to believe that atheists shouldn't get married?

[Waspie]

I am an atheist. I do not feel that in all conscience I could ever get married as my understanding is that marriage is a religious construct.

Yet Richard Dawkins has been married three times so far and many of my friends who profess to atheism are married. To me it seems hypocritical.

Or am I wrong about marriage being a religious construct?

I would really like your opinions please.

I am an athiest and got married in a registry office, God wasn't invited.
YABU

it has legal benefits.

i suppose thats the best reason

yabu. it is a cultural thing, a legal thing or a religious thing. take your pick. there was no religion involved in my marriage.

A civil marriage is a legal construct. Nothing about your belief or lack of belief in a god.

i am an atheist who is married. i do not see it as a religious contract, more of a love and legal thing. this is why i did not get married in this country or in fact in a church. also why i would NOT christen any of my children

I don't believe in any religion or in any kind of God. I am married though, our ceremony was not religious and made commitments under the eyes of our friends and family, rather than God.

Marriage is what you want it to be.

sorry so i do believe you are BU

I don't think it's only a religious construct. I think it developed as a social tool as well. But then religion at one stage controlled society... Hmm.

I got married without God. I don't think I'm a hypocrite.

I am married and an atheist and I don't think I'm a hypocrite. We didn't get married in church. For me marriage is about making a public committment to the person you want to spend your life with and nowdays doesn't have to have anything to do with religion, whatever the the role religion may have had in the past.

Well yes, I think YABU.
For an atheist to go through a religious marriage ceremony would be hypocritical I think, however a civil marriage ceremony (as I understand it) has no religious references at all.

I think you are wrong about it being a religious construct. Though I have no evidence to back that up!

DH and I chose to marry in a completely non-religious ceremony with readings and poems from family and friends that meant a lot to us and vows we had written ourselves.

For us it was about making a public committment to each other - doesn't have to involve a (imo) fictional third party.

I am an atheist as well and dh and I just celebrated our 6 year anniversay on friday. It is NOT a religious construct at all - at least not in my opinion. It can be if you want it to be - eg married in a church etc. We were married in a registry office and, like purepurple, god was struck off the guest list.

In my mind it is about 2 people loving each other so much that they want to make the ultimate committment to each other and not in any way a religious construct.

Just my 2p though - do with it what you will

I don't think it's a religious construct if you choose not to see it that way. We are married atheists, had a wonderful civil ceremony and a great day. Do you object to humanist weddings?

I am an atheist as well and dh and I just celebrated our 6 year anniversay on friday. It is NOT a religious construct at all - at least not in my opinion. It can be if you want it to be - eg married in a church etc. We were married in a registry office and, like purepurple, god was struck off the guest list.

In my mind it is about 2 people loving each other so much that they want to make the ultimate committment to each other and not in any way a religious construct.

Just my 2p though - do with it what you will

No, I don't agree. I'm an atheist and I had a civil ceremony. I would have loved to have got married in a religious place that had meaning for me and DH, but I couldn't do that in all conscience.

To me it's a personal contract

it's a cultural belief born of our religious cultural background. There was no marriage (as we know it) before organised religion.

No-one has [yet] said that's it's not religious in origin. That's what I'm looking for please - if anyone knows of course

I am an atheist
I had a civil marraige ceremony
God wasn't there
YABU

Did someone have first dibs on the brain-cell this morning?

YABU- We got married in a registry office as we do not go to church and did not want to be hypocrytical. There is no reference to religion in a service like this. Marriage can be about more than religion.

That's uncharacteristically terse of you, BOF

ooops...sorry, don't know why that posted twice. Must be running low on caffeine.

I guess the OP perhaps means that its origins are connected with religion, but then so are the origins of many other aspects of society, and I don't see atheists getting in a tizz about that.

Also, it depends on whether you see organised religion as being connected with a belief in god..... for many people the two things are quite separate.

But something being religious in origin doesn't make it religious now. I have no idea whether it was religious in origin - just as likely to have been used to cement social structures, similar to the ways in which political marriages have been made through history.