Please read my post on truth as it relates to the bible to pick up our context here. This post was from a class I have addressing the ethical issues of incest. While I expect most people don't stop by redemptiovox for the latest in incest news I believe this post speaks to the "how" of finding truth in reality that is pointed to by a source of revlelation. This is inresponse to a question: Is there an ethical element to incest?
I wonder if we could argue this point:
1. Virtually every human culture in the known history of the world has considered incest taboo.
2. There are very few virtually universal taboos of this kind.
3. I find that such a commonality on such a scale must be attributed to one's membership to the human race (or human nature).
Therefore I find it reasonable to conclude that there is something in our nature as humans that finds incest inappropriate behavior. One may argue that there may have been a few cultures which may have accepted such behavior. While this may be true we find cultural anomalies to all virtually universal taboos. There are cannibalistic cultures, cultures that have sacrificed innocent children and cultures that may have approved of incest. These clearly are the anomaly. We see this on an individual level almost every night on television. Some heinous crime is being reported to include acts that nearly any member of the culture would find reprehensible. This behavior is not normative or acceptable simply because it occurs, in fact it only speaks to our conviction on a wide variety of base issues.
I read a book recently and in it a writer noted studies which showed that foods which virtually universally smell disgusting are often bad for us if not dangerous. His conclusion is that humans can use their senses to recognize something is bad for them even if they cannot understand all the science/reasons. I believe this may be the case here. We have a sense about us on issues such as incest that tell us it's inappropriate even if we cannot understand all the reasons. This lack of understanding doesn't invalidate the sense any more than not understanding why a food would be bad could cause the food to become good.
Bottom line, there seems to be something in humanity which recognizes that incest is inappropriate.
MN - Ryan
Comments