The Official Religion thread

[ToughGuy]

As for the specific issues you mentioned, I am too against unnecessary abortion of willful pregnancies but not because the bible says so. I think it's a very convenient exit clause for cheap and careless couples. At the same vein, I'm very pro contraception.

Would it be better for a couple who didn't want a baby, and who were not responsible enough to prevent a pregnancy in the first place, to actually have the child and raise it? Or do you mean adoption? (which pretty much means a high chance of care homes, foster care, and abuse)

Carelessness is not and should never be an excuse. If you text while driving and kill someone you're not innocent and don't get a get out of jail free card. Why should a careless parent get such benefit?

But you're asking the wrong question. The simplest question would be: Why are people careless? In a longer form, the question would be, if future parents didn't have the convenient choice of abortion or abandonment or otherwise if there was a heavy burden over children given birth to, would couples still neglect using a condom or contraceptives?

I find it ironic that people use condoms to prevent contracting AIDS or other STDs but not to prevent the conception of an unwanted child and future unborn child. Obviously they care a lot for their own life but not at all for that of an unborn child. Obviously they value it less than the price of a pack of condoms.

As for gay marriages, I'm against the new form of marriage we have nowadays only as means to share benefits because I don't see why my roommate of 5 years and I couldn't share benefits just because we didn't have sex together. Obviously this applies not only to many gay marriages but also many others. I'm also against gay marriage because it enables gay couples to adopt children and IMO it's not right. I agree it's better than missing both parent figures so I agree that it's better for orphans to have a strange family than none at all but still that doesn't change my opinion that it's not right. BTW, I'm also strongly against divorce. I realize I'm talking about an ideal world but I've found out that many clauses that have originated as means to solve an issue have turned in time into stimulants of that same issue.

Someone said 'god created love/sex, priests created marriage'. The problem with not allowing gay marriages is when you have issues with legal rights/power of attorney etc. A worst case scenario, two gay men/women living together for years, both outcast by blood family, one is injured, in a coma, the other gets no rights for their partner, and when they die all the estate is passed the blood family. With that in mind, I think gay marriages are a good thing. Though quite why someone would want to be married by an institution that has rejected them for who they are, seems such a contradiction.

Your example is confusing. Wouldn't a simple will or testament be an easier and better solution?

If being gay is a naturally occuring phenomenom, as is wanting to be a mother, how do you argue against two women wanting a child?

Easy, if you have both a heterosexual couple and a lesbian couple requesting adoption of the same child, who would you give the child to, were you the person in charge to make such decision?

Are you against divorce for all reasons?

People get easily married for no reason nowadays because they can get a divorce as easily. Rant over.

I'm against divorce because it's easier and cheaper nowadays to get married and divorced two months after than it is to get a cellphone service contract and terminate it. To put it in numbers, it's 60 bucks to get married in Vegas and 300 bucks to get a divorce but it's 72 bucks to activate two lines of cellphone service and 730 to terminate the contract after two months.

IMO, divorce originated as a solution to people attempting to get out of marriage for just reasons, nowadays it's turned to a solution to people attempting just to get out of marriage for no reason. Same as with abortion above, would people get married so easily if they knew they couldn't get out of it? If the words "till death do us part" really meant what they mean?

If a couple want to no longer be married, then they should respectively be allowed to divorce.
Rather than analyse the easiness of getting divorced, You should also look at the fool harty ways some people enter into marriage.

Look at that no talent wench Kim Katdasian. Gets married, sells pictures for millions and gets divorced within 3 mths.

Im pretty much sure that the number of people getting married is on the decline. For me its because its just not so necessary nowadays.

Going off topic here, but society has far, far more problems than divorce, abortions and the church.

In the UK, society is in a right state. My biggest concern is the state and attitude of a large portion of the younger generation. Absolutely shocking and getting worse..

[Asphalt_World]

Everyone's been rather joking up until now, but I'm going to go ahead and outline my opinions here. I'm an eighteen-year-old, spoiled, American brat, just for some context here.

I was raised Catholic, but I just can't reconcile myself with some of the teachings of the religion. Mainly, that abortion is always wrong and that gays shouldn't marry. I can't fully express how strongly I disagree with each of those opinions. I've moved steadily away from the church, so I would not consider myself a religious person, but I would say that I'm spiritual. While I don't believe there's someone out there with all of the answers, or that the afterlife is a world of pearly gates and angels, I do believe very strongly in opportunity and goodness and fate.

If you don't mind me suggesting a couple things:

First: Using religious texts as argument against the concept of God is farcical. Either you accept those texts originate directly from a God therefore accept that a God exists or otherwise if you claim God doesn't exist than you have to claim that those texts have nothing but human origins.

Second: If you subscribe to the idea that religious texts have nothing divine about their origin, you know then that texts are written by humans and they only represent what humans consider to be true values (unless they have hidden agendas) at the time of their conception. Religious texts are no different in this context from constitutions, laws, technical manuals, medical texts, school books etc. However, religious texts have an inherent flaw and that is their rigidity (similar to some extent with constitutions) that requires a lot of effort for updates.

Third: Text books are never pure representatives of the ultimate principles they attempt to represent. Think of history books or even laws or to bring it closer to home, think of FIA's rules and regulations. Just because they get it wrong oftentimes that's not a good reason to dismiss history, human rights or racing in their pure form altogether.

As for the specific issues you mentioned, I am too against unnecessary abortion of willful pregnancies but not because the bible says so. I think it's a very convenient exit clause for cheap and careless couples. At the same vein, I'm very pro contraception.

As for gay marriages, I'm against the new form of marriage we have nowadays only as means to share benefits because I don't see why my roommate of 5 years and I couldn't share benefits just because we didn't have sex together. Obviously this applies not only to many gay marriages but also many others. I'm also against gay marriage because it enables gay couples to adopt children and IMO it's not right. I agree it's better than missing both parent figures so I agree that it's better for orphans to have a strange family than none at all but still that doesn't change my opinion that it's not right. BTW, I'm also strongly against divorce. I realize I'm talking about an ideal world but I've found out that many clauses that have originated as means to solve an issue have turned in time into stimulants of that same issue. For example, the Welfare system in US was a means to help poor families or unemployed people or single moms, nowadays I know many people that would rather remain unemployed than get a job that pays as much as unemployment; or even worse, I've personally known and heard of girls that consider becoming single moms as a means to secure a workfree life. Also I consider the consequence-free abandonment of children as a dangerous practice. Same goes for divorce IMO. People get easily married for no reason nowadays because they can get a divorce as easily. Rant over.

Bottom line, even though religion is against abortion or gay marriage for no reason at all or for unclear reasons, that doesn't mean religion is the only one to take such stance.

The very fact you call it a 'Strange' family speaks volumes of your standing on the issue. Strange, seriously. What a word to use.

As someone who has years of working with fostered and adopted children and families from all sorts of backgrounds I can safely say that the correct family is the one a child needs to be adopted in to, not specifically because of them being hetrosexual or homosexual or whatever.

There are no more cases of adopted children having their adoption break down because their adoptive parents are gay than those who are straight.

[Greg92]

Everyone's been rather joking up until now, but I'm going to go ahead and outline my opinions here. I'm an eighteen-year-old, spoiled, American brat, just for some context here.

I was raised Catholic, but I just can't reconcile myself with some of the teachings of the religion. Mainly, that abortion is always wrong and that gays shouldn't marry. I can't fully express how strongly I disagree with each of those opinions. I've moved steadily away from the church, so I would not consider myself a religious person, but I would say that I'm spiritual. While I don't believe there's someone out there with all of the answers, or that the afterlife is a world of pearly gates and angels, I do believe very strongly in opportunity and goodness and fate.

If you don't mind me suggesting a couple things:

First: Using religious texts as argument against the concept of God is farcical. Either you accept those texts originate directly from a God therefore accept that a God exists or otherwise if you claim God doesn't exist than you have to claim that those texts have nothing but human origins.

Second: If you subscribe to the idea that religious texts have nothing divine about their origin, you know then that texts are written by humans and they only represent what humans consider to be true values (unless they have hidden agendas) at the time of their conception. Religious texts are no different in this context from constitutions, laws, technical manuals, medical texts, school books etc. However, religious texts have an inherent flaw and that is their rigidity (similar to some extent with constitutions) that requires a lot of effort for updates.

Third: Text books are never pure representatives of the ultimate principles they attempt to represent. Think of history books or even laws or to bring it closer to home, think of FIA's rules and regulations. Just because they get it wrong oftentimes that's not a good reason to dismiss history, human rights or racing in their pure form altogether.

As for the specific issues you mentioned, I am too against unnecessary abortion of willful pregnancies but not because the bible says so. I think it's a very convenient exit clause for cheap and careless couples. At the same vein, I'm very pro contraception.

As for gay marriages, I'm against the new form of marriage we have nowadays only as means to share benefits because I don't see why my roommate of 5 years and I couldn't share benefits just because we didn't have sex together. Obviously this applies not only to many gay marriages but also many others. I'm also against gay marriage because it enables gay couples to adopt children and IMO it's not right. I agree it's better than missing both parent figures so I agree that it's better for orphans to have a strange family than none at all but still that doesn't change my opinion that it's not right. BTW, I'm also strongly against divorce. I realize I'm talking about an ideal world but I've found out that many clauses that have originated as means to solve an issue have turned in time into stimulants of that same issue. For example, the Welfare system in US was a means to help poor families or unemployed people or single moms, nowadays I know many people that would rather remain unemployed than get a job that pays as much as unemployment; or even worse, I've personally known and heard of girls that consider becoming single moms as a means to secure a workfree life. Also I consider the consequence-free abandonment of children as a dangerous practice. Same goes for divorce IMO. People get easily married for no reason nowadays because they can get a divorce as easily. Rant over.

Bottom line, even though religion is against abortion or gay marriage for no reason at all or for unclear reasons, that doesn't mean religion is the only one to take such stance.

The very fact you call it a 'Strange' family speaks volumes of your standing on the issue. Strange, seriously. What a word to use.

What's wrong with it? I find it perfectly fitting.

When you learn how babies are born, isn't it strange that you aren't born that way?
When a huge majority of your friends have a mom and a dad, isn't it strange you don't?
When your friends learn how to throw and catch a ball with their dad, isn't it strange you have no one to teach you?
When your girl friends have their mom talk to them about "the woman cycles and body" isn't it strange you have your daddies do that?

But please feel free to mention a few chapters out of the volumes you learned on my standing on the issue.

As someone who has years of working with fostered and adopted children and families from all sorts of backgrounds I can safely say that the correct family is the one a child needs to be adopted in to, not specifically because of them being hetrosexual or homosexual or whatever.

There are no more cases of adopted children having their adoption break down because their adoptive parents are gay than those who are straight.

Since you have been working for years with fostered and adopted children, could you please answer the question I asked earlier:

If you have two couples, one heterosexual and one homosexual, both requesting to adopt the same child and you have to take the decision, who would you assign the child to? To make it simpler, there are no extenuating or aggravating circumstances for any couple, they both seem perfect for adoption. Also, if you don't mind, could you please list the following by preference: Single parents, heterosexual couples, homosexual couples?

[Greg92]

And the benefit of forcing two adults to be togethereven if neither of them want to be is..?
Marriage was conceived by insecure men to serve their purposes I.e. to force women to stay with them as long as they wanted and then to get rid of them when they wanted. Remember that women tended to marry for security and they in no way had equal rights even for claiming divorce on the grounds of adultery. Some mainstream religions are still archaic in this and other respects.

Teaching them and others responsibility?

Marriage comes with a boatload of rights and benefits and it should. But it also comes with many responsibilities. Getting married only because of the benefits and getting divorced because you can't face the responsibilities is very wrong IMO. It's even more so when there are children involved because it shows the hypocrisy of parents.

If people didn't have the divorce exit clause they would definitely be completely sure before entering into marriage that both partners are perfectly willing and fully capable of going through the entire marriage process. And if they didn't have the abandonment exit clause parents would definitely be completely sure they are ready, willing and capable of going through the entire parenthood process.

Divorcing after a few months because your partner isn't who you thought he was or abandoning your months old child because you realized you "weren't ready" are nonsense and should come with a heavy burden IMO. Like I said, there's a heftier fee for terminating early a cellphone contract than for divorce.

[ToughGuy]

Falb,

Do You agree that once a couple enter into marriage, that they should maintain that marriage until death becomes one of them.

[Asphalt_World]

Everyone's been rather joking up until now, but I'm going to go ahead and outline my opinions here. I'm an eighteen-year-old, spoiled, American brat, just for some context here.

I was raised Catholic, but I just can't reconcile myself with some of the teachings of the religion. Mainly, that abortion is always wrong and that gays shouldn't marry. I can't fully express how strongly I disagree with each of those opinions. I've moved steadily away from the church, so I would not consider myself a religious person, but I would say that I'm spiritual. While I don't believe there's someone out there with all of the answers, or that the afterlife is a world of pearly gates and angels, I do believe very strongly in opportunity and goodness and fate.

If you don't mind me suggesting a couple things:

First: Using religious texts as argument against the concept of God is farcical. Either you accept those texts originate directly from a God therefore accept that a God exists or otherwise if you claim God doesn't exist than you have to claim that those texts have nothing but human origins.

Second: If you subscribe to the idea that religious texts have nothing divine about their origin, you know then that texts are written by humans and they only represent what humans consider to be true values (unless they have hidden agendas) at the time of their conception. Religious texts are no different in this context from constitutions, laws, technical manuals, medical texts, school books etc. However, religious texts have an inherent flaw and that is their rigidity (similar to some extent with constitutions) that requires a lot of effort for updates.

Third: Text books are never pure representatives of the ultimate principles they attempt to represent. Think of history books or even laws or to bring it closer to home, think of FIA's rules and regulations. Just because they get it wrong oftentimes that's not a good reason to dismiss history, human rights or racing in their pure form altogether.

As for the specific issues you mentioned, I am too against unnecessary abortion of willful pregnancies but not because the bible says so. I think it's a very convenient exit clause for cheap and careless couples. At the same vein, I'm very pro contraception.

As for gay marriages, I'm against the new form of marriage we have nowadays only as means to share benefits because I don't see why my roommate of 5 years and I couldn't share benefits just because we didn't have sex together. Obviously this applies not only to many gay marriages but also many others. I'm also against gay marriage because it enables gay couples to adopt children and IMO it's not right. I agree it's better than missing both parent figures so I agree that it's better for orphans to have a strange family than none at all but still that doesn't change my opinion that it's not right. BTW, I'm also strongly against divorce. I realize I'm talking about an ideal world but I've found out that many clauses that have originated as means to solve an issue have turned in time into stimulants of that same issue. For example, the Welfare system in US was a means to help poor families or unemployed people or single moms, nowadays I know many people that would rather remain unemployed than get a job that pays as much as unemployment; or even worse, I've personally known and heard of girls that consider becoming single moms as a means to secure a workfree life. Also I consider the consequence-free abandonment of children as a dangerous practice. Same goes for divorce IMO. People get easily married for no reason nowadays because they can get a divorce as easily. Rant over.

Bottom line, even though religion is against abortion or gay marriage for no reason at all or for unclear reasons, that doesn't mean religion is the only one to take such stance.

The very fact you call it a 'Strange' family speaks volumes of your standing on the issue. Strange, seriously. What a word to use.

What's wrong with it? I find it perfectly fitting.

When you learn how babies are born, isn't it strange that you aren't born that way?
When a huge majority of your friends have a mom and a dad, isn't it strange you don't?
When your friends learn how to throw and catch a ball with their dad, isn't it strange you have no one to teach you?
When your girl friends have their mom talk to them about "the woman cycles and body" isn't it strange you have your daddies do that?

But please feel free to mention a few chapters out of the volumes you learned on my standing on the issue.

As someone who has years of working with fostered and adopted children and families from all sorts of backgrounds I can safely say that the correct family is the one a child needs to be adopted in to, not specifically because of them being hetrosexual or homosexual or whatever.

There are no more cases of adopted children having their adoption break down because their adoptive parents are gay than those who are straight.

Since you have been working for years with fostered and adopted children, could you please answer the question I asked earlier:

If you have two couples, one heterosexual and one homosexual, both requesting to adopt the same child and you have to take the decision, who would you assign the child to? To make it simpler, there are no extenuating or aggravating circumstances for any couple, they both seem perfect for adoption. Also, if you don't mind, could you please list the following by preference: Single parents, heterosexual couples, homosexual couples?

Firstly, it is great if a child can be brought up by his or her birth mother and father. However both mothers and fathers do not always make great parents. I am not just talking about children needing to be taken away for their own safety but simply that parents do not parent very well.

Secondly, my wife has had a number of 'talks' with our eldest son about the facts of life. It is not the 'Dads' job to do this and the Mums job to talk to daughters. It may have been generations ago but time have moved on significantly.

To even mention and I quote from you 'When your friends learn how to throw and catch a ball with their dad, isn't it strange you have no one to teach you? is simply laughable. I am almost embarrassed on your behalf. What a truly backwards looking and archaic statement. Quite frankly I am staggered and assume you are making a joke and I am not getting it.

Moving on to the point about two couple hoping to adopt a child and all things being equal except for one couple being gay and the other not, well I am afraid this never ever ever ever happens. It is impossible. It's a pointless question as it is a situation no Social Worker, Court Guardian, Adoption Panel or Family Court Judge ever have to make. I am not sure about your experience in the area but I can assure you the proceedings for choosing a suitable adoptive family for a child / children never leaves you in a situation where you have to toss a coin so to speak.

Oh, and the fact you say, and I quote, If you have two couples, one heterosexual and one homosexual, both requesting to adopt the same child' again shows that you do not have experience in this area. That's fine because we all have differing areas of knowledge and experience. Adoptive parents do not request to adopt a specific child. It simply never works like that.

[Asphalt_World]

It's also worth mentioning here that I know of children who have been adopted by gay parents who have a far more stable, loving and well rounded upbringing than a frighteningly high percentage of children that have not been adopted. Some children go through hell because or parents breaking up, step parents / boy / girlfriends, parents that are separated attempting to buy the greater love of their child with material purchases for them etc etc.

Yes I know a large number of separated parents do a great job of sharing the upbringing of their children but an awful lot do not.

[minchy]

flab, you beat me with exactly the response to domdonald I was going to write! I'll add that marriage, in most of the western world at least, is also a legally binding, lifetime contract and assuming both parties are responsible adults they should take this into consideration before engaging in such a commitment. I'd even go further than saying that divorce is too easy to get nowadays and say that if people get divorced what is to stop the law or church saying that as they breached a lifelong contract then they are not eligible to be married in the future as they obviously don't possess the commitment or judgement required to complete that kind of contract?

I don't, however, agree with your opinion regarding gay couples and abortion.

Firstly, you say why should couples who didn't want to get pregnant be able to take the 'easy' way out. The way I look at it, it is not that they have to live with the consequences of their actions, but the child in question would and as a result may have a very bad upbringing or be put up for adoption, is it fair to that child to live that life or would it be better to stop that life from happening before the child is brought into this world? I understand it is a tough subject about what is life and when does the babies life begin, IMO until the baby has self-awareness then it is not 'murder' for want of a better word.

Regarding gay couples, I do not see what the problem is with the either getting married or adopting / fostering a child. If they love each other and are willing to commit their lives to each other, then who are we to stop them doing so. As I said in an earlier post, here in the UK there is no benefit as such for being married and our laws recognise co-habiting couples as having the same rights as married couples, so the only reason gay couple would have to get married would be to show their commitment to each other and everyone else.

Adoption wise, I can't see the difference in a gay couple adopting as a single mother or father living with a same sex room mate / lodger. The child may not get the male / female adult upbringing as other children do, but a child being brought up by a single parent wouldn't either. I think it is good that gay couples are willing to adopt as there aren't enough straight couples willing to do so. Usually if a straight couple can't physically have children, they would be tempted with IVF rather than adopt. This IMO is a bad thing, as firstly it is not an individuals 'human right' to have children, harsh as this may sound if nature has chosen you, for whatever reason, to be infertile, then you should not be having your own biological children. Adoption has been around a lot longer than IVF and there are children in this world who need adopting, why should people spend money on IVF to bring another life into our already over crowded world when they could use that money to help them bring up a child who is already here?

(I would like to say that I in no way am having a go at or trying to insult anyone who may have used IVF to have a child. Please don't take what I have said personally if you have, it is your choice and I fully respect that and hope your choice has brought you happiness, but at the same time I am entitled to my opinion on this matter.)

[Asphalt_World]

Some good points Minchy.

I will add that when people go through the adoption process in the UK there is a huge part of it called the 'Support Network'. It sounds basic but you have to list all the family and friends who you have around you both locally or on the other end of a phone call. These are the people who will support you through being a parent, help you our when things are bad etc etc. If a homosexual couple are adopting then there is a part of this where discussions are had to see if there will be a reasonable influence in the child's life from someone who is of the opposite gender. A child's upbringing should be a great deal more than simply the parents. Therefore a child adopted in to a gay family has every opportunity to have influence on their lives from both sexes.

The mere fact that they have to write down and explore their support networks is something I would love all people do even if they are having birth children. It's easy to think all will be well but it's amazing just how much support people can have following childbirth, often from people who they did not necessarily expect. A friend you only see once in a while can be come a real shoulder to cry on. Close family are great but often people find it harder talking about problems to their really close family.

[ToughGuy]

I know noones answering my posts today but ill have my say

Adoption give parentless children a chance to have a normal life in a loving home and also gives people, couples a change to bring up a child as their own and provide love, support and security.

I cannot think of any negative regarding this.

Ref, divorce, if the marriage is not working any more, then the couple have the right to end it, just as they had the right to marry.

Of course divorce is more common nowadays, just as marriage is less common.



Said it.

[minchy]

I know noones answering my posts today but ill have my say

Adoption give parentless children a chance to have a normal life in a loving home and also gives people, couples a change to bring up a child as their own and provide love, support and security.

I cannot think of any negative regarding this.

Ref, divorce, if the marriage is not working any more, then the couple have the right to end it, just as they had the right to marry.

Of course divorce is more common nowadays, just as marriage is less common.



Said it.

replied now?

[ToughGuy]

I know noones answering my posts today but ill have my say

Adoption give parentless children a chance to have a normal life in a loving home and also gives people, couples a change to bring up a child as their own and provide love, support and security.

I cannot think of any negative regarding this.

Ref, divorce, if the marriage is not working any more, then the couple have the right to end it, just as they had the right to marry.

Of course divorce is more common nowadays, just as marriage is less common.



Said it.

replied now?

Then my day is complete.
Going back to my room now

[Greg92]

Falb,

Do You agree that once a couple enter into marriage, that they should maintain that marriage until death becomes one of them.

I sure do. There's a good reason why societies and governments have granted so many allowances, privileges and benefits to married couples, such as, to mention only a few: tax breaks, healthcare benefits, spousal privileges, child allowances and benefits, insurance breaks, loans and finances, inheritance and succession, life insurance benefits, copyright, continued benefits after death of a spouse and hundreds more: A family creates the best environment for the healthy growth and development of children and therefore a healthy society. Let's not kid ourselves, people enter into marriage exactly because of those benefits not simply because they love each other. Love doesn't need the validation of marriage, especially nowadays, in the modern world.

Couples decide to enter willfully into marriage, not because they are forced to. It's no different than many other contracts in regards to the initial phase but it differs from most of the contracts regarding termination because marriage is willfully accepted to last till certain life events happen, i.e. death of one of the partners. However, marriage has practically become the only contract that can be easily terminated by the request of one of the parties simply because it turned out to be different from what he expected. You don't enlist in the army and request a discharge two months later because it was tougher than you thought without repercussions. You don't sign an employment contract and terminate it two months later because the commute is tough on you without repercussions. So why should you get a divorce two months after getting married because your spouse snores or because or because of "irreconcilable differences" without a penalty?

As I already said, divorce was meant as an instrument for those couples that had just reason to terminate their marriage, now it's turned into just an instrument to terminate marriage. Ever wonder why Britney Spears (to mention merely a famous headline) got married and unmarried two days later? Simple, because she could.

[ToughGuy]

Falb,

Do You agree that once a couple enter into marriage, that they should maintain that marriage until death becomes one of them.

I sure do. There's a good reason why societies and governments have granted so many allowances, privileges and benefits to married couples, such as, to mention only a few: tax breaks, healthcare benefits, spousal privileges, child allowances and benefits, insurance breaks, loans and finances, inheritance and succession, life insurance benefits, copyright, continued benefits after death of a spouse and hundreds more: A family creates the best environment for the healthy growth and development of children and therefore a healthy society. Let's not kid ourselves, people enter into marriage exactly because of those benefits not simply because they love each other. Love doesn't need the validation of marriage, especially nowadays, in the modern world.

Couples decide to enter willfully into marriage, not because they are forced to. It's no different than many other contracts in regards to the initial phase but it differs from most of the contracts regarding termination because marriage is willfully accepted to last till certain life events happen, i.e. death of one of the partners. However, marriage has practically become the only contract that can be easily terminated by the request of one of the parties simply because it turned out to be different from what he expected. You don't enlist in the army and request a discharge two months later because it was tougher than you thought without repercussions. You don't sign an employment contract and terminate it two months later because the commute is tough on you without repercussions. So why should you get a divorce two months after getting married because your spouse snores or because or because of "irreconcilable differences" without a penalty?

As I already said, divorce was meant as an instrument for those couples that had just reason to terminate their marriage, now it's turned into just an instrument to terminate marriage. Ever wonder why Britney Spears (to mention merely a famous headline) got married and unmarried two days later? Simple, because she could.

Falb, You keep talking about these tax breaks and commercial incentives for couples getting married.
Must admit I find your angle on this slighylu odd.

Anyway, divorce, the whole death do us part bit is a bit of a joke to be honest.

A couple who marry in their early twenties and are compatible, can go through many life changes which result in them no longer being compatible. This happened with me.

So when You are living with somebody, who You no longer love, have not so much in common with, is the answer to stay married and ride the wave of unhappiness.

I Do Not Think So. You really need to wake up your ideas in my opinion and come into the real world.

[Greg92]

Firstly, it is great if a child can be brought up by his or her birth mother and father. However both mothers and fathers do not always make great parents. I am not just talking about children needing to be taken away for their own safety but simply that parents do not parent very well.

I agree that not all parents are great but I think this is a topic for another discussion and shouldn't be included here. After all, bad parenting is not exclusive to biological parents or heterosexual ones. The question at hand is, what is better for a child, heterosexual or same-sex parents.

Secondly, my wife has had a number of 'talks' with our eldest son about the facts of life. It is not the 'Dads' job to do this and the Mums job to talk to daughters. It may have been generations ago but time have moved on significantly.

To even mention and I quote from you 'When your friends learn how to throw and catch a ball with their dad, isn't it strange you have no one to teach you? is simply laughable. I am almost embarrassed on your behalf. What a truly backwards looking and archaic statement. Quite frankly I am staggered and assume you are making a joke and I am not getting it.

"Catch a ball with one's dad" is an american expression. I don't know if it simply doesn't mean the same to you or if you get the meaning but disagree with it. I used it merely to show that there are certain activities children do with a specific parent rather than the other one. Personally, my father was the one that taught me how to play soccer, or took me fishing and camping or took me to watch games, or taught my how to work with tools. It doesn't mean women are in general incapable of doing the same, it simply means what it was for me and my friends.

Claiming that both parents play exact identical roles and are identical role figures to their children is something I don't subscribe to. Again, I'm not saying one is better than the other, just that they are different.

Moving on to the point about two couple hoping to adopt a child and all things being equal except for one couple being gay and the other not, well I am afraid this never ever ever ever happens. It is impossible. It's a pointless question as it is a situation no Social Worker, Court Guardian, Adoption Panel or Family Court Judge ever have to make. I am not sure about your experience in the area but I can assure you the proceedings for choosing a suitable adoptive family for a child / children never leaves you in a situation where you have to toss a coin so to speak.

I didn't ask what was the decision you took when such situation arose. I asked instead what would your decision be if such hypothetical situation arose.

Oh, and the fact you say, and I quote, If you have two couples, one heterosexual and one homosexual, both requesting to adopt the same child' again shows that you do not have experience in this area. That's fine because we all have differing areas of knowledge and experience. Adoptive parents do not request to adopt a specific child. It simply never works like that.

Yes, I admit I have no experience in such procedures and btw, you have all my respect for working in such a field. However, same as above it wasn't meant as a practical case but a hypothetical one. Let's say your adoption agency has only one child ready for adoption and you have those two couples filing an application. Do you have any preference?

Listen, I'm not saying same-sex couples make bad parents or worse parents than heterosexual couples. All I'm saying is that I'm a firm believer that children need both parental figures instead of one. After all, isn't it true that two parents are prefered over single parents?

[Greg92]

Falb, You keep talking about these tax breaks and commercial incentives for couples getting married.
Must admit I find your angle on this slighylu odd.

Anyway, divorce, the whole death do us part bit is a bit of a joke to be honest.

A couple who marry in their early twenties and are compatible, can go through many life changes which result in them no longer being compatible. This happened with me.

So when You are living with somebody, who You no longer love, have not so much in common with, is the answer to stay married and ride the wave of unhappiness.

I Do Not Think So. You really need to wake up your ideas in my opinion and come into the real world.

Well, can you give me your angle then about why people get married?

(*Btw, I stated since the beginning that I was talking about an ideal world.)

[ToughGuy]

Falb, You keep talking about these tax breaks and commercial incentives for couples getting married.
Must admit I find your angle on this slighylu odd.

Anyway, divorce, the whole death do us part bit is a bit of a joke to be honest.

A couple who marry in their early twenties and are compatible, can go through many life changes which result in them no longer being compatible. This happened with me.

So when You are living with somebody, who You no longer love, have not so much in common with, is the answer to stay married and ride the wave of unhappiness.

I Do Not Think So. You really need to wake up your ideas in my opinion and come into the real world.

Well, can you give me your angle then about why people get married?

(*Btw, I stated since the beginning that I was talking about an ideal world.)

You are serious aren't You about the tax breaks.
My angle for getting married is that the vast majority of couples are in love with each other and they see the marriage as the means of legal and spiritual communion.

Even in the ideal world. Individuals within that union are going to develop throughout the marriage. Enjoy new experiences and WANT different things.

Come on man, tell me You don't see it as You make out.

Edit. Another reason for an increase in divorce is that couples have realised that there is life after marriage

[Asphalt_World]

Answering a hypothetical question is a dangerous thing to do. There is a reason it's hypothetical. I.e. it never happens. Therefore how could I answer with complete confidence in my answer.

In reality the adoptive parents must be the best match. The gender of the parents is only part of the match.

It's interesting that you place so much on the choice people make to marry. It's worth noting that a gay couple can not accident adopt. It is a choice.That choice along with the rigorous procedure required to become an adoptive parent means that they should end up being brilliant patents. It is often a case that heterosexual couples conceive by accident and are in no place to become parents.

[Greg92]

Falb, You keep talking about these tax breaks and commercial incentives for couples getting married.
Must admit I find your angle on this slighylu odd.

Anyway, divorce, the whole death do us part bit is a bit of a joke to be honest.

A couple who marry in their early twenties and are compatible, can go through many life changes which result in them no longer being compatible. This happened with me.

So when You are living with somebody, who You no longer love, have not so much in common with, is the answer to stay married and ride the wave of unhappiness.

I Do Not Think So. You really need to wake up your ideas in my opinion and come into the real world.

Well, can you give me your angle then about why people get married?

(*Btw, I stated since the beginning that I was talking about an ideal world.)

You are serious aren't You about the tax breaks.
My angle for getting married is that the vast majority of couples are in love with each other and they see the marriage as the means of legal and spiritual communion.

Even in the ideal world. Individuals within that union are going to develop throughout the marriage. Enjoy new experiences and WANT different things.

Come on man, tell me You don't see it as You make out.

Edit. Another reason for an increase in divorce is that couples have realised that there is life after marriage

If you are in love you already have a great emotional bond, why in the world do you need a spiritual communion or a legal one? Like I said, love doesn't require validation any longer, at least in the modern societies. To put it simpler, why do you need to sign a cellphone service contract with binding fees and rules when you can get the exact same service without a contract and no fee?

[ToughGuy]

Falb, You keep talking about these tax breaks and commercial incentives for couples getting married.
Must admit I find your angle on this slighylu odd.

Anyway, divorce, the whole death do us part bit is a bit of a joke to be honest.

A couple who marry in their early twenties and are compatible, can go through many life changes which result in them no longer being compatible. This happened with me.

So when You are living with somebody, who You no longer love, have not so much in common with, is the answer to stay married and ride the wave of unhappiness.

I Do Not Think So. You really need to wake up your ideas in my opinion and come into the real world.

Well, can you give me your angle then about why people get married?

(*Btw, I stated since the beginning that I was talking about an ideal world.)

You are serious aren't You about the tax breaks.
My angle for getting married is that the vast majority of couples are in love with each other and they see the marriage as the means of legal and spiritual communion.

Even in the ideal world. Individuals within that union are going to develop throughout the marriage. Enjoy new experiences and WANT different things.

Come on man, tell me You don't see it as You make out.

Edit. Another reason for an increase in divorce is that couples have realised that there is life after marriage

If you are in love you already have a great emotional bond, why in the world do you need a spiritual communion or a legal one? Like I said, love doesn't require validation any longer, at least in the modern societies. To put it simpler, why do you need to sign a cellphone service contract with binding fees and rules when you can get the exact same service without a contract and no fee?

I'm not sure why You keep referring to a flaming phone contract Falb.
Anyway I can see where your coming from, just I think its weak ground your standing on.

I've already fallen out with my teenage daughter today, so I'm going to wish You the best and say TTFN.

TG

[Greg92]

Answering a hypothetical question is a dangerous thing to do. There is a reason it's hypothetical. I.e. it never happens. Therefore how could I answer with complete confidence in my answer.

In reality the adoptive parents must be the best match. The gender of the parents is only part of the match.

It's interesting that you place so much on the choice people make to marry. It's worth noting that a gay couple can not accident adopt. It is a choice.That choice along with the rigorous procedure required to become an adoptive parent means that they should end up being brilliant patents. It is often a case that heterosexual couples conceive by accident and are in no place to become parents.

You have a valid point about answering a hypothetical question (even though at the same time we answer them very often) but you're wrong when you claim they never happen. They might easily happen, they might have even happened to others, they just haven't happened to you yet and sometimes it seems they never will. It's not important, just felt like offering my opinion on it.

So there is something about the gender of the parents.

I think you're comparing apples to oranges in your last paragraph when talking about adoptive and biological parents. Again, the issue I've raised is, are adoptive heterosexual couples a better choice than adoptive same-sex couples? But to argue your point anyway (in someone's old fashion way), couples can get pregnant by accident but they don't give birth by accident, do they?

[Asphalt_World]

Personally, I believe the children with the best upbringing have solid support from a wide number of people. As much as my wife and I try to do the best for our children, I know a great deal if their upbringing has been influenced by other family members, friends, school life and general.life experiences.

Regarding marriage, my wife and I married in a registry office. It was a excuse for a big celebration.

[Greg92]

Personally, I believe the children with the best upbringing have solid support from a wide number of people. As much as my wife and I try to do the best for our children, I know a great deal if their upbringing has been influenced by other family members, friends, school life and general.life experiences.

Regarding marriage, my wife and I married in a registry office. It was a excuse for a big celebration.

I fully agree. Everything is important when it comes to raising children and nothing should be neglected. My personal tight opinion on our purpose in life is what do we bring as individuals and what upbringing do we provide to our children or basically what do we do for the present and the future of the society. (It's not as simple as that but it's a fair recap).

Did you really need to get married to get an excuse for a big celebration? (Joking)

[ToughGuy]

Though some would say the celebration starts when the divorce comes through

[Asphalt_World]

No we didn't. However it was our choice and it felt like the right thing to do. We don't go big in anniversary celebrations. We have other things each year to celebrate. Our children being no.1.

I do wonder however how many friends and family would have flown in from abroad to celebrate our relationship had we simply organised a party. I truly believe us having an official wedding improved the day.

[Asphalt_World]

Plus Cardinal Keith O'Brien really has not done anything positive with his comments this weekend.

[domdonald]

Well falb and Toughguy - I am married too, with 2 kids. I'm not sure if falb is married or not, because his view on marriage seems to be rather naive or rose-tinted. Perhaps he's one of the lucky minority who got married for love (despite him mentioning all the tax benefits) and perhaps he has stayed in love for years and years and never wanted anything different, ever. I'm happy being married and it is a good environment to bring up the kids, but humans are humans.. there's a good argument to suggest it is worse for the kids if a relationship turns acrimonious and you stay together "for the good of kids" but you end up screwing them up even more.

Don't kid yourself that in years gone by, marriages worked more than they did today.. i think it's probably true that in the past, men had far more rights and dominance over women and as a result had all the extra-marital affairs without actually breaking the marriage - because the woman was forced to stay and had no rights to get divorced (and probably wouldn't dare to try for fear of losing absolutely everything).

Divorce happens more frequently these days partly because it has been made easier from a legal and moral point of view and far more kids grow up with only one parent than ever before, but this is really just the symptom of a more fundamental problem, namely a waning sense of social responsibility in general.

[ToughGuy]

Well falb and Toughguy - I am married too, with 2 kids. I'm not sure if falb is married or not, because his view on marriage seems to be rather naive or rose-tinted. Perhaps he's one of the lucky minority who got married for love (despite him mentioning all the tax benefits) and perhaps he has stayed in love for years and years and never wanted anything different, ever. I'm happy being married and it is a good environment to bring up the kids, but humans are humans.. there's a good argument to suggest it is worse for the kids if a relationship turns acrimonious and you stay together "for the good of kids" but you end up screwing them up even more.

Don't kid yourself that in years gone by, marriages worked more than they did today.. i think it's probably true that in the past, men had far more rights and dominance over women and as a result had all the extra-marital affairs without actually breaking the marriage - because the woman was forced to stay and had no rights to get divorced (and probably wouldn't dare to try for fear of losing absolutely everything).

Divorce happens more frequently these days partly because it has been made easier from a legal and moral point of view and far more kids grow up with only one parent than ever before, but this is really just the symptom of a more fundamental problem, namely a waning sense of social responsibility in general.

This thread is leaning more towards Social issues now rather than Religious Issues. Yeah marriage is religious, but I bet plenty of couples get married, for reasons non religious.

DOM, I find myself agreeing with your post, even partly the bit about "waning social responsibility", though it is never so simple. There will be plenty of cases for one parent families, where there is adequate and accepptable reason for the child having one parent around.

In my case, I had 14 good years of being married. Me being overseas most of the time, there was a balance to being apart, as I would be home on rotation and the family would then come out for the holidays.

Facts are we just grew apart. She wanted the simple life of taking kids to school, meeting with her friends in the local neighbourhood and I wanted to be jumping on planes around the world, diving into jungles and digging big holes to fill with concrete

NOTE, I see my kids now almost every weekend (when Im in UK) and to cut a long story short, I feel much closer to them now, as a result of realising what I could be losing. And after speaking with my 10 year old, I see that theres a few kids in his class whose parents have split up.

NOTE to oneself: Need to start a social debating thread. Woul dbe interesting to hear peoples throughts from around the world on Social Matters

[KooTeePee]

You have a valid point about answering a hypothetical question (even though at the same time we answer them very often) but you're wrong when you claim they never happen. They might easily happen, they might have even happened to others, they just haven't happened to you yet and sometimes it seems they never will. It's not important, just felt like offering my opinion on it.

So there is something about the gender of the parents.

I think you're comparing apples to oranges in your last paragraph when talking about adoptive and biological parents. Again, the issue I've raised is, are adoptive heterosexual couples a better choice than adoptive same-sex couples? But to argue your point anyway (in someone's old fashion way), couples can get pregnant by accident but they don't give birth by accident, do they?

Ahh, I take it you've seen never seen the superb piece of documentary making that is 'I didn't know I was pregnant until I gave birth' then? It seems some people do indeed accidentally give birth by accident (On the toilet on one occasion).

Back on topic, I'm not in the same line of work as AW but not far off, I guess you could say I tend to deal with the couple a few years after AW has finished working with them, and I would definitely say from experience that there is no discernible difference between children raised by hetrosexual or homosexual parents when they reach maturity. I think the main thing is having sensible, mature parents capable of dealing with responsibility (among other traits), I don't think the sexuality of the parents is the main issue.

On the subject of religion, I'm not really a modist or a mincist, I'm afraid. I'm a proper atheist, I don't believe in god/gods, ghosts, fate or even luck. They are interesting concepts but I don't buy into them. That said, I understand that my belief is just that; a belief. I don't deride anyone else for their beliefs, so long as those beliefs are not harmful to others.

[Greg92]

Well falb and Toughguy - I am married too, with 2 kids. I'm not sure if falb is married or not, because his view on marriage seems to be rather naive or rose-tinted. Perhaps he's one of the lucky minority who got married for love (despite him mentioning all the tax benefits) and perhaps he has stayed in love for years and years and never wanted anything different, ever. I'm happy being married and it is a good environment to bring up the kids, but humans are humans.. there's a good argument to suggest it is worse for the kids if a relationship turns acrimonious and you stay together "for the good of kids" but you end up screwing them up even more.

Don't kid yourself that in years gone by, marriages worked more than they did today.. i think it's probably true that in the past, men had far more rights and dominance over women and as a result had all the extra-marital affairs without actually breaking the marriage - because the woman was forced to stay and had no rights to get divorced (and probably wouldn't dare to try for fear of losing absolutely everything).

Divorce happens more frequently these days partly because it has been made easier from a legal and moral point of view and far more kids grow up with only one parent than ever before, but this is really just the symptom of a more fundamental problem, namely a waning sense of social responsibility in general.

Well, since we're sharing personal info here, I've been married for a few years now to my high school sweetheart. Obviously we loved, still do and hopefully always will love each other, however, our marriage wasn't because of love, or to avoid debate, ONLY because of love. Like I said, I believe that people in love don't need marriage to hold them together, if anything, it actually puts a question mark on love in the sense that after a while married people can question themselves: are we still together because we’re still in love or because we're still married? Luckily my wife had the same views on it.

In short, we got married because we wanted a family. After being together for a while we realized we both wanted to have kids (and not just kids, but each-other's actually), we both wanted to have a certain life-style, we both wanted a nice home, we both wanted stability , we both wanted security and so on and marriage was the best and most convenient way to achieve all that. We didn’t discuss it all in details but we did talk about the most important things. Matter of fact, we didn’t promise each-other to be together till death do us part but we did promise that we’d give our best to provide all we possibly can to our children, such as toys, clothes, food, education, etc. but most importantly a loving family.

I know it sounds like both tough and naïve talk but bear in mind we were in our thirties when we got married (and mature I’d like to think), we didn’t pretend or promise to each other that everything would be all butterflies and rainbows but we did promise we’d do our best to work it out and make it through. Another important thing we promised is that we’d never pretend to one another because we both know that it’s not a question of not getting divorced when you get to the point you can’t stand each-other, it’s about working hard not to get to that point i.e. I’d rather hear her complain and then make it a habit to put my dirty socks in the basket than go through divorce because of irreconcilable differences.

As for social responsibility, I agree with you that it's a symptom but then again, moral can be cultivated. The problem with modern societies IMO is that we hear all this talk about rights but rarely, if ever, about responsibilities.

[bbobeckyj]

As for the specific issues you mentioned, I am too against unnecessary abortion of willful pregnancies but not because the bible says so. I think it's a very convenient exit clause for cheap and careless couples. At the same vein, I'm very pro contraception.

Would it be better for a couple who didn't want a baby, and who were not responsible enough to prevent a pregnancy in the first place, to actually have the child and raise it? Or do you mean adoption? (which pretty much means a high chance of care homes, foster care, and abuse)

Carelessness is not and should never be an excuse. If you text while driving and kill someone you're not innocent and don't get a get out of jail free card. Why should a careless parent get such benefit?

But you're asking the wrong question. The simplest question would be: Why are people careless? In a longer form, the question would be, if future parents didn't have the convenient choice of abortion or abandonment or otherwise if there was a heavy burden over children given birth to, would couples still neglect using a condom or contraceptives?

I find it ironic that people use condoms to prevent contracting AIDS or other STDs but not to prevent the conception of an unwanted child and future unborn child. Obviously they care a lot for their own life but not at all for that of an unborn child. Obviously they value it less than the price of a pack of condoms.

As for gay marriages, I'm against the new form of marriage we have nowadays only as means to share benefits because I don't see why my roommate of 5 years and I couldn't share benefits just because we didn't have sex together. Obviously this applies not only to many gay marriages but also many others. I'm also against gay marriage because it enables gay couples to adopt children and IMO it's not right. I agree it's better than missing both parent figures so I agree that it's better for orphans to have a strange family than none at all but still that doesn't change my opinion that it's not right. BTW, I'm also strongly against divorce. I realize I'm talking about an ideal world but I've found out that many clauses that have originated as means to solve an issue have turned in time into stimulants of that same issue.

Someone said 'god created love/sex, priests created marriage'. The problem with not allowing gay marriages is when you have issues with legal rights/power of attorney etc. A worst case scenario, two gay men/women living together for years, both outcast by blood family, one is injured, in a coma, the other gets no rights for their partner, and when they die all the estate is passed the blood family. With that in mind, I think gay marriages are a good thing. Though quite why someone would want to be married by an institution that has rejected them for who they are, seems such a contradiction.

Your example is confusing. Wouldn't a simple will or testament be an easier and better solution?

If being gay is a naturally occuring phenomenom, as is wanting to be a mother, how do you argue against two women wanting a child?

Easy, if you have both a heterosexual couple and a lesbian couple requesting adoption of the same child, who would you give the child to, were you the person in charge to make such decision?

Are you against divorce for all reasons?

People get easily married for no reason nowadays because they can get a divorce as easily. Rant over.

I'm against divorce because it's easier and cheaper nowadays to get married and divorced two months after than it is to get a cellphone service contract and terminate it. To put it in numbers, it's 60 bucks to get married in Vegas and 300 bucks to get a divorce but it's 72 bucks to activate two lines of cellphone service and 730 to terminate the contract after two months.

IMO, divorce originated as a solution to people attempting to get out of marriage for just reasons, nowadays it's turned to a solution to people attempting just to get out of marriage for no reason. Same as with abortion above, would people get married so easily if they knew they couldn't get out of it? If the words "till death do us part" really meant what they mean?

Others have covered a lot of the ground I was thinking of, so I'll just comment on a few of specifics.

I'm not asking the wrong question at all. This is one of the biggest weaknesses of following religion, such as the Pope's stance of condoms in Africa and aids. If a couple have already gotten pregnant, don't want a baby, are not responsible enough to prevent it in the first place, perhaps drinking and smoking, don't want to be parents etc. What should we do about it? Ask them why they were careless, or give them they option to terminate?

Are you implying that more people use condoms for protection than for pregnancy prevention? Or that the same person would use them only to prevent infection from a partner that they don't know well enough, but once they do they're happy to not worry about using them afterwards?

How is my example confusing? Perhaps I should not have preceded it with the quote. Priests may have invented marriage, but we're past that now, we have civil non religious ceremonies and marriages. You have mentioned about people getting married in the USA for reasons of benefits, (I'm not aware of any benefits for doing so in England, certainly nothing changed when I married,) so why prevent gay couples from recieving them? That would be discrimination based upon sexual orientation and that should be illegal.
Also if you were in long term relationship wouldn't being married (if that were an option) be better than having to create a will to legalise your relationship?

No such thing as an exactly equivalent pair of couples with one being gay and the other hetero. And even if there hypothetically were, there's still a shortage of people wanting to adopt, so they would each get a child.

The avarage cost of getting married is about £15,000 in England, or $26,000 in the USA, it's not a cheap thing to do (yes I know that you can simply turn up in jeans and t-shirt and pay the licence fee only, but this is the average) So I don't think that most people do so lightly and or expect to get out of at some time in the future.

Regarding your last sentence, that happened recently, a man buried his wife, alive, luckily she escaped.

[bbobeckyj]

Well, since we're sharing personal info here, I've been married for a few years now to my high school sweetheart. Obviously we loved, still do and hopefully always will love each other, however, our marriage wasn't because of love, or to avoid debate, ONLY because of love. Like I said, I believe that people in love don't need marriage to hold them together, if anything, it actually puts a question mark on love in the sense that after a while married people can question themselves: are we still together because we’re still in love or because we're still married? Luckily my wife had the same views on it.

In short, we got married because we wanted a family. After being together for a while we realized we both wanted to have kids (and not just kids, but each-other's actually), we both wanted to have a certain life-style, we both wanted a nice home, we both wanted stability , we both wanted security and so on and marriage was the best and most convenient way to achieve all that. We didn’t discuss it all in details but we did talk about the most important things. Matter of fact, we didn’t promise each-other to be together till death do us part but we did promise that we’d give our best to provide all we possibly can to our children, such as toys, clothes, food, education, etc. but most importantly a loving family.

I know it sounds like both tough and naïve talk but bear in mind we were in our thirties when we got married (and mature I’d like to think), we didn’t pretend or promise to each other that everything would be all butterflies and rainbows but we did promise we’d do our best to work it out and make it through. Another important thing we promised is that we’d never pretend to one another because we both know that it’s not a question of not getting divorced when you get to the point you can’t stand each-other, it’s about working hard not to get to that point i.e. I’d rather hear her complain and then make it a habit to put my dirty socks in the basket than go through divorce because of irreconcilable differences.

Now I'm confused, you did get married for the reasons that you've been talking condescendingly about, the benefits.

Why couldn't you have kids without being married? What changed just because you are a legal couple?
Being married here in England is nothing more than a title and a bit of paper, as is so often critisized.
I love the ideology of marriage, till death do us part, and being in love for ever, but people do change, I hope this part of my life doesn't, but how many people regret tatoos for example.

[bbobeckyj]

Bringing this topic back to religion.

Town Council prayers ruled unlawful
and in response
'Christianity marginalised'

What really angers me here is that in essence and to summarise the story. The council holds prayers before each meeting, someone complains that he is forced into doing so, mandatory prayers are ruled unlawfull, and then religious people complain that 'religious freedom no longer seemed to be a priority'. What about freedom to not be religious? Why do the pro religious so often use blinkered arguments which are actually a better argument against their position?

Some quotes from the associated pages-
"a campaign group that wants to push religion and the Christian faith from public life" What about freedom for other faiths? Or freedom from faith?

"The judge's finding that the Local Government Act doesn't give local authorities power to include prayers as part of their formal meetings - we think that's extraordinary. Quite why is beyond me.

"Equalities seem to trump all other kinds of freedom," As they should.

"This is a time for Christians to stand up and be counted." And so should the other faiths and non faiths, which is what happened.

[Greg92]

Well, since we're sharing personal info here, I've been married for a few years now to my high school sweetheart. Obviously we loved, still do and hopefully always will love each other, however, our marriage wasn't because of love, or to avoid debate, ONLY because of love. Like I said, I believe that people in love don't need marriage to hold them together, if anything, it actually puts a question mark on love in the sense that after a while married people can question themselves: are we still together because we’re still in love or because we're still married? Luckily my wife had the same views on it.

In short, we got married because we wanted a family. After being together for a while we realized we both wanted to have kids (and not just kids, but each-other's actually), we both wanted to have a certain life-style, we both wanted a nice home, we both wanted stability , we both wanted security and so on and marriage was the best and most convenient way to achieve all that. We didn’t discuss it all in details but we did talk about the most important things. Matter of fact, we didn’t promise each-other to be together till death do us part but we did promise that we’d give our best to provide all we possibly can to our children, such as toys, clothes, food, education, etc. but most importantly a loving family.

I know it sounds like both tough and naïve talk but bear in mind we were in our thirties when we got married (and mature I’d like to think), we didn’t pretend or promise to each other that everything would be all butterflies and rainbows but we did promise we’d do our best to work it out and make it through. Another important thing we promised is that we’d never pretend to one another because we both know that it’s not a question of not getting divorced when you get to the point you can’t stand each-other, it’s about working hard not to get to that point i.e. I’d rather hear her complain and then make it a habit to put my dirty socks in the basket than go through divorce because of irreconcilable differences.

Now I'm confused, you did get married for the reasons that you've been talking condescendingly about, the benefits.

Why couldn't you have kids without being married? What changed just because you are a legal couple?
Being married here in England is nothing more than a title and a bit of paper, as is so often critisized.
I love the ideology of marriage, till death do us part, and being in love for ever, but people do change, I hope this part of my life doesn't, but how many people regret tatoos for example.

I don't know why you're confused. I said we got married because we wanted a family and we wanted kids, not because we wanted the benefits....We were doing fine without the marriage until we decided we were ready for kids.

[bbobeckyj]

I don't know why you're confused. I said we got married because we wanted a family and we wanted kids, not because we wanted the benefits....We were doing fine without the marriage until we decided we were ready for kids.

So why get married? Why did you need to be married to have children? Why couldn't you be an unmarried family?

[minchy]

Bringing this topic back to religion.

Town Council prayers ruled unlawful
and in response
'Christianity marginalised'

What really angers me here is that in essence and to summarise the story. The council holds prayers before each meeting, someone complains that he is forced into doing so, mandatory prayers are ruled unlawfull, and then religious people complain that 'religious freedom no longer seemed to be a priority'. What about freedom to not be religious? Why do the pro religious so often use blinkered arguments which are actually a better argument against their position?

Some quotes from the associated pages-
"a campaign group that wants to push religion and the Christian faith from public life" What about freedom for other faiths? Or freedom from faith?

"The judge's finding that the Local Government Act doesn't give local authorities power to include prayers as part of their formal meetings - we think that's extraordinary. Quite why is beyond me.

"Equalities seem to trump all other kinds of freedom," As they should.

"This is a time for Christians to stand up and be counted." And so should the other faiths and non faiths, which is what happened.

It is an unfortunate fact that a small minority of people in all religions will be like this, forcing others to do as they do because they think it is right. I'm not a practising Christian any more, but the church which I was brought up in taught me to be respectful of others religious views and that trying to impose mine on others was more harmful than good. As a quick example, I did used to go on a church camp until I was 16 (would like to point out that it was an outdoor activities camp in Snowdonia so not as sad as you might think!) although it was run by my old church it was a national camp and took anyone who wanted to go from all over the country. Even though it was, in essence, a Christian camp, no one was forced to participate in any of the prayer / worship / services that took place through out the fortnight.

It baffles me that some people think they have the right to force others into praying to a god they don't believe in. On a similar note with regards to your comment earlier

This is one of the biggest weaknesses of following religion, such as the Pope's stance of condoms in Africa and aids.

This is just the pope and as an extension, the Catholic church's views. Not all denominations of Christianity have the same old fashioned views on such topics and have progressed with the times. It is again an unfortunate fact that it usually just these 'negative' stories that make the news and distort peoples perception of religion. (sorry to only quote that one sentence, but it was a good example for my point.)

On a side note, I think it may be attitudes like this (not yours, but the council members) that the other religion thread broke down, because Eury was adamant that he was 'right' and could not seem to respect others beliefs. It got to the point that he wasn't debating any more, but forcing his views on others.

[bbobeckyj]

This is one of the biggest weaknesses of following religion, such as the Pope's stance of condoms in Africa and aids.

This is just the pope and as an extension, the Catholic church's views. Not all denominations of Christianity have the same old fashioned views on such topics and have progressed with the times. It is again an unfortunate fact that it usually just these 'negative' stories that make the news and distort peoples perception of religion. (sorry to only quote that one sentence, but it was a good example for my point.)

On a side note, I think it may be attitudes like this (not yours, but the council members) that the other religion thread broke down, because Eury was adamant that he was 'right' and could not seem to respect others beliefs. It got to the point that he wasn't debating any more, but forcing his views on others.

Well that was just one example of religion ignoring facts and real life. Their way of doing things can be an utter failure. Abstination versus proper education and contraception. No doubt there are other problems in other religions, Islam seems ill suited for technology and modern ethics for example.
Edit: Their [all the religious, not just one religion] way of doing it might work if the whole world followed it, and actually did do it, but that would never happen, they can't control the people who are not followers of their faith.

[minchy]

This is one of the biggest weaknesses of following religion, such as the Pope's stance of condoms in Africa and aids.

This is just the pope and as an extension, the Catholic church's views. Not all denominations of Christianity have the same old fashioned views on such topics and have progressed with the times. It is again an unfortunate fact that it usually just these 'negative' stories that make the news and distort peoples perception of religion. (sorry to only quote that one sentence, but it was a good example for my point.)

On a side note, I think it may be attitudes like this (not yours, but the council members) that the other religion thread broke down, because Eury was adamant that he was 'right' and could not seem to respect others beliefs. It got to the point that he wasn't debating any more, but forcing his views on others.

Well that was just one example of religion ignoring facts and real life. Their way of doing things can be an utter failure. Abstination versus proper education and contraception. No doubt there are other problems in other religions, Islam seems ill suited for technology and modern ethics for example.
Edit: Their way of doing it might work if the whole world followed it, and actually did do it, but that would never happen, they can't control the people who are not followers of their faith.

I fully agree with that, but my point was that lots of religions have evolved with society and can quite happily fit into the modern world with modern ways of living. I think you are also confusing 'modern ethics' with 'western ethics'. Just because we have different ethics to other countries we should not force our views on them just because we see them as being better (much the same as forcing religious views on people) however, at the same time I think that people from other parts of the world should also respect our ethics and laws when are in our country.

[bbobeckyj]

This is one of the biggest weaknesses of following religion, such as the Pope's stance of condoms in Africa and aids.

This is just the pope and as an extension, the Catholic church's views. Not all denominations of Christianity have the same old fashioned views on such topics and have progressed with the times. It is again an unfortunate fact that it usually just these 'negative' stories that make the news and distort peoples perception of religion. (sorry to only quote that one sentence, but it was a good example for my point.)

On a side note, I think it may be attitudes like this (not yours, but the council members) that the other religion thread broke down, because Eury was adamant that he was 'right' and could not seem to respect others beliefs. It got to the point that he wasn't debating any more, but forcing his views on others.

Well that was just one example of religion ignoring facts and real life. Their way of doing things can be an utter failure. Abstination versus proper education and contraception. No doubt there are other problems in other religions, Islam seems ill suited for technology and modern ethics for example.
Edit: Their [all the religious, not just one religion] way of doing it might work if the whole world followed it, and actually did do it, but that would never happen, they can't control the people who are not followers of their faith.

I fully agree with that, but my point was that lots of religions have evolved with society and can quite happily fit into the modern world with modern ways of living. I think you are also confusing 'modern ethics' with 'western ethics'. Just because we have different ethics to other countries we should not force our views on them just because we see them as being better (much the same as forcing religious views on people) however, at the same time I think that people from other parts of the world should also respect our ethics and laws when are in our country.

No I'm not confusing western with modern, there simply is no modern in many non western countries, you said it better than I though, 'I think that people from other parts of the world should also respect our ethics and laws when are in our country.' this doesn't happen though.
(I've inserted a clarification in my edit, I didn't intend it to read as only islam)

[bbobeckyj]

Catholic cardinal criticises gay marriages plan. Further to religion trying to control the non religious, and back to marriages.

Government: "What we are saying is that where a couple love each other and they wish to commit to each other for their life then they should be able to have a civil marriage irrespective of their sexual orientation."

"We're not seeking to change religious marriage and we're not seeking to impose it on religious groups”

Cardinal: "grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right".

"shame the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world".

"Since all the legal rights of marriage are already available to homosexual couples, it is clear that this proposal is not about rights, but rather is an attempt to redefine marriage for the whole of society at the behest of a small minority of activists.

"Same-sex marriage would eliminate entirely in law the basic idea of a mother and a father for every child. It would create a society which deliberately chooses to deprive a child of either a mother or a father."

"Imagine for a moment that the government had decided to legalise slavery but assured us that 'no one will be forced to keep a slave'.

Would such worthless assurances calm our fury? Would they justify dismantling a fundamental human right?"

This is another example of how religion angers me. This has nothing to do with religion, yet they still impose their views upon us.
Same sex marriage to slavery!
And what is that about a mother and a father? What does that have to do with anything in the government proposal? It reads like all married couples will inevitably have children, but that same sex couples (when did that bedcome the pc term instead of gay?) will deprive their children (which they probably don't have) of better parents.