So, Why Is Incest Wrong?

Albert Mohler blog ^ | Wednesday, December 15, 2010 | Dr. Albert Mohler

[This Just In]

So, Why Is Incest Wrong?

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

There are certain questions now pressed upon us that previous generations would never believe could be asked. One of these is thrust upon us by events in New York City, where a well-known Ivy League professor has been arrested for the crime of incest. What makes the question urgent is not so much the arrest, but the controversy surrounding it.

David Epstein is a professor of political science at Columbia University, where his wife also teaches. He previously taught on the faculties of Harvard and Stanford. Last week, he was arraigned before a judge in Manhattan, charged with a single count of felony incest. According to authorities, Professor Epstein was for several years involved in a sexual relationship with his adult daughter, now age 24.

Though the story was ignored by much of the mainstream media, it quickly found its way into the cultural conversation. William Saletan of Slate.com, who remains one of today’s most relevant writers working on the issues of bioethics and human nature, jumped on the story with a very interesting essay that openly asked the question many others were more quietly asking: “If homosexuality is OK, why is incest wrong?” Related Posts

* Homosexuality and the Bible — One Very Wrong Way to Deal With the Text * America’s Debate over Homosexuality: Are Christians On the Wrong Side of History? (Audio) * “Rights Talk” Collides with Right and Wrong * “Both Wrong and Dangerous” — Scientists Have Worldviews, Too. * “The Land of Never Wrong” — The Real World of Big-Time Sports

[This Just In]

“It’s a shame that this item of the Communist Goals is often swept under the rug by libertarians claiming to be fiscal Conservatives.”

“I personally don’t think it’s possible to be a Conservative without adherence to the immutable, eternal Laws of God.”

This is one of the major flaws in Atheist and Agnostic Libertarians, and why their form of government doesn’t work. I have had several discussions with these individuals who wish to completely deny our Christian history while trying to support a Libertarian form of government.

Our Founding Fathers Christian faith were foundational in the forming of this Republic. Our very Constitution is BASED and designed on Christian principles. You can’t take the engine out of the car and expect it to operate as it was originally designed to.

This fact coupled with the anti-Christ ideology (Socialism/Communism) is why the face of America has changed in such a dramatic fashion.

[DBeers]

I’m no animal expert, but I wonder how common incest is (if you can call it that) in animals?

Maybe the "homosexual" penguins the left idolized and championed as human sexual activity role models were penguin relatives?

[nomad]

So,why is incest wrong? IF you don`t mind drooling, six fingered, banjo playing retreads, then it isn`t. As for me, I`ll pass on that sicko liberal crap.

[GladesGuru]

Mai I suggest forgoing, for the moment, theological, sociological, ethical and other arguments against incest and instead concentrate on the serious, irrefutable, and unavoidable argument against incest.

As proof, I offer the Saudi Royal family - where first cousin marriage has been practiced for many generations. First cousin marriage is common in the rest of the Arab world.

The Saudi Royal Family physician published an article on the genetic diseases of that family, resultant from many generations of first cousin marriages.. Arabs don’t just have an inferiority complex - they are inferior.

Inbreeding did that to them.

Incest is a taboo for genetic reasons! The rest are justifications for the enforcement of the taboo.

[skr]

Dogs and cats don’t care, but inbreeding is the price.

[savagesusie]

Behaviors are learned....the culture provides “right and wrong”. The US has had the Christian paradigm which determined the type of laws and culture we have had for several hundred years. Most of Europe was run by it also up until the 1900’s when the post modern German philosophy started destroying Christianity.

Since the Progressives...they have been destroying the Christian paradigm here....they want the Greek pagan paradigm where there were orgies, incest, pederasty, slaves, etc. A few elites ruled everyone.

The pedophiles (people who want no sexual morality—no Biblical truth) want access to your children. That is stated in their homosexual manifesto. They were perverted while children and desire that “feeling” of excitement by perverting and molesting the young...fixated is what Freud would call it...and they want child/man sex to be legal.

Homosexuality legal and “good”, then incest and polygamy, then bestiality and pederasty like in Asia and Middle East and Africa—in all the non-Christian places, pederasty is rampant because there is no sexual morality.

[Myrddin]

The scientific answer is a very high probability of
a defective offspring due to recessive lethal or
defective genes. Unrelated individuals are much
less likely to bring two identical defective genes
to offspring. There will usually be one good copy
that is also dominant over the bad version. The
religious and societal taboo is a social construct
that memorializes the prohibition so the errant
pairing is avoided.

[Myrddin]

The scientific answer is a very high probability of
a defective offspring due to recessive lethal or
defective genes. Unrelated individuals are much
less likely to bring two identical defective genes
to offspring. There will usually be one good copy
that is also dominant over the bad version. The
religious and societal taboo is a social construct
that memorializes the prohibition so the errant
pairing is avoided.

[Myrddin]

The scientific answer is a very high probability of
a defective offspring due to recessive lethal or
defective genes. Unrelated individuals are much
less likely to bring two identical defective genes
to offspring. There will usually be one good copy
that is also dominant over the bad version. The
religious and societal taboo is a social construct
that memorializes the prohibition so the errant
pairing is avoided.

[Myrddin]

Android phone. Verizon 3g not working well tonight.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

40 years ago I was working on a construction project. Some of the crew was planning to head out for beer after work, I told them I was heading home to babysit so my wife could get out. One of them commented on my wife trusting me to take care of my 2 year old daughter, and he wasn't joking, he thought it was out of line. I've always wondered just where the Hell his head was, just how many men could see their baby daughter or any little kid as a sex object?

Maybe we're naieve, maybe things are worse than we suspect.

[21twelve]

“...heading home to babysit.”

I always told folks when they would say that I was “babysitting” - “No. I’m not babysitting. I’m their dad.” (Just a small button of mine. More of an educational response than an anger one).

Yeah - weird about the wife “trusting” you with the child. However, if I was home with the kids and another mom wanted to bring their child over, I was always very clear that I was at home with the kids, and mom was out. As I understood the way society is with men and children. Even at the park I would get a bit uneasy whening another kid would join my kids playing with me. (I would be the only adult playing, while the moms were all chatting).

The benefits of working from home!

[conservativeimage]

[that's not what girls are for]

A father/daughter relationship is suppose to be special because it's emotionally satisfying without the threat of sexuality to the daughter. Without this threat the girl is more open to share her emotional weaknesses which in turn would be balanced by the insight and logic of the father. This results in the girl having a broader perspective, becoming more savvy about the real world. But when you take away that safety you cause damage to the psyche of the daughter. A thought that should never even be there, a boundary that should be immovable has been proven weak and a secure world has become now inconsistent. That's a dereliction of a father's duty, to allow his child's world become insecure and inconsistent. She needs to learn from example that a good man has sexual control and will not misuse her or be manipulated by her. And that's the kind of man she will seek out. That will result in the propagation of another secure, generational structure.

If we don't want to be accused of attempting to establish a theocracy, we can't say that homosexuality or incest is wrong simply because God says so. But in a culture that is quicker to worship nature rather than God, we can say it is a crime against nature to misappropriate your sexuality when you're a naturally made man/woman, father/daughter. Homosexuality is an abuse of one's sexuality, (and we don't give children to sexual deviants BTW.)

As far as the structure of our country goes, incest and homosexuality are wrong because it is we the people who say it's wrong. According the the constitution, the people are the highest sovereign authority of the United States. And we the people will not legitimize your sexual deviancy by tolerating it or calling it marriage. Not in our name. We can coexist so long as you keep your privates to yourself. But when you make your sexuality a public issue, a national issue, you will by God hear from us! Don't Ask Don't Tell.

[thecodont]

A father/daughter relationship is suppose to be special because it's emotionally satisfying without the threat of sexuality to the daughter. Without this threat the girl is more open to share her emotional weaknesses which in turn would be balanced by the insight and logic of the father. This results in the girl having a broader perspective, becoming more savvy about the real world. But when you take away that safety you cause damage to the psyche of the daughter. A thought that should never even be there, a boundary that should be immovable has been proven weak and a secure world has become now inconsistent. That's a dereliction of a father's duty, to allow his child's world become insecure and inconsistent. She needs to learn from example that a good man has sexual control and will not misuse her or be manipulated by her. And that's the kind of man she will seek out. That will result in the propagation of another secure, generational structure.

Thank you for this post.

[Strk321]

Used to be a time when fathers never watched their baby being born.

[Strk321]

More likely, he thought that the idea of babysitting was unmanly and strictly a woman’s job.

[Strk321]

“I certainly hope that “incest” isn’t at the stage that homosexuality was in the 70’s”

As far as homosexuality was concerned, that party ended pretty fast. And then they thought it was Ronald Reagan’s fault that they were dropping like flies.

[ransomnote]

Thank you for your articulate post. I needed to see these important aspects addressed because it is so much more than just ‘genetics’.
When reading of this man having sex with his daughter, I immediately perceived him as the ultimate betrayer - being the sort of man who, frankly, doesn’t care what happens to his daughter. His preference for his own happiness at the expense of hers is damaging and one day she will realize this. I believe that he ‘groomed her’ the way pedophiles ‘groom’ their victims. By that I mean he manipulated her natural need for a father’s love (of no value to him) to make it sexual (something of value to him). At what age would a man have to start ‘grooming’ his daughter emotionally to accept him sexually? Would have to be young, very young I would think. I don’t believe a daughter raised normally would, at 18, want a relationship with her father. Normal dads encourage independence and caution and perv dads encourage dependence and lack of boundaries. The harm he did to his daughter must have started before she was old enough to defend herself - she probably has no concept of what a decent father is like. So I don’t believe that even the ‘consenting adults’ apologists have a ‘case’ so to speak. If she finds her way through this to mental health, she would despise him for robbing her from the earliest memories on through the sexual relationship - he simply stole her childhood and maimed her future; she just doesn’t matter to him.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

I’ve never believed I had to prove anything about my masculinity like that. “Men” who are that kind of insecure seem pitiful to me.

[miss marmelstein]

We know that the middle-east Muslims are highly inbred due to incest - with the horrible attendant problems. That should be a lesson to these sickies in the West.