by nickpsecurity | 2025-11-16 15:17:30+00:00
In God's Word (Bible), we see hints of human epigenetics. There's also a strong theology of how our behavior influences our children's. Atheists and individualists strongly opposed this until it was largely pushed out of mainstream consciousness. I believe that caused a lot of damage because sins that could damage one's children or society for generations are downplayed as personal flaws or choices with limited effect.

"The LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, “The LORD! The LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth, keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the children’s children, on the third and on the fourth generation." (Exodus 34:6-7)

His wrath often works by simply letting us have the consequences of sinful choices. Examples I've encountered include wreckless driving putting a person's head into a tree, sexual immorality leading to STD's, and greed leading managers to break people's bodies in.the workplace. What jumped out at me here was three or four generations. Would there be a natural explanation for that?

From there, one would look for two things: whether behavior can be passed down at all; whether behavior can change things, like DNA, that are passed down.

On the first, there are sins that seem to move across families. Anecdotally, I've found this is often true even when the child hated that behavior in their parents which should reduce its recurrence. (I'd like empirical data on that.) Tue best evidence was that identical twins seperated at birth also had a startling amount of similar behaviors, down to names they liked. So, we do pass behavior down which has implications for individuals, future parents, and using or evaluating sperm/egg donors.

The other issue is whether one's choices can change DNA. An underlying premise would be whether or not environmental effects can chnage DNA. Stressors like famine or toxic chemicals were confirmed to do this. Both are often caused by sins, like not taking care of one's body or others' greed (eg ruthless capitalism). There's some evidence lifestyle choices can do this, too. I saw one study showing a mechanism for how behavior is transmitted in men which the Bible night imply by putting it on Adam and his bloodline. Those studies need more replication and validation, though.

The last thing was that many countries got worse and worse over time. The specific sins increased until everyone, from adults to children, only did evil. God ordered Israel to wipe out entire people groups, even the children, while listing the sins they committed (including burning their children alive). As I try to understand the morality of it, it would make more sense if our behavior is passed down genetically because some groups could be corrupted beyond all repair. In fact, sparing just one kid later led to Haman in Xerxes' Persia nearly killing all Jews because that bloodline passed its hate and habits down.

So, the data in the long-term has heavily supported the Biblical positions that (a) behavior is passed down, (b) godless, selfish worldviews wreck countries down to the genetic level, (c) it can get to a point of no return, (d) individual choices can reduce or reverse this in large enough numbers, and (e) we therefore should repent and follow Jesus Christ and His Word as a country to receive the blessings, supernatural and natural, that come with it.