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.