Sybaris Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 I just returned from a wedding and while listening to the minister ramble on about the bible and marriage and a god and how it's all blessed by this christian god blah, blah, blah I got to wondering, do christians consider couples of other faiths unmarried? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lunaticheathen Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 Good question. Lots of fundies seem to think they have the monopoly on marriage, when in modern society, it's pretty obviously a social contract. You don't need a minister to sign a marriage certificate, a judge or JoP will do. And not all clergy are legally recognized to be able to legally witness a marriage. I don't think many Christians actually think about what they mean when they talk about marriage. They assume it has to do with their god, then just accept that other people from other churches, other religions, get married too, without their personal god involved. As long as it doesn't look that different from their own marriages (i.e, monogamous and heterosexual), they don't question it - not thinking that some Hindu people leave offerings to cobras as a marriage rite. How is biblegod involved there? But the vast majority of Christians wouldn't protest to have Hindu marriages not recognized. They pull the biblegod crap most often to say how icky gay marriage would be, and/or to discourage inter-faith marriage. But their train of thought doesn't seem to extend far beyond that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurisaz Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 I'm not even legally married to my wife (we just took our oaths to our respective favorite deities) but I never had any morontheist question that marriage. Of course we don't have too many US-style morontheists over here (so far) so I guess it may well be from a lack of morontheists to become aware of it 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Positivist Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 I'm not even legally married to my wife (we just took our oaths to our respective favorite deities) ... That is so cool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 When we were married, I went out of my way to find a judge willing to come and perform the ceremony at the hotel we booked. He made no reference at all to god in the rites and vows. I'm not big on symbolism, but this symbolic gesture seemed important as I wanted to do everything I could to separate this important event in our lives from any and all religious influence. My religious family was ok with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam5 Posted June 18, 2012 Share Posted June 18, 2012 I got to wondering, do christians consider couples of other faiths unmarried? Hi Sybaris, yes Christians do consider non-Christian heterosexual marriages, as valid marriages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Akheia Posted June 23, 2012 Share Posted June 23, 2012 I certainly did consider non-Christian marriages to be valid marriages. But I was always edging toward a more civil definition of the term, I think. Gay marriage was far in the future when I deconverted, so I never really thought about that end of it, but I like to think I'd have considered them legal marriages too. I was normally content to use whatever labels someone wanted to use for their relationship. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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