… are we all committing incest? ewwwwwww.
One of these days I’ll learn how to spell 
Nope – in most states, it ain’t incest if (s)he is your second cousin or more distantly related. (Hence, the term “kissin’ cousins.”)
Now, Adam and Eve’s immediate kids, on the other hand…
Eve was created out of his rib, therefore she was a clone. Is it incest to have sex with your own clone?
Well, a clone would arguably be your twin sibling, so yeah, I’d have to say that would be incest all right.
Isaac Asimov wrote a song about the topic, actually.
Well, according to evolution everyone is related. There is a common ancestor for all humans that is analogous to Adam or Eve. We are all cousins, at least to some degree.
Actually, if God created Adam’s clone from his rib, the resulting person would have been Steve, not Eve :eek:
Zev Steinhardt
Just because we evolved from a common ancestor doesn’t mean we are all cousins. That evolution took millions of years with many different creatures involved. So no, i don’t think everyone is doing incest.
But if you read the bible, when Cain is sent out in the world to wander, there are other people wandering too. Don’t ask me why, but there are. Can i get a christian to help me out on this?
Yes, in fact, it does. What do you think it means to have a common ancestor? If you go back far enough every human has the same great[sup]1[/sup]-great[sup]2[/sup]-…-great[sup]n[/sup] grandfather (or mother). Sharing grandparents is what defines cousins. From a Cecil column that covers this:
I was only talking about human evolution, but we are the cousins of all other organisms as well, for the same reason.
I don’t think so either. Most people who marry are distant enough cousins so that they are not committing incest. However, that has nothing to do with the fact that we are all cousins.
First cousins = share grandparents
Second cousins = share great-grandparents
Third cousins = share great-great grandparents
Fourth cousins = share great (x3) grandparents
Fifth cousins = share great (x4) grandparents
Sixth cousins = share great (x5) grandparents
Etc.
That being said, I’m willing to bet that 98% of the people currently alive in the U.S. (I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same) don’t even know who their great (x5) grandparents were. As a result, you don’t know who out there is your sixth, seventh, eight cousins…
Usually incest is reserved to those relationships that are close (sibling, parent/child aunt/nephew uncle/niece). In NYS, it is legal to marry a first cousin. I don’t think any state in the U.S. prohibits second cousin (or further removed) marriages; and I don’t think most people would consider that incest.
So Chubbs, that being said, please feel free to marry the girl down the block, even if she is your seven-hundred sixty third cousin.
Zev Steinhardt
I’ve heard that asked a lot.
The answe rs usually, back then, the race was healthier and less chance of Cain and Abel and Seth passing along something to their childrne, who HAD to be concieved with their sisters.
As a former christian, I remember hearing the answer to this once upon a time. Due to the longevity of people then, and the probablility that A&E had more kids than just Cain and Abel, those other people were Cain’s brothers and sisters. But incest wasn’t considered a sin until later in the OT, so it was “ok”. I’d be interested in hearing the Jewish take on this one.
Personally, if I’m introduced to a cousin at a family picnic, no matter how far removed she is, it’s wrong. She’s family. Well maybe if she was really hot… 
**Zev_steinhardt wrote:
Actually, if God created Adam’s clone from his rib, the resulting person would have been Steve, not Eve.**
So, Zev, you’re saying that Eve was a drag queen? 
Incest is not a problem if there is no one else in the world. The continuation of humanity overrides.
It was perfectly acceptable for Cain, Abel, Seth and Adam’s other sons and daughters to marry their siblings.
Likewise, there isn’t much condemnation in Jewish literature of the actions of Lot’s daughters, as they thought they were the last people on Earth.
Zev Steinhardt
Yeah, but on the other hand, they ended up parenting the Moabites and Ammonites, so it probably would have been better if they hadn’t done it… (Yeah, I know about Ruth and King David, but still…)
And Mayor Quimby, for this thread, you need another Simpsons sig:
Thanks Captain! That would be perfect for this one, wouldn’t it?! I was thinking of changing the sig. line anyway.
Thanks for the answer Zev, but I was actually wondering about how Judaism expains who Cain went off and married. My bad, I asked the question in the wrong place in that post. Although by the sounds of it, you are agreeing that is was Cain’s brothers and sisters.
Yes, Cain married one of his sisters.
Jewish tradition teaches that twin girls were born with Adam and Eve.
Even if you don’t like that explaination, there is a simpler one. Adam had other children besides Cain, Abel and Seth, including daughters (Genesis 5:4). In addition, there’s no time frame given on the Cain/Abel story except for the fact that it happened before Seth was born (Gen. 4:25). Adam could have had daughter(s) before the Cain/Abel story, whom Cain married.
Zev Steinhardt
I thought you need to have a large gene pool so people can mix and max traits. If you start with 2 the pool isn’t all that.
The argument, I think is that the human race were genetically purer that soon after creation; diversity in genetic traits is something that happened gradually over the centuries, alsmost like, well, [gasp] *evolution[/]. :o
I read that the only reason that incest is bad for your offspring is because we have been avoiding it for so long. If there was no incest taboo, most of the negative recessive genes would have been bred out of the human race thousands of years ago.