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United States22883 Posts
On August 09 2010 07:33 d_so wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2010 05:30 nihlon wrote:On November 05 2008 05:29 d_so wrote:
- Similarly, the idea that marriage has nothing to do with religion casts a huge blind eye towards the role of various churches of all denominations, Christian or not, in the history of marriage. Also, the idea that marriage predates religion is a difficult premise to base your argument around. First, this argues that biological need is the primary purpose of marriage, which means to have kids, which means gay marriage doesn't work. Also, the idea of which came first is difficult to prove because you will not find common ground as to when humanity started between the creationists and the scientific, and short of someone time traveling to God's creation or the Big Bang, you can not 100 percent prove either/or. You can go ad hominem and call one side quacks or the other side liars, but this does not mean you're arguments have merit.
Uhm, no that isn't true. There were plenty of reasons why people got married, biological need aside. I don't see how you can argue that if you know anything about history. Do you for instance believe arranged marriages was all about making babies? The best argument you have that marriage predates religion are the nomadic bands and tribes that predate the centrally-governed chiefdoms and states that would later arise. It is during this time that marriages occurred without an organized religion to confirm the marriage. But even though there was no organized religion, there were still witch doctors and shamans who held the role of spiritual leader and often presided over the marriage as a representative of the spirit realm. So even though there may have been no official religion, they still appealed to the spirits in confirming their marriage. Once civilization evolved into centrally organized chiefdoms and states, it's almost impossible to deny the role of religion in marriage. Remember, I'm not talking about Christianity here, just religion. And the reason it's difficult is because the religion and government rise almost simultaneously in almost all cases of centrally-organized civilizations. In the Pulitzer winning book, Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Dudley argues why this is so: Show nested quote +The remaining way for kleptocrats to gain public support is to construct an ideology or religion justifying keptocracy. Bands and tribes already had supernatural beliefs... but supernatural beliefs did not serve to justify central authority (p.277) And thus a married couple often needed to gain recognition from the religion to confirm their marriage. And even if it wasn't a priest, there's all sorts of rituals and customs that are part of the marriage process that are designed to make an appeal to the spiritual. I'm not saying non-religious marriages didn't exist, because they definitely did. What I'm saying is you can't argue marriage predates, or comes before religion.
Diamond is a geographer, not a historian or anthropologist. Winning a Pulitzer did not excuse the poor historical timeline he put together. Basically, his book falls apart once he reached China. It was a secular institution in many cultures, including Rome, Greece and China.
If you're keen on pinning religion and marriage, why don't we follow the Sumerian model from Gilgamesh and let city-kings fuck every newly weds?
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On August 09 2010 11:29 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2010 07:33 d_so wrote:On August 09 2010 05:30 nihlon wrote:On November 05 2008 05:29 d_so wrote:
- Similarly, the idea that marriage has nothing to do with religion casts a huge blind eye towards the role of various churches of all denominations, Christian or not, in the history of marriage. Also, the idea that marriage predates religion is a difficult premise to base your argument around. First, this argues that biological need is the primary purpose of marriage, which means to have kids, which means gay marriage doesn't work. Also, the idea of which came first is difficult to prove because you will not find common ground as to when humanity started between the creationists and the scientific, and short of someone time traveling to God's creation or the Big Bang, you can not 100 percent prove either/or. You can go ad hominem and call one side quacks or the other side liars, but this does not mean you're arguments have merit.
Uhm, no that isn't true. There were plenty of reasons why people got married, biological need aside. I don't see how you can argue that if you know anything about history. Do you for instance believe arranged marriages was all about making babies? The best argument you have that marriage predates religion are the nomadic bands and tribes that predate the centrally-governed chiefdoms and states that would later arise. It is during this time that marriages occurred without an organized religion to confirm the marriage. But even though there was no organized religion, there were still witch doctors and shamans who held the role of spiritual leader and often presided over the marriage as a representative of the spirit realm. So even though there may have been no official religion, they still appealed to the spirits in confirming their marriage. Once civilization evolved into centrally organized chiefdoms and states, it's almost impossible to deny the role of religion in marriage. Remember, I'm not talking about Christianity here, just religion. And the reason it's difficult is because the religion and government rise almost simultaneously in almost all cases of centrally-organized civilizations. In the Pulitzer winning book, Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Dudley argues why this is so: The remaining way for kleptocrats to gain public support is to construct an ideology or religion justifying keptocracy. Bands and tribes already had supernatural beliefs... but supernatural beliefs did not serve to justify central authority (p.277) And thus a married couple often needed to gain recognition from the religion to confirm their marriage. And even if it wasn't a priest, there's all sorts of rituals and customs that are part of the marriage process that are designed to make an appeal to the spiritual. I'm not saying non-religious marriages didn't exist, because they definitely did. What I'm saying is you can't argue marriage predates, or comes before religion. Diamond is a geographer, not a historian or anthropologist. Winning a Pulitzer did not excuse the poor historical timeline he put together. Basically, his book falls apart once he reached China. It was a secular institution in many cultures, including Rome, Greece and China. If you're keep on pinning religion and marriage, why don't we follow the Sumerian model from Gilgamesh and let city-kings fuck every newly weds?
I am right in assuming "it" in paragraph one means "marriage", yes?
And brb founding city-state.
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United States5162 Posts
On August 09 2010 11:16 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2010 06:45 Myles wrote:On August 09 2010 06:36 Sadist wrote:On August 09 2010 05:20 Myles wrote:On August 09 2010 05:16 TheGeo wrote:On November 05 2008 06:20 d_so wrote:On November 05 2008 06:13 Nytefish wrote:
What do you mean by "marriage is a religious institution"? yeah i should make that more clear. I added a bit into the OP but i'll copy and paste it here: - The argument that marriage is a strictly legal institution is absolutely retarded. People have been listing marriage as merely a process of documenting dowries or whatever. Retarded. Marriage has a long history of being a religious AND legal institution, and we have documentation to prove it: the Bible. - Similarly, the idea that marriage has nothing to do with religion casts a huge blind eye towards the role of various churches of all denominations, Christian or not, in the history of marriage. Also, the idea that marriage predates religion is a difficult premise to base your argument around. First, this argues that biological need is the primary purpose of marriage, which means to have kids, which means gay marriage doesn't work. Also, the idea of which came first is difficult to prove because you will not find common ground as to when humanity started between the creationists and the scientific, and short of someone time traveling to God's creation or the Big Bang, you can not 100 percent prove either/or. You can go ad hominem and call one side quacks or the other side liars, but this does not mean you're arguments have merit. - Very clearly: Marriage is a religious AND legal institution. You cannot have one without the other. I repeatedly emphasize the religious aspect of marriage because public opinion seems to have forgotten this. But you cannot eliminate the church's right to marriage without imposing a forcible change of religious belief, which the constitution disallows. And you cannot remove the legal status of marriage because it has always had an equally useful purpose of establishing legal rights. Lol the Bible is not documentation. Its the mad writing of mentally damaged people with voices in there head who thought Jesus was more than a lunatic. Also, plenty of people marry with 0 religious reason/involvement. I'm not going to argue the merits of the religion in the bible, but most events that are written about in the bible are confirmed by other historical sources. same can be said of spiderman and nyc Huh? This really isn't the thread for it, but what historical sources describe spiderman and nyc(?). The bible is confirmed by the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, as well as other minor powers in the area. Archeological digs in the area has also found many of the cities and artifacts referred to in the bible. Which events? You can't throw out a blanket statement such as "most events" are confirmed without explaining which ones. Sadist's point is relevant, because it partly describes an accurate setting along with a fictional stories. Many of the stories are generalities similar to the way Nostradamus made predictions. We know a lot of the big things in the Old Testament, like Exodus, is mostly false and we know the Flood was just one of many floods that happened all around the world. In the New Testament, you've got real characters and there's no doubt that Jesus existed, but so did dozens of other prophets in the exact same time period trying to spread their own Word, and we know that the stories in the New Testament were decided upon by a group of men. What to include, what to exclude, etc. If you really want to use the Biblical example of marriage, then you've just confirmed polygamy because "one man and one woman" is actually the least common type of marriage documented in it. And it's common historical knowledge that marriage does pre-date religion, certainly predating Christianity, and among real civilizations. The problem with it, even if that weren't the case, is that it's totally irrelevant today, what its foundations were. It's actually quite amusing to see American Protestants argue the foundations of marriage and the Church, when that view is completely opposed to the spirit of the Reformation. Even to Martin Luther, marriage was not exclusive to religion.
Nothing in my post was to say marriage was related to religion at all. I would say religion had a large influence on marriage even if it does predate religion, but I don't really care what religious aspects there are to marriage because this is an issue about marriage in the eyes of secular law. All I was trying to do was point out that the bible is a form of historical documentation that wasn't written by crazy people and that you don't use it as a detailed history book but a overview of events that happened during that time.
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On August 09 2010 11:29 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2010 07:33 d_so wrote:On August 09 2010 05:30 nihlon wrote:On November 05 2008 05:29 d_so wrote:
- Similarly, the idea that marriage has nothing to do with religion casts a huge blind eye towards the role of various churches of all denominations, Christian or not, in the history of marriage. Also, the idea that marriage predates religion is a difficult premise to base your argument around. First, this argues that biological need is the primary purpose of marriage, which means to have kids, which means gay marriage doesn't work. Also, the idea of which came first is difficult to prove because you will not find common ground as to when humanity started between the creationists and the scientific, and short of someone time traveling to God's creation or the Big Bang, you can not 100 percent prove either/or. You can go ad hominem and call one side quacks or the other side liars, but this does not mean you're arguments have merit.
Uhm, no that isn't true. There were plenty of reasons why people got married, biological need aside. I don't see how you can argue that if you know anything about history. Do you for instance believe arranged marriages was all about making babies? The best argument you have that marriage predates religion are the nomadic bands and tribes that predate the centrally-governed chiefdoms and states that would later arise. It is during this time that marriages occurred without an organized religion to confirm the marriage. But even though there was no organized religion, there were still witch doctors and shamans who held the role of spiritual leader and often presided over the marriage as a representative of the spirit realm. So even though there may have been no official religion, they still appealed to the spirits in confirming their marriage. Once civilization evolved into centrally organized chiefdoms and states, it's almost impossible to deny the role of religion in marriage. Remember, I'm not talking about Christianity here, just religion. And the reason it's difficult is because the religion and government rise almost simultaneously in almost all cases of centrally-organized civilizations. In the Pulitzer winning book, Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Dudley argues why this is so: The remaining way for kleptocrats to gain public support is to construct an ideology or religion justifying keptocracy. Bands and tribes already had supernatural beliefs... but supernatural beliefs did not serve to justify central authority (p.277) And thus a married couple often needed to gain recognition from the religion to confirm their marriage. And even if it wasn't a priest, there's all sorts of rituals and customs that are part of the marriage process that are designed to make an appeal to the spiritual. I'm not saying non-religious marriages didn't exist, because they definitely did. What I'm saying is you can't argue marriage predates, or comes before religion. Diamond is a geographer, not a historian or anthropologist. Winning a Pulitzer did not excuse the poor historical timeline he put together. Basically, his book falls apart once he reached China. It was a secular institution in many cultures, including Rome, Greece and China. If you're keep on pinning religion and marriage, why don't we follow the Sumerian model from Gilgamesh and let city-kings fuck every newly weds?
well if you're going to look at it respective to each individual culture then of course you're going to get a different answer. Is that really the argument you want to forward? That marriage predates religion in certain cultures and thus should be considered separate from religion for all the cultures?
Nor do I argue that non-religious marriages never occurred. They did, no one's denying that. But there were also marriages that occurred with religious supervision concurrently, often simultaneously. This is why I argue that it's not 100 percent either way.
I like how you're trying to discredit the book. Did you actually read it? If you did, you'd know he addresses china many times as partly anomalous but also containing many of the relevant points. The timeline does not "fall apart" as you so hastily claim. In fact, it might be better for you to go read the book right now instead of depending on the claims of others that you googled. I'd be quite interested to hear your original argument, especially since I taught Chinese history for a month at an international school and I don't see how his timeline of bands --> tribes --> chiefdoms--> states doesn't pertain to their ancient history.
Your last argument is inane but since you're a mod I guess i just have to take it. Yes, I want to follow the Sumerian model and have my king fuck my wife before I marry her.
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lol and I don't know why i called him dudley instead of diamond, i think i was alt tabbing between basketball and TL and mixed the two up haha
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On August 09 2010 11:16 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2010 06:45 Myles wrote:On August 09 2010 06:36 Sadist wrote:On August 09 2010 05:20 Myles wrote:On August 09 2010 05:16 TheGeo wrote:On November 05 2008 06:20 d_so wrote:On November 05 2008 06:13 Nytefish wrote:
What do you mean by "marriage is a religious institution"? yeah i should make that more clear. I added a bit into the OP but i'll copy and paste it here: - The argument that marriage is a strictly legal institution is absolutely retarded. People have been listing marriage as merely a process of documenting dowries or whatever. Retarded. Marriage has a long history of being a religious AND legal institution, and we have documentation to prove it: the Bible. - Similarly, the idea that marriage has nothing to do with religion casts a huge blind eye towards the role of various churches of all denominations, Christian or not, in the history of marriage. Also, the idea that marriage predates religion is a difficult premise to base your argument around. First, this argues that biological need is the primary purpose of marriage, which means to have kids, which means gay marriage doesn't work. Also, the idea of which came first is difficult to prove because you will not find common ground as to when humanity started between the creationists and the scientific, and short of someone time traveling to God's creation or the Big Bang, you can not 100 percent prove either/or. You can go ad hominem and call one side quacks or the other side liars, but this does not mean you're arguments have merit. - Very clearly: Marriage is a religious AND legal institution. You cannot have one without the other. I repeatedly emphasize the religious aspect of marriage because public opinion seems to have forgotten this. But you cannot eliminate the church's right to marriage without imposing a forcible change of religious belief, which the constitution disallows. And you cannot remove the legal status of marriage because it has always had an equally useful purpose of establishing legal rights. Lol the Bible is not documentation. Its the mad writing of mentally damaged people with voices in there head who thought Jesus was more than a lunatic. Also, plenty of people marry with 0 religious reason/involvement. I'm not going to argue the merits of the religion in the bible, but most events that are written about in the bible are confirmed by other historical sources. same can be said of spiderman and nyc Huh? This really isn't the thread for it, but what historical sources describe spiderman and nyc(?). The bible is confirmed by the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, as well as other minor powers in the area. Archeological digs in the area has also found many of the cities and artifacts referred to in the bible. Which events? You can't throw out a blanket statement such as "most events" are confirmed without explaining which ones. Sadist's point is relevant, because it partly describes an accurate setting along with a fictional stories. Many of the stories are generalities similar to the way Nostradamus made predictions. We know a lot of the big things in the Old Testament, like Exodus, is mostly false and we know the Flood was just one of many floods that happened all around the world. In the New Testament, you've got real characters and there's no doubt that Jesus existed, but so did dozens of other prophets in the exact same time period trying to spread their own Word, and we know that the stories in the New Testament were decided upon by a group of men. What to include, what to exclude, etc. If you really want to use the Biblical example of marriage, then you've just confirmed polygamy because "one man and one woman" is actually the least common type of marriage documented in it. And it's common historical knowledge that marriage does pre-date religion, certainly predating Christianity, and among real civilizations. The problem with it, even if that weren't the case, is that it's totally irrelevant today, what its foundations were. It's actually quite amusing to see American Protestants argue the foundations of marriage and the Church, when that view is completely opposed to the spirit of the Reformation. Even to Martin Luther, marriage was not exclusive to religion.
lol i like how you're using "common knowledge" as evidence and then get mad at him for using a blanket statement
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On August 09 2010 10:10 d_so wrote:i don't think fox ever invites him again, chris wallace got spanked
Hahaha wow owned!
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United States22883 Posts
On August 09 2010 11:43 d_so wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2010 11:29 Jibba wrote:On August 09 2010 07:33 d_so wrote:On August 09 2010 05:30 nihlon wrote:On November 05 2008 05:29 d_so wrote:
- Similarly, the idea that marriage has nothing to do with religion casts a huge blind eye towards the role of various churches of all denominations, Christian or not, in the history of marriage. Also, the idea that marriage predates religion is a difficult premise to base your argument around. First, this argues that biological need is the primary purpose of marriage, which means to have kids, which means gay marriage doesn't work. Also, the idea of which came first is difficult to prove because you will not find common ground as to when humanity started between the creationists and the scientific, and short of someone time traveling to God's creation or the Big Bang, you can not 100 percent prove either/or. You can go ad hominem and call one side quacks or the other side liars, but this does not mean you're arguments have merit.
Uhm, no that isn't true. There were plenty of reasons why people got married, biological need aside. I don't see how you can argue that if you know anything about history. Do you for instance believe arranged marriages was all about making babies? The best argument you have that marriage predates religion are the nomadic bands and tribes that predate the centrally-governed chiefdoms and states that would later arise. It is during this time that marriages occurred without an organized religion to confirm the marriage. But even though there was no organized religion, there were still witch doctors and shamans who held the role of spiritual leader and often presided over the marriage as a representative of the spirit realm. So even though there may have been no official religion, they still appealed to the spirits in confirming their marriage. Once civilization evolved into centrally organized chiefdoms and states, it's almost impossible to deny the role of religion in marriage. Remember, I'm not talking about Christianity here, just religion. And the reason it's difficult is because the religion and government rise almost simultaneously in almost all cases of centrally-organized civilizations. In the Pulitzer winning book, Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Dudley argues why this is so: The remaining way for kleptocrats to gain public support is to construct an ideology or religion justifying keptocracy. Bands and tribes already had supernatural beliefs... but supernatural beliefs did not serve to justify central authority (p.277) And thus a married couple often needed to gain recognition from the religion to confirm their marriage. And even if it wasn't a priest, there's all sorts of rituals and customs that are part of the marriage process that are designed to make an appeal to the spiritual. I'm not saying non-religious marriages didn't exist, because they definitely did. What I'm saying is you can't argue marriage predates, or comes before religion. Diamond is a geographer, not a historian or anthropologist. Winning a Pulitzer did not excuse the poor historical timeline he put together. Basically, his book falls apart once he reached China. It was a secular institution in many cultures, including Rome, Greece and China. If you're keep on pinning religion and marriage, why don't we follow the Sumerian model from Gilgamesh and let city-kings fuck every newly weds? well if you're going to look at it respective to each individual culture then of course you're going to get a different answer. Is that really the argument you want to forward? That marriage predates religion in certain cultures and thus should be considered separate from religion for all the cultures? Nor do I argue that non-religious marriages never occurred. They did, no one's denying that. But there were also marriages that occurred with religious supervision concurrently, often simultaneously. This is why I argue that it's not 100 percent either way. I like how you're trying to discredit the book. Did you actually read it? If you did, you'd know he addresses china many times as partly anomalous but also containing many of the relevant points. The timeline does not "fall apart" as you so hastily claim. In fact, it might be better for you to go read the book right now instead of depending on the claims of others that you googled. I'd be quite interested to hear your original argument, especially since I taught Chinese history for a month at an international school and I don't see how his timeline of bands --> tribes --> chiefdoms--> states doesn't pertain to their ancient history. Your last argument is inane but since you're a mod I guess i just have to take it. Yes, I want to follow the Sumerian model and have my king fuck my wife before I marry her.
I argued exactly against that, that whatever precedent was set is irrelevant to the modern conception of marriage.
Yes, I've read Diamond's updated version. He inadequately covers basically every social science which is what makes China and then the modern civilizations portions so bad. You've got some cases where technology and disease make the difference, and plenty of others where it doesn't. What reason does he cite for Europe moving past China? I don't have it on hand to take it to task, but suffice it to say that most reviews by historians do the job for me. If I recall, the Maoris were about the section that he even starts to touch on culture, and even then it's brief. He only goes as far as to describe why some societies had a head start and even then, some of the cases are off, like Egypt.
And don't pull that "you're a mod" shit. It has no bearing on this discussion.
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United States22883 Posts
On August 09 2010 11:48 d_so wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2010 11:16 Jibba wrote:On August 09 2010 06:45 Myles wrote:On August 09 2010 06:36 Sadist wrote:On August 09 2010 05:20 Myles wrote:On August 09 2010 05:16 TheGeo wrote:On November 05 2008 06:20 d_so wrote:On November 05 2008 06:13 Nytefish wrote:
What do you mean by "marriage is a religious institution"? yeah i should make that more clear. I added a bit into the OP but i'll copy and paste it here: - The argument that marriage is a strictly legal institution is absolutely retarded. People have been listing marriage as merely a process of documenting dowries or whatever. Retarded. Marriage has a long history of being a religious AND legal institution, and we have documentation to prove it: the Bible. - Similarly, the idea that marriage has nothing to do with religion casts a huge blind eye towards the role of various churches of all denominations, Christian or not, in the history of marriage. Also, the idea that marriage predates religion is a difficult premise to base your argument around. First, this argues that biological need is the primary purpose of marriage, which means to have kids, which means gay marriage doesn't work. Also, the idea of which came first is difficult to prove because you will not find common ground as to when humanity started between the creationists and the scientific, and short of someone time traveling to God's creation or the Big Bang, you can not 100 percent prove either/or. You can go ad hominem and call one side quacks or the other side liars, but this does not mean you're arguments have merit. - Very clearly: Marriage is a religious AND legal institution. You cannot have one without the other. I repeatedly emphasize the religious aspect of marriage because public opinion seems to have forgotten this. But you cannot eliminate the church's right to marriage without imposing a forcible change of religious belief, which the constitution disallows. And you cannot remove the legal status of marriage because it has always had an equally useful purpose of establishing legal rights. Lol the Bible is not documentation. Its the mad writing of mentally damaged people with voices in there head who thought Jesus was more than a lunatic. Also, plenty of people marry with 0 religious reason/involvement. I'm not going to argue the merits of the religion in the bible, but most events that are written about in the bible are confirmed by other historical sources. same can be said of spiderman and nyc Huh? This really isn't the thread for it, but what historical sources describe spiderman and nyc(?). The bible is confirmed by the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, as well as other minor powers in the area. Archeological digs in the area has also found many of the cities and artifacts referred to in the bible. Which events? You can't throw out a blanket statement such as "most events" are confirmed without explaining which ones. Sadist's point is relevant, because it partly describes an accurate setting along with a fictional stories. Many of the stories are generalities similar to the way Nostradamus made predictions. We know a lot of the big things in the Old Testament, like Exodus, is mostly false and we know the Flood was just one of many floods that happened all around the world. In the New Testament, you've got real characters and there's no doubt that Jesus existed, but so did dozens of other prophets in the exact same time period trying to spread their own Word, and we know that the stories in the New Testament were decided upon by a group of men. What to include, what to exclude, etc. If you really want to use the Biblical example of marriage, then you've just confirmed polygamy because "one man and one woman" is actually the least common type of marriage documented in it. And it's common historical knowledge that marriage does pre-date religion, certainly predating Christianity, and among real civilizations. The problem with it, even if that weren't the case, is that it's totally irrelevant today, what its foundations were. It's actually quite amusing to see American Protestants argue the foundations of marriage and the Church, when that view is completely opposed to the spirit of the Reformation. Even to Martin Luther, marriage was not exclusive to religion. lol i like how you're using "common knowledge" as evidence and then get mad at him for using a blanket statement
Terrible post by me, thanks for pointing it out.  However, it's commonly known to History/Anthro people, just as if I were to describe IR Constructivism, most people wouldn't understand it but those in PoliSci/IR know that it's garbage.
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On August 09 2010 12:09 synapse wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2010 10:10 d_so wrote:i don't think fox ever invites him again, chris wallace got spanked Hahaha wow owned!
ok, so with arguments as clear cut as that, what exactly is this thread currently debating?
is there actual disagreement in here?
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On August 09 2010 12:09 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2010 11:43 d_so wrote:On August 09 2010 11:29 Jibba wrote:On August 09 2010 07:33 d_so wrote:On August 09 2010 05:30 nihlon wrote:On November 05 2008 05:29 d_so wrote:
- Similarly, the idea that marriage has nothing to do with religion casts a huge blind eye towards the role of various churches of all denominations, Christian or not, in the history of marriage. Also, the idea that marriage predates religion is a difficult premise to base your argument around. First, this argues that biological need is the primary purpose of marriage, which means to have kids, which means gay marriage doesn't work. Also, the idea of which came first is difficult to prove because you will not find common ground as to when humanity started between the creationists and the scientific, and short of someone time traveling to God's creation or the Big Bang, you can not 100 percent prove either/or. You can go ad hominem and call one side quacks or the other side liars, but this does not mean you're arguments have merit.
Uhm, no that isn't true. There were plenty of reasons why people got married, biological need aside. I don't see how you can argue that if you know anything about history. Do you for instance believe arranged marriages was all about making babies? The best argument you have that marriage predates religion are the nomadic bands and tribes that predate the centrally-governed chiefdoms and states that would later arise. It is during this time that marriages occurred without an organized religion to confirm the marriage. But even though there was no organized religion, there were still witch doctors and shamans who held the role of spiritual leader and often presided over the marriage as a representative of the spirit realm. So even though there may have been no official religion, they still appealed to the spirits in confirming their marriage. Once civilization evolved into centrally organized chiefdoms and states, it's almost impossible to deny the role of religion in marriage. Remember, I'm not talking about Christianity here, just religion. And the reason it's difficult is because the religion and government rise almost simultaneously in almost all cases of centrally-organized civilizations. In the Pulitzer winning book, Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Dudley argues why this is so: The remaining way for kleptocrats to gain public support is to construct an ideology or religion justifying keptocracy. Bands and tribes already had supernatural beliefs... but supernatural beliefs did not serve to justify central authority (p.277) And thus a married couple often needed to gain recognition from the religion to confirm their marriage. And even if it wasn't a priest, there's all sorts of rituals and customs that are part of the marriage process that are designed to make an appeal to the spiritual. I'm not saying non-religious marriages didn't exist, because they definitely did. What I'm saying is you can't argue marriage predates, or comes before religion. Diamond is a geographer, not a historian or anthropologist. Winning a Pulitzer did not excuse the poor historical timeline he put together. Basically, his book falls apart once he reached China. It was a secular institution in many cultures, including Rome, Greece and China. If you're keep on pinning religion and marriage, why don't we follow the Sumerian model from Gilgamesh and let city-kings fuck every newly weds? well if you're going to look at it respective to each individual culture then of course you're going to get a different answer. Is that really the argument you want to forward? That marriage predates religion in certain cultures and thus should be considered separate from religion for all the cultures? Nor do I argue that non-religious marriages never occurred. They did, no one's denying that. But there were also marriages that occurred with religious supervision concurrently, often simultaneously. This is why I argue that it's not 100 percent either way. I like how you're trying to discredit the book. Did you actually read it? If you did, you'd know he addresses china many times as partly anomalous but also containing many of the relevant points. The timeline does not "fall apart" as you so hastily claim. In fact, it might be better for you to go read the book right now instead of depending on the claims of others that you googled. I'd be quite interested to hear your original argument, especially since I taught Chinese history for a month at an international school and I don't see how his timeline of bands --> tribes --> chiefdoms--> states doesn't pertain to their ancient history. Your last argument is inane but since you're a mod I guess i just have to take it. Yes, I want to follow the Sumerian model and have my king fuck my wife before I marry her. I argued exactly against that, that whatever precedent was set is irrelevant to the modern conception of marriage. Yes, I've read Diamond's updated version. He inadequately covers basically every social science which is what makes China and then the modern civilizations portions so bad. You've got some cases where technology and disease make the difference, and plenty of others where it doesn't. What reason does he cite for Europe moving past China? I don't have it on hand to take it to task, but suffice it to say that most reviews by historians do the job for me. If I recall, the Maoris were about the section that he even starts to touch on culture, and even then it's brief. He only goes as far as to describe why some societies had a head start and even then, some of the cases are off, like Egypt. And don't pull that "you're a mod" shit. It has no bearing on this discussion.
k i won't pull that "shit" if you don't make such weird suggestions. Why would i want a giglamesh fucking my wife? Especially when my whole argument is that religion shouldn't impose its morality through secular law. So yeah.
Liek you said, he pins Europe's advances on the disease and the technology, but also very much on the type of predominant grain and the differenece in livestock. It's certainly a strange way to go about it, an evolutionist's point of view on history if you will, and I'm sure it has its share of doubters. It's kinda irrelevant to the point though about him arguing that religion and civilization rise hand in hand though.
edit: added smiley faces
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Does it even matter or not if marriage precedes religion or not? Is it not a plain fact that the concept of marriage in Western societies of today have gone beyond the simple union of a man and a woman to create offspring into a binding union between two individuals that love each other? Do not we, who have grown up in Western civilizations, not express joy at the marriage of two individuals because they love one another, not because we think of what kind of offspring the marriage could produce? In the very essence of it, do we not celebrate the marriage of others and of ourselves because of the love between the two individuals, not because of any sort of religious themes or the supposed biological purpose of procreating in the human life?
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Abolitionists, anti-abortion activists, and civil rights activists have all been motivated by personal faith, Campbell argued. "To be blunt, we felt (Walker's decision) was an all-out attack on religion."
Walker did note, however, that no religion will be forced to perform same-sex weddings.
Howard Friedman, an emeritus law professor at Ohio's University of Toledo, said Walker is not attacking religion per se; he is just not giving religious expression any special consideration.
"He's basically saying that a private moral view isn't a rational basis for legislation," said Friedman, who writes the popular "Religion Clause" blog. "Case law goes both ways on that. There are certainly some cases that say a merely moral view isn't enough to support legislation; on the other hand, there are some cases that talk about laws being a moral view on society."
Walker's reasoning relies, in part, on a 1996 Supreme Court decision that struck down an anti-gay law in Colorado, Friedman said. That decision, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy--who's considered a key swing vote on the high court--invalidated laws grounded in "animosity toward the class of persons affected."
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