User talk:A monotheist

Moral Corruption

The phrase, moral corruption, expresses the breaking down of the standard behavior in human-relation,which can be applied at the both, individual and social levels.

The word, Moral, is an adjective, which signifies the principles of right and wrong, or good and bad behavior.

The word, Corruption, is a noun, meaning break down. It denotes the breaking down of the standard of behavior in human relation.

Unlike ethical principles, which may be applied as a rational response to a circumstance, the moral values develop over a long period of time and form the collective conscience. To this effect, people and societies inherit their sets of code of conduct, which causes conformity of behavior among them.

Having said that, this collective conscience, at some point in time, must have stemmed out of a conscious response to a particular problem.

Some of the moral principles appeared to be universal all over the human societies. For instance, every human society considers incest as a crime against morality or moral corruption; but, how it has come to be so?

As far as biology is concerned, sex is the best mechanism for maintaining the population of the species. Furthermore, the members of the prehistorical tribal societies, in order to insure their continuity, must have had sexual relationship with their closest relatives, such as brothers and sisters. Even from the monotheistic tradition, it appears to have been so. For examples, from the mythology of Adam and Eve, it appears that they had a couple of twins, Cain and his twin sister and Abel and his twin sister.

Later on, Cain marries Abel's twin sister and Abel marries Cain's twin sister. In another word, they married their own sisters because it was the way for maintaining the population.

Similarly, from the ancient Egyptian text, it appears that the pharaohs married their own closed relatives to maintain their social and biological status; or from the monotheistic texts it appears that Abraham married his half sister; or that Lot, the Abraham's nephew, was drunk by his own daughters in order to have sex with him so they could maintain his offspring.

However, some times in the history, that trend was no longer sustainable. Thus, intermarriage supplanted the old trend and continued to form the collective conscience of humanity; and thus, incest has been universally considered to be a crime against morality, or a moral corruption; but is it all?

Benefited from the modern technologies, the contemporary societies are fully aware that, the sexual relationship between members of a family leads to offspring with faulty genes, which affect the communities as a whole negatively; but this knowledge had not been available to the early societies. Therefore, what made the ancient cultures to consider incest a moral corruption.

A monotheist (talk) 01:04, 1 January 2010 (UTC)