Gay Rights- Illinois, USA

[ponderingturtle]

Observing that the culture of ancient Egypt was highly religious is not the same thing as saying "all culture is religious".

But the point seems that there was no culture outside of religion in the ancient world.

Hans pointed out that in a squabble over religious laws governing divorce, Henry VIII started a new state religion--not that the Catholic Church tried to take over anything. It proves that marriage has historically had a strong religious component.

Of course if you look at the time, all politics is religious as well.

 

[ponderingturtle]

For a less ethnocentric view, the Buddhist tradition considers marriage a civil thing. Having a priest preside over one's wedding would be odd.

And the rampant atheists the Pilgrims did as well. But apparently they don't count.

 

[ponderingturtle]

My understanding of Japan is that Shinto priests preside over weddings (for the reason you note), while Buddhist priests preside over funerals (because Shinto looks at death as a bad thing).

And my understanding was that the ceremonies are based predominantly on christian marriages.

 

[MattusMaximus]

Aaaand it was postponed. Again.

Well, there's always next time. I'm going to talk with my representative (she lives a couple of blocks from me) about what the hell happened. Sheesh.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I've explained this several times, but I'll try again. . . .

When I got married, this is what happened. Then we could either have the ceremony through a multitude of people licensed to perform the ceremony to do that, both religious and non. It was a matter of picking out what we wanted.

Yes, but the religious rituals are the ones that I'm talking about. The state is granting civil and legal recognition to religious rituals.

The fact that they also recognize secular ceremonies as well doesn't remove the entanglement problem. It would be like saying public schools can teach religion as long as they also teach math or other non-religious classes.

I don't see the problem with keeping the option open and giving everyone the choice of how they want the ceremony done. Maybe you could explain why this makes things better?

I've clearly stated that my proposal to separate church and state wrt to marriage does not entail removing anyone's option or choice to have a religious marriage ceremony. I'm simply proposing that that religious ceremony not be granted any civil or legal status. What I'm suggesting is exactly how the state views confirmations and bar mitzvahs.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

But the point seems that there was no culture outside of religion in the ancient world.


Of course if you look at the time, all politics is religious as well.

Yes? So you agree now that marriage historically was a religious matter?

Remember this little detour was in response to your post:

When did it become a religious matter though? It does not seem like it was 2000 years ago, and individuals like the pilgrims who founded plymouth mass did not see it that way.

Income Tax is fundamentaly religious and should be banned. It is tithing to the state and as such is primarily religious.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Yes? So you agree now that marriage historically was a religious matter?

Yes you made it clear, there can be no culture outside religion. Any actual evidence of this is wrong.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I seriously don't know what your problem is, Turtle.

Yes, historically most stuff was tied with religion in various perverse ways. Since you mention for example politics, remember that the Roman consuls during the _republic_ actually had religious duty and that being a Pontifex Maximus was a prescribed step in the Cursus Honorum. I.e., you _had_ to serve as a high priest before you could have any higher political appointment than that.

(Whereas nowadays, judging by some politicians, they dropped the priest part and you just have to be high)

And then came the imperial cult, which reached ridiculous heights from Domitian onwards.

There just weren't that many atheists until _very_ recently. So there just wasn't much of a movement to separate everything from the church, except maybe when it got in the way of some king's own delusions of grandeur.

The Pilgrims that you mention, for example, weren't a bunch of cool secular dudes, but the nuttiest of the religious nuts in England. They were the ones who decided to leave the country and brave a new world just because they thought the Church Of England isn't fanatically protestant enough for them and they're not going to stay in a country where another sect is dominant. Even by Puritan standard, this was the radical millitant fringe.

Pretty much: why did you think they called themselves a religious name like "Pilgrims", anyway?

What makes you think these guys were so secular or so much in a hurry to separate church from marriage, or from anything else?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Yes you made it clear, there can be no culture outside religion. Any actual evidence of this is wrong.

What?

You made the statement that marriage as a religious matter is a recent development. Hans and I provided evidence that this is not the case.

Now you're trying to defend your position by dismissing evidence of historical treatment of marriage as a religious thing by repeating "there can be no culture outside religion". It's a non-sequitur.

As pointed out, Henry VIII essentially started a new denomination over the matter of religious rules regarding marriage. Whether or not there are aspects of culture that are non-religious doesn't matter. In this case, the issue was clearly a religious one wrt to marriage.

I'm not sure how the false notion that religious marriage is a recent development fits the topic anyway. Surely you're not proposing that the religious version of marriage be abolished by the state, are you? So what is the significance of your assertion that marriage as a religious thing is a recent invention?

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I'm not sure how the false notion that religious marriage is a recent development fits the topic anyway. Surely you're not proposing that the religious version of marriage be abolished by the state, are you? So what is the significance of your assertion that marriage as a religious thing is a recent invention?

Pretty much that's what confuses me too. I mean, even if he wanted to get the religious version abolished, I don't see why he needs to rewrite the history for that.

I mean, meh, lots of things were religious originally, but we secularized them just the same. Just because something once had a religious aspect, it doesn't mean it must necessarily keep it. And conversely, if we don't want to keep an aspect of something, we don't have to pretend that it never existed.

For example, as i was mentioning, the Roman "Res Publica" was heavily mixed with religion, but the USA version deliberately left religion out. There we go. It works very well.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Pretty much that's what confuses me too. I mean, even if he wanted to get the religious version abolished, I don't see why he needs to rewrite the history for that.

I mean, meh, lots of things were religious originally, but we secularized them just the same. Just because something once had a religious aspect, it doesn't mean it must necessarily keep it. And conversely, if we don't want to keep an aspect of something, we don't have to pretend that it never existed.

For example, as i was mentioning, the Roman "Res Publica" was heavily mixed with religion, but the USA version deliberately left religion out. There we go. It works very well.

And while I see the trend toward secularization as a good thing, I'm also not in favor of the state prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

Some here have interpreted my not-very-novel proposal to separate church and state wrt to marriage as meaning I'm in favor of banning religious marriage rituals. I am not. I'm merely proposing that the state should not grant any legal or civil recognition of religious ceremonies.

It's not really such a revolutionary idea!

But yes, denying the historical connection of marriage with religion doesn't help anything.

 

[GreyICE]

I've explained this several times, but I'll try again. . . .


Yes, but the religious rituals are the ones that I'm talking about. The state is granting civil and legal recognition to religious rituals.

The fact that they also recognize secular ceremonies as well doesn't remove the entanglement problem. It would be like saying public schools can teach religion as long as they also teach math or other non-religious classes.

But of course they can. Did you truly honestly go through school and receive no education about any of the following:

Quakers, Martin Luther, Protestant Reformation, Innocent III, Western Schism, Holocaust, Pilgrims, Crusades, Mohammad, Anglican Reformation, Peace and Truce of God, and oh I could go on here a bit.

What is it you say? You learned some of these in your history class? Why the state is teaching religion?

But what do you say? That it was not treated differently than non-religious history? Huh.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Hmm, well, personally I see a huge difference between teaching religion and teaching even the history of religion. Basically the difference between "buttered side down is teh one true way! Repent and butter your bread on the bottom or you'll burn in hell!" and basically "Yeah, some people fought over whether the buttered side should be up or down." The former is indoctrination, the latter (if done right) is just information.

Teaching that Martin Luther did this and that, does not equal teaching that Martin Luther was right. Teaching that the Pharoah was thought to be the living Horus, does not equal teaching that ancient religion as some absolute truth. Teaching that Leonidas went there with only 300 warriors (and a couple thousand helots, but who counts slaves, eh?) because an oracle more or less told him to, does not equal presenting that as irrefutable truth that the greek religion was right and oracles worked. Etc.

And TBH I actually wish that more people would learn the history of religion. It kinda broadens your horizons, you know? It's harder to take Daddy, Junior and Spook seriously when you realize the similarities to other trinities all over the place, for example with Osiris+Isis+Horus, and that even the death and resurrection theme was actually pretty common. (Heck, Osiris did it too, and so did a lot of people.) Or generally that every other religion out there had just as sound a claim to divinity as this one, and a lot had better miracles too. Or when you start learning that this or that was an agriculture god of the locals, before it got turned into a demon by the jews or christians, instead of knowing him as only the demon version. Etc.

Narrow mindedness and ignorance go hand in hand, basically.

 

[GreyICE]

I can't help feeling you read my post thoroughly and yet understood it not at all.

 

[ponderingturtle]

The Pilgrims that you mention, for example, weren't a bunch of cool secular dudes, but the nuttiest of the religious nuts in England. They were the ones who decided to leave the country and brave a new world just because they thought the Church Of England isn't fanatically protestant enough for them and they're not going to stay in a country where another sect is dominant. Even by Puritan standard, this was the radical millitant fringe.

And yet they did not think that marriage was primarily religious. This and their aversion to Christmas means that now they would be considered atheists by modern extreme Christians.

What makes you think these guys were so secular or so much in a hurry to separate church from marriage, or from anything else?

It was their biblical literalism that did it. They saw that no where in the bible is it needed for a priest to officiate a wedding.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Pretty much that's what confuses me too. I mean, even if he wanted to get the religious version abolished, I don't see why he needs to rewrite the history for that.

So when Cesar Augustus started reforms to promote family values this was a religious institution and not a secular one.

 

[ponderingturtle]

=
But yes, denying the historical connection of marriage with religion doesn't help anything.

But actually supporting it as a universal is too damn hard.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

But of course they can. Did you truly honestly go through school and receive no education about any of the following:

Quakers, Martin Luther, Protestant Reformation, Innocent III, Western Schism, Holocaust, Pilgrims, Crusades, Mohammad, Anglican Reformation, Peace and Truce of God, and oh I could go on here a bit.

What is it you say? You learned some of these in your history class? Why the state is teaching religion?

But what do you say? That it was not treated differently than non-religious history? Huh.

I meant the teaching of religious doctrine in the public school--you know, the only way of interpreting my statement that has something to do with the topic of church and state separation and entanglement.

The fact that you can execute a marriage license by a secular ceremony isn't the source of church/state entanglement. The fact that a religious ceremony is recognized as the execution of a civil/legal marriage license IS a problem.

Your approach would be like saying the fact that you ALSO teach biology in a public school biology class makes it OK to teach creationism in a public school biology class.

But yes, denying the historical connection of marriage with religion doesn't help anything.

But actually supporting it as a universal is too damn hard.

I'm having a tough time even parsing this sentence. The antecedent of "it" must be "the historical connection of marriage with religion". So you're saying, "Actually supporting the historical connection of marriage with religion is too damn hard."

I still don't know what that means or has to do with the current discussion.

You said you thought marriage as a religious thing was a recent invention. You were proven wrong.

Even if you were right, how does that connect to the current discussion?

I'm a huge fan of the separation of church and state. (I'm a member of Americans United for the Separation of Church & State too.) But the cause of church/state separation is not helped by making false statements about history.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

But actually supporting it as a universal is too damn hard.

Well, if by that you mean that I can't prove that _every_ single place on Earth, and _every_ community, and in _every_ imaginable year it was a religious thing... well, you're right, I can't. Nobody can. That's exactly the kind of situation that's usually summarized as "you can't prove a negative."

The point is more like that the vast majority of cultures that I do know about, before industrial age or so, incidentally did have _some_ religious component. So I feel fairly confident to extrapolate that at least a majority did in fact have some connection between religion and marriage.

At the very least, the culture of Western Europe and America (since the latter inherited the former) was religious about it.

Since you mentioned the Pilgrims repeatedly, I'm guessing you're an American. And in that case, well, that's why you have religious marriages. Not because recently someone recently went "you know, let's be crazy and give this to the church too." Simply because enough people who moved there from Europe did have a tradition of being married by a priest.

As for the Pilgrims, they're not some kind of platinum standard for the whole America either way. They're _one_ batch of immigrants. I'm affraid that America has had to accomodate a lot more groups than that, and for a heck of a lot of those marriage had indeed been traditionally a religious thing.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

So when Cesar Augustus started reforms to promote family values this was a religious institution and not a secular one.

So, you can cherry-pick _one_ law which happens not to touch that, and proclaim that nothing else existed about marriage in ancient Rome? That's... strange.

You do realize that that reform didn't completely abolish all existing marriage customs and end up being the 100% complete guide to marriage, right? It just added stuff to what already existed.

The marriage ceremony in ancient Rome -- which seems to me more relevant here -- did include plenty of religion (same as _everything_ in Rome), and even the day was chosen based on the consulting the omens.

It varied a bit over the ages, but for example a typical early republican era patrician marriage would include such stuff as the bride bringing fire to the husband's hearth (which doubled as pretty much the family's altar to Vesta), annointing the door against sorcery, and formally sacrificing to the husband's Lares (think: household spirits.) The newly wed couldn't even, you know, get laid after the feast before someone was brought to say the proper prayers for _that_.

(And here we thought "holy f***" was a modern invention)

Stuff like the exchange of gifts and signing the contract were also typically done in the presence of a priest. Those who had the rank, wealth and connections for that stunt, even brought the Pontifex Maximus in person.

All in all, it looks pretty religious to me

Though, duly noted, the whole ceremony wasn't _mandatory_ if you didn't want to. The simplest form of marriage required the two people to merely to register as having lived together for a year.