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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
tosspot

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Perhaps it would be ironic if it were true. But it's not. As I've just pointed out. They could have their marriages legally validated by the state by repeating their vows in front of one of the state's minsters - a C of E cleric. And that is precisely what they tended to do, often encouraged by their own Catholic priests.

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Read what I actually wrote, tosspot.

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all non-Anglicans (except the Quakers and Jews) have only been able to have valid legal marriages since 1836 in England because of the civil marriage law.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So let's go back to that, then.
Catholics can have a Catholic ceremony and then, if they feel the need to be legitimate, they go somewhere else and get married.

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I did. And what you actually said was:

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all non-Anglicans (except the Quakers and Jews) have only been able to have valid legal marriages since 1836 in England because of the civil marriage law.

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Which is not true.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I did. And what you actually said was:

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all non-Anglicans (except the Quakers and Jews) have only been able to have valid legal marriages since 1836 in England because of the civil marriage law.

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Which is not true.

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Which part of this are you not able to understand?

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I did. And what you actually said was:

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all non-Anglicans (except the Quakers and Jews) have only been able to have valid legal marriages since 1836 in England because of the civil marriage law.

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Which is not true.

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Which part of this are you not able to understand?

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"Understand"? All of it, I'm afraid - including the bit I've italicised.

I hate to be picky, but if you didn't mean to imply - as you do above - that Catholics could not be legally married to one another (whilst remaining unimpeachably Catholic) before 1836, it was open to you to express yourself more accurately.

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I repeat, nobody in any seriousness is arguing against the provisions of the Marriage Act 1836, which took away the rights of declaring who was and was not married from the Anglican Church in England. Because that would be stupid.

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And, by the way, the 1836 Marriage Act did not prevent Roman Catholics from having their marriages recognised by the state, nor did it forbid them to marry in a Catholic ceremony with a Catholic priest: it merely required them to repeat the vows in front of an Anglican priest, which was the legally validating bit. Just like you're not married as far as the French state is concerned util you've been to the mairie, even if you've been "done" in the Church already.

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
If we're going to play Ingo Bingo (nice one!) then I propose we up the stakes a bit. By involving alcohol.

Ingo proves something by analogy → down one shot (we might be in hospital pretty soon)

If his analogy involves a three legged dog, of course all players do the three legged dog dance, while downing the shot (playing this song is optional).

Ingo makes a claim and says it is up to his opponent to prove that his claim is false → make your neighbour down a shot.

Ingo claims that he has proven something by just stating with much chutzpah that he has done so → all players shout Jawohl! and hit their glass hard on the table before downing their shot. If there is anything in the glass left. Or if there is a glass left.

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quetzalcoatl: LeRoc - And if he talks about dogs eating chocolate, we all down chocolate daiquiris. Or maybe not (vomiting noises stage left).

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Thus proving the validity of natural moral law theory

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I just need someone to post that they Thought This Was a Christian Website™ and I'll have a Full House in IngoBingo.


As everyone knows SoF is biased against Roman Catholicism✔

Help, help, I'm being oppressed by the state allowing others to do things I don't approve of ✔

As everyone knows, natural theology proves Roman Catholic dogma is correct ✔

The Inquisition was conducted by just some Spanish Catholics and had no official status in Catholicism ✔

You are much too rude for hell ✔

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all non-Anglicans (except the Quakers and Jews) have only been able to have valid legal marriages since 1836 in England[.]

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Which, however you read it, is false. Highly misleading, at best.

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I take you at your word that you did not actually mean to imply that Catholics could not be legally married before 1836,

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but that is the most obvious meaning of those words, and anyone coming along at this stage of the argument, without having read your previous posts, would think that is what you meant and that it had gone unchallenged. Believe it or not, by that stage even I genuinely wasn't sure what you were getting at by saying it.

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I'm all for fairness and accuracy here, especially with so much suspicion and attribution of ill motives - which is precisely why I corrected myself when you pointed out my careless error. That and not wanting to seem even more ignorant than I am. You, of course, must do as you please. But first reflect on whether coming across as an angry arsehole is the look you're going for.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Prior to the 1836 there were no circumstances where a Roman Catholic could be legally married in a Roman Catholic Church.

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all non-Anglicans (except the Quakers and Jews) have only been able to have valid legal marriages since 1836 in England[.]

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Meanwhile in this pretence about the definition of words, the point is obscured: namely that the civil law was rightly changed to allow other religions to have their marriage ceremonies recognised as legal via the provision of civil Registrars who attended their services.

Admitting this would be to admit that the civil law on marriage has been changed before to right an obvious unfairness, despite the majority of the population of England at the time being Anglican.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Second, Le Roc's point about objective morality - well, I have never really understood this, if by it, one means morality independent of opinion. Granted, the theist can argue that God ordains such a morality, but that is his opinion.

A secular objective morality - by gum, a very strange beast. It reminds me of that old joke, when asking directions of someone, and they say, well, I wouldn't start from here. Alas, here is where we are.

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Originally posted by Starlight:
It is however open to a process of scientific discovery, because a growing knowledge of the world will inform our understanding of what things promote human wellbeing and what things do not.

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
But it's not at all the same thing.

Before 1836 Catholics had recourse to legally recognised marriage on terms that, if irksome, were sanctioned by their own ecclesaistical authorities. The state never denied that Roman Catholics, whilst being and continuing to be Roman Catholics, could be legally married.

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There was never any question as to whether RC were the kind of subjects which could naturally or legally fall under the terms of marriage. No-one doubted they could be married - nor that those who followed the proceedures were in fact married.

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It was only a question of whether their ministers and rites ought to have the sanction of the law (whether by in effect acting as registrars themselves (as is the case in Scotland) or by having official resgistrars present) to effect marriage in the eyes of the state.

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"I call upon these persons here present to witness that I, A. B. do take thee, C. D., to be my lawful wedded Wife [or Husband]."

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I doubt if anyone even doubted that RC ministers/rites could be so sanctioned by the law - it was rather a question of whether they ought to be so sanctioned.

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So there's a real disanalogy between this and the case of same-sex marriage.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think there are some flaws in that reasoning. First, 'once selected', seems odd to me, since that selection cannot be objective, since it must involve a subject or subjects.

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Your stuff about well-being and doing harm sounds rather like Sam Harris's attempts in his book, 'The Moral Landscape'.

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I suppose the flaw again is that it's not very clear what a positive intention is, and how the context frames it.

Thus, to quote an ancient example, killing somebody involves harm, but may be viewed as highly moral when people do it in war to defend their country. London is full of statues of men who did huge amounts of harm to others. Of course, they had positive intentions towards their own country, but this strikes me as a subjective morass.

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Granted, there are things like rape and torture, which are pretty universally condemned.

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Isn't this the flaw in IngoB's presentation - that he wants to claim that if something is naturally ordered to X, this can be used in moral discrimination. Thus, eating and then deliberately vomiting is immoral, fucking and not wanting babies, is immoral and so on.

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But it all depends on where you start, as usual. The whole notion of 'naturally ordered to' is tendentious, since nature admits no teleology, unless we grant it one.

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And then there is the is/ought problem. Does the fact that I do X, mean that I ought to do X? Or how do you get from one to t'other.

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Originally posted by goperryrevs:
There's been a lot on this thread about morality relating to human wellbeing, but doesn't a wider understanding of morality go beyond that? Ecological concerns go beyond just ensuring that humanity has a future on this planet. Animal welfare, preservation, protecting natural resources, protecting species from extinction; these things might have a subsequent effect on human wellbeing, but the moral drive behind them tends to see them as good & upright on their own, whether or not people are around to appreciate them.

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Originally posted by Starlight:
I think very very very few people would argue that plant life, in and of itself (eg on a planet with no animals or humans) is morally relevant.

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Originally posted by orfeo:
They were based on a man selecting a woman to bear his children. The man basically owned her and her womb. This is no longer true.

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Originally posted by orfeo:
This is precisely the stuff about the role of women that you didn't want to talk about. The very reason that same-sex marriage is now viable is that women are no longer chattel. Marriage (at least for people who've managed to drag their thoughts into the last 40 years or so instead of holding onto a worldview that basically classified all women as either mothers or whores) is now a partnership between equals. It has changed. Okay? Can we end the thread now?

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
But it's not at all the same thing.

Before 1836 Catholics had recourse to legally recognised marriage on terms that, if irksome, were sanctioned by their own ecclesaistical authorities. The state never denied that Roman Catholics, whilst being and continuing to be Roman Catholics, could be legally married.

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I don't see why this is relevant: anyone before 1836 could be married, providing it was in an Anglican church. The law was changed to allow Roman Catholics to be married in their own churches and via their own rites, rather than via religious ministers they did not recognise.

1836 was a change in the civil marriage law. That's just a fact.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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There was never any question as to whether RC were the kind of subjects which could naturally or legally fall under the terms of marriage. No-one doubted they could be married - nor that those who followed the proceedures were in fact married.

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Totally irrelevant. As discussed, the point was that it was deemed unfair to expect practitioners of other religions to be remarried by Anglican priests in order to be valid, and therefore the system of state Registrars was set up, and the definition of marriage was changed.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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It was only a question of whether their ministers and rites ought to have the sanction of the law (whether by in effect acting as registrars themselves (as is the case in Scotland) or by having official resgistrars present) to effect marriage in the eyes of the state.

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That's just wrong. The state did not and does not sanction any ministers or rites outwith of the Anglicans (other than Jews and Quakers) where the priests are defacto Registrars.

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marriages by licence [could] take place in approved churches, chapels and nonconformist meeting houses, other than those of the Church of England. [...] When a nonconformist minister or other religious official, such as a rabbi, performed the ceremony it was necessary for the local registrar or his assistant to be present so that the marriage was legal.

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nonconformist ministers and other religious leaders could take on the role of notifying official, if so appointed, and on the condition that their premises were licensed for the solemnising of marriage.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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I doubt if anyone even doubted that RC ministers/rites could be so sanctioned by the law - it was rather a question of whether they ought to be so sanctioned.

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Nope, it really wasn't. It was a straightforward issue of fairness. It wasn't fair to expect non-Anglicans to only be able to be married in an Anglican church, so the law was changed.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
But this is the meat of the issue: you've not shown at all how there is any kind of 'disanalogy' here.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The fact is that the civil marriage law exists outwith of the Roman Catholic Church dogma already. People can already be married in England and Wales by other religions or via the Register Office that could never be married in the Roman Catholic Church.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
But that doesn't stop you using the law to legally marry people in England and Wales.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
You are using a law which allows people to do things you morally object to. So what is the difference?

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So let's go back to that, then.
Catholics can have a Catholic ceremony and then, if they feel the need to be legitimate, they go somewhere else and get married.

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Really, under the circumstances, I think that would be for the best.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
It's one taboo topic at a time for me, thanks very much.

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Yes, it's a fact. But what is it supposed to establish? Who has denied that there have been changes to the English marriage legislation over time? My point was that the difference between that situation and the current one with same-sex marriage is that first was a purely administrative change (although partly occasioned by a sense of equity) to an existingly recognised institution which continued to be understood just as it had been; whereas same-sex marriage required no administrative changes but did change something far more basic: the whole concept of who could even possibly be married to whom. Apples and oranges, mate.

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Really? How did it change the definition of marriage? When the law in England and Wales was changed in 1994 to allow marriages to take place in different venues, did that also change the definition of marriage in your book?

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Perhaps you could specify how what I said above contradicts any of that.

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What are you saying "nope" to in my statement? The idea that the state could empower non-conformists to become registrars or notifying officials so that people could be married in Catholic churches with Catholic rites without subsequently having to repeat their vows before a CofE cleric?

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What is the difference between what? What is it you think the Catholic Church is doing that makes it so inconsistent or hypocritical?

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Continuing to let our marriages be recognised legally because same-sex couples can now do the same?

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Originally posted by orfeo:
Also, before I go back to ignoring most of your writing again, can I just highlight the profound logical fallacy lying at the heart of your argument (and indeed at the heart of Catholic theology here) because it's just risen to the surface again.

The need of the human race to procreate is not the need of any individual human being to procreate. The need of the human race to procreate is not the duty of every human being to procreate.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So let's go back to that, then.
Catholics can have a Catholic ceremony and then, if they feel the need to be legitimate, they go somewhere else and get married.

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Really, under the circumstances, I think that would be for the best.

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I think you misunderstand me.
I mean that there would be marriage. And there would be some other-named, not legally binding, not recognised outside of the RCC ceremony.

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Originally posted by orfeo:
The need of the human race to procreate is not the need of any individual human being to procreate. The need of the human race to procreate is not the duty of every human being to procreate. Really, the argument you're making founders on that confusion. No one suggests that every human being must create food despite the fact that all human beings must eat.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But orfeo, you cannot have homosexuality and heterosexuality together. It does not work, the one cancels the other and no one procreates. This is why the Greeks died out. And why there were no people in the Roman Empire before the people of the Roman Empire became Christian.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
My point was that the difference between that situation and the current one with same-sex marriage is that first was a purely administrative change (although partly occasioned by a sense of equity) to an existingly recognised institution which continued to be understood just as it had been; whereas same-sex marriage required no administrative changes but did change something far more basic: the whole concept of who could even possibly be married to whom. Apples and oranges, mate.

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Bullshit. It changed the whole nature of the understanding of marriage under English law and took the state function of registering away from the religious and into the secular.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Registration of marriage became a secular state function. Or at least it did outside of the Anglican church - in the process allowing the registration of other religions. This therefore changed the definition of marriage, which beforehand was (essentially) something determined by the state church.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:
And given the centuries of persecution of the Roman Catholics following Cromwell, it is a major change in the English concept of legal marriage to even allow them that. Ditto the non-conformists, who were for centuries essentially illegal religious bodies, now had suddenly become acceptable enough to allow them to conduct marriages.

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

Roman Catholic ministers and rites were not sanctioned by law. In 1836, Roman Catholic marriages were only legalised in the presence of a Registrar. And there at no point did the law sanction ministers or rites - and in fact that has never happened.

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It was only a question of whether their ministers and rites ought to have the sanction of the law (whether by in effect acting as registrars themselves (as is the case in Scotland) or by having official resgistrars present) to effect marriage in the eyes of the state.

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Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:

Only you want to rub it in a bit, to make that solution unpleasant for the Church: to make it sound like the state's marriage would be the real marriage to the extent that Catholics would have to call "their" institution something else. Well, you just go right ahead and try and make that happen.

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Originally posted by orfeo:

The need of the human race to procreate is not the need of any individual human being to procreate. The need of the human race to procreate is not the duty of every human being to procreate.

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:

The state has always determined what marriage is. If the RCC, or any other organisation, wishes to modify the requirements and discriminate, then of course they must change their term.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
[T]he social institutions we create to frame absolutely essential "biological" activities like procreation and nutrition must ensure that they happen in a regular and sufficient fashion. Failure concerning this damages societies, potentially to the point of killing them off.

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Originally posted by IngoB:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
The need of the human race to procreate is not the need of any individual human being to procreate. The need of the human race to procreate is not the duty of every human being to procreate. Really, the argument you're making founders on that confusion. No one suggests that every human being must create food despite the fact that all human beings must eat.

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Sure. But the social institutions we create to frame absolutely essential "biological" activities like procreation and nutrition must ensure that they happen in a regular and sufficient fashion. Failure concerning this damages societies, potentially to the point of killing them off.

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Originally posted by mousethief:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
[T]he social institutions we create to frame absolutely essential "biological" activities like procreation and nutrition must ensure that they happen in a regular and sufficient fashion. Failure concerning this damages societies, potentially to the point of killing them off.

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Is it the duty of every society to keep itself alive forever? Is that possible? Is that a desirable end in itself?

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