about this. You and I both know God wants us to get it on."

The idea that the spiritually mature thing to do is to validate incest ... I mean, hell, this stuff is just beyond parody.

Rod, I must confess after your handing me the Trojan Trophy for disemboweled blogging firsts:
Actually I mis-spoke. It was my next door neighbor Billie's sister's first husband's brother that favored feces. Since I have raised the bar, with that comes responsibility! I must learn to be more prudent before I post.

PS: Is anyone here actually defending incest? The last time I felt naive I had a full head of brown hair and Elizabeth Taylor was hot. Scary stuff!

Rawlins: Is anyone here actually defending incest?

Jillian: It's a bigger God that allows for the possibility of finding Him/Her in the eyes and affection of a sibling. Rulebook God is for spiritual adolescents.

Me: Defending incest? You mean besides Jullian, the German Brother/Sister fighting for the right to marry (for thier baby of course), and "Names have been changed. As told to Joan McFadden" of the cited article. Hmmmm, I'm thinking more are out there. And they will continue to be more vocal too.

Problem. Your kids come out lookin' funny. Absolute Truth (or not) incest has consequences in the Natural World that provide a negative feedback loop that will limit the atypical behavior.

This just in:

A federal judge in Arkansas has ruled that after divorce, a couple are still brother and sister.

Do you also believe that below the Mason-Dixon line one will find cheerful "darkies" with banjos eating watermelon and tap-dancing barefoot in overalls? Something makes me think that you do.

Max, you're naive. But that's okay. I know, I know, the 'myth of heterosexual AIDS'. Read that blog. But (until I was burned out) I was part time working with two hospital groups of doctors being funded by Pfizer. It opened my eyes.

PS: Those 80 year olds that had HIV were not having anal intercourse with other men. Believe what you wish. But my advise is use a condom or risk becoming that anomaly study. It's all great to sit at home but the teens I see infected in the Hispanic and black populace are not all gay, bi or sharing needles. Ignorance is absolute bliss until some of those I met were given their diagnosis.

On the other hand, to your point, there are estimated millions of American married 'heterosexual' males out there who became infected and they have some ‘splaining to do. Shall we call it the Magic Johnson syndrome?

Max, you're naive. But that's okay. I know, I know, the 'myth of heterosexual AIDS'. Read that blog. But (until I was burned out) I was part time working with two hospital groups of doctors being funded by Pfizer. It opened my eyes.

PS: Those 80 year olds that had HIV were not having anal intercourse with other men. Believe what you wish. But my advise is use a condom or risk becoming that anomaly study. It's all great to sit at home but the teens I see infected in the Hispanic and black populace are not all gay, bi or sharing needles. Ignorance is absolute bliss until some of those I met were given their diagnosis.

On the other hand, to your point, there are estimated millions of American married 'heterosexual' males out there who became infected and they have some ‘splaining to do. Shall we call it the Magic Johnson syndrome?

"Seems like the daughters of Noah and the Egyptian pharaohs looked at it that way, among others....Rulebook God is for spiritual adolescents." Jillian

Jillian, only Religionists believe in Noah. I knew you would come out of the closet some day. :-)

Jillian, the 8:00 PM comment is mine.

I hasten to point that out before you blame Max, who is not me, I don't think.

I've got an addendum to Rod's question: given how easy it is, medically speaking, to identify and kill defective human embryos in utero, is there really any convincing reason why brothers and sisters who love each other shouldn't be entitled to marriage

Well Erin, if we want to endow babies in the womb with so many rights, why can't we allow them the right to this, if it effects nobody else?

James P. : "There's God or there's nihilism. There's no in between, but most people live as if there were a middle ground"

One thing to consider is that evolution doesn't create perfection. It creates flawed but effective organisms, which work well enough most of the time. For example our eyes are amazing, but have a number of flaws in their design. For example one is that the blood vessels are in front of the retina where they cast shadows on the retina.

To an evolutionary psychologist our morality is also the product of evolution. Since this view makes sense to me I would expect our morality to be good, but not perfect much like our eyes. So this puts us somewhere between nihilism and moral perfection.

So the next question is why is incest bad? Incest is a really bad idea because it defeats the whole point of sexual reproduction. Your own genes have lethal alleles which can be fatal. So reproducing with someone with too much DNA in common concentrates these bad genes and eventually harms that reproductive line. This eventually results in people with a taboo against incest dominating over those that don't.

Obviously you can try to separate sex from reproduction and argue these legacy instincts and taboos aren't relevant. But frankly I don't think you can or should deny your instincts. Like the earlier post said "Eww!"

YUCK!

I wish I had something more to contribute to this conversation -- some psychological or philosophical or anthropological tidbit -- but I don't.

Yes, Salamander, there was an X-Files episode on it. A very disturbing, creepy one.

But that was in a much more innocent time, say about a decade ago, when our society had not yet fully entered the "eclipse of all values" territory charted out by dystopian fiction written in the mid-20th century.

"Here's my question, though: If God doesn't exist (that is, if there is no such thing as absolute moral truth), why shouldn't the woman have sex with her brother?"

Why should it matter whether God exists? How do you know that if God exists, God opposes incest? [Granted, he does in my religion but that shouldn't persuade people who AREN'T in my religion...]

Or even if you phrase the matter is "absolute moral truth"- how do you know, absent the secular justifications discussed by other people above, that "universal moral truth" opposes incest?

And so it inevitably begins, incest liberation.

Rod is right. If there is no transcendent moral standard that is understood to come from God and His self-revelation in Scripture, then consensual sexual relations of any kind cannot rationally be forbidden.

This is the basis of the acceptance of homosexuality, and logically has to be extended to any kind of consensual sex, even with animals since they can show consent by their actions and the pleasure they receive. Of course she loves her horse. Why not?

Those who prattle on about the psychological, biological, social problems with incest are ignoring that the same objections were made about homosexuality, clearly to no avail.

This is the basis of the acceptance of homosexuality,...

See my previous post to Erin M., the basis is giving every baby in the womb human rights, who are you to say how the unaborted baby exercises those rights?

"A federal judge in Arkansas has ruled that after divorce, a couple are still brother and sister." 'Incest = Largely a bad idea, for societal, psychological, and biological reasons, but I'm willing to give individual cases a careful hearing before passing judgment.' Must be from Arkansas"

Well I am from Arkansas originally. My Arkansas relatives have less history of incest than my Yankee ones. And even in a state like Arkansas incest is, as in most places in the US, more a matter of cousin relationships, I have one distant relative, in Oklahoma I think, who was a preacher who felt the Bible gave him the right to "train" his daughters for sexuality. However the guy was mostly a freak and not typical of any part of the US so far as I know.

I am also disappointed if people are taking my statement as meaning incest is not too bad or is case-by-case as this is clearly not what I meant. The blogger asked the question about what atheists would think and I tried to answer it as best as I, a non-atheist, knew how. The comments on that article are the first instances I've seen of atheists defending sibling incest. Atheists lack revelation, and a certain degree of moral impetus that brings, but it's not like atheism makes a person devoid of all humanity or reason. I think some of you seem to be saying that and, as a Catholic, I don't see how that could work for my faith.

As I understand it there are some morals that are natural and can be gleaned with right reason plus understanding. You can think atheists would be without all morals if you want, but I think this is difficult to maintain if you've ever dealt with *normal atheists. I really think "don't have sex with your siblings" is pretty close to being one of those things you can glean through nature and observation. Some have stated "well what about the Egyptians?" Well I don't believe sibling-sibling incest was particularly common among Egyptians as a whole. It was a practice of nobility to preserve the bloodlines. Even then the Egyptian pharaoh was often polygamous or semi-polygamous and so marriage was often between half-siblings. Some things indicate this was possibly more common than full-siblings. In some cases the half-siblings might have even been raised in different homes. Now this is wrong too, especially as it is done with full-knowledge, but I do think it's a bit different. (I mean what if your Dad had illegitimate kids you didn't know about?)

*Granted there were pro-incest responses by some of the more radical Dawkinsites or Myersians. However I don't think these people count as "normal atheists." From what I've seen of them they're more like someone with an odd form of Asperger's or OCD. This makes them more common, and louder, online but it doesn't make them average. Also I'm not meaning this to be disparaging as one of my nephews has Asperger's.

Incest is not merely wrong by convention, it is wrong in essence; else why are so many idiots and monsters born the children of incest?

The problem with all of the pragmatic/non-deistic arguments suggesting that an incest taboo can be maintained in the absence of God is that they still appeal to some purportedly objective, rational first principle (e.g. Thomas R.'s "emotional black hole" and genetics arguments, JPL's "emotional stunting" argument, and MW's argument about the "point of sexual reproduction")--usually consisting in some form of consequentialism.

In the absence of some superordinate authority, however, there simply is no such thing as a rational first principle (MacIntyre has much to say about this, although he might--might--start with "tradition of enquiry" rather than just appealing to God directly); instead we are left with some manner of couching "I like this" in language that purports to be objective and rational. The contentions made above by Thomas R., JPL and MW are based upon utterly arbitrary value judgments about the proper ends of a given policy -- or at least equally as arbitrary as those they accuse religious believers of making. Without appeal to some overarching or external norm-establishing authority, this type of reasoning is all we're left with--and it eventually collapses of its own illogic--hence the arguments by some that normalization of incest is next. Well, of course it is, because absent some externally imposed authority, we're left with trying to manufacture pragmatic justifications for apparently arbitrary rules left over from a decaying culture.

What is particularly ironic, though, is that religious believers are constantly accused of seeking to enforce their own likes and dislikes on other people (JPL's comment above: "Of course, what you REALLY mean is MY GOD or Nilhism. God who thinks the way I do, supports my values, upholds my standards, or Nilhism. Or, put more succinctly, 'My way or the highway.'" is a classic example of this), yet most religious believers would acknowledge that their faith commands them to circumscribe their behavior in ways that they might vastly prefer not to do, and not a few of their "political" positions may derive from just such a commanded circumscription.

I suspect that this is due to the fact that nonreligious people, at least to some extent, truly can select their values and norms from the available options based upon both rationality and pure preference, whereas religious believers, once they accept the most basic tenet of faith -- "I believe in God and believe that He requires certain actions of me and proscribes others" -- then they don't have the same options available for "choosing" values -- indeed such a formulation doesn't even make sense.

"Incest is not merely wrong by convention, it is wrong in essence; else why are so many idiots and monsters born the children of incest?"

You realize of course that the vast majority of history's idiots and monsters were born to perfectly conventional non-incestuous, married heterosexual couples?

"As long as they do not reproduce, there really is no rational reason to object, especially considering that it is probably a common practice in Northern Wisconsin." - Charles Cosimano

Hey now!! Watch it, mister. I'm taking offense to that comment, seeing as how that's exactly where I live.

I can say with all honesty that us northern hillbillies have a very strict moral code where sex between brothers and sisters is considered unequivocally wrong. It's too bad I can't say the same for the rest of the world. That's okay, I'll sit here in my parka and sorels and watch you all self-destruct. You know, they do call it God's Country up here.

Pedro, I don't think my "point of sexual reproduction" argument is an appeal to personal preference. I would argue that personal preferences are the result of the factors I described in my argument. Basically evolution attempts to increase fitness and incest decreases it. So it is obvious evolution would reduce the amount of incest that occurs. Maybe you are calling evolution my first principal and here I think I'm being a pragmatist. We can obviously see evolution in the fossil record and the molecular evidence for it in all modern species. So I feel I'm pointing out what is self evident, like claiming that the Sun is hot.

BTW I'd like to thank Thomas R for saying that non-believers can be moral and pointing out not all of us are anti-theists like Myers. I'm either agnostic or weakly theistic depending upon my mood, but I'm definitely not religious. It gets pretty tiring hearing believers rant against the amoral non-believers when you're not doing any of the things that are getting them bent out of shape (except the non-belief part).

The claim that one must either believe in the Christian God or accept incest, would carry more weight if (i) there were the slightest evidence for Christianity, and less evidence against it, and (ii) the Bible gave consistent rulings about all moral issues that vex us today (what does it have to say about abortion, contraception, drug use, the age of consent, tobacco, etc.?).

Who said one must believe in the Christian God or tolerate incest? My point is simply that either there must be an objective and knowable source of moral truth independent of individual moral judgment, or it's all, ahem, relative.

*Granted there were pro-incest responses by some of the more radical Dawkinsites or Myersians. However I don't think these people count as "normal atheists."
Posted by: Thomas R | July 17, 2008 3:51 AM

Just a note Thomas, when Rod posts on an exceptionally provocative topic, I sometimes make a Swift response...

MH, I think you missed my point. I'm not contesting the fact of evolution, and I understand the process by which evolution occurs, survival of the fittest and all. My point is that, accepting the fact of evolution, it nonetheless provides us no basis for the justification of particular "moral" norms. While one certainly can argue that as a pragmatic matter (which itself is obviously an assumed first principle) evolution tells us something about what "ought" to be, there is an equally strong argument one might make that many of the results of evolution are morally abhorrent and ought to be overcome through human agency rather than acquiesced to based on some form of moral authority accorded to the results of the evolutionary process.

In other words, my point is not that "evolution is false" or even that we shouldn't consider the pragmatic points you raise. My point is that they are all, ultimately, utterly arbitrary --or to use Rod's more innocuous term -- relativistic. Your pragmatic selection of the evolutionary process and its purpose as informing your moral reasoning is equally arbitrary as my accepting some form of revealed religion as a guide. Each ultimately depends on a subjective understanding of what is good, just and desirable. Perhaps I am not articulating this point as well as I could...! Maybe I'll just answer Rod's original question:

"If God doesn't exist (that is, if there is no such thing as absolute moral truth), why shouldn't the woman have sex with her brother? They're careful not to risk reproduction, its always been consensual, they enjoy it, and they don't feel guilty. So what's the problem?"

The answer is that absent a theistic concept of absolute moral truth, we can come up with all manner of pragmatic or intuitional reasons, but none of them will achieve universal, binding acceptance, because they are all ultimately contingent on a prior, arbitrary decision as to first principles. One person might claim that "emotional stunting" might occur, while his or her opponent might contend that such "stunting" is a small price to pay for the freedom from sexual repression that comes with destroying such an outdated norm. The problem is that there is no shared rational standard by which to adjudicate the dispute. Now many may claim that this is a good thing, but claiming that there is an absolute moral standard without some form of external authority is an exercise in self-deception.

Interestingly, many philosophers wrestling with this problem end up falling back on something like moral intuition -- which in this thread might be what some have characterized as the "eww" factor. Of course, that just begs the question of what rational basis for morality exists -- we still have to explain WHY the eww factor ought to be listened to instead of ignored and overcome, and the obvious answer is that there really is no good reason why -- Ascription of moral authority to "ewww" is hardly rational. As I argued above, this is, in part, why taboos continue to fall left and right, and why appeals to pragmatism still fail, because they depend on an agreement that certain ends are desirable, which in and of itself is a normative, non-objective discussion.

BTW, I will absolutely grant you that non-believers can be "moral"--unless one defines "moral" as "believes in God," a definition which I am certainly not willing to limit myself to. The whole argument seems like a bit of a red herring, and to the extent the attack is made by believers against unbelievers, it strikes me as incredibly unfair.

"Moral norms would be established and enforced (perhaps brutally) based on customary practice, considerations of ethnic/clan/tribal loyalty, and gut intuitions, including the simple sense of disgust."

And unverifiable supernatural claims to divine revelation make the situation different in what way? To an outside observer, the vast majority of Christian societies have operated exactly the way you described -- they just claimed it was all because it's what God really wanted.

Pedro, I understand your argument now. Actually it's kind of a pickle even with God as the source of absolute moral truth. You have the which God problem, or the what if God changes his mind problem. For example, is eating pork right or wrong?

I guess my point of view remains that biological utility trumps reason, philosophy, and theology. Arguments are unimportant when a behavior weeds out those who practice it. So the moral intuition or "ewww" factor is really based in biological utility.

Really not sure I want to read through all of this. Maybe it's that taboo rearing its head, but the very thought sort of nauseates me. My brother is three years younger than me, decent looking, and a very decent human being. He is big hearted and a poet. He likes cats, and children, when he is in a good mood. He can also cook. He is in many respects, my dream guy. But, like other people have said on this forum... eeewwwww. His wife is very lucky. If she ever breaks his heart I will kill her.

Sibling relationships are certainly special...

Apropros of nothing, perhaps, I read about an Israeli study in which they tracked children of a Kibbutz. These children were raised together in a group setting, rather than in individual families. Interestingly, they found the statistics of children who grew up closely together from around 8 or 9 reflected very low levels of intimate relations or marriages among each other. Those relationships, which, for whatever reason, began a bit later than that, did not reflect the trend. It is possible the protective taboo is more about nurture than nature, that is, it is not the genetic relationship to your sibling, but the fact that you are raised with them from a very young age, which causes the taboo.

Someone pointed out this taboo wasn't universal. The truth is, it very nearly is, though, like all taboos, its existence does not preclude the behavior, it simply emplaces a strong stigma against it.

I've learned a lot about Arab societies, for instance, and here's an interesting cultural rule. Paternal first cousins are generally considered the preferred marriage match, so there is absolutely no taboo against cousins marrying. However, there is a custom by which one can become a "milk" brother or sister - if a woman nurses another woman's child (usually her sibling's but they need not even be related,) that child becomes the milk sibling of the rest of her children, and may not, therefore, marry any of them. The veiling customs also apply - if the child is female, she need not veil herself in front of her milk brothers, if male, his milk sisters need not do so. They are not considered marriageable sets. These sets of children generally grow up closely, as the arrangement isn't done casually, but this isn't always the case.

Okay, just my anthropology input. Have fun with the rest of the discussion.

I would think that, historically, there was more brother-sister incest than today. If a woman had a child and would not name / did not know the father, then, in a small, isolated community, there was a high probability it would later mate with its half-sibling. This suggests that the taboo is more to do with family than genetics, as anotherbeliever seems to suggest.

I'm not quite sure what the legal situation is today. If someone marries someone, and later finds out it is their hslf-sibling (perhaps due to illicit sex or AI), are they allowed to stay married?

I have also heard recently about a couple of cases, one in England (half-siblings) and one in Germany (full siblings), who marry or live together. They did not meet until adulthood, and were then overcome by lust/love. Perhaps people seek very similar individuals as their spouses, and there therefore needs to be a very strong taboo/revulsion against incest, otherwise everyone would pair with their siblings? I have no sisters, so I don't know, but I know a number of brother-sister pairs who are close, but neither has made a success of relationships, and you can almost tell, in fact they all but say, that they wish they could find someone like their brother/sister.

I had a stepsister for several years in childhood, but then we did not meet again until adulthood. We were then both unattached, and felt attracted towards the other, but we also felt a very strong revulsion against taking that anywhere, even though there was no legal or clear moral prohibition.

These things are complicated.

Max, somewhere I must have got off track reading your post and I apologize if I made inaccurate conclusions. Meaning, if I was stupid, sorry. I may have been guilty of something I abhor...reacting to a post rather than reading/digesting it. (I must have misread with a hair trigger because not long ago here and elsewhere I have seen no few wide (or narrow) discussions to wit hetero Aids is a myth. And unfortunately, this has created a new wave of 'free to be me' infections. Sorry for the flop flip.)

Now. Re: my being your big brother? Rod would be the first to tell you that would not be boring. Dangerous but never dull.

Onward and upward in thread land.

RG

"Heinlein proposed the axiom that moral behavior is that which tends toward the survival of the human species."

A thoroughgoing neo-Social-Darwinist would argue that moral behaviour is that which increases the copy frequency of one's genes in the next and later generations. This coincides with Heinlein's idea to extent that the extinction of the human species would reduce one's genes' copy number to zero.

A cultural preservationist (mdavid perhaps??) would argue that moral behaviour is that which tends toward the survival of one's own ethnic group, nationality, religion, etc. This coincides with Heinlein's view for the same reason as above.

The survival of the human species could be given cosmic importance, if one were to argue that the purpose of the universe is to generate self-aware life, as the only such life of which we know is us.

Biocentrists argue that the biosphere is more important than the human species, but that doesn't make much sense in this context, as the biosphere will survive and recover whatever we do, whereas humans might not.

However, I think there are certain futures for humanity that are worse than extinction.

It's nice to see how low some will go -- knew that a general demeaning of gays and lesbians and their relationships had to be lurking in this post. Jim's rule ("any outrage post related to bizarre sexual behavior will be linked to gay marriage, the inherent indignity of gay relationships and/or gay civil rights within 2 posts from Rod, Erin or Max") continues to be validated.

And unverifiable supernatural claims to divine revelation make the situation different in what way? To an outside observer, the vast majority of Christian societies have operated exactly the way you described -- they just claimed it was all because it's what God really wanted.

My point is that a non-theist society is unlikely to be organized around any libertarian or libertine philosophy of live-and-let-live. Like any other human society, it would develop and enforce moral norms, the basis for which would not be absract principles drawn from the works of John Rawls or Robert Nozick, but rather tribal loyalties, established custom, and innate intuitions such as the sense of disgust.

The 2:09 and 2:29 comments above are mine. Sorry for the anonymity. Software here no longers keeps name in default for some reason.

Thanks, Simon. There was the potential for provocation in your initial post (in this tangent), and knowing you I felt that asking was preferable to assuming.

I also thought you should be prompted to clarify, because left alone there will be some (myself of a couple of decades ago being one [grin]) who will impose connotations on your statement. I'll leave what those connotations might be as an exercise for the readers. ;-)

Anyway, we come to the end of the tortuous path to my point: there is a chicken-egg dilemma there that intrigues me: institutionalized religion (IR) is, no question, a solid source for morality. However, one can trace moral systems that developed in the absence of IR (though not usually in the complete absence of spiritual belief). I know this doesn't follow your logical premise, but it is connected in interesting ways. A prominent way is the existence of moral systems that are not (at least obviously) dependent on the prevailing religion(s), or where a conscientious study will see that the moral system is supported by deity without any clear mythos asserting that it originated with deity.

Thomas R, I don't consider myself an evangelical atheist. Frankly I'm an agnostic with doubts about his doubts.

Humans collectively spend a lot of effort on religion, so looking at it through my utilitarian lens it probably serves a useful purpose. Obviously as you pointed out religion provides people with a sense of purpose, as well as encouraging altruistic behavior. So I wouldn't argue with either of those. There's also the issue that morality can fall victim to the Tinker bell phenomena and I can see how religious belief can help prevent that.

My problem is that while I can see the value in it. If you don't believe something, it is pretty hard to will yourself to believe it. Particularly if the evidence seems lacking and you have a bias towards evidence. I also think there's something like a spirituality quota with different people having different amounts of it.

TR: Oops sorry if I got too rough. Still I get the sense atheists are less likely to do this sort of thing, but maybe I should look into the statistics more before shooting my mouth off.
Posted by: Thomas R | July 17, 2008 5:10 PM

No worries. It would be interesting to know if those statistics were available.

An interesting anecdote - when I got to the school I taught at and met the permanent teachers who were, naturally, native citizens of that country (Malawi), the question of religion came up. They was a mix of Muslims, Anglicans, and Catholics. When I told them I didn't go to Church they laughed and one of them said, "When White people first came here to teach they were all Christians, now they are all Atheists!" This was in 1989.

In the group of Peace Corps Volunteers I came in with, the only one I know of who was very religious was a naturalized American originally from Vietnam who was a Mormon.

Hey, I've known many self-proclaimed athiests who were kind and "moral" people. (FTR, the use of quotes around moral is not intended as an equivocation of any kind; just a hat tip to that we all seem to differ on what that word means.)

So, I've known (and know) many such moral athiests. I would venture that most are very good people.

What I don't understand is why. I came close to athiesm in my youth. That is, I came close to becoming one. I was certainly agnostic for many years.

For ME, such a life was one of darkness, chasing pleasure, and a total disengagement from any principle of goodness and morality.

For ME, if I had not turned around, and went the distance to athiesm, I can't help but think that I would have continued a dark and empty path of licentiousness into total despair. I would probably have killed myself at some point.

Jesse Venture once said that Christians are weak people. I'm sure he meant that as an insulted. However, in my case he couldn't have been more correct. Blessed are the meek, and all that.

This 'story' is more indicative of the decline and fall of the newspaper business than anything else. It reads like soft-core porn, not journalism. I'll bet it sells papers though. This is a Rupert Murdoch newspaper, right?

Golly gee wiz, Thomas R, sounds like I hit a nerve.

"Who said one must believe in the Christian God or tolerate incest? My point is simply that either there must be an objective and knowable source of moral truth independent of individual moral judgment, or it's all, ahem, relative."

Well then, Rod, can you give evidence that we mere humans have applied ANY standard of objective and knowable moral truth consistently at any time in our history? Whether it is Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, Islam, or virtually any human philosophy (theistic or non-theistic), we as a human race have shown a wonderful ability to apply the standards of moral truth revealed by them in an incredibly inconsistent and subjective manner.

The fact that adherents to religions have committed atrocities while using the tenets of their religion to justify them does not make religion better or worse than non-religion. It simply makes it equivalent...no better, no worse, and dependent on the interpretations of the individual holding the belief (or non-belief).

"Thomas R, sounds like I hit a nerve." Cleveland.

TR: Umm no. Unless you mean the "history nerve" as I have a history degree. Inappropriate or monocausal explanations for regimes tends to annoy me.

For example one could blame the TaiPing Rebellion on Christianity, or the Baptists, but this would be reductionist and misleading. Hong Xiuquang had several influences and his religion was unlike any mainstream Christianity. The TaiPing Kingdom also arose because of weakness in the Manchus and discontent among Han, as well as Hakka, Chinese. Some blame Christianity for the Thirty Years War, but this is also misleading as power struggles in Europe generally was more significant and alliances sometimes crossed denominational lines during the war. And so forth.

At a blog like this blaming atheists for everything from Nazism to bad breath is probably like shooting fish in a barrell, but I don't think it's good for Christians to get into that kind of lazy thinking.

"The biggies in the traditional 'moral code' - don't steal, don't murder, etc. - is very close to what would be expected using rational self interest."

Well, yes, of course, if one HAS rational self interest. The deep rooted hedonism of my youth tended to trump such a thing.

Don't get me wrong. It's not like I'm a saint now because I'm a Christian. It's just that I'm TIRED! (Hat tip to Blazing Saddles.)

The biblical case against incest is not all that strong. Is it mentioned in the NT? (I can't think of anywhere). It is condemned in Leviticus, but, please, we don't want to go down the Leviticus road, do we?

I can also think of at least these cases of incest which is approved or at least accepted:

1. Sons and daughters of Adam and Eve.
2. Lot and his daughters
3. Abraham and Sarah - half-siblings

So, even accepting a transcendent system of morality isn't really any use for opposing incest. We really have to fall back on social pragmatism and plain old gut feeling. Sorry.

"I have a history degree. Inappropriate or monocausal explanations for regimes tends to annoy me....blaming atheists for everything from Nazism to bad breath is...kind of lazy thinking." Thomas R

My primary history professor, a Harvard-educated Buddhist, didn't impress me either. He was anti-Christian, and it not only made him defensive, but his lessons in world history were sometimes less than credible.

Thomas, if an atheist poisoned an expectant Catholic woman because he thought there were too many people polluting his world, I would blame atheistic philosophy as the general cause of his action. You would accuse me of lazy Christian thinking because I didn't take into account his being abused as a child, his being mislead by biased scientists, his wish to do good as he knew it, etc.

And the beat goes on.

"My primary history professor, a Harvard-educated Buddhist, didn't impress me either. He was anti-Christian, and it not only made him defensive, but his lessons in world history were sometimes less than credible."

TR: I'm Catholic and my college advisor was Episcopalian. The closest I ever got to Harvard was a Jr. High trip to Washington DC. I live in the US Plains and was born in Arkansas.

"Thomas, if an atheist poisoned an expectant Catholic woman because he thought there were too many people polluting his world, I would blame atheistic philosophy as the general cause of his action. You would accuse me of lazy Christian thinking because I didn't take into account his being abused as a child, his being mislead by biased scientists, his wish to do good as he knew it, etc."

TR: It is impolite to create some weird hypothetical and then make assumptions on how the person would answer. It is also potentially hurtful as I'm a fifth child with a genetic disability and an atheist once indicated to me people should not have that many children. He didn't poison babies though.

You're probably a good person and all, but I think you're being a bit unfair is all. A need to believe that atheists are poisoning babies or created Nazism doesn't make it true. Life just isn't always as simple as that. I know people want it to be simple good and bad guys. I mean the militant atheists do that all the time by selectively reading the history of Christianity. And having nuance can look like relativism or wussiness, but it's not really.

If you need affirmation then yes I agree atheism is wrong and can be used to justify great moral evil. I just think many things are too big or complicated to be blamed on atheism alone. Blaming atheism alone for Nazism, or even Communism, is simple-minded. If that reminds you of some mean professor, well I'm sorry but that's not my problem.

The whole "pro-incest" argument is based on effective birth control. The argument was not possible until modern times. However, before you say "duh," check out the book Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Re-Thinks Contraception.

http://www.amazon.com/Open-Embrace-Protestant-Rethinks-Contraception/dp/0802839738/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216580083&sr=1-1

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Closed Embrace: A Greek Orthodox Couple Rethinks Contraception - Again, July 2, 2006
By Alan Friesen (Vancouver, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
"Four years after writing this book, the Torodes have changed their mind on natural family planning. Why? It's apparently too difficult and causes too much guilt to the husband in a married relationship (...huh?). They no longer advocate NFP, and instead condone certain forms of contraception (google "Open Embrace" - one of the top hits is an essay that rejects the principles set forth in this book). This may or may not have any bearing, but they've also joined the Greek Orthodox church - as such, I'm not exactly sure if there's any part of the book's title that's actually true for the authors any more. Do some homework on the Torodes before you purchase this book to see if it's worthwhile to buy it; this doesn't mean that I'm necessarily condemning or endorsing it, but ask yourself whether you'd want to take the advice of a couple who have recanted their position a mere four years after publication."

(www.openembrace.com)

"I'd like to reply to the end of this review. Under our contract, the publisher of this book owns the right to sell it. As authors, the most we can do is share our continuing journey with readers, which we did on our website. --Sam Torode"

IOW, the authors of the book no longer stand by it.

Contraception created the slippery slope that has led to the general acceptance of pre-marital sex, easy adultery, the perception that homosexual sex is interchangeable with heterosexual sex. In other words, the elevation of what were once considered perversions.

Conservative enough for you?

There's an omission or neglect in that view of the change of life since the 18th/19th century. It used to be everyone lived in social surroundings of about 300-500 people to whom you were tied and obligated for life and could not marry out of. Adding unwanted children to the table was not that great a problem, you farmed a bit more intensively. But the surplus population was forced out to the cities, factories, mines, and underpopulated arable land in their teens or twenties. We have now run out of these things- the suburbs of major cities in Texas and Florida excepted. ;-)

We're running out of the natural resources to engage in that behavior, i.e. it's parasitic elements and basis will become less and less tolerated. And people are mobile such that the 300 people/at best 5-10 potential mates basis of social life and the social rules that entailed are fading away. We have also reached such numbers that 2-3% of the population being homosexual is, in the case of the U.S.A., around 8 million adults. Those are the facts that any responsible ideology has to begin with.

"I would guess modern warfare is taking more lives than was the case back then." Bonnie

TR: In terms of raw numbers yes, the wars that occur are bigger. However in per-capita terms they might be lower because they are less frequent and the populations dealt with are larger. The last sixty years might be the most peaceful Europe has ever known. There's no sieging of cities or expelling Jews in Western Europe these days. In Asia wars are likely less frequent as well. China is not suffering from the kind of massive wars they suffered from 1930 to 1950 or 1840 to 1870 or back to the thirteenth century when the khans invaded. Japan is not seeing rebellions of feudal daimiyos or massive conquests of neighboring peoples. India has had wars in modern times, but I don't think it's more constant or kills greater percentages of their population. Even Latin America is, comparatively, less wartorn than it once was.

Although I don't entirely disagree with you on the effects of widely availabe contraception. I think incest would be seen as wrong anyway, for family-dynamic and psychological reasons, but arguments against homosexuality weaken a bit with contraception. Or at least they lose a little something.

I don't even know why we are arguing this! Incest is wrong no matter what way you look at it! C'mon guy, thats your sister! Thats freaking wrong!

That is bologna. I have been researching this for years. Not only is there no real proof of abnormalities. But the source of that nonsense was started by religious groups, just like every other mainstream lie in this world.

At one time incest was a normal everyday ocurrence. This was at a time before technology became advanced enough for man to affect the whole world. Regardless of what you want to believe, sex and marriage is NOT a universal thing. It may seem like a majority. But, cultures and societies have fallen because of an ignorant majority. Majority thinking does not make a fact. And firthermore, our minds are conditioned by society to think badly of our siblings as we grow. We are corrupted by the same people that started the "incest is bad" nonsense. If you were not corrupted with those feelings you wouldnt' say it is wrong. "God" isn't a good enough excuse for it.

Men and women were created to procreate without any idea of marriage in mind. Adam and Eve never existed. Thats a fairy tale. Science has more than proven how man began. Sex was a direct part of nature in its rawest form. Acting strictly on instinct. The concept of sister, mother, brother, cousin. Those did not exist at one time. We simply had MALE and FEMALE. Humans are the only organism that goes against itself based on ignorant beliefs.

Try to imagine centuries ago when all man knew was how to survive on killing animals and eating plants. They were most likely naked because there was no preacher around to throw shame on their bodies. When a little boy or a man got an erection and felt "turned on" it probably wasnt difficult to figure out what to do about it. I would say males probably stroked each other without shame. The same happened with women and everyone basically celebrated it. Pleasure and happiness related to sex is instinctive and does not need intelligence or knowledge. Those things only hinder what is natural.

Why do you think the intelligent and knowledgeable, book smart white man murdered all those uneducated "indians" because they dont put value on people who dont conform to their corruptive ways. This has become the norm of societies all over the world. And that is the source of all the evil that is here.

Anything that is natural and instinctive is pure and meant to be. And incest is just a word(or label) used by men to control people's actions.

So when you judge someone for incest, try to remember that many years ago a father and a daughter had sex and had one of your ancestors. And I bet you dont have a head growing from your hip.

STUPID PEOPLE ANNOY ME.

Just a note to Rod Dreher about this web-page(or blog?I'm not too hip to the jargon) he has established.Well done. Maybe the internet is littered with opinion forums or soapbox sites or whatever, but, being a relative newcomer to the whole scene (this being my first foray into the worldwideweb) I find it quite comforting to hear (somewhat) intelligent arguments being bounced around the globe. From Wisconsin to Arkansas to Denmark(where I am). And even though you might have a large helping of sensationalism going on (I understand, you're a journalist) I hope you enjoy the lively debate your questions elicit.

Dear all,
I do understand the negative outlook towards Incest. Just adding to the point what John mentioned, Incest is just a term given to intimacy and sexual relation between close relatives / blood relavites. The term coined by humans, of some who felt that it was wrong. The question is "Is it wrong?" NO.

I am from India. Basically a conservative nation. Its a mother of taboo to have someone speak about incest itself. I have had sexual relation with my sister and my mother. My sister is 5 years younger to me, she is married 9 years ago. We started indulging at our age of 17 and 12, we have always loved each other.

With my mother was purely extension of our love for each other. She had lost my dad at her age of 27, she was never allowed marry again. We started getting physical from when I was 20 and she was 40. I am married now.

Both do not know I was involved with the other. But, None of has felt guilty about our relationship.

When brother and sister are close in age terms they can often be close emotionally. In the case of familys where parents become divorced the siblings often become even closer. The bond becomes stronger and very close relations can develop. This can lead to incesteous action and is a natural reaction to the fact that they feel left to support one another. This is my personal experience and I feel happy about it. looking back on it I think it was some of the best sex of my life. This was perhaps because of the 'forbidden' nature of the actions. Now happily married but we still sometimes, shall we say, 'meet'now and again?

Incestuous relationships exist only in old testament (Noah) days. the bible says it all. it's extremely disgusting to have sex with your relative. besides, we have our own mind and conscience to know what is right or wrong.