What if the Church did this in response to the same-sex "marriage" debate?

[Biblepoe]

The high quality of the New Family Structures Study’s research design, data collection, and findings, and the firmness of Regnerus’s conclusion that the “consensus” in sociology was exploded, only seem to have encouraged interested parties, in the academy and outside it, to attempt to debunk the NFSS. UCLA demographer Gary Gates assembled about 200 scholars to denounce Regnerus’s article, but to little substantive effect.

Any time 200+ scientists in a relevant field sign a letter essentially saying that a particular study is junk science, there is a good possibility that there is something seriously wrong with it. The way to verify whether or not the study is flawed is to read the criticisms and analyze them.

The primary criticism of the study (at least when people use it to say that families headed by same-sex couples are inferior to those headed by opposite-sex couples) is that it makes an irrelevant comparison. The study, found in full here, basically compares the well being of children of intact mixed-sex marriages to children whose opposite-sex parents broke up, with one parent later having a same-sex relationship. If that is the comparison you are interested in, then this study might be useful (though redundant, because we already know that broken families aren’t ideal), but that’s not the comparison that you and most others are using this study for.

With that in mind, one cannot logically jump from:

1 M intact opposite-sex marriage > M opposite-sex marriage broken up, followed by same-sex relationship

to:

2 M intact opposite-sex marriage > M intact same-sex marriage (under similar circumstances)

(M = mental health of children in those relationships)

If you want to test the latter, you would need to compare the mental health of a representative group of children adopted by same-sex couples in similar circumstances as a representative group of children adopted by opposite-sex couples, then additionally control for the bigotry that will be directed at the children in the first group due to their parents being of the same sex.

here is another article about it which states largely that it changes everything even if some would like it not to, but I will let you read it in there words. I say again Regnerus’s research was sound if unliked by the loud minority.

thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/06/5634/

The article ignores discussion of the actual criticisms directed at the study, it just claims it was sound, gave a link to a different article which it claimed demonstrated its soundness, then went on to discuss the relevant political effects.

 

[down_under]

Any time 200+ scientists in a relevant field sign a letter essentially saying that a particular study is junk science, there is a good possibility that there is something seriously wrong with it. The way to verify whether or not the study is flawed is to read the criticisms and analyze them.

The primary criticism of the study (at least when people use it to say that families headed by same-sex couples are inferior to those headed by opposite-sex couples) is that it makes an irrelevant comparison. The study, found in full here, basically compares the well being of children of intact mixed-sex marriages to children whose opposite-sex parents broke up, with one parent later having a same-sex relationship. If that is the comparison you are interested in, then this study might be useful (though redundant, because we already know that broken families aren’t ideal), but that’s not the comparison that you and most others are using this study for.

With that in mind, one cannot logically jump from:

1 M intact opposite-sex marriage > M opposite-sex marriage broken up, followed by same-sex relationship

to:

2 M intact opposite-sex marriage > M intact same-sex marriage (under similar circumstances)

(M = mental health of children in those relationships)

If you want to test the latter, you would need to compare the mental health of a representative group of children adopted by same-sex couples in similar circumstances as a representative group of children adopted by opposite-sex couples, then additionally control for the bigotry that will be directed at the children in the first group due to their parents being of the same sex.

The article ignores discussion of the actual criticisms directed at the study, it just claims it was sound, gave a link to a different article which it claimed demonstrated its soundness, then went on to discuss the relevant political effects.

that is because the objections being raised were being raised by a biased left leaning organization who did not object to the fact that this study was superior to very study done in the last 20 or so years on the subject. This is the best science of the day.

At best this study means there is no scientific consensus on the issue (at worst the study is right and all objectors are wrong but lets argue the best case for you) which means we have no business endangering children with suspect alternative lifestyles. Every change that has been made to traditional marriage in the last 50 years has caused children of those relations to suffer beyond what is reasonable. 30% divorce rates single parent families where the kids are disadvantaged before they ever had a real chance. and among the (no racism intended) black population 50-60% die before they are born and another 50-60% of those who survive have no father, and are born into object poverty. Cohabitation has proven to be a Disaster for the kids who never know what new man or women is coming into the house. The fall out of No Fault divorce is still substantial and continues to show how bad this idea is. Not only for the kids, but as a preparation for a life long monogamous union.

Into this you argue that because we have no scientific consensus that children will or will not be harmed that we should do it? This is an absurd argument.

We are on a rocket sled on the way down the slippery slope. SSM may come it may not but if it does we will likely blow by it on the way to something more innovative, strange, and even more harmful to our children AND OURSELVES then this current state of affairs or the SSM you are arguing for.

 

[Biblepoe]

that is because the objections being raised were being raised by a biased left leaning organization who did not object to the fact that this study was superior to very study done in the last 20 or so years on the subject.

If you bothered to check the letter, you would have found that they were rejecting the study as junk science that make irrelevant comparisons. On the other hand, most other studies actually make relevant comparisons. It seems that you aren’t bothering to read what either you or I have cited.

At best this study means there is no scientific consensus on the issue

Wrong! The consensus of American psychologists is represented by the American Psychological Association, which on their website says:

In summary, social science has shown that the concerns often raised about children of lesbian and gay parents—concerns that are generally grounded in prejudice against and stereotypes about gay people—are unfounded. Overall, the research indicates that the children of lesbian and gay parents do not differ markedly from the children of heterosexual parents in their development, adjustment, or overall well-being.

If you wish to dismiss the American Psychological Association’s position as left wing or whatever, then you are dismissing the consensus of PhD psychologists as left wing.

which means we have no business endangering children with suspect alternative lifestyles.

Not only have same-sex couples demonstrated that they are as good parents as anyone when they’ve had the chance, but there is no evidence to suggest they are “endangering children”, evidence that you must provide because if you want to assert that same-sex couples should be banned from adopting because they endanger children, the burden of proof is on you. That burden of proof is especially important when children are the victims of anti-gay attitudes when they have to go through the foster care system instead of being adopted by a same-sex couple.

30% divorce rates single parent families where the kids are disadvantaged before they ever had a real chance. and among the (no racism intended) black population 50-60% die before they are born and another 50-60% of those who survive have no father, and are born into object poverty. Cohabitation has proven to be a Disaster for the kids who never know what new man or women is coming into the house.

So because not enough people are remaining married, too many children are born into poverty, and too many people are being irresponsible parents you don’t want same-sex couples to be married or help those children by adopting some! You might want to rethink that, as allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt is a solution to some of the things you don’t like, such as children being impoverished.

Into this you argue that because we have no scientific consensus that children will or will not be harmed that we should do it?

You reading comprehension skills leave something to be desired, because up until this post I only demonstrated that the particular study you were using was junk. But now that you bring it up, the quote above from the American Psychological Association about the concerns brought up by prejudiced individuals being proven unfounded by social science is relevant.

We are on a rocket sled on the way down the slippery slope. SSM may come it may not but if it does we will likely blow by it on the way to something more innovative, strange, and even more harmful to our children AND OURSELVES then this current state of affairs or the SSM you are arguing for.

Now you are just sounding paranoid, like some about five decades ago who thought that allowing mixed-race marriages would just open up the floodgates to all sorts of things that would destroy society. Overall, it sounds like a position of fear.

I recommend that in order to free yourself from such fear you get to know many people who are in families headed by a same-sex couple, like this family headed by a loving couple who opened their hearts and their home to two children they adopted plus other foster children.

 

[down_under]

If you bothered to check the letter, you would have found that they were rejecting the study as junk science that make irrelevant comparisons. On the other hand, most other studies actually make relevant comparisons. It seems that you aren’t bothering to read what either you or I have cited.

Wrong! The consensus of American psychologists is represented by the American Psychological Association, which on their website says:

If you wish to dismiss the American Psychological Association’s position as left wing or whatever, then you are dismissing the consensus of PhD psychologists as left wing.

Not only have same-sex couples demonstrated that they are as good parents as anyone when they’ve had the chance, but there is no evidence to suggest they are “endangering children”, evidence that you must provide because if you want to assert that same-sex couples should be banned from adopting because they endanger children, the burden of proof is on you. That burden of proof is especially important when children are the victims of anti-gay attitudes when they have to go through the foster care system instead of being adopted by a same-sex couple.

So because not enough people are remaining married, too many children are born into poverty, and too many people are being irresponsible parents you don’t want same-sex couples to be married or help those children by adopting some! You might want to rethink that, as allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt is a solution to some of the things you don’t like, such as children being impoverished.

You reading comprehension skills leave something to be desired, because up until this post I only demonstrated that the particular study you were using was junk. But now that you bring it up, the quote above from the American Psychological Association about the concerns brought up by prejudiced individuals being proven unfounded by social science is relevant.

Now you are just sounding paranoid, like some about five decades ago who thought that allowing mixed-race marriages would just open up the floodgates to all sorts of things that would destroy society. Overall, it sounds like a position of fear.

I recommend that in order to free yourself from such fear you get to know many people who are in families headed by a same-sex couple, like this family headed by a loving couple who opened their hearts and their home to two children they adopted plus other foster children.

actually I am not the one calling the APA left wing that has been there stand publicly for some time. They are political on this issue.

No sir this is not a position of fear it only shows how far down the hill we are that you would say such a thing. The LGBT agenda is moving so fast its not even funny. from SSM to a people who actually question weather or not biology dictates weather or not the are a man or a women. This is all part and parcel and it would be just plain silly to think that a win in one area won’t further the agenda in one of these other areas. These people have gone logically from questioning weather or not God ordained men and women to be naturally complimentary to weather or not biology dictated that they should be a man or a women. Once you accept the one the other is not that far down the road. This is not fear this is logical deduction and reading the news. But of course I forgot only things you consider relevant are. I mean haven’t I been told that one orientation question really has nothing to do with the other?

are you really that short sited.

I don’t want this to go down hill further by allowing an even more horrible situation to befall the innocence who are always the ones who suffer. They are not hand bags and no the burden of proof lies with you to show SSM will not further degrade the situation. Which you have not done. strange my reading comprehension skills are up to par but your bias detector seems to be failing you. As stated by several posters that APA is very biased on this issue and have been since the 70’s.

 

[Peter_Plato]

If you wish to dismiss the American Psychological Association’s position as left wing or whatever, then you are dismissing the consensus of PhD psychologists as left wing.

And that…

…not without justification:

nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08tier.html

From the article:

*It was identified by Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia who studies the intuitive foundations of morality and ideology. He polled his audience at the San Antonio Convention Center, starting by asking how many considered themselves politically liberal. A sea of hands appeared, and Dr. Haidt estimated that liberals made up 80 percent of the 1,000 psychologists in the ballroom. When he asked for centrists and libertarians, he spotted fewer than three dozen hands. And then, when he asked for conservatives, he counted a grand total of three.

… In his speech and in an interview, Dr. Haidt argued that social psychologists are a “tribal-moral community” united by “sacred values” that hinder research and damage their credibility — and blind them to the hostile climate they’ve created for non-liberals.

“Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.”

Dr. Haidt (pronounced height) told the audience that he had been corresponding with a couple of non-liberal graduate students in social psychology whose experiences reminded him of closeted gay students in the 1980s. He quoted — anonymously — from their e-mails describing how they hid their feelings when colleagues made political small talk and jokes predicated on the assumption that everyone was a liberal.

 

[nordskoven]

What Church? You mean that damp spot in the road that got run over by the Democrat steamroller along with the 1st Amendment? The Catholic Church has been neutralized as a force in American culture. B.H.O. already disinvited Pastor Louie Giglio from giving the inaugural invocation because of a sermon on homosexuality given in the un-gay nineties. So are we there yet? 1st Amendment down, 2nd Amendment to go…
thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/01/10/pastor-disinvited-from-giving-inaugural-prayer-because-of-sermon-on-homosexuality/
Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph, beloved Mother of God and our mother!

 

[Regular_Atheist]

“most likely” I love the ambiguity here.

Well, I said that because I couldn’t, at the time, claim with absolute confidence that marriage did pre-date the Torah. I’m no historian. That being said, Neanderthal man did have religious ceremonies and spiritual beliefs. Ancient Greece also existed prior to the writing of the Torah, and they had their own marriage ceremonies. Hinduism also pre-exists Judaism, and has its own marriage ceremonies. So Judaism certainly didn’t “invent” marriage, neither the ceremony nor the act of a man and woman practising monogamous sex.

You demand absolute science and then give me your supposing.

Where did I say that I “demand absolute science”?

That’s a rather humorous statement to make, since much of science is supposing. Scientists very rarely claim anything to be absolute fact. Our understanding of the world changes constantly, and continues to grow.

God gave marriage to the first man by my logic (and the logic of the Jewish scholars 3000 years before there were Catholic scholars and the Catholic scholars of every century since for they are the Jews of the new covenant). That is the root of marriage because according to God “it is not good that man should be alone.” As such, marriage is very much a God instituted Sacrament from the beginning.

That’s a very unhistorical point of view, though. That’s a view based on faith, not the facts. As I said, there are religions that had marriages that far out date Judaism. I’m afraid this is not a situation in which ‘your logic’ applies. Either what you’re claiming did or didn’t happen, and I’ve seen little to convince me it did.

It is trying to be changed to something fundamentally different now, but those are its roots. marriage now is a fundamentally Religious idea. That is why the push is coming to change the definition.

Marriage may be a fundamentally religious idea, but it is not a fundamentally Christian idea. You don’t have any more ownership over it than Neanderthal man does, or the Ancient Greeks, or the Hindus… It’s also entirely irrelevant. Marriage exists as a legal arrangement in our society, not a religious one.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Marriage may be a fundamentally religious idea, but it is not a fundamentally Christian idea. You don’t have any more ownership over it than Neanderthal man does, or the Ancient Greeks, or the Hindus… It’s also entirely irrelevant. Marriage exists as a legal arrangement in our society, not a religious one.

This point fundamentally rests on an assumption that Christianity is “just a set of religious beliefs” like any “other” religion of human origin. It loses its cogency entirely if Christianity is in reality the God ordained endeavor it proposes to be. If God created the universe, everything in it including humanity, and marriage is an integral part of the plan by which human beings are to replicate, care for and support new human beings, then marriage was “invented” by God and human beings have no right or authority to change the nature of or repurpose marriage.

If Christianity is the God ordained set of beliefs then its primacy in the matter of its say on marriage is, likewise, authorized by God, regardless of whether you think so or not. Your opinion on the matter has little bearing on the reality. The fact that marriage existed as a biological reality from the dawn of man is not contradicted nor minimized by the fact that its status received a more formal and codified acknowledgement in Christianity.

If God is the authority behind Christianity, then your point is mute because the eternal authority of God comes to bear on Christian doctrine making it the ultimate arbiter of what marriage is and ought to be. Your point depends upon Christianity being something other than what it purports to be.

 

[DrTaffy]

This point fundamentally rests on an assumption that Christianity is “just a set of religious beliefs” like any “other” religion of human origin.

Well, mainly the point rests on the assumption that Christianity is objectively indistinguishable from any other religion, at least as far as its validity goes.

Since every religion claims to be the true one, the Golden Rule disallows merely assuming that yours is necessarily the one correct worldview.

If God created the universe, everything in it including humanity, and marriage is an integral part of the plan by which human beings are to replicate, care for and support new human beings, then marriage was “invented” by God and human beings have no right or authority to change the nature of or repurpose marriage.

This does not follow. Either God allowed us free will, in which case humans can invent things themselves and would then have the right to change or repurpose their own invention, or he did not, in which case whatever we do is his will regardless.

If God is the authority behind Christianity, then your point is mute …]

The phrase is “your point is moot”. Sorry to quibble, but I’ve seen this a few times recently - presumably on CAF and possibly from you. “Mute” means silent, “moot” means irrelevant (in this context).

Your point depends upon Christianity being something other than what it purports to be.

Not quite necessarily (although it might), but the Christian position does depend on every other religion being other than what they purport to be - and, thereby, rejecting the golden rule.

 

[down_under]

Well, mainly the point rests on the assumption that Christianity is objectively indistinguishable from any other religion, at least as far as its validity goes.

Since every religion claims to be the true one, the Golden Rule disallows merely assuming that yours is necessarily the one correct worldview.

This does not follow. Either God allowed us free will, in which case humans can invent things themselves and would then have the right to change or repurpose their own invention, or he did not, in which case whatever we do is his will regardless.

Not quite necessarily (although it might), but the Christian position does depend on every other religion being other than what they purport to be - and, thereby, rejecting the golden rule.

But Christianity is objectively different from any other religion as far as its validity goes. Particularly Catholic Christianity which rests on the authority given by the word made flesh in person to Peter (God himself to Peter).

Your understanding of free will is not a Catholic one. He gave us free will that we may choose to do his will. Free will was given that we may choose the True, the Good, and the beautiful. All of which are divine attributes.
All other religions are not the fullness of the richness of Gods truth. No one argued that there is no truth in them. So again this is a very different idea then you stated.
The Catholic position is there is ONE church the rest are separated brethren, or worship communities that all fall within the Catholic (universal) church. (All people are Gods people. The Pope is the Pope of the world)
So ya a bit different then your posts claim just some food for thought the other fella said it beautifully I recommend a reread.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

This point fundamentally rests on an assumption that Christianity is “just a set of religious beliefs” like any “other” religion of human origin. It loses its cogency entirely if Christianity is in reality the God ordained endeavor it proposes to be. If God created the universe, everything in it including humanity, and marriage is an integral part of the plan by which human beings are to replicate, care for and support new human beings, then marriage was “invented” by God and human beings have no right or authority to change the nature of or repurpose marriage.

If Christianity is the God ordained set of beliefs then its primacy in the matter of its say on marriage is, likewise, authorized by God, regardless of whether you think so or not. Your opinion on the matter has little bearing on the reality. The fact that marriage existed as a biological reality from the dawn of man is not contradicted nor minimized by the fact that its status received a more formal and codified acknowledgement in Christianity.

If God is the authority behind Christianity, then your point is mute because the eternal authority of God comes to bear on Christian doctrine making it the ultimate arbiter of what marriage is and ought to be. Your point depends upon Christianity being something other than what it purports to be.

You’re basically repeating what ‘down under’ said. Really, I feel my conclusion makes more sense because, as it currently stands, there is nothing to suggest that Christianity is any more valid than any other religion. If your only argument is a religious one, then you may as well just be ignored. I can see what you’re saying. I can’t argue with the Christian viewpoint, because they won’t try to look at it from another perspective. I think that’s why some people have issues with religions. People become stubborn, and generally will refuse to see things any other way. Though I would like to state that I never made the assumption that Christianity is wrong, or false. Instead I said that there is nothing to suggest it is true, not that it was wrong.

Basically, it’s hard to discuss this with someone who refuses to stop ‘drinking the Kool Aid’, as it were. They’ll claim “Well, Judaism invented marriage!” I’ll say “No it didn’t. Here’s what we know.” I could explain to them everything we currently know, or have discovered, but their only response to this would be “Well, yes, it did.”

 

[mitex]

Marriage is not a legal arrangement and is a Judeo-Christian institution and tradition and the only appropriate avenue for sexual expression

I’ll give you my literal Biblical interpretation from Genesis (I’m a protestant Evangelical) on marriage.

1. God creates the everything on Earth including Adam.
2. Adam grows lonely.
3. God takes rib and creates companion for Adam named Eve who is forever to be his wife.
4. Commanded to be fruitful and multiply.

Marriage=One man + One woman + babies = family: the foundation and bedrock of society.

 

[down_under]

You’re basically repeating what ‘down under’ said. Really, I feel my conclusion makes more sense because, as it currently stands, there is nothing to suggest that Christianity is any more valid than any other religion. If your only argument is a religious one, then you may as well just be ignored. I can see what you’re saying. I can’t argue with the Christian viewpoint, because they won’t try to look at it from another perspective. I think that’s why some people have issues with religions. People become stubborn, and generally will refuse to see things any other way. Though I would like to state that I never made the assumption that Christianity is wrong, or false. Instead I said that there is nothing to suggest it is true, not that it was wrong.

Basically, it’s hard to discuss this with someone who refuses to stop ‘drinking the Kool Aid’, as it were. They’ll claim “Well, Judaism invented marriage!” I’ll say “No it didn’t. Here’s what we know.” I could explain to them everything we currently know, or have discovered, but their only response to this would be “Well, yes, it did.”

The coming of Jesus (the word made flesh) is such a pivotal event in the history of the world we wrapped time around it by general consensus without much objection. There is a push to call before Christ “before common time”. That in itself is hypocritical. What is common about 0 A.D. If they were going to change the time scheme they why not call 0the discovery of penicillin, gun powder, or the combustion engine. Those things are truly common. We have not drunk the cool aid. We are the most valid religion on the planet in that our God became man a dwelt among us and told us what he thought. This is verifiably true. the fact the you persist in your unbelief so you can live as you please is beside the point. more to the point everyone else’s God is our God (there is only one) they just lack the fullness of the truth. By omission, perspective, or totality in some cases. On top of that you have a faith. It is obvious in the face of so much scientific information that validates the Christian position do the detriment of the atheist position. Ask the head of NASA when he verified the primordial molecule theory (now called the big bag) which was formulated by a priest, which is why it was mocked.

There is no getting away from the fact the God becoming man changed the game. Nor can you credibly say that he was not a real person who really existed. If you wish to say he was not God that’s your issue, but you cannot otherwise explain what he did or how he lived or how he was raised form the dead.

For the record God himself invented marriage. He gave it to the first man “flesh of my flesh blood of my blood”. Don’t believe that fine, but when he came as God and man he perfected the law of marriage. It is now (in the light of Christ, which should have been my original argument all along thanks to the other poster for the mild correction) a profoundly religious idea (even more so than it was). It is the coming of Christ that brought the Old testament into sharp focus.
To state it plain you are wrong to say we can be ignored simply because we hold a different point of view given to us by the divine. We are looking at it from your perspective and we can see the damage to the individuals who engage in SSM to there friends and family, to there kids, and by extension to society at large. Deny there is damage if you wish. they did that before the approval of contraception, abortion, and no fault divorce. But the damage done by these ideas is plain to see from here why can you sit there and proclaim that further taking marriage away from its Judaeo-Christian roots would fix the problem? That is not a logical argument. You can’t keep doing what you are doing and expect a different outcome.

 

[DrTaffy]

Marriage is not a legal arrangement and is a Judeo-Christian institution and tradition

There is certainly a Judeo-Christian religious institution and tradition that we call marriage.

But there is also certainly a legal institution called marriage. To deny that is insane.

(Finally there is a social institution called marriage)

Since the word ‘marriage’ actually comes from the Roman legal institution, then if only one of these three can use the word, it is the legal one. Likewise, since it is the legal institution that Governments propose to change (back) that is the one most relevant to the discussion.

 

[Peter_Plato]

This does not follow. Either God allowed us free will, in which case humans can invent things themselves and would then have the right to change or repurpose their own invention, or he did not, in which case whatever we do is his will regardless.

I think you are confusing free will with license. There is a difference. Free will is the capacity to make autonomous choices. That capacity does not entail that we are free to change ethical codes, for example. We have no right or authority to decide, even as free moral agents, to change or repurpose moral obligations such as proscriptions against killing others which do not suit our fancy. Free will does not give carte blanche in areas of conduct, nor does it with regard to repurposing marriage. Having a specific purpose for marriage is not a restriction on free will, though it may be on licentious behaviour.

 

[DrTaffy]

I think you are confusing free will with license.

I don’t think I agree. I’ll try to restate my point to illustrate:

If we have free will, we can therefore freely create things, including social institutions (say a boating club, as an example) that we would have the right to ‘change or repurpose’.

So while free will does not, per se, imply that we definitely do have the right to change or repurpose marriage, it opens the possibility that even if a god did create us, ‘marriage’ could still be a purely human invention and therefore could be something we would have the right to change.

So “God created the universe, everything in it including humanity” need not necessarily imply that marriage is not a human invention and not open to us to change. Likewise, even if it were part of Gods plan that we invent marriage, that need not imply that we do not have the right to change it.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The phrase is “your point is moot”. Sorry to quibble, but I’ve seen this a few times recently - presumably on CAF and possibly from you. “Mute” means silent, “moot” means irrelevant (in this context).

A valid point, but ironic, really, given that you seem to be arguing that “freedom” to use the English language does not ipso facto entail license to repurpose that language any way that I want, nor does that limitation impose restrictions on my free will.

However, you were indeed making a “mute” point, defined as a remark with “no height, length, or width; only position, with the added quality of being worthy of complete silence.”
Refer to the urban dictionary.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I don’t think I agree. I’ll try to restate my point to illustrate:

If we have free will, we can therefore freely create things, including social institutions (say a boating club, as an example) that we would have the right to ‘change or repurpose’.

So while free will does not, per se, imply that we definitely do have the right to change or repurpose marriage, it opens the possibility that even if a god did create us, ‘marriage’ could still be a purely human invention and therefore could be something we would have the right to change.

So “God created the universe, everything in it including humanity” need not necessarily imply that marriage is not a human invention and not open to us to change. Likewise, even if it were part of Gods plan that we invent marriage, that need not imply that we do not have the right to change it.

What you said was:

…Either God allowed us free will, in which case humans can invent things themselves and would then have the right to change or repurpose their own invention, or he did not, in which case whatever we do is his will regardless.

You implied that the lack of freedom to repurpose marriage would be an undue restriction on free will, based on the assumption that marriage was a human invention. However, the fact that humans have been involved in marriages from the time humanity originated does not make it a “human” invention, necessarily. This is only relevant and plausibly true if God is discounted completely as the author of life.

Even on a merely natural level, however, the term “human invention” adds a great deal of ambiguity into the discussion because it renders marriage as a “contrived” kind of thing, essentially detaching it from its biological and natural connection. The family unit comprised of the procreative pair and natural offspring have been the sole means by which the human race has any possible continuity beyond the current generation. This was not an “invention” of human beings, but part of the natural order. The fact that humanly contrived institutions formally defined or codified the terms of the marital partnership, realizing its importance to human survival, does not mean these institutions “invented” the partnership of marriage, only that these collectives realized its value to cultural or political survival. That formalization process does not mean political or cultural entities have any authority or right to repurpose marriage, since its origins are biological and natural, not social or political.

 

[DrTaffy]

A valid point, but ironic, really, given that you seem to be arguing that “freedom” to use the English language does not ipso facto entail license to repurpose that language any way that I want, nor does that limitation impose restrictions on my free will.

No no - you are quite free to use the language and try to introduce new phrases, words or meanings. English has no equivalent of the Academie Francaise.

However, you were indeed making a “mute” point,

Your ‘mute point’ point was not in reply to me. I’m just barging in to nitpick.

defined as a remark with “no height, length, or width; only position, with the added quality of being worthy of complete silence.”
Refer to the urban dictionary.

On referring to that URL I see the example given for that definition is:

“I love deep sea diving, it makes me feel like a mute point.”

So that’s not ‘point’ as in remark, but a point in space. Also the definition differs from what you quote, lacking the words I’ve put in red in your post.

mute point

something with no height, length, or width; only position, and the added quality of complete silence

 

[down_under]

I don’t think I agree. I’ll try to restate my point to illustrate:

If we have free will, we can therefore freely create things, including social institutions (say a boating club, as an example) that we would have the right to ‘change or repurpose’.

So while free will does not, per se, imply that we definitely do have the right to change or repurpose marriage, it opens the possibility that even if a god did create us, ‘marriage’ could still be a purely human invention and therefore could be something we would have the right to change.

So “God created the universe, everything in it including humanity” need not necessarily imply that marriage is not a human invention and not open to us to change. Likewise, even if it were part of Gods plan that we invent marriage, that need not imply that we do not have the right to change it.

Ya but then God himself showed up and spoke directly to what marriage was suppose to be. No fault divorce, Co-habitation and Gay “Marriage” aren’t in his definition. Why does everyone overlook the fact that God became a man and dwelt among us whenever it improves there argument.

Aren’t you the guy who tried to argue “the Roman legal institution” invented marriage in the first place. We have your word on that right?