My First SE Interview, Mukilteo Lighthouse Park.

During some of the warmest days of 2023 David from Sound Epistemology went to my hometown beach with myself and Veronica. We were looking to find at least one or two SE participants. We spent quite a bit of time scouting out the best location and asking numerous people if they wanted to do an interview. After being a bit worn down from the long hot day and problems the night before we came across a willing participant.

I was intrigued by the topic; how to break away from generational curses. If one family member has failed why should this failure be passed down to their offspring? She talked about changing your bloodline, a point I didn't hear until we played the video back later that night. This is a topic I haven't thought much about but as I performed a search of what people had to say about it is certainly interesting. I saw videos from athletes who chose to not settle for their parent's mediocrity in sports. They talked about how they found their new success as something that could be passed on to their kids.

It took me until quite a while after the interview to realize that this wasn't what she was talking about. My interlocutor's of generational curses and changing bloodlines was based on Bible verses (and another book that she read.) I don't understand the Biblical explanation for passing the flaw of a parent down to their children. We see examples of kids whose repulsion by their parent's behavior leads them to go as far as they can from their parent's "sin" due to having to deal with the effects of their shortcomings for so many years.

Had I been aware of how she arrived at her claim I would have asked why the Biblical view was the best explanation. A particular sin only seems to get passed on just some of the time. Can we have high confidence that the Biblical explanation is the right one if generational failures are not always passed on?

The Bible's teachings on "the sins from the father" seem pernicious to me. Bad characteristics, as far as I can tell, are not passed on my heredity. This should be fairly obvious by noticing how traits from your close friends rub off on you just like family members. All the evidence I can see right now points to being around a particular person for a long period of time to be the primary driving factor of acting like someone else.

I attended one of my first school's fundraiser a couple weeks ago. It was a chance to get a behind the scenes look at how school's are run. One of the things I learned is that ten families from there are homeless. Instead of just providing the homeless kids with an education the school also gives them laundry services. Whatever screw ups the parents may have committed (if their parents' homelessness came from something they did) the kids should have the chance to be free from most of the troubles that are associated with acts that they didn't themselves did not commit.