Whats the defense to:

[Charlotte408]

The church doesnt own marriage, and that marriage was around long before religion??

This sounds absurd to me, to think that marriage existed before religion, but then again, I’m not the most highly educated in history, and I know like, the chinese people have thier version of ‘marriage’ with many wives…so…maybe we dont have the monopoly on marriage??

 

[1ke]

The Church is not the *author *of marriage, but neither is man. God is the author of marriage. “In the beginning…”.

God ordained marriage in a particular way-- one man, one woman ordered to fidelity, perpetuity, and fecundy-- and called it good.

Various cultures throughout time have distorted God’s plan for marriage (including the Jewish people who allowed divorce and also polygamy). They have also lost their relationship with the one true God. All of this is the result of Original Sin.

Christ restored God’s plan for marriage and reiterated the teaching of “in the beginning…”. One man, one woman, permanent, faithful, and fruitful. No divorce, no polygamy, no concubinage, etc.

The Church’s *authority *stems from Christ. The Church, by virtue of Christ’s authority, does indeed have *authority *over marriage.

See the catechism section on the Sacrament of Marriage.

 

[Charlotte408]

but how would any of that matter to say, an athiest?

he could still say that the church did not create marriage, we could be wrong about our (or christs) interpretation/redefinition of it…

 

[Charlotte408]

could i be safe in saying something to the effect of,

yes, the ‘concept’ of marriage was not created by the church, but marriage as we know it today, being one man and one woman, marriage as a sacrement, was defined by Christ. So if someone wanted to partake in one of those early type of marriages, it wouldnt be ‘marriage’ in the sense that we know it, ie. polygamy???

 

[Aramis]

You’d only be correct in an incomplete way.

The Church defines marriage the way that God defined it, as exemplified in Genesis: one man, one woman, together to be fruitful and multiply, but also to complement each other’s strengths and cover each others’ weaknesses.

The Jews had developed an idiosyncratic set of accommodations for human weakness; Christ pointed out that their method is in fact still adultery.

No atheist is going to accept outright the why behind the church’s teaching; acknowledge, perhaps, but not accept, for accepting it requires accepting that God created Marriage, and that Christ is from God, with God, and is God. Without God as a first principle, all the arguments boil down to this:

It is natural for a man and a woman to establish a bond for the raising of children and the common good of the couple, and such a bond has the best outcomes in general for the children involved.

There are plenty of studies that show the best situation for children is to have both a mother and a father at home, and for them to be a stable pair bonded couple. It shows a correlation to mental health, physical health, social skills, and academic success.

Those show a beneficial nature to 1-each-male-female parental families.

But further, the church sees marriage, that most special of pair-bonds, as being procreative in goal. Even when a couple is barren, marriage is a chance for creating a family… adoption, fostering, and mentoring all are options for the barren couple.

Even noted athiest Richard Dawkins points out the utility of long-term stable monogamous pair bonds in The Selfish Gene. And a stable monogamous relationship that isn’t one male and one female is of no use to the species. The individuals contributions might be, but their pair-bonding is not, aside from keeping the homosexuals out of the breeding pool. Genetically, same-sex couples are a genetic dead end.

 

[1ke]

but how would any of that matter to say, an athiest?

he could still say that the church did not create marriage, we could be wrong about our (or christs) interpretation/redefinition of it…

Well, what’s the context of this conversation?

 

[Charlotte408]

oh my gawsh I feel like I’m DRWONING, but actually I’m holding my own pretty well. I’m on a MB with about 10 other women discussing McCains wife, how she just did the ad supporting gay marriage.

so of course it got into if gay marriage is right or wrong…

I’m bringing everything to the table in a very, neat, nice, clean…I’m not using any - you know I’m being very charitable, but I’m all alone and they’re hitting me with,

what about infertile couples? why are their marriage valid?

or, what about if two homosexuals adopted? or had used some sort of procedure with a serogate…would they then have a valid marriage…

its just going on and on … and i’m all alone!! LOL…but IM NOT backin’ down!

 

[Charlotte408]

ok any pointers:

“I was raised/educated catholic also. I was just reading about the origins of divorce. Interesting. Predates the catholic church. Somehow i thought it was a more modern thing, but i forgot about those s@x-crazed greco/romans!!
I guess it does come back to “what is a traditional marriage” and who determines what a traditional marriage is? B/C the religious version of marriage was what was “in” at the conception of our state laws that means it can not evolve? or better yet, is it not our responsibility to make sure that it does evolve? All interesting questions.”

“Somebody said something about men and women being made to go together. Granted, it takes that combination to procreate, but not necessarily to maintain good health. There are various “combinations” that have health benefits. =D”

The ‘debate’ is taking place on The Views MB…if anyone cares to fly in and help a sista out…

See I brought up that it undermines the institution of marriage, and they said how, and I said take divorce for example…the cause for the high rate of divorce is societys acceptance of it…this will only further undermine the sacrement…already people refer to it as just a contract or peice of paper…

and I dont even know what to say in response to the last statement…I guess it might be better to say the good points and walk away, let them have the last word??

 

[ERose]

oh my gawsh I feel like I’m DRWONING, but actually I’m holding my own pretty well. I’m on a MB with about 10 other women discussing McCains wife, how she just did the ad supporting gay marriage.

so of course it got into if gay marriage is right or wrong…

I’m bringing everything to the table in a very, neat, nice, clean…I’m not using any - you know I’m being very charitable, but I’m all alone and they’re hitting me with,

what about infertile couples? why are their marriage valid?

or, what about if two homosexuals adopted? or had used some sort of procedure with a serogate…would they then have a valid marriage…

its just going on and on … and i’m all alone!! LOL…but IM NOT backin’ down!

One question to ask them is where does it end? If we allow same sex marriages then why shouldn’t we allow someone to marry their daughter or son; dog or cat; a house; etc.

Marriage is between man and woman because a man and woman marriage creates the best environment for raising children. Then the child has a father and mother to help cultivate their masculine and feminine sides which is extremely important for a child’s mental balance.

 

[EasterJoy]

The church doesnt own marriage, and that marriage was around long before religion??

This sounds absurd to me, to think that marriage existed before religion, but then again, I’m not the most highly educated in history, and I know like, the chinese people have thier version of ‘marriage’ with many wives…so…maybe we dont have the monopoly on marriage??

This is like saying that Newton’s Laws were not in effect before Newton.

Based on burial methods, surviving sculptures and paintings, and so on, religion has existed in some form or another for 30,000 years or more. Be certain that humans have been figuring out how to manage family life for even longer. Even the eagles and the geese do that. Marriage, after all, is not about unity that exists between men and women only, but about families, tribes, and communities. The socially-recognized union of man and woman presumes–and always has presumed–that children will result, and that these men and women and their children will live among other families, and need to do so in a fashion that allows peaceful and fruitful cooperative living that survives for generation after generation. (I’m sorry to belabor a point, but people who live in the transient, disconnected, individualistic, commitment-phobic, divorce-ridden culture of our modern cities can become so isolated from the rest of the human race that they tend to forget this kind of thing. They can forget how weirdly unnatural and inhumane is the social system they’ve immersed themselves in.)

Like religion, moral law, and every other aspect of our social and spiritual lives, marriage has been understood in many ways. It does not follow that what we know about the sociology, psychology, and spirituality of humans today is an arbitrary invention because it isn’t what was “invented” by some arbitrary date over the last 30,000 years. I’m not talking about progress as human beings. I’m talking about progress in understanding ourselves and how we relate to God and each other. How we tick may well have changed very little in 30,000 years. Whether we know to act in ways that works in accordance with that is another thing altogether. That can progress, backslide, and progress again, while we as humans remain unchanged.

So, let us say that no, modern physicists do not “own” the atom. The atom existed for eons before physics was even dreamed of. That does not mean that it would not be extremely foolish to ignore what modern physics has to teach about atoms, nor that what we know about atoms might not have extraordinary effects on how we live our daily lives. The facts existed, even while we were ignorant of them, but ignorance is not bliss. The physicists have good claim to our ears on that topic, simply because they know what they’re talking about.

So it is with the Church and marriage. The Church teaches the truth about marriage. The Church did not invent the complementarity of the sexes and didn’t invent family life and didn’t invent the human psyche nor God nor the human soul, but a person would be seriously foolish if he were to let that get in the way of the wisdom the Church to offer about these things, and how this wisdom applies to our own lives. The Church knows what it is talking about. On that account, we do well to listen.

 

[EasterJoy]

but how would any of that matter to say, an athiest?

he could still say that the church did not create marriage, we could be wrong about our (or christs) interpretation/redefinition of it…

“For it is not those who hear the law who are just in the sight of God; rather, those who observe the law will be justified. For when the Gentiles who do not have the law by nature observe the prescriptions of the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law. They show that the demands of the law are written in their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even defend them on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge people’s hidden works through Christ Jesus.” Romans 2:13-16

An atheist, being a human made in the image and likeness of God, “ticks” the same way as a Christian does. He can believe what he wants about whether we are “defining” or “interpreting”, but the facts still are what the facts are. The laws of marriage are natural laws, written in the hearts of humankind, whether or not a particular human is fully enlightened by faith.

For instance, if an atheist goes out and has sex with whomever he pleases and cares not for his children nor his partners, he will leave a course of ruin in his wake. If he commits himself to a woman and stays with her and supports her and loves and welcomes their children with her, he and his family will reap the benefits of that course of action as well. That he won’t believe that this arrangement came from the mind of God does not change that.

 

[EasterJoy]

oh my gawsh I feel like I’m DRWONING, but actually I’m holding my own pretty well. I’m on a MB with about 10 other women discussing McCains wife, how she just did the ad supporting gay marriage.

so of course it got into if gay marriage is right or wrong…

I’m bringing everything to the table in a very, neat, nice, clean…I’m not using any - you know I’m being very charitable, but I’m all alone and they’re hitting me with,

what about infertile couples? why are their marriage valid?

or, what about if two homosexuals adopted? or had used some sort of procedure with a serogate…would they then have a valid marriage…

its just going on and on … and i’m all alone!! LOL…but IM NOT backin’ down!

Well, the Church teaches that couples who are physically incapable of sexual relations may not marry. You have to be able to attempt to have children. It is not required that a child result. The openness to a child is required, though. So if an infertile couple gets married with the idea that “whew! we’ll never have to have children! Cool!” that is not valid: which is to say, that is not a marriage.

As for homosexual couples, their sex is, by its nature, not open to children. Their union is not procreative, not even theoretically. With a surrogate, they’re taking it upon themselves to have a child who will be deprived of a natural parent: not by accident, not by the cruelty of fate, but by the decision of someone who puts their desire for a child ahead of the child’s ability to be raised by his or her own actual parents. Sorry, America, but surrogacy is an offense against marriage, too.

Which always, of course, brings us around to adoption. So ask them: how is a homosexual couple adopting different from an orphange run by two nuns or two religious brothers? (They do know that professed religious take a vow of stability, right?) What does their sex add to their parenting? They can’t love each other and the children without the sex? This is not true. The truth is that they engage in sex for their own mutual pleasure. It has nothing to do with anyone else but them.

 

[EasterJoy]

One question to ask them is where does it end? If we allow same sex marriages then why shouldn’t we allow someone to marry their daughter or son; dog or cat; a house; etc.

Marriage is between man and woman because a man and woman marriage creates the best environment for raising children. Then the child has a father and mother to help cultivate their masculine and feminine sides which is extremely important for a child’s mental balance.

Marriage is between a man and a woman because that is what marriage is. Playing with words doesn’t change that. A duck is a duck, and simply calling a goose a different kind of duck doesn’t make a goose into a duck. A marriage is a life-long procreative union. There have to be sexual relations that theoretically could produce a child and interpersonal relations that theoretically could see the child to adulthood. Marriage isn’t “the best” environment for raising children, it is the environment in which the people who produce the children and the people who take the responsibility for raising them are the same people.

If children were to be taken away from one or both married parents to raised by someone else, that would not be a new form of marriage. It would be an example of marriage that never realize the ends that marriage is intended to realize. People don’t like to hear it, but that is what divorcing and re-marriage is. It is a failed attempt at or an abandoned marriage, followed by finally entering into a valid marriage or else bigamy. If one person takes it upon herself to have a child with one person and raise the child with another person, that is not a new form of marriage. That is intentionally raising children outside of marriage. If two same-sex people raise orphaned children to adulthood, great for them, but that doesn’t make their partnership into a marriage and it doesn’t make their sex all of a sudden into something it is not and can never be. It just doesn’t.

 

[CatholicFireman]

The church doesnt own marriage, and that marriage was around long before religion??

This sounds absurd to me, to think that marriage existed before religion, but then again, I’m not the most highly educated in history, and I know like, the chinese people have thier version of ‘marriage’ with many wives…so…maybe we dont have the monopoly on marriage??

Just a quick answer to the original post: “By His presence, Christian marriage was raised to the dignity of a Sacrament.”

This was taken from the second Luminous Mystery at the Rosary Center’s website.

rosary-center.org/luminous.htm

Something to ponder.

Pax†

 

[cthulhubryan]

what about infertile couples? why are their marriage valid?

its just going on and on … and i’m all alone!! LOL…but IM NOT backin’ down!

It has to do with the intent.

In marriage, the intent is to have children. That means much more than just “insert tab A into slot B.” There is an intention to have children. Homosexual sex is disordered in that there is no intent to have children. It denies the creativeness of the marital act.

As to infertile couples, just remember that for nearly a century Abram and Sarai were an infertile couple.

 

[Charlotte408]

“Several societies and cultures had embraced a monogamous relationship of one type or another, but back 20,000-30,000 years ago life expectancy was a great deal shorter as well. If a man was lost on a hunting trip, or a woman was lost during labor it was expected that the surviving partner would take a new partner. And often a highly coveted woman would be traded by her family to a man that could support her and her family.
.
And yet even then, there were many societies that understood and accepted ho.mose.xuality within the tribes. Many Native American tribes have had this in their own cultures. Many animal species, including primates, engage in ho.mos.exual activities. It is a natural behavior.
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Family units have had multiple organizational set ups depending on the culture. Family units that included multiple spouses, even.
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But marriage originated with the joining of alliances. Combining properties or kingdoms. That was the idea behind having a dowry, to show that you had something to offer in order to attract young men of worth to court the daughter(s). Love and religion had little to nothing to do with it. Marriages were arranged based on the best prospects available.
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A healthy, happy family unit can be formed without any type of marital ceremony or commitment, but the legal marital commitment is desired because of the perks involved. Some perks that were limited to the wealthy (inheritance) and some completely unheard of (insurance) back in the earliest days of nuptials.”

.

 

[EasterJoy]

“Several societies and cultures had embraced a monogamous relationship of one type or another, but back 20,000-30,000 years ago life expectancy was a great deal shorter as well. If a man was lost on a hunting trip, or a woman was lost during labor it was expected that the surviving partner would take a new partner. And often a highly coveted woman would be traded by her family to a man that could support her and her family.
.
And yet even then, there were many societies that understood and accepted ho.mose.xuality within the tribes. Many Native American tribes have had this in their own cultures. Many animal species, including primates, engage in ho.mos.exual activities. It is a natural behavior.
.
Family units have had multiple organizational set ups depending on the culture. Family units that included multiple spouses, even.
.
But marriage originated with the joining of alliances. Combining properties or kingdoms. That was the idea behind having a dowry, to show that you had something to offer in order to attract young men of worth to court the daughter(s). Love and religion had little to nothing to do with it. Marriages were arranged based on the best prospects available.
.
A healthy, happy family unit can be formed without any type of marital ceremony or commitment, but the legal marital commitment is desired because of the perks involved. Some perks that were limited to the wealthy (inheritance) and some completely unheard of (insurance) back in the earliest days of nuptials.”

.

From the perspective of cataloging the familial and sexual experiments humans have tried, you have a good spectrum listed. My objection is that the implicit assumption that having tried an experiment and having come to the conclusion that each experiment tried is a valiable option, let alone an option on equal footing with all others, is not supported by the evidence. After all, few of us think that the most widespread human behaviors are therefore the most worthy of imitation. Prevalence and excellence are two entirely different things. Likewise, few of us would argue that allowing people to engage in the behaviors they want the most passionately is a desirable goal. A recipe for chaos and disaster is more like it, based on history.

Likewise, it does not take a great study of history to conclude that a great many “natural” behaviors that some society or other found acceptable are still not necessarily morally acceptable choices. Even before sexuality even enters the equation, our biological default choices leave a great deal to be desired. Add sexual passion as the primary decision-maker, and the “natural” choices are predictably unwise. If this were not so, we would only need medicine to treat immorality, not codes of behavior, for only the “unnatural” could “sin.”

PS Taking a new partner is very much the norm inside and outside the Church for those who lose partners at a young age, but I have never heard that the fossil record from 20,000-30,000 years ago recorded what social expectations on widows and widowers were. We can only make assumptions about what may have been true, based on the subsistence conditions. There isn’t any record of what those attitudes were. Nor do we have any idea what perogatives widows did or did not enjoy, nor whether being “coveted” had a thing to do with it. For all we know, there was a close relative of the deceased who got the responsibility of taking on the widow and her orphaned children, like it or not, on pain of execution by the tribe. We just don’t know.

 

[Charlotte408]

“You’re right, we don’t know that far back due to lack of documentation. I was thinking about practices in more recent times where there is. Any ideas I may have concerning times prior to documentation is purely presumption.
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I don’t see the various family structures as strictly good ideas or bad ideas or even as experiments. Some may have more merit based on the situation than others, depending on what the over all environment is at the time.
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For example, in a situation where a tribe has been all but decimated due to war or disease a man having multiple wives would be relevant in order to increase the tribe’s size more rapidly. Especially if the disaster causes the tribes women to outnumber the men.
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In the world today, given our population boom over the last century or so, slowing down our population growth is more practical. That would make gay marriages more feasible since these types of family units are unable to reproduce on their own they are more apt to adopt children that have nobody else.
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I’m not comfortable with morally acceptable choices having any weight. With the exception of treating others as you would like to be treated, most moral restrictions are man-made constructs that vary from culture to culture. It even varies from one time period to another within a single culture, such as our own. How long should a woman’s skirt be? How much skin showing is immoral? What hair length or style is appropriate? You’ll get different answers to these questions if you ask them of an Amish person and of your run-of-the-mill urban dweller, just as an example.
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When making an alteration to the “accepted norms” it’s a good idea to weigh the value of the change, its impact on society, the wishes of the public affected, and how it might affect the society and/or environment in the long run.
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No single system will work forever. We have to adapt to the changes in the world we encounter. A hundred years or so ago having several children was relevant because of the high rate of miscarriage, terminal childhood illnesses, and other factors that would reduce the number of children that would reach adulthood. In many cases they were also needed to work on a family farm (in rural environments).
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Today one or two children per family is more practical because of the medical improvements made. (And before anybody jumps, I’m not saying we should be told how many kids we can have. Shoot, I have four myself. I’m just as guilty of contributing to the population boom as anybody. I’m saying ideally we would make that decision on our own.) My point is, societal needs change.”