Marriage has meant one thing from the beginning of time
Rick Warren is a bit of an ignoramus, isn’t he. He said when he endorsed Prop 8 in California
We should not let 2 percent of the population determine, to change a definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture and every single religion for 5,000 years.
Oh really. Is that a fact. Every single culture and every single religion for 5 thousand years. Really. Never one man and five women? One man and thirty women? One man and a hundred women? Perhaps Rick Warren has never heard of Mormons, or considers Mormonism to be neither a religion nor a culture. He probably considers Islam a religion though.
And what about one man and one girl? Perhaps Rick Warren is not aware that some religions and some cultures define marriage as including one man and one female child or five or ten female children. But if Rick Warren is not aware of that – maybe he really ought to shut up about gay marriage.
An eight-year old Saudi Arabian girl who was married off by her father to a 58-year-old man has been told she cannot divorce her husband until she reaches puberty…In many child marriages, girls are given away to older men in return for dowries or following the custom by which a father promises his daughters and sons to marriage while still children. But the issue is complicated by different interpretations of sharia law and a lack of legal certainty…The father agreed to marry off his daughter for a dowry of 30,000 riyals (£5,400) as he was facing financial problems…No figures are available for the number of arranged marriages involving pre-adolescents in Saudi Arabia, where the strictly conservative Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam holds sway and polygamy is common. But human rights groups say they are aware of many such cases.
Oh, well…at least there are no faggots involved. Whew!
Mr. Ricky forgot some others too, like those early guys, what did they call their group, oh yeah the disciples. Some of those guys said no marriage for anyone, you all have to stay celibate. So the issue of men and women didn’t enter in to it.
Oh yeah and then there were those marriages that were between two families, those business deal marriages. Although I supposed technically they looked like one boy and one girl.
Mr. Ricky has hysteria as well as being an ignoramus. Poor thing. His study of every single culture and every single religion for the last 5K years was not very careful. Once again, not acceptable from an undergraduate.
Strange. Warren never heard of Solomon or David or Abraham either, I guess. And I bet he thinks that the Bible is the WORD OF GOD! Which means that he hasn’t really studied his own, let alone every single culture and religion for 5 K years.
Of course, Abraham’s wife Sarah gives him her slave Hagar – that’s because in vitro fertilisation wasn’t a moral option at the time – but it is of note that Abraham did on occasion pass Sarah off as his sister, so that lustful princes would take her and Abraham wouldn’t be forced to fight for her honour. (Of course, Yahweh fought for her honour, giving the princes boils and other supperating sores, and once they knew Abraham had God on his side, they gave Sarah back, no matter how desirable she was.)
And then there are all the women (who had not slept with a man) that the Israelites were allowed to take home as part of the booty of war. No limit placed on the number either, that I can recall. (Of course, women who had slept with a man were to be killed. Didn’t want any used women about the place.)
After David came from Hebron, we are told, he “took more concubines and wives; and more sons and daughters were born to David.” (2 Sam 5.13)
And, about Solomon: “Among his wives were seven hundred princesses and three hundred concubines.” (1 Kings 11.3)
Of course, the trouble for Solomon was that all this many women played merry havoc with his faith and led him to follow strange gods, like Astarte. But the nice round 1000 is still in the book.
Now, I bet that the Slaughterhouse Church leader still holds that marriage is between one man and one woman and that that has been the definition for 5,000 years. Even the pope seems labour under some misapprehension here. Perhaps these guys don’t read the Bible very much.
The appeal to tradition is so mind-numbingly infuriating! Even if – which it clearly isn’t – it were true that one narrow definition of marriage had been supported by everyone throughout history it’s simply not logical to say that’s how it always should be – I’m sure the hidden and murdered homosexuals throughout history would have much preferred to be able to marry if the monumentally oppressive religious cultures they lived in had allowed them.
People, cultures and attitudes change, but then religious dogmatists can’t quite get their heads around change can they? Unless it benefits them anyway, viz. modern medicine, computers, cars…
Eric MacDonald: Make that “pre-owned” women….
Yes, Jeff, I forgot, that’s right. We don’t say ‘used’ and more, ‘pre-owned’, or for DVD’s, ‘pre-viewed’. Hey, I’m getting old!
Okay so those women would be pre-fucked then. As well as pre-owned of course.
No, OB, Warren doesn’t want used or pre-owned or pre-fucked women – just the virgin kind. It says it in the book. Perhaps someone should tell him. He hasn’t read it lately.
I am so fed up with this biblical hate speech. It’s really time to put an end to it. I have torn up my last Bible and thrown it into the recycling bin, just to show I mean it.