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.

Simplesusan - I would take issue with the idea that our "cultural/society values are based on the Christian ethos for example the 10 commandments".

I think it is the other way around. The notions that it is wrong and punishable to kill or steal (or commit adultery) predate Christianity by 1000s of years. Do you really think that there was a murdering free for all in Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Britain? Not killing/stealing etc represent the most basic rules that any society needs to have cohesion and exist as a society - nothing whatsoever to do with any deity.

Maleficence: such a vehement opposition to other people's consenting adult sexual behaviour usually means that the opposer has fantasies about doing that stuff him/herself and is frightened of them, hence the squawking over-reaction. Having fantasies is harmless and you are under no obligation to act on them, so if you want to picture yourself having group sex with Take That and Girls Aloud at the same time when you're next flying solo, just enjoy it rather than worrying about it. It doesn't mean you're going to dump an existing partner and run off: monogamy (if it suits you) is a fetish in itself and therefore if it does work for you, you tend to stick with it.

Waspie you are right. When Henry viii "invented" his own religion which he did, not only was he the founder of that religion but because he was the head of state he had the supreme power to implement that relion upon others and therefore in simplistic terms make it law. The reverse of this, put in basic terms, is that anyone deemed to descent from the "law" ie decreed by the heads religion could be punished lawfully.
So thousands? of people who followed the "wrong" religion and did not play ball were lawfully killed. After all the state (headed by the implementor of religion) had legal backing to punish those who broke the "new" law.
The same was true for Mary and Elizabeth., anyone who got in their way was punished.

YABU
I was married by a registrar. Our vows had mention of God.
My marriage is a legal contract , not a religous contract.

ginormoboobs, do you mean 'our vows had NO mention of god'?

It would be reasonable if they were to be married in a church "in the presence of God", but not if it were a civil ceremony.
I think athiests who celebrate Christmas are far more hypocritical...

Yep sprogger that's a v good point re the distinction between rituals and religious ceremonies.

Well said SGB.

Why you're getting worked up about two consenting adults who have agreed to have an open marriage I've no idea.

And your priorities are all wrong if you truly feel as disgusted by that as you are by child abuse.

You get to define what marriage means within the confines of your relationship. It does not mean that other people cannot choose to have a different definition of what their marriage means to them.

And it does not make them unfit parents.

SGB small hijack. Can you advise me of the best way to locate a humanist celebrant ? DH and I are thinking of getting married again. This time in the way we want it !

Christmas aint strictly a religious thing though. I celebrate Christmas but without the Christ or the Mass

Also - I am an atheist because I never had any religion whatsoever so never rejected anything, it just wasn't in my life to start with but christmas was. I suppose it's easier to believe in presents, turkey and christmas trees than it is to start believeing in some kind of higher power.

Zephrine (lovely name!) said:
I think the comments about atheists getting married in church are unfair. I would much rather make my vows under a humanly constructed benign omnipotent being, accompanied by the products of hundreds of years of liturgical, artistic, musical and architectural tradition, than to get married in the eyes of a Crapsworth Council official in the local Town Hall.

Thanks! - that says what I felt about it when I married, in the church I'd grown up in. It was in the mid-80s, when the only choice was registry office or church. Although I no longer believed in God I still loved that 'family' and felt part of it.

Unfortunately, all these years later it still rankles with DH - if I'd realised at the time how strongly he felt against it I'd have gone for the registry office and got over it by now.

Like marriage, there have been midwinter festivals long before Christianity. 'Christmas' is just the name we attach to ours for historical reasons. 'Easter' is the name attached to the spring festival, that is the other way around, being a pre-christian name (same root as oestrus, egg) borrowed by christians in this country.

people get married for all sorts of reasons. mine involved a visa, not to mention a big dose of love.
god wasn't invited, nor were our families.
that's just the way it worked out - if it weren't for the Home Office, who knows what we might have (eventually) done. i do like having legal protection though ...

So, lets get this straight:
I'm secretly fantasising about wanting to go swinging so I'm pretending to be disgusted by it?

At the age of 43 I think I know what my sexual fantasies are and shagging people other than my husband are not on the menu, thanks for the inciteful psycho-babble though!

Does that also mean that people disgusted by paedophilia secretly want sex with children too? It does by your twisted logic!

What utter garbage.

"Marriage is a ritual. Rituals are an important part of human behaviour, and have roots that go much futher back than any of the major religions. Rituals around births, pairbondings and deaths exist across all cultures and we have evidence of them happening before humans developed written language."

Very well put, thank you Sprogger. The more I read about the history of marriage the more I am discovering about rituals and their importance.

This is fascinating stuff (am I sad?) I wonder if the OU do an "Introduction to anthropology" course?

As per usual it was more of a process. William the Conqueror, for example, separated lay and spiritual tribunals, so the Church gained jurisdiction over marriage then. Pre-invasion it is a lot less clear.

It's a long old process as well - see for example Augustine on "The Excellence of Marriage" - the Church Fathers being none too keen on sex, even if within marriage (better to be a virgin, or if not, a widow!). So while the Church was keen to gain jurisdiction, its attitude to marriage was rather ambivalent.

Essentially I'm saying - don't dive in there with modern prejudices (literally!) because it's easy to come up with the wrong answers.

I actually have the OU open in another tab - hey, those October start dates are coming right up - and they don't seem to actually. Personal lives and social policy sounds interesting if you like that sort of thing, though not really what you were asking about...

YABU

Just make sure it's cultural anthropolgy not social anthrop;ogy

Malificence: that you equate sexual behaviour between consenting adults with abusive behaviour (ie desires which cannot be acted on because the object of the desires cannot give informed consent) is almost always an indicator of someone who is frightened of their own fantasies and ignorant about sexuality.

Screamingabdab, whereabouts are you? If you are in the SOuth East, cat me for a chat.

YABU - I am an atheist too and I got married because it's a commitment and I wanted to make a family.

I'm not saying it's for everyone but I reckon if I hadn't made that commitment I'd probably have run away long before now! I wanted a stable home for my DCs and being married makes me (personally) work harder at maintaining that.

I got married for legal reasons more than anything. We were quite happy co-habiting but decided when DS was on the way that we'd tie the knot (at the registry office!). Definately nothing religious going on for me or DH. Purely non-religious.

Civil ceremonies have nothing to do with religion it is just a legal binding contract.

I had no idea that there was a clinical psychologist who could also mind read on these boards - I'm happy to be "ignorant about sexuality" if it means I strongly disapprove of married couples shagging around.
I really could care less if couples do this but I do object if they are married - being married means promising yourself to your partner for the rest of your life in total fidelity - that's the WHOLE point of being married .
If people can't be faithful they shouldn't marry, it's that simple and if they are sexually bored with their partner they should at least be honest enough to admit that it's the real reason behind it.

As for me being frightened of my own fantasies, where did you read that " My big book of Psychology"?
You have no idea what my fantasies are - but I can tell you that they do not involve sex with anyone other than my husband of 25 years, sorry to disappoint.