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.

Object away. It's none of your business. And no it isn't that simple. You're stating an opinion not a fact that that's what marriage is about.
It means different things to different people and your idea of what it means is no more valid than theirs.

Malificence: But enforced monogamy is not the WHOLE point of being married. Marriage is about property, inheritance and quite often about the ownership of women. And it;s not the fact that you claim to want and maintain a monogamous relationship that suggests sexual dysfunction or at least a rather unhealthy attitude towards sex, it's your squawking outrage about what other people do, which is none of your business. It reminds me a bit of those right-wing males who are always so squawky about black men's sexual behaviour (they don't want to acknowledge their own obsession with black men's cocks).

Bloody hell, can't believe this thread has descended into this!

I really think there is no need to attack Mal personally just because she holds strong views.

Enforced monogamy is not the whole point of being married. It is not about ownership of women. It might be this in some cultures but that does not mean this is only what it is across the board. Its primerily a symbol of commitment.

Weird direction for thread.

I don't see any attacks.

Just people disagreeing with some pretty strident opinions.

Malificence it really is none of your business - make your marriage what you want and let others get on with their thing.

You have no fantasies about anyone or any situation not involving your husband? Wow. (Fantasy is not infidelity you know.)

SGB your posts are making me laugh - I so agree about the obsession with black men's cocks

huh?..black men's cocks?...dammit I should have read the whole thing now

I think being called ignorant and likened to "right-wing males who are always so squawky about black men's sexual behaviour (they don't want to acknowledge their own obsession with black men's cocks)" kind of breaks the MN talk philosphy. I'm just saying, not insisting.

Though it does reveal what's on your mind Solid

Berlimey!

Anyway, I don't think sexual fidelity is the whole point of marriage. Does it come into a civil service? Even in a religious or sacramental view of marriage, there is a lot more to it than that.

However, in arguing against a bad argument, you have rather gone to the opposite extreme SGB, with your sweeping and unsubstantiated psycho-babble.

It's not a religious construct, it's a civil contract.

hth.

When you marry, you promise your fidelity to your partner exclusively, at least at every wedding I've ever been to.

If you are unable to do that then you should not get married - that is my main objection.

If people aren't married or don't have children together then it doesn't bother me in the slightest if they want to shag around.

What on earth is SGB on about "black mens' cocks" for? Have I missed something? That sort of stupid statement says a lot more about you than me, btw.

I'm not some sexually confused teenager , I'm 43 and have been married for 25 years, I just can't understand how someone who supposedly loves a person to marry them can then have sex with other people - that is truly sickening to me.

I feel very sorry for those who value sex and intimacy so lightly that they can't stay faithful.

I can't quite believe that I'm thought of as odd for valuing love and marriage and thinking that fidelity is a top priority within relationships.

Lastly, NO I don't have sexual fantasies about other people, I didn't realise it was so strange?
Go on SGB, tell me how "repressed" I am.....

People can't have much self respect or respect for a partner if sexual fidelity isn't important to them.

If atheists "shouldn't get married" I don't know where this leaves people like me.

I was more-or-less agnostic at the time of our wedding and so quite happy to have the wedding in a church. (It was all about me and DW, and if someone wanted to make it about a thing called "god" that was fine.)

These days, I am what Theo Hobson and his fellow screechy fundamentalist cockwipes would probably call a "militant atheist", and would not get married in a church if I were planning a wedding now. So does my marriage not count?...

SGB's alright. It's just that her deepest darkest fantasy is of being a Mail-reading, church-going Tory hausfrau who spends her weekends making chutney and arranging flowers for the vicar, so she can't help but get a bit squawky about these types.

Don't get me wrong Maleficence - sexual fidelity is pretty important in my marriage. But it's not the whole point of it (and those are your words), not be a long stretch. In a church service, and in civil services, people promise lots of other things as well.

Ah, hoist by her own petard indeed ZD

I think the OP comes from a place where atheists are "otherly" people to be feared and hated, and so the idea of their doing something socially and culturally "approvable" is somehow disturbing. She'd much rather atheists were all evil, self-centered, multi-sinning freaks with burning crosses on their front lawns, so it was easier to tell us we were going to hell.

The idea that most of us are moral, law-abiding people makes a lot of faithers' heads explode.

The OP is an atheist, UQD.

I hate the way Christians do this nudge-nudge-wink-wink- thing about atheists getting married or doing anything else which they erroneously think is their province.

I suspect a lot of them actually think atheists shouldn't actually be afforded the legal and fiscal status of married couples because they still think this is a "Christian country". Which is a bit laughable, really.

First sentence of the OP...

I'm not referring to the OP, I'm talking about Christians who typically espouse the view that marriage is for them.

Well, maybe she is self-hating !

This attitude does exist, though...

OK then.

Shall read the whole thread...

Some Christians though, surely...?

"This is a Christian country" is something my mother says often with a cat's-bum-face. In her case it's shorthand for "kick out all those freeloading immigrants."

lol

send 'em all back, I say...

It's a legal contract. That's why we did it.

In a registry office.

You promise a lot of things at a wedding. I'm not sure that sexual fidelity is explicitly mentioned though it is implicit.

...will you have this man to be your husband; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live

Thats a lot more than just not shagging someone else. Comfort. Honour. In sickness and in health. Forsaking all others... thats why my mother respects that sometimes I have to put DHs needs before his - being faithful to your partner is MUCH more than just sexual.

For (I think) most of us, whether religious, athiest or apatheists, fidelity within marriage is part of what makes it work. But there have been cases where a couple may find it less important than their commitment to each other (and their children). No need to throw away a partnership just because on aspect doesn't conform to some norm.