Oct 5th 2015, 20:49:13
Originally posted by Atryn:
Originally posted by tellarion:
Non-religious people get married too, you know. Or people from a variety of religions that do not at all agree with each other. I think the opposite is happening here: Conservative Christians are taking what is and has been a fundamental aspect of HUMANITY for generations and stamping their own label on it, then saying nobody else can touch it. That's like me licking a cookie and saying 'it's mine!'.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marriage <--show me where it mentions religion?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marriage <--show me where it mentions religion?
LOL... I *am* a non-religious person that got married, so you don't need to tell me that happens. But I would have been just as happy with a civil union if that option had existed. I didn't go to a church to get married. As far as the state is concerned, my appearance before a judge was enough.
But to suggest that marriage has no religious context is just nuts. You cannot toss out thousands of years of history and say they just "misappropriated the term". Who is they? That is exactly the point. Lots of different religions use the term with lots of different definitions. Trying to then apply a civil standard to that in a pluralistic society like the U.S. - it isn't surprising we have conflicts emerging.
I'm tired of people arguing that marriage is a religious institution. Marriage predates mono-theism and its connection to religion is secondary -- in that originally, all aspects of life were mixed with the pagan religions (from marriage to planting crops, hunting, giving birth, etc.)
Unless you intend to argue that hunting and gathering food, planting crops, child birth, and rights of passage such as "coming to age" etc. are all religious institutions (they aren't), then you have no case for arguing that marriage is a strictly religious institution.
Originally marriage was about securing breeding rights with a woman and in doing so, trying to mitigate the risks for men in raising and providing for a child that may not be theirs (cuckold avoidance).