Dumbfounding bigotry of the Progressives

[Scholar]

Christian debaters often employ the argument of the ethics of incest against secularists. There is a long history of this, and it is surprising to me that secularists have such profound difficulty admitting that consensual incest is neither wrong, disgusting nor fundamentally pathological.

 

The arguments provided by secularists are functionally no different from homophobes in the past. In this case, Craig asserts that relationships between siblings are more prone to end in depression and suicidality. The first thing to note here is that such evidence simply does not exist. There is no study that looks at the outcomes of incestuous relationships between siblings. There in fact is no study looking at incestuous relationships period. The only studies we have look at incestuous abuse and incestuous incidents in general. And the studies including non-abusive behavior do not support this view at all, in fact when incestuous interactions between siblings occur in a consensual way, the impact on things like sexual confidence tends to be positive in the long run in women, for example.

But more pressingly, it wouldn't be surprising if it was the case that incestuous relationships did end up in depression and suicidality, given that such relationships are highly stigmatized and criminalized in many jurisdictions. The effect the resulting shame, social isolation and fear of criminal prosecuting will have on the psychology of individuals is obviously going tend to yield negative outcomes.

It's not different from homophobes of the past, including notable psychologist, having pointed at empirical data that homosexual urges and activities come with shame and self-destructive tendencies. The effects of the bigotry are used to justify the bigotry.

 

There is of course many more secular arguments against consensual incest between siblings and cousins that appear to be strong at first, and turn out absurdly contradictory on further inspection, but I think this example is telling because it would be so easy to simply admit: 

Obviously the solution to consensual incestuous feelings and relationships is not stigma and criminalization, but social support and integration, especially when they are pathological. In relation to our attitudes, we should obviously reject our biological impulses when we know they had a specific evolutionary function that no longer applies in this day and age. This extends to incestophobia as much as it did to things like homophobia or racism.

 

 

What this whole situation reveals is that bigotry and ignorance is not nearly as simple as it appears to be. It's not the case that the secularists and progressives have transcended forms of sexual persecution and witch hunting. In essence, they function the same when they are confronted with things that are sufficiently repulsive to them. The first reaction is not empathy towards individuals in such a situation, but rationalization of feelings of disgusting and hatred.

If we realize this, we can have more empathy with various forms of bigotry, because we can recognize in ourselves the dynamics which lead someone to adopt such views.

[Elliott]

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

Christian debaters often employ the argument of the ethics of incest against secularists. There is a long history of this, and it is surprising to me that secularists have such profound difficulty admitting that consensual incest is neither wrong, disgusting nor fundamentally pathological.

 

The arguments provided by secularists are functionally no different from homophobes in the past. In this case, Craig asserts that relationships between siblings are more prone to end in depression and suicidality. The first thing to note here is that such evidence simply does not exist. There is no study that looks at the outcomes of incestuous relationships between siblings. There in fact is no study looking at incestuous relationships period. The only studies we have look at incestuous abuse and incestuous incidents in general. And the studies including non-abusive behavior do not support this view at all, in fact when incestuous interactions between siblings occur in a consensual way, the impact on things like sexual confidence tends to be positive in the long run in women, for example.

But more pressingly, it wouldn't be surprising if it was the case that incestuous relationships did end up in depression and suicidality, given that such relationships are highly stigmatized and criminalized in many jurisdictions. The effect the resulting shame, social isolation and fear of criminal prosecuting will have on the psychology of individuals is obviously going tend to yield negative outcomes.

It's not different from homophobes of the past, including notable psychologist, having pointed at empirical data that homosexual urges and activities come with shame and self-destructive tendencies. The effects of the bigotry are used to justify the bigotry.

 

There is of course many more secular arguments against consensual incest between siblings and cousins that appear to be strong at first, and turn out absurdly contradictory on further inspection, but I think this example is telling because it would be so easy to simply admit: 

Obviously the solution to consensual incestuous feelings and relationships is not stigma and criminalization, but social support and integration, especially when they are pathological. In relation to our attitudes, we should obviously reject our biological impulses when we know they had a specific evolutionary function that no longer applies in this day and age. This extends to incestophobia as much as it did to things like homophobia or racism.

 

 

What this whole situation reveals is that bigotry and ignorance is not nearly as simple as it appears to be. It's not the case that the secularists and progressives have transcended forms of sexual persecution and witch hunting. In essence, they function the same when they are confronted with things that are sufficiently repulsive to them. The first reaction is not empathy towards individuals in such a situation, but rationalization of feelings of disgusting and hatred.

If we realize this, we can have more empathy with various forms of bigotry, because we can recognize in ourselves the dynamics which lead someone to adopt such views.

Yes, liberals call for inbreds to be stoned to death all the time,  @Scholar......

 

Incest is often from manipulation and abuse and results in genetic problems with offspring. 

[Emerald]

Are you saying that progressives are uniquely "bigoted" against people in incestuous relationships?

I'm very sure that there's not much difference between liberals and conservatives in terms of their opinions on incestuous relationships.  That's probably very similar across the aisle.

Incest taboo is actually universal in varying degrees across all known human civilizations. 

And there's very good reason for it to remain as a taboo, as it has serious genetic consequences for the offspring of incestuous relationships and isn't genetically healthy for society to normalize it as a common practice.

We can look at royal families who used to use incest to keep their bloodlines "pure" as evidence. There were many royals of the past who had serious deformities, mental problems, and health problems because of this normalization of incest within royal families.

I've posted an image of King Charles the II of Spain below. He was the son of an uncle and niece. His jaw was misshapen, which made it difficult for him to chew food or talk. And he died at 38 after a life that was filled with health problems. This gives an insight to why there is an incest taboo... because of the suffering it causes.

So, bigotry isn't the primary motivating factor for that taboo. It's because most people feel the instinctual ickiness of those pairings. And that instinctual ickiness we feel about incest comes from the natural aversion to what's genetically unhealthy for our offspring and (by extension) society at large.

Also, like the previous poster mentioned, incest tends to happen as a result of an older relative taking advantage of and coercing a younger relative. So, there's also often other layers of harm that's folded in with incest beyond just the genetic issues.

 

Edited September 15 by Emerald

[Elliott]

Heroin addicts too, we hate them. Give them addiction recovery, clean needles, but we refuse to legalize it. Bigots, the lot of us.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Elliott said:

but we refuse to legalize it. Bigots, the lot of us.

They legalized it in Oregon and it was a disaster.

Criminalizing hard drugs is not bigotry. It is common sense because easy access to hard drugs means your kids will easily access it.

[BlueOak]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Criminalizing hard drugs is not bigotry.

Its odd though.

Decriminalise use, with a guarantee of no time and no record if they give up their dealers. - Make this widely known. The addicts will keep coming back, and you'll keep nailing dealers. This is done to extent, but it should be a common policy, and zero time no questions asked, if they are true to their word.

Criminalise Dealing - If they rat out their suppliers make a sweet deal, if they don't give them a lot of years. Same principle and somewhat practised already.

Supplying and Producing - Make these sentences astronomical. Labor to pay back society, repay into the system they've drained for a few decades. These people should not leave jail for decades, more if they don't do prison labor.

 

[TheAlchemist]

20 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

They legalized it in Oregon and it was a disaster.

Criminalizing hard drugs is not bigotry. It is common sense because easy access to hard drugs means your kids will easily access it.

There is more to the story. Firstly, drugs were decriminalized without putting any money into social and medical programs to help addicts. This is the polar opposite of what was done in Portugal, for example, where after decriminalization, the money that was previously being spent on the war on drugs was directed towards social programs and other publically funded means of actually helping users use more safely. This directly reduced overdose deaths and reduced costs from treating addicts who would usually get to a very bad condition before getting any kind of support.

Secondly, it is likely that many homeless drug users headed there after decriminalization to use drugs without being harassed by law enforcement. This would not happen if drugs were decriminalized or legalized at the federal level. There are similiar reasons as to why there is such a concentration of homeless people in certain states. People head to those states because there is at least some support, and its a less horrible place to exist in their situation. 

Often when thinking about drug policy, we think about the harms of drugs, but we rarely think of the harms of prohibition. 

Edited September 16 by TheAlchemist

[Elliott]

Bigotry toward fascists too. You need to treat nazis how you would like to be treated, never forget the golden rule. WWII should have never went the way it had, the bigotry toward nazis from the left was unconscionable. Nazis are just like you and me. Be nice with how you speak to and about fascists, they are human beings!

Edited September 16 by Elliott

[Scholar]

On 15/09/2025 at 8:55 PM, Elliott said:

Yes, liberals call for inbreds to be stoned to death all the time,  @Scholar......

 

Incest is often from manipulation and abuse and results in genetic problems with offspring. 

Sure, incestuous abuse does occur but the vast majority is between adults and children under the age of ten, or generally between adults and minors.

There is no evidence that relationships between siblings, and especially adult siblings, are disproportionately manipulative and abusive. Right now both siblings are imprisoned if both claim they consent to the relationship, which means the assumed victim is imprisoned as well.

The idea that incest laws prevent abuse is just not empirical. Incestuous abuse virtually never happens between adult siblings, and it virtually never happens between siblings who are around the same age (even if both are minors).

 

Genetic arguments only apply to having children, which can be legislated separately. Although, to maintain a stance like that consistently would require us to have a more comprehensive eugenics program that would forbid high risk individuals from having children.

Additionally, the genetic risks for siblings are not universal. A subset of siblings (who share the same recessive alleles) will have significant risk, while others might not only slightly elevated risk given their genetics. Meaning, if we wanted to establish a eugenics program, we would probably require individuals to get a genetic test before engaging in procreation while mandating steps that reduce risks to potential offspring or forbid it entirely for specific, high risk cases.

 

On 15/09/2025 at 9:45 PM, Emerald said:

Are you saying that progressives are uniquely "bigoted" against people in incestuous relationships?

I'm very sure that there's not much difference between liberals and conservatives in terms of their opinions on incestuous relationships.  That's probably very similar across the aisle.

Incest taboo is actually universal in varying degrees across all known human civilizations. 

And there's very good reason for it to remain as a taboo, as it has serious genetic consequences for the offspring of incestuous relationships and isn't genetically healthy for society to normalize it as a common practice.

We can look at royal families who used to use incest to keep their bloodlines "pure" as evidence. There were many royals of the past who had serious deformities, mental problems, and health problems because of this normalization of incest within royal families.

I've posted an image of King Charles the II of Spain below. He was the son of an uncle and niece. His jaw was misshapen, which made it difficult for him to chew food or talk. And he died at 38 after a life that was filled with health problems. This gives an insight to why there is an incest taboo... because of the suffering it causes.

So, bigotry isn't the primary motivating factor for that taboo. It's because most people feel the instinctual ickiness of those pairings. And that instinctual ickiness we feel about incest comes from the natural aversion to what's genetically unhealthy for our offspring and (by extension) society at large.

Also, like the previous poster mentioned, incest tends to happen as a result of an older relative taking advantage of and coercing a younger relative. So, there's also often other layers of harm that's folded in with incest beyond just the genetic issues.

 

No, but progressives are uniquely in a position in which they claim to care about minority issues and the rejection of outdated social and moral norms which cannot be rationally justified.

The incest taboo is universal because we have a significant biological drive to be repulsed by it (westermarck effect). The incest taboo itself has no good reason beyond the long term effects inbreeding has on smaller population groups (tribal settings).

The genetic argument is simply not rational. The westermarck effect already will prevent incest between siblings from ever being normalized or a wide spread issue. The amount of individuals who would choose to be in such a relationship in a society which accepts consanguinamory would likely not outweigh disabled individuals who decide to breed with fellow disabled individuals (which happens frequently due to such individuals socializing together), or simply random pairings of couples who share the same recessive genes.

Most importantly however is that the taboo against incest is simply not justified given that incest does not necessitate inbreeding. We can have a taboo against inbreeding without having a taboo against incest. Individuals can be educated on risks and act accordingly.

Another argument against the genetic risk is that not all sibling couples will actually have a significantly elevated risk. The way recessive genes work, it will only be a subset of siblings who have a significantly higher risk of various birth defects, whereas some siblings will have slightly or moderately elevated risks (both siblings must share the same recessive genes for the risk to be substantial). 

While I would recommend any sibling couple to engage in genetic counseling, it is absurd to stigmatize individuals universally independent of if they want to have children or if their risks are even elevated.

 

Royal families are a bad example because they are an example of forced marriages that happened across multiple generations which significantly increased the chance of multiple recessive genes stacking up. In a free society, individuals are highly unlikely to engage in multi-generational inbreeding.

Bigotry is not the primary reason for the icky factor, that is obvious. The icky factor is a result of evolutionary pressures that make us avoid multigenerational inbreeding within the context of small social groups (in which we evolved in). The bigotry however is a direct result of this ickiness. Much like homophobia, our personal feelings of disgust (that exist for evolutionary reasons) is what drives the way we treat individuals who engage in such actions. We imprison and consider morally abhorrent individuals even if they are not capable of having children (due to age or being the same sex), and we treat individuals as monsters even if they do not plan to have children. We also treat them as monsters even if their risks are not that elevated and they take measures to reduce them, like sperm selection IVF and early-pregnancy monitoring.

 

Society at large will simply not be impacted by inbreeding between siblings, not even to the degree it is right no being impacted by individuals procreating who have various genetic disorders or are disabled. We do not even imprison individuals for smoking or drinking alcohol during pregnancy.

 

Yes, coercion is an issue, but it is mostly a function of the social roles individuals play. We generally do not criminalize step-family incest even though step-family members are more likely to sexually abuse you. The vast majority of incestuous abuse is a function of opportunity, meaning predators have an easy time preying on vulnerable family members given they have access to them. 

Targetting consensual relationships between adults does nothing to prevent such cases, and only drives individuals to pathology as they are driven into social isolation. Remember, if a parent and their child have what appears to be a consensual relationship, both have to fear legal prosecution.

But for siblings, especially those around the same age, it is absurd to treat them as invalid because of the potential of coercion, especially once they are adults. It is simply not consistent that we imprison both of them on the basis of potential coercion. This means that we must prove coercion in the first place to identify the perpetrator and protect the victim.

 

 

The incest taboo makes it less likely for couples to seek out measures that will reduce risks of birth defects, they make it more likely that couples become pathological due to social isolation, and they make it less likely for victims of grooming and abuse to come forward given the profound stigma that comes with such relationships. All of this is basic progressive logic that in any other scenario we would apply the same exact way. But suddenly, when it's incest, we become unnuanced eugenicists who think any potential benefit to such taboos outweighs all the suffering we are inflicting on completely innocent individuals.

Edited Tuesday at 06:11 PM by Scholar

[Scholar]

Also, the argument that incest laws are similar to drug-enforcement simply does not stand up to scrunity.

 

When we criminalized drugs, we specifically reduce the availability of drugs to potential users, In principle, we therefore reduce the amount of individuals who consume and get addicted to drugs.

Incestuous abuse is dissimilar, and has not been shown to be effective at all in reducing abuse, because the laws do not reduce the accessibility predators have to vulnerable individuals. The reason why incestuous abuse is so prevalent is because young family members are accessible and vulnerable to older predators. Incest laws do nothing to mitigate that, and the law has no deterring effect because sexual abuse itself is criminalized already.

It's like thinking that you could prevent catholic priests from raping little boys by making homosexuality illegal and imprisoning consenting homosexual couples. It's simply an absurd notion.

[Elliott]

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

 

It's like thinking that you could prevent catholic priests from raping little boys by making homosexuality illegal and imprisoning consenting homosexual couples. It's simply an absurd notion.

It's more like making raping boys illegal, if it was legal more priests would do it. "But some boys and priests love each other!"

Edited Tuesday at 07:26 PM by Elliott

[Scholar]

28 minutes ago, Elliott said:

It's more like making raping boys illegal, if it was legal more priests would do it. "But some boys and priests love each other!"

Raping your family members is indeed illegal. What is at contention here is whether or not consenting individuals should be imprisoned and stigmatized for their love and codependencies.

We don't put boys and priests in prison when the priest is raping them, because if boys cannot consent, then the priests are the rapists.

For siblings, we put both of them in prison. The consent model here is just absurd, it's a cope to justify your self-righteousness towards a sexual minority that you don't like.

 

People also said homosexuality is inherently rape when it was still stigmatized and illegal. And largely, most cases of homosexuality that were exposed to the public indeed were rape or grooming. Therapists even pointed to the fact that homosexual feelings and actions caused tremendous psychological harm to individuals due to "inherent shame for such unnatural acts".

All of these arguments are repeated for consanguinamory, with no care for empirical reality or coherent arguments.

Edited Tuesday at 07:54 PM by Scholar

[Leo Gura]

On 9/16/2025 at 11:44 AM, TheAlchemist said:

There is more to the story. Firstly, drugs were decriminalized without putting any money into social and medical programs to help addicts.

This is the core problem with leftists. They are so utopian they need everything to be perfect for their plans to work out. And politics is never perfect. Which is what makes leftists stupid.

Leftist thinking; "But if only socialism was implemented perfectly, then it would have worked."

Yeah, well, nothing will ever be implemented perfectly and you are a fool for expecting otherwise. You should know that in America social and medical programs are not a thing and will not be our lifetime for complex political reasons.

Whenever socialism fails the leftist always says, "But it wasn't socialist enough and those damned capitalist ruined it."

You should be smart enough to understand that a capitalist will fuck up all your silly plans. A capitalist will rape and enslave your children. If you don't understand that, that's the problem.

Edited Tuesday at 08:02 PM by Leo Gura

[Scholar]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

This is the core problem with leftists. They are so utopian they need everything to be perfect for their plans to work out. And politics is never perfect. Which is what makes leftists stupid.

Leftist thinking; "But if only socialism was implemented perfectly, then it would have worked."

Yeah, well, nothing will ever be implemented perfectly and you are a fool for expecting otherwise. You should know that in America social and medical programs are not a thing and will not be our lifetime for complex political reasons.

Whenever socialism fails the leftist always says, "But it wasn't socialist enough!"

There is still no good reason to criminalize use. You can fine people for small possession, and criminalize drug trafficking specifically.

 

But either way, the analogy to incest would be progressives wanting to decriminalized/destigmatize all forms of incest, including parent-child incestuous relationships and so forth. There are these sorts of types, but obviously there is a middle ground to be struck where we have reasonable policies that target the most obvious and high risk situation without putting undue pressure on individuals who might already struggle in life.

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, Scholar said:

There is still no good reason to criminalize use.

Typical leftist group-think.

[Daniel Balan]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

This is the core problem with leftists. They are so utopian they need everything to be perfect for their plans to work out. And politics is never perfect. Which is what makes leftists stupid.

Leftist thinking; "But if only socialism was implemented perfectly, then it would have worked."

Yeah, well, nothing will ever be implemented perfectly and you are a fool for expecting otherwise. You should know that in America social and medical programs are not a thing and will not be our lifetime for complex political reasons.

Whenever socialism fails the leftist always says, "But it wasn't socialist enough and those damned capitalist ruined it."

You should be smart enough to understand that capitalists will fuck you up.

Socialism is stupid, but a little welfare as we have here in Europe ain't no socialism and is a smart goal the leftists should pursue to have in America as we have here in Europe.

There aren't any "utopian complex political reasons" why Europe like healthcare systems couldn't be implemented in America. 

The leftists are right in that regard for blaming this on the capitalist devils that see us nothing more than cows to be milked dry.

[Scholar]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

Typical leftist group-think.

I literally have no contact with any leftists, and don't consume any leftist media. How is that group think lol?

 

Sometimes you are very reactionary Leo.

[Leo Gura]

12 minutes ago, Scholar said:

I literally have no contact with any leftists, and don't consume any leftist media. How is that group think lol?

You don't consume leftist ideas? You just invented drug decriminalization agenda on your own sitting in a cave?

Quote

Sometimes you are very reactionary Leo.

A necessary counter-balance to leftist myopia.

Leftists do not question their own positions.

Maybe you are not a leftist, but this problem is very widespread and general.

Edited Tuesday at 08:18 PM by Leo Gura

[Scholar]

Just now, Leo Gura said:

You don't consume leftist ideas? You just invented drug decriminalization agenda on your own sitting in a cave?

I don't live in the US, we have arrived in the 21st century over here.

 

To me, putting addicts in prison is absurd. You punish the victims of a crime for the fact that they are victimized, and with your industrial prison complex, you just produce more criminals that way.

 

None of this is myopic. Myopic is to burden the entire society by further pathologizing individuals instead of helping them with their addictions.

[Daniel Balan]

5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You don't consume leftist ideas? You just invented drug decriminalization agenda on your own sitting in a cave?

You are wrong here Leo. If someone is at stage green development-wise, that person even if he is the last person on earth, will have the stage green worldview regardless of their environment. 

A stage green person in Russia is opposing the Ukraine war even though he doesn't have access to WWW internet and all he can access is state sponsored propaganda.

Edited Tuesday at 08:23 PM by Daniel Balan