You married your relative

So, was the title catchy enough? Time to get back to my more... philosophical (?) posts now. Aren't all my posts though? Nevermind that.

Now, not everyone who will read this has been married. But something we all must realize is that no matter who you marry... you marry your relative. Whether it's your cousin or a stranger from across the globe. There are multiple ways to look at this and explain this, multiple ways to ponder this concept, so I will choose to look at it through the Bible. What else can you expect?

So, Day 6. There were two people. One male, and one female. 6,000 years later, you have over 7 billion people. That's quite the family there! But looking back, I noticed something interesting. In those early days, not only was it acceptable to marry close relatives, but common. As a matter of fact, there were at least two major times in history (creation and the flood) where it was not only common and acceptable to marry close relatives, but necessary as well.

This is a very interesting thought, considering Moses was told by God that close relatives couldn't marry, yet God made two major instances where that was absolutely vital. Now this seems very strange, a contradiction even. Well, what better reason to ponder the subject?

Everything looks different when you consider genetics. If Adam and Eve are our ultimate ancestors, that means all of the genetic material and variability for all of mankind was built into them. Also, since creation was originally "very good", there would be no faults in their DNA. We also now know that information is lost from generation to generation, and errors build up in the DNA.

A simple example I heard is two dogs, each with a gene for long hair and short hair, mate. They produce some puppies with both genes, but some with only long hair genes and others with only short hair genes. The puppies with only one type of gene have lost information and variability.

This is the same thing that happens when humans reproduce. And when you add in the mistakes and genetic diseases, then when two people with similar (imperfect) DNA reproduce, those mistakes compound on each other. However, early in history, with improved health and perfect DNA, these mistakes at first would be nonexistent, and later come about much more slowly.

It would take so long for these mistakes to manifest themself in a dangerous form, that for thousands of years we could intermarry with no problems. And when you look at the timing of things, it makes sense as well. Moses was told that close relatives couldn't marry about 2,000 years (I believe) after the flood. That's a long time for mistakes to build upon each other. When you consider the fact that intermarriage was allowed, and even made necessary, by God early on, and the effects of the fall on genetics, it actually seems to indicate that marrying a cousin or sibling isn't actually wrong morally. At least that's what I get out of it.

But, of course, times have changed. Now it is dangerous for close relatives to reproduce, because of what could happen to the kids. But before these mistakes existed, what reason would there be to keep close relatives from marrying? When we read the Bible, it seems God simply wants marriage to be between one man and one woman (although He also allowed multiple wives for a time... need to ponder that as well), what difference does it make how closely they are related? Assuming no genetics mistakes, of course.

My conclusion after pondering this issue? Well, we all marry our relatives anyway, what difference does it make how closely they're related to us? So I guess that means... incest isn't actually wrong (on a moral level). At least that's what I get out of it. That was really weird to say...

Rewriting Genesis

In these days, many Christians are compromising their beliefs to fit into the world. One way they are doing this is by trying to fit evolution into the Bible. One of the ways they are doing this is "You're stupid for limiting God, He could have used evolution if He wanted to!" However, what they fail to see, is that the Creator TOLD us that He did not use evolution. The creation account is clearly written. If you wanted to write Genesis in such a way that it is obvious the Almighty created everything about 6,000 years ago, in 6 literal 24 hour days, you would leave it just the way it is. On the other hand, if you wanted to write Genesis in such a way that it is obvious the Almighty used evolution and millions of years, it would need to be entirely rewritten. So, I will show you a post I made on another forum recently, where I did just that:

In the video we watched for this week it was mentioned that to clearly state that creation took place in 6 literal, 24 hour days you would write it just the way it is. However, to clearly state that God used long periods of time to create everything you would need to rewrite not only Genesis, but the entire Bible. I decided what it would be like to rewrite just the first chapter (roughly). Tell me what you all think.

"In the beginning, God created nothing. There was no earth yet, and everything was rather boring and empty, so God said 'Let there be light' and nothing exploded and started expanding over billions of years to form the universe. And God saw that this huge, powerful and random explosion that created all light and matter in the universe was good. Since there was no earth and sun yet, He couldn't name the difference between day and night, so He sat around for a few billion years."

"God was bored again and decided to shake things up, so He took some of the random matter expanding through space and directed it to form into the earth over billions of years before creating the sun. Suddenly bored of a giant ball of rocks and lava, He decided to make turn it all into water over billions of years, and He then separated some of the water from the rest with an expanse in the sky. Seeing this work He had done over billions of years, and the earth floating there for no apparent reason, He called it good."

"Bored with just a big ball of water and a bunch of random fire and junk floating through space, He decided to make plants. So over millions of years, he made some of the minerals floating in the mud across the face of the earth and had it evolve into plants. After about the first day, He realized that the plants early ancestors wouldn't even be able to survive without the sun... and that caused a dilema. However, He saw this as very good."

"After having created the plants, God decided it would be a good time to create the sun. [from this point onwards I am adding to what I wrote in the post] After waiting millions of years for the plants to form, while supernaturally holding them together, He finally had some of the swirling gas in space create the giant reactor hanging in the sky now. While doing this, He also caused some floating rocks to start crashing together and form the moon. He would later use these two floating objects, the sun and moon, to signify the difference between night and day. After supernaturally causing the plants to survive for millions of years without the light of the sun, they finally got a break. Looking upon the millions of years of rotting plant matter, horrible weather conditions, and cosmic explosions, He saw it as good."

For this rewrite, I tried to keep the order that we see written in the Bible and explain those through natural processes. As you see, it doesn't work. The Bible says the earth came before the sun, evolution REQUIRES that the sun came first. Evolution also requires only natural processes and no guidance from God. As you can see, in that couldn't happen. Now you either have a choice in this matter, believe what the Bible says as it was written, or believe one of man's constantly changing opinions on the matter. The two don't fit together.