The Concept Of Marriage | Richard-GA | The Atheist Experience 906

The Atheist Experience 906 for February 22, 2015, with Matt Dillahunty and Jen Peeples.
About the concept of marriage. Is it a Religious concept or is it not? Secondary subject about the difference between agnosticism and atheism.

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[KalebSDay]

Whoever the editor is, can you please up the base volume of these older videos. I think we would all appreciate it.

[k.s.k.]

Marriage wasn't recognized or sanctified by the christian church until the 12th century in Europe. Previously it was a contract strictly between families, generally those who owned property. Check the early history of countries in Asia, Africa and the Americas. Before European conquest, these populations figured out ways to recognize the union which would constitute a new family unit. They also had methods to dissolve that unit, if one or both partners wanted to end it. In Scandinavian countries couples could have a trial co-habitation contract that was a year and a day, and then marry if it was agreeable to them both. These are all social contracts - the christian church became interested when they were the main literate, record-keeping institution for most of Europe. Therefore they controlled who was and was not "legally" married and maintained the records for families. All for a fee, naturally.

[bjkarana]

Richard's argument is an appeal to tradition.

[macdougdoug]

The medieval Western European Christian church was apparently instrumental in enforcing a culture of marriage that forbade incestuous unions. Traditionally one would marry ones cousin in order to uphold the family (and the patriarchy) as the basis for relationship, belief, identity and power. Thus the Church can be considered to be unwittingly instrumental in the evolution of cultural knowledge. This is why the regions in Europe (southern & eastern) influenced by Orthodox or Catholic Christianity are more kin based and wary of science and government.

[Mangos]

If matt has more videos on mairrage post them. Im 2020 new listener, and I appreciate whos respositing this stuff.

Post old seasons full episodes of all seasons matt episodes

[cmasterson]

I'm confused but it didnt sound like he was disagreeing with you. He sounded like he agreed and was stating it and you guys kinda came off rude. Maybe there was more before or after the call but from watching only this... the last thing the guy said sounded like he was agreeing with the church but he never finished talking before getting cut off. Just the optics for me.

[trehcrap]

God instituted marriage in the Garden of Eden. Where do you think the union of one man and one woman came from?

[mervynstephens]

A justice of the peace issues a marriage certificate not a pastor unless he is also a justice of the peace

[BobChristenson]

There is a distinction in terms already in existence. Marriage and holy matrimony. State issues one - church issues the other.

[PapaWheelie]

I've often commented that priests offer a service like Toastmasters. A group you can contact if you want a speech or ceremony facilitated. The audience can take from that whatever they want - if a couple wants to get married, or someone dies, you can call 'em up to pretend to act like they knew them and make it a ceremony. That's it. Nothing more than that.

[claudiasolomon]

Marriage is SO darn sacred.
It is super sacred.

Seriously, count every married couple you know right now, how many of them are in a truly happy healthy thriving marriage??
Tell ya what, I'll lower the bar, how many married couples do you know whose marriage is just ok?? Its not great its not shit, it is simply ok. .. ??

[noelpucarua]

What, in heaven's name, is "The Church"? I've heard there are at least 30, 000 denominations in America alone, and that doesn't include, obviously, all the Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist denominations.
And does every priest, pastor, whether self appointed or not, get to 'marry' people? Does some crazy priest, rabbi, or mullah, in his little shack in the boondocks, get to marry people?

[starfishsystems]

The caller misidentified ritual as religion.

It's a fairly common mistake, and fairly minor in itself, but it occasionally leads to equivocation fallacies which try to argue that we're all religious because we all engage in ritual.

Mythologists such as Joseph Campbell point out that all human cultures develop rituals, and even widely separated cultures develop similar rituals (as well as distinctive ones) suggesting something universal to the human condition.

Many rituals serve as social markers and in that respect are purely secular. Ritual form provides structure, and facilitates the consistent processes necessary to equitable governance. The code of law, for example, couldn't function without ritual. It would be every cop and every lawyer and every judge making up their own proceedings as they go along. And of course there are rituals for gaining membership in a club, boarding an airplane, even mixing a cocktail or presenting a bottle of wine, which might vary from place to place but generally serve the same purpose of managing expectations and making life run more smoothly.

Then there are rituals which serve a mythological purpose. Campbell points out that these help us to "make sense" of our life journey, so that birth and death, falling in and out of love, bearing and raising children, facing inevitable tragedy, can be experienced with shared insight in addition to simple emotional support.

This is where mythology comes in, because myths are stories which suggest the frame of mind in which to encounter these experiences. Treated as stories rather than factual accounts, they are perfectly secular. If the hero fights with a dragon in order to save a village, we understand that they are facing their fears in service of some worthy purpose. We don't interpret the myth as a zoological treatise on unusual reptiles nor a claim that there is something beyond scientific understanding. Instead we use myth, either directly or symbolically enacted through ritual, to lead us into a useful frame of mind. That's all. It's just applied psychology.

But religion hijacks ritual and mythology to serve its own institutional ends, not our human ends. It's almost inevitable, in the very same way that the growth of bureaucracy is almost inevitable. The institution, originally conceived to serve us, gradually comes to feed its own continued existence. There's no end to the rules which can be added and elaborated even with the best of intentions. It doesn't help that religion is essentially irrational.

[csjrogerson]

Watch out "Larry Craddock" has gone off on another of his rants. Sad man. Needs help.

[lnsflare]

Hell, gay theists can state that their own religious beliefs allow for gay marriage regardless of what their own, or anyone else's, churches say.

[larrycraddock]

Poor Richard! His ignorance is APALLING!

[db]

Does matt believe in hell, demons, satan, sin?

[larrycraddock]

Richard why are you wasting your time discussing HOLY MATRIMONY with Atheists who are such UN=Holy people?

[larrycraddock]

WOW! Only 18 thumbs up! Atheism must not be a very good CONCEPT!

[larrycraddock]

Hmmm! The original Atheist Experience 906 had over 146, 000 views. Now it is down to 31. You guys are going down faster than the Titanic! Should I throw you the Life Preserver known as Jesus? No? Okay. go ahead and sink into the secular humanism of un- belief and ignorance!