Everyone who thinks that marriage does not have a religious meaning simply doesn't know what they're talking about. Fullstop.
It is an indisputable fact that marriage is a holy Catholic sacrament. Everyone who denies that hard fact is too delusional to be worth having any kind of discussion with, and certainly should not be involved with any kind of work in a scientfic field.
That's not a correction, it's the exact same statement.Correction: It is an indisputable fact that, in Catholicism, marriage is a holy Catholic sacrament.
Neither logic nor language works that way. If a religious rite called marriage exists (which it factually does), the statement that marriage does not have a religious meaning is simply false. It doesn't become true no matter how many people mistakenly think so. Even non-religious folks have to accept this truth, otherwise they just aren't making any kind of logical sense.I don't think that anyone denies that marriage is a holy vow or sacrament or whatever applies in religions... It's just that it's nothing religious OUTSIDE of those boundaries to people that are NOT religious as well.
In a perfectly secular state, with full separation of church and state, that would most definitely have been a civil union, not a marriage. It would give you all the legal benefits you have now, it would just no longer use a religiously charged word for it.I'm completely, and fully married in the eyes of the law. No Priest or Rabbi or Imam or any other religious person ever presided over vows between my wife and I. And my marriage is just as legitimate as anyone else's... whether they had clergy perform it or not... as long as they filed it with the proper governmental authorities.
Expand legislation on C.U.s to carry all these rights. Problem solved.Civil unions do not carry all the rights that a secular marriage contract does. 1138, and that was the whole issue.
I definitely want C.U.s and marriages separate and not at all equal. Marriage should give none of the legal benefits - including adoption, taxes, etc. - that C.U.s give. None. Zero, zip, zilch. The state should be just as interested in whether or not someone is married as it cares about whether they're baptized, or fasting for Ramadan... i.e., not give a shit about it at all.Separate but not equal, but I guess that's totally fine it was just gay people right?
*facepalm*We are not a theocracy and I don't give a damn if any religion thinks they own the word marriage, because that is Grade-A bull and they don't. They need to stop acting like they do, it's embarrassing. They have their definition and that is it.
No one has denied it so far.
If a religious rite called marriage exists (which it factually does),
Your logic goes the way; if Bob has a green shirt so every boy in a green shirt has the name Bob.the statement that marriage does not have a religious meaning is simply false.
It doesn't become true no matter how many people mistakenly think so. Even non-religious folks have to accept this truth, otherwise they just aren't making any kind of logical sense.
So, as a secularist, I hope to see the day when "marriages" like yours will simply no longer exist, having become fully replaced with civil unions.
No, that's not at all how my logic goes. Wrong on both accounts.Your logic goes the way; if Bob has a green shirt so every boy in a green shirt has the name Bob.
OR
You give the Catholic Church (or some other religion) so much authoritative power over your life that it can redefine all use of some words (even on secular context), and you are demanding everyone to accept that in their lives too.
Wrong. And you know it's wrong, elseway you are, right now, denying that a religious rite called marriage exists. You're simply not making sense.With all due respect, that kind of "folks have to accept this truth" -things exist only in religions. You are, of course, free to believe what ever you want. Do not insist others do share your beliefs. Others might want to have a look what for example anthropology or linguistic has to say in this matter.
Okay. You really don't mind church and state to be intertwined. I get it. I find it a horrid and dangerous stance, but it's your right to hold anti-secular views, no matter how misguided I consider them to be.Why not, then the civil unions would simply be named to "Marriages".
Okay. You really don't mind church and state to be intertwined. I get it. I find it a horrid and dangerous stance, but it's your right to hold anti-secular views, no matter how misguided I consider them to be.
You'll have to accept, though, that some people - like me - value their rights and freedom a lot more than you value yours, and thus want religions and the state kept very far away from each other.[/COLOR]
Is that a common thing to say in English? I've never heard that phrase. (But I'll admit I'm neither a native speaker, nor do my cooking skills extend all that far beyond "throw a frozen pizza in the oven" )When I marry the flavors in a sauce am I to assume it is a religious rite? (well, among serious foodies it might be actually)
Not quite. It's not as black and white as you're making it sound here.InsaneMystic,
If I understand right, your whole point of argument rests on a single claim. That claim is, "There is no valid secular usage of the word "marriage'."
Am I correct?
It can be used in a secular sense, yes, but that still constitutes making use of a word with religious connotations. And ever since the invention of civil unions - one of the best inventions of human culture in the last few decades, IYAM - use of that word has become unneccessary. To keep choosing a word with religious connotations for a legal procedure, when a word without such connotations has become freely available, is a conscious choice against a clear, firm separation of church and state.If the word "marriage" can be used in a secular sense (which pretty much everyone present here accepts), then there is no reason to believe the use of the word marriage by The State is a mixing up of church and state.
Because that's not a claim I ever made... as such a claim would be silly and illogical. I may be silly at times, but not about Things That Matter. And I outright loathe being illogical.I've not seen from you any strong argument for the notion that the word "marriage" has an exclusively religious, and never a secular, meaning.
Marrying the ketchup
There’s a movie that used to play on TV each December
Some generic Santa-as-cupid romance in which
a traditional, dysfunctional family in somewhere USA
finally manage to get their shit together and hold it like a smile
for the camera please at least for just this
one blessedly snow-encrusted day cos Tiny Quentin’s Christmas
wish was for mommy & daddy to love each other
very much by the 25th
I remember
mercifully little about the film but this one scene: a couple
alone in a diner after hours, the guy is tidying the tables
and he opens an empty ketchup bottle and starts to refill it
with another fuller bottle and here he turns
to her and pauses and the tension is as palpable as a breast
He’s gazing straight down the barrels of her eyes
says This is What we call Marrying the Ketchup
At that
the small glass mouths with their surprise
o lips chink a kiss, champagne, their sex
is thick and red, a full-blooded gift
from each to the other, they are no longer
two but a single bottle, spitting and swallowing the sauce
concurrently like a hungry bird
who has learnt to feed itself
In our domestic bliss we’ve found it
more economical to buy in bulk and from time
to time we marry the dishwashing liquid
marry the olive oil, marry the tahini
& this way & that we also, between ourselves,
graft support equalise and fill each other up i.e. get married
in bed, at funerals and hospitals, we marry
with our hands in the garden or in each other’s pockets
I heard a priest at a wedding recently
my dear friends
tap the mic my dear friends
Marriage Is What You Make Of It
and he waved his arms, possessed by love
like you or I can be, pronounced
by the power of ketchup now I see
that you have already married yourselves
Marriage existed before Christianity.
That's not a correction, it's the exact same statement.
Even for someone who isn't Catholic, there can be no doubt that marriage is a Catholic sacrament. It's a plain, simple fact, you don't get to argue against it... unless your argument would be that Catholicism doesn't exist. (In which case you'd simply be factually wrong, of course.)
Neither logic nor language works that way. If a religious rite called marriage exists (which it factually does), the statement that marriage does not have a religious meaning is simply false. It doesn't become true no matter how many people mistakenly think so. Even non-religious folks have to accept this truth, otherwise they just aren't making any kind of logical sense.
In a perfectly secular state, with full separation of church and state, that would most definitely have been a civil union, not a marriage. It would give you all the legal benefits you have now, it would just no longer use a religiously charged word for it.
So, as a secularist, I hope to see the day when "marriages" like yours will simply no longer exist, having become fully replaced with civil unions.
(Sadly, I think the SCOTUS ruling about gay marriage has pushed that day farther away into an indetermintae future. )
I've been known to mock the French tendency for old-fashioned language purism, but you have to leave it to speakers of French to be ahead of both English and German speakers in this way: "se pacser" ("getting a PACS", the French version of CU) has already become a fully regular and natural sounding French verb, distinct from "se marier" ("getting married").(* I think that lack of a decent verb to describe "getting a civil union" is probably a good enough reason to keep using the word "marriage", tbh!)
The fact is, it most definitely is a sacrament to Catholics for everyone (at least for everyone who is not either completely naive/uneducated, nor in denial of real world facts to the point of delusionality). Fullstop. It's simple not a matter of opinion, it's one of cold, hard facts.And no they weren't "the exact same statement". In one (yours) its a sacrament to Catholics for everyone. In mine it's a sacrament to Catholics only. Non Catholics don't believe that Catholicism is non-existent, they believe it and it's tenets are irrelevant... because to the non-Catholics they ARE irrelevant.
While true, these statements are utterly irrelevant to the points I made. They do not change the fact that my statements are 100% correct.Marriage existed before Christianity.
[...]
Marriage "does not solely have a religious meaning" / "is not solely a religious rite" because it pre-dates all existing religions. The fact that religions took marriages TOO doesn't mean they do not / cannot exist outside of religion.