ORIGINAL SIN and IMMORALITY

Anonymous

(Investigator 141, 2011 November)



VIRTUE VERSUS IMMORALITY


The Bible's praises sexual virtue but condemns "fornication", homosexual sex, rape, prostitution and promiscuity:

I Corinthians 6:18 Hebrews 13:4
Galatians 5:16-21 II Timothy 2:22
Colossians 3:5 Jude 7
Ephesians 4:19; 5:3-5 II Peter 2:10
I Thessalonians 4:3-8 Proverbs 6:23-29
Romans 1:24; 6:19; 13:13-14  Proverbs 7


In Investigator 48 I outlined the hurtful consequences of immorality and the emotional, health and economic benefits of virtue.

But there is more: Sexual immorality may have spread "original sin" to the whole human race and helped create all our diseases — genetic, viral, bacterial and fungal.



ORIGINAL SIN and ITS SPREAD

In #140 I outlined what scientific evidence we so far have for "Original sin" (i.e. Adam and Eve's rebellion) and its follow-on doctrine, the "virgin birth".  

In the Genesis story, Adam and Eve were to live indefinitely and die only if they disobeyed God. The story, therefore, implies that humans had immune systems that could counter every pathogen, and self-repair mechanisms to keep the body at optimum health indefinitely. If this was humanity's original situation then the sciences of genetics and longevity should eventually confirm and perhaps duplicate it.

Adam and Eve in the story, however, died. This implies that the human genome degenerated after humans rebelled against God.

The New Dictionary of Theology (1988) under "Sin" says: "On the basis of Ps. 51:5, Augustine defined original sin as inherited sin; he considered that the fallen nature of Adam was transmitted biologically through sexual procreation." (p. 642)

The New Testament similarly teaches: "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all…" (Romans 5:12)

In #140 I suggested that human rebellion changed life to death and health to disability through the following mechanisms:
1.    Altered nutrition;

2.    Expulsion from Eden, i.e. from a safe environment into harsh environments, producing physical and emotional stress, constant danger and hard work (3:17-19), and exposure to mutation-causing chemicals;

3.    "Epigenetics" where genes are modified by people's experiences and the changes inherited by subsequent generations;

4.    Interaction with human-like "ape men" — Genesis implies that people other than descendants of Adam and Eve existed. (4:14; 6:1-4)
I'll focus now on mechanism 4. In Investigator 86 I referred back to #71 and wrote:
In Adam and Eve Not Neanderthals (#71 p.5) I showed where Genesis implies the existence of a race unrelated to the offspring of Adam and Eve but similar enough to permit interbreeding. Science has shown a similar situation between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals — they interacted and a few possibly interbred. This might explain the origin of some human weaknesses and genetic defects. (#86)
In 1996 genetic research proved Neanderthals were a separate species to Homo sapiens. And in 2010 science discovered "the first definitive evidence of interbreeding". (New Scientist, 15 May, 2010, p. 8) DNA was extracted from bone fragments of three Neanderthal females and compared with five present-day people. The researchers began with a: "very strong bias against gene flow" (Science News, 5 June, 2010, pp 5-6) but discovered that the human DNA in non-Africans is 1%-4% Neanderthal!

Genesis partly confirmed despite "strong bias against"!

Danny Vendramini in his book Them and Us (2009) argues that Neanderthals hunted and raped humans for thousands of years!


CONSEQUENCES

All this raises the question of what effects interaction of Adam's descendants with Neanderthals (and other "ape-men") would have had. Physical proximity between people today, even without sexual relationships, can transmit many contagious diseases by skin contact or breathing the same air. Similarly, interaction with Neanderthals, even without sex, would have introduced humans to new sicknesses.

What, however, if Neanderthals (and other "ape-men") mated with humans and produced fertile offspring?

Their genes would then have entered the human genome and further degraded it from its original perfection. Defective genes, entering the human genome by rape, polygamy and fornication, could then be the origin of hundreds of heritable genetic diseases and weaknesses in humans.


This returns us to the question of why sexual immorality or "fornication" is so condemned in the Bible.

The obvious, superficial reason is that biblical ethics are meant to promote health, long life, peace and prosperity. (Proverbs 3:1-2; 12:28; 21:21) Immorality, however, besides generating tremendous conflict, spreads sexually transmitted disease and death — about 200 million deaths in the 20th century alone, despite all our modern hospitals, doctors and antibiotics.

Another, less-obvious, reason, based on my above analysis, is that sexual interaction with "ape-men" introduced defective genes to humans. By continuing to be immoral we consent to the consequences — we approve of hundreds of terrible genetic defects and also of all diseases.



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