A question to all atheists

Yes. Two consenting adults? Not harming anyone? I really don't see why someone can't support this if they support homosexuality.

If referring to relevance to being an atheist or not, the lack of faith in a deity does not drive one or result in incest, unsure why OP made that leap.

If referring to it being morally acceptable (and ignoring the ill-thought out connection to atheism), incest has major social stigma attached, and the violation of that boundary whether consensual or not can lead to severe psychological issues and social rejection. I don't think it is an outraegeous assumption to think that anyone who engages in sexual activity with their own sons/daughters has mental health issues. Psychological scarring and social exclusion aside, morals are largely defined by your country and not religion for most countries in the world. Even in religious states, having worked and lived in both of these countries I feel comfortable stating that I think that Saudi Arabia is an incredibley immoral place in some situations, whereas Abu Dhabi seems to be much better yet is still an Islamic state.

Demographics, tribal and cultural traditions, as well as religion come in to play, but I think it is quite short-sighted to question to morals of atheists based on their lack of faith, when many morally abhorent views exist within institutionalised religions - even though those parts of the religion are frequently ignored.

Whilst I have no desire to get into a debate about morals in religion (my tea will get cold and I don't have the energy to put the thought into it), I don't think that religion should be used as a marker. Different generations within the same family and faith can have wildly different moral stances and benchmarks for what is morally acceptable (votes for women, gay marriage, can I throw stones at a stray dog etc).

Clearly it does, it is addressed to atheists and as such is geared towards people without faith. People might not be focusing on the original question but that's only because it wasn't thought through. The post with the consanguinuity map is interesting because it shows a proxy for incestuous relationships across almost all islamic states. So the nature of the question, in which the morality of atheists is called into question, as if atheists having a unifying code of morality. The premise of the question is flawed and I think it's entirely reasonable to debate the question's vaildity.

Is a 25 year old son, who fully consents to engage in sexual activity with his 55 year old father, according to your idea of morality, acceptable?

Is a 25 year old son, who fully consents to engage in sexual activity with his 55 year old father, according to your idea of morality, acceptable?

But wasn't this the case with LGBT back in the 20th century? (bold part)
Hmmm fair enough. Though I think the development of the two sides need to be taken into considerations (secular countries are more developed). So correlation between one does not equal causation.

Not harming anyone? Incest would destroy the dynamic of a family completely , particularly in the scenario Op has laid out.

Good point about LGBT, although the breach of trust and violation of a safe relationship doesn't come into it with the vast majority of LGBT relationships; unless one considers a child's parent identifying as transexual, in which case similar harm could be done to the child, however this isn't something that they are directly involved in so it's to a lesser extent.

There has to be a line drawn somewhere, a society cannot (or rather, should not) deny the feelings of a large community such as LGBT people, however there has to be a limit. Incest can lead to severe genetic issues and deformity whilst there are no negative physical health effects of having LGBT parents. I don't mean to belittle the psychological harm experienced by some children with LGBT parent(s), but the damage from an incestuous relationship can be so severe that it will take decades if not centuries of campaigning before it stops becoming such a major social stigma and I don't think people would ever stand up for incest in the same way that people did LGBT rights as it's a completely self-serving thing when it involved offspring. Children involved in incestuous relationships almost always have "stockholme syndrome" (I forget the proper term), the same can't always be said for siblings, but the point still stands, it's self-serving and not constructive to society.

As for your second point I definitely agree, and to be clear I didn't mean to imply causation due to religion. Simply that countries with higher poverty rates/strong reliance on support from family (common in developing countries) are statistically more likely to engage in incestuous relationships, at the same time they are more likely to embrace institutionalised religion as a support mechanism as the religous community can do so much good for people/places. The two happen to be related to the same thing, but are not related to eachother.

I agree with your point about increased chance of genetic disorders but I think the OP wanted to leave that out by specifically stating such scenario where children are not involved. Hence, I neither would see it as self-serving or non-constructive; homosexual incestuous relationship still have the option of adopting.

The breach of trust is a good point. Though the scenario can be adapted to something such as brother-brother etc. One where there is little dependence of each other.

So far, what it seems like to me is, the only thing holding this back is the lack numbers of incestuous individuals and how to tackle the complexity of making restrictions on specific genders being allowed to commit to this, in order to prevent births of deformed children.



Agreed.

Yeah fair, when children aren't involved and it's between a 25yr old and 55 yr old it's very different. Although what someone would have to go through to start something like that as an adult must be so severe, and as such the father would be taking advantage of his vulnerable son. The (somewhat vulgar) phrase "a shoulder to cry on becomes a dick to ride on" comes into play here, although if it was the son instigating I can't see a moral issue tbh, not that I agree with it because I think it is inherrently wrong, but for no specific reason.

Wtf?! That's a bit too deep but I get what you mean.

I think the reason why you think it's wrong is mainly social norms and one could argue human instinct.

People are saying morality is subjective to the individual and completely irrelevant to atheism as a whole. I agree but I think it's a pointless statement to make. The OP asks opinions from individuals of a particular group (maybe not an actual group but you get what I mean).

You can still answer the question from your own personal moral grounds if you are atheist. Though, I've yet to see a suitable justification to those who say "it's wrong". In this situation, the whole "if two people love each other, why not?" doesn't seem to be compatible.

Atheisism is based on science.

Well that's a bizarrely dogmatic statement. Tell me, do you have a book I can check to tell me what else I believe and why? Perhaps it includes an index to check as to what I've studied and which conclusions I'm allowed to draw, as you seem to be expertly informed on decisions atheists are allowed to make.

Perhaps what you meant to say was that you believe atheism is based on science. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but your beliefs are not the same as fact. I state that as a personal philosophy, and realise your opinion may differ. Clearly.

Thank you for providing me with these religious texts. I shall go out and proselytise this Good News.

Is a 25 year old son, who fully consents to engage in sexual activity with his 55 year old father, according to your idea of morality, acceptable?