Marriage and Atheism

[Feck]

Really ?

[camoguard]

Marriage, IMO, is an artifact. It has it's place as a cultural institution but it was hijacked by Calvin to be a religious and publicly governed institution. It is probably practical to an extent to have kid raising institutions where fatherhood is assumed. But I think we've moved beyond any real benefits of marriage into an age where marriage means what we want it to mean which is relatively nothing in a rigid form that we would grant special privileges.

I'm over marriage as an institution that SHOULD exist. My present girlfriend would opt into a marriage with me because she sees all the social things she wants out of it. But I think she understands that saying publicly "this is true" doesn't make a fact more true. The same is true of marriage. I'm indifferent to actually getting married because it doesn't mean anything special naturally. But if it makes the girl I'm intending to be around feel special and I do a better job of picking than last time, there's no harm either.

[Ayaan]

Give me a few months.

I have no problem with marriage - or any other way people want to arrange their personal relationships (consenting adults being a given). Only you and your partner(s) know what is best for you.

[The Curious Squid]

Give me a few months.

I have no problem with marriage - or any other way people want to arrange their personal relationships (consenting adults being a given). Only you and your partner(s) know what is best for you.

While marriage is definitely not my cup of tea, if you two were getting married I wouldn't miss it for anything (If I was invited of course)

[maiforpeace]

Give me a few months.

I have no problem with marriage - or any other way people want to arrange their personal relationships (consenting adults being a given). Only you and your partner(s) know what is best for you.

Oh, my!

[Woodbutcher]

If two people want to pledge their love for each other in something official like a marriage, I am fine with that. I don't see the need to give a marriage special privileges over any other living arrangement though.

Agree also.

I have no problem with the idea of marriage at all. Given modern thinking, though, it does at times seem a bit anachronistic. Two people who love each other can do just as well raising a family as two other people who love each other and are married. That being the case, marriage merely becomes an incentive because 1) it helps with your taxes and checking accounts, and 2) it's seen as an official promise not to break the union with your partner. I put the latter in 2nd place because of how often people end marriages nowadays! Marriage is no longer remotely "sacred" as it once was. Today, that's just lip service.

Anyway, I suppose I'm happy enough in my marriage. I'd be happier if my wife would occasionally bring other women to bed for threesomes, of course.

Lip service, if done properly, is good!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Give me a few months.

I have no problem with marriage - or any other way people want to arrange their personal relationships (consenting adults being a given). Only you and your partner(s) know what is best for you.

And you know the history.

[Ayaan]

Give me a few months.

I have no problem with marriage - or any other way people want to arrange their personal relationships (consenting adults being a given). Only you and your partner(s) know what is best for you.

And you know the history.

Yes I do.

[Trolldor]

Marriage is a high school performance. Sometimes you're forced in to because picked drama instead of maths, and sometimes you volunteer. Sometimes you get a good audience, and sometimes you get a bad one.
But it's no different to performing the same piece in the middle of the street without ceremony.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Marriage is a high school performance. Sometimes you're forced in to because picked drama instead of maths, and sometimes you volunteer. Sometimes you get a good audience, and sometimes you get a bad one.
But it's no different to performing the same piece in the middle of the street without ceremony.

It works better when you're not acting.

[Trolldor]

It is precisely that, as it currently is (at least in Australian society) it's pretending that you are in a state seperate to, usually superior to, unmarried couples. In that way, it's nothing but a performance.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It is precisely that, as it currently is (at least in Australian society) it's pretending that you are in a state seperate to, usually superior to, unmarried couples. In that way, it's nothing but a performance.

Can't argue with special definitions.

[charlou]

Can't argue with special definitions.

Indeed.



It's interesting that so many posts have responded to the question, What do you think about marriage?, from personal experience ... and rightly so, I think, as marriage is and should be a personal decision between the two people involved. The state should stay the fuck out of such decisions, IMO, and I'm glad to see that's increasingly the case in Australia, despite the conservatism creeping back into politics.




Though I could elaborate, this sums up my own fundamental aversion to marriage well enough:

On another note, I see marriage as a patriarchal anachronism. Weddings I've been to seem to be very much like an exchange. Not to mention the whole 'contractual' thing applied to humans make me feel queasy. We're not goods.

[Trolldor]

What I think marriage should be is an excuse to have a massive party you don't pay for and get lots of useless gifts you trade in to pawn shops or re-wrap and give them to different family members at a later date.

[floppit]

It is precisely that, as it currently is (at least in Australian society) it's pretending that you are in a state seperate to, usually superior to, unmarried couples. In that way, it's nothing but a performance.

TWADDLE! My best friend had been with her partner 5 years when I got married, superior my tush, she was one of the more important role models to me in terms of her relationship - infinitely more so than my married parents! I've seen some god awful marriages and was in no hurry to even be in a relationship for social approval - I spent 10 years alone, but then I had something that is a once in a lifetime thing, a second chance with the one person in all my life who I loved as much as a friend as I did as a lover.

I have another good friend who says strong words are when the heart and the mouth speak one language not two like a politician. marriage is only, and no more than, the extent the heart and mouth are speaking one language from BOTH people. I don't care if 6 billion people marry to impress the Jones', I don't care if 6 billion people marry at all - I care that they can, (only a recent occurrence for my best mate) and I care that whether or not two people are married, if they have given that life long commitment to each other then it should be respected.