[CaptainPanic]

JustinW, on 24 January 2012 - 04:49 PM, said:

Yes to some degree. If a law is brought to the polls that goes against a person's religious beliefs, do you think that person will vote in favor of it? [...]

I just did not know so many people were that religious.

I thought that the importance of religion in the USA was more like over here in (Western) Europe. People might still be registered with a church, but are no longer followers of the church in any practical sense. We often compare the US and Europe as having pretty similar cultures, and differences are measured in the size of a burger or the size of a glass/cup of cola, or how much garlic we put in our foods... I was never aware that there was a large religious difference.

Do you think this religious thingy is growing? Or has it always been there, but have I simply never noticed it?

[iNow]

CaptainPanic, on 25 January 2012 - 08:46 AM, said:

Do you think this religious thingy is growing? Or has it always been there, but have I simply never noticed it?

Here's a decent article from August: http://www.huffingto...a_n_933395.html

Quote

Some core American beliefs have remained stable over the past two generations, however, including belief in a higher power, the afterlife and the belief that God is personally concerned with human beings.

"Compared to Europe, Canada and Australia, Americans are still very religious," Chaves conceded.

Among the other findings in "American Religion:"

-- There is a declining (though still very high) belief in God or a higher power: In the 1950s, 99 percent of Americans said they believed in God; in 2008, about 93 percent did.

-- Nearly 20 percent of Americans now say they have no religion, compared to just 3 percent in 1957.

-- Only 25 percent of Americans attend weekly religious services, although up to 40 percent claim they do.

-- Fewer Americans approve of their religious leaders getting involved in politics. In 1991, about 30 percent of Americans strongly agreed that religious leaders should avoid political involvement; by 2008, 44 percent felt that way.

-- Belief that the Bible should be taken literally dropped from about 40 percent in the early 1970s to about 30 percent in 2008; Chaves said this trend corresponds with the rise in college education.

-- From 1972 to 2008, the percentage of people with great confidence in religious leaders declined from 35 percent to less than 25 percent. A sharp dip around 2002 was probably due to the Catholic Church clergy abuse scandal

And, from Gallup... This shows the group where religions is VERY important (more than half), and doesn't even account for those who think it's just regular important (which would probably bring it above 70 or 80%):

[JustinW]

Quote

I didn't mention a ceremony because it's hard to see how much evidence there could be of a prehistoric ceremony.

Okay, but to say that our population would have dwindled from a lack of a ceromony or (something close) is absurd. Marriage ceromonies (or something close) wouldn't have had that sort of effect on our sexual activity. Just because we wouldn't have had a ceromony ( or something close to it) wouldn't mean people would stop having sex and procreating. That was what I was trying to express, strawman or not.



iNow, that was some good information. I had figured it was something like that even though it felt, to me, like there might have been a decline over the past couple of decades or so.

This post has been edited by JustinW: 26 January 2012 - 02:59 PM

[Moontanman]

CaptainPanic, on 24 January 2012 - 09:11 AM, said:

I know that Santorum would like nothing more than turning the USA into a religious country... but even in the US, religion is somewhat separated from the state, isn't it? At least, it still is. Do the Americans employ priests to marry people before the state and god at the same time??? I don't think so. I bet you also have 2 different ceremonies.

No, in the United States of America we do not have two ceremonies, you can have a civil ceremony if you want but if you wed in a church there is no civil ceremony.

Also I would like to point out that some churches do indeed sanction gay marriage, i have been to several and catered two of them, but the state does not recognize them as legal...

[ewmon]

JustinW, on 26 January 2012 - 02:55 PM, said:

Just because we wouldn't have had a ceromony ( or something close to it) wouldn't mean people would stop having sex and procreating.

I was surprised when we actually married. We technically didn't do anything to make it official/final. We had obtained the license a month or two earlier, but on the day of the wedding, we never actually entered any information on it, signed/dated it or anything like that. It was completed, signed, dated, etc by the minister performing the wedding and the witness. I didn't expect it to be like that, and I still don't think it makes sense because marriage is a contract recognized in a court of law. It's the only contract I know where the parties don't make a record of to finalize it — compared to consumer contracts, business contracts, etc.

A marriage is a binding contract recognized by society, and when people end a marriage, they actually sue to end it, just as they would sue to end any contract (although the process can, when actually played out, be much more non-contentious and informal than a lawsuit). Most people now sue for a no-fault/incompatibility, whereas in the past (ie, in heterosexual marriages), they sued for specific "breach of contract": infidelity, abandonment/desertion, cruelty/abusiveness, etc.

These causes for divorce indicate what the marriage contract meant entailed (aside from the religious slant): fidelity/faithfulness/allegiance, companionship/emotional support, physical/financial support, kindness/mercy/compassion, etc.

[JustinW]

ewmon,

I wonder if marriages started becoming contractual/legal procedings because of authoritative laws against stuff like incest, multiple spouses, etc... I could be wrong on this because I haven't done any historical research on the subject, but it would make sense that that is the reason that a secular form of authority plays a part in marriage.
If you notice under the reasons for divorcing there isn't an actual breach of contract compared to the vows you exchange. I wonder why that is. You would think that from a legal stand point that a breach of contract would have to be fairly specific when it comes to the lettering of the contract. It's given me something to think about anyway.

[ewmon]

JustinW, on 26 January 2012 - 09:37 PM, said:

ewmon,

I wonder if marriages started becoming contractual/legal procedings because of authoritative laws against stuff like incest, multiple spouses, etc... I could be wrong on this because I haven't done any historical research on the subject, but it would make sense that that is the reason that a secular form of authority plays a part in marriage.

If you notice under the reasons for divorcing there isn't an actual breach of contract compared to the vows you exchange. I wonder why that is. You would think that from a legal stand point that a breach of contract would have to be fairly specific when it comes to the lettering of the contract. It's given me something to think about anyway.

Great response.

I think societies (whether religious or secular) made marriages "official" mostly for the stability/strength/success it offered societies due to "the family" and its success being a very important element to most societies. For example, many people are surprised that, although alienation of affection has been abolished in most states, jilted spouses can still sue interlopers for it in Hawaii, Illinois, North Carolina, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Utah as this recent high-visibility case and this other one shows.

Although my legal knowledge is appreciable, it is also limited. Maybe my view of marriage was incomplete, and so, maybe marital breaches are tortious as well as contractual.

The term "tortious" refers to a civil wrong called a "tort", which, quoting Wikipedia above, is

Quote

a personal injury; or "a civil action other than a breach of contract."

A common example of a tort (although unrelated to marriage) is trespassing. People do not contract one another not to trespass on each other's properties, and most people do not explicitly assert exclusive rights to their property by posting "No Trespassing" signs, yet people generally understand that it is "wrong" to go onto another person's property without permission — aside from the limited access of walking up someone's sidewalk or driveway for the purpose of talking to them and/or giving or leaving something for them, etc.

So, a marriage may also be society's unwritten recognition of the parties' exclusive rights to the fidelity/faithfulness/allegiance, companionship/emotional support, physical/financial support, kindness/mercy/compassion, etc that are due one another in such a relationship. Certainly now, with no-fault divorces, the courts really don't care why one person no longer wants to remain married to their spouse. Entering into marriage, at least in secular society, there's no minimum legal obligations for marriage other than simply agreeing to enter into the marriage, so the ultimate evolution of grounds for divorce to include "no fault" really shouldn't surprise anyone. And likewise, when there's no legal obligations for marriage, then same-sex marriage really shouldn't surprise anyone either.

To further illustrate the difference between a tortious wrong and a contractual wrong, a Christian lawyer (yes they do exist) once enlightened me as to the slight difference (unnoticed by most Christians) between the two translations of the Our Father prayer, where one tells us to forgive our debtors and the other says tells us to forgive those who trespass against us. Our debtors are parties to explicit contracts with us (either written or oral), whom we should then forgive if they fail to comply with the terms of the contract. On the other hand, someone who trespasses has not made any explicit promise as to his behavior, yet has violated a generally understood obligation to his fellow citizens, for which we should forgive him. So, technically speaking, forgiving those who trespass against us forgives a wider and inclusive range of sins compared to forgiving our debtors.

[JustinW]

I didn't think about it that way, but now that you mention it, it does make sense. It would also explain why divorse is much easier now days than it was when we were historically more fundamentally religious.