–Vol Abroad, I’m trying to eat breakfast here! This made me laugh so hard I about choked on a bran flake.
–I’m sorry. Is this "Three Year old With Camera" meaning you were able to capture these images of a present (or absent) three year old with your camera or is this "The things my three year old took pictures of with my camera"? Because if it is the latter? Your kid takes much better pictures than me. I’m almost embarrassed to continue to post mine. Almost.
–Carter, as usual, you and I are going to fight. I have to insist you stop talking about "biblical marriage" as if that’s some monolithic agreed-upon definition. You have a brain and you are a Christian and so I KNOW YOU KNOW BETTER. Good lord, at least twice a week, I feel like Jiminy Cricket to your wooden boy. Will you have to be half turned into an ass before you start listening to me?
First, the definition of what marriage is is not consistent in the Bible itself. In the Old Testament, you have the one man, one wife model, the one man, one wife, one concubine model, the one man, multiple wives model, the one man, multiple wives, multiple concubines model, and there may be others that are slipping my mind. It’s not until the New Testament that we see Jesus recognizing the one man, one woman model (and even then, he says nothing about it being for procreation).
Was marriage in the Old Testament just for procreation? I don’t know. Let’s look at God’s attitude. Did God, who I remind you regularly stopped by to sit around and shoot the shit, ever suggest to Abram and Sarai that they weren’t really married because they didn’t have kids? No. And you’d think maybe He’d mention that to the central figure in three major religions, a man He visited as a friend.
Did Abram and Sarai desperately want children? Yes, every Sunday Schooler in the land knows that. But, if you read that story, those children were not coming. Sarai was not capable of having children when she was young and then she got too old. At no point before God’s miracle does God say, "Oh, ha, ha, fuckers, you don’t have a real marriage because I’m busy punishing you for the way I made you." God recognizes a marriage that cannot, without His intervention, bring forth children as a legitimate marriage.
Who do you Christians think you are to do otherwise? Can marriages lead to children? Yes. Are marriages that can’t lead to children not real? No, they are not not real, as evidenced by God Himself recognizing them as legitimate.
Tiny Cat Pants 
"God recognizes a marriage that cannot, without His intervention, bring forth children as a legitimate marriage. Who do you Christians think you are to do otherwise?"If a heterosexual couple adopts a child because they are unable to bear children, does their marriage then become real? Do Christians shun the method by which a child is received into a home? Because procreation by very definition is to produce or to generate offspring. If adopting or conceiving in vitro is an acceptable way to procreate, why are gay couples criticized for doing the same? I don’t think one criterion (one man, one woman) should hinge on another (ability to procreate) in order to meet the definition of marriage. So clearly the one man, one woman requirement takes precedent over the ability to procreate, however that procreation is achieved.
Sorry to tell you this, but it is indeed my three year old walking around with camera in hand composing and shooting. I’m of the opinion that he takes better pics than me, too.;)
Can I hear a little bit more about this multiple concubines thingy?
Since homosexuality is discussed elsewhere in the bible as being a sin – such as in Romans 1:27 – the consideration of marriage as being allowed between the same sex is a moot point. It aint to be.On a more important point, marriage was discouraged in the new testament because it is a distraction from how God wants people to live. But if a person cannot remain celibate then they should marry – a man to a woman.1 Corinthians 7 1Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. 3Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 4The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.
i love your questions and thoroughly enjoyed the commentary on God’s "shooting of the shit" with and Abram and Sarai! lmao! *diet coke out my nose*
Mack, don’t go getting your hopes up. Queens make poor concubines, I’m told.Kevin, my point is that when Christians rely on a definition of Biblical marriage that is one man/one woman that results in kids, they’re overlooking the amount of one man, multiple women arrangements in the Bible and they’re being incredibly and unBiblically cruel to married folks who can’t have kids.Jeffrey, one of my favorite things about how God is portrayed in the Bible is how fond he seems of certain individuals, regardless of how bad or fucked up or ridiculous they are and how he doesn’t just like them from afar, but comes down and talks to them and squabbles with them, and goes stomping away mad, and then is sorry.It makes Him seem like Someone worth loving.
hmm, i’ve never looked at it from that perspective. quite interesting indeed. do you think similar exchanges still occur between God and humans?
Isn’t that the big question?It’s hard to know. It’d be hard to tell from the outside, if someone was telling you the truth or mistaken or lying.And as for God, well, things are different now. Back then, the world was full of plausible alternatives; He had to stick with His people. Now, over half the world claims to follow him and believe He’s the only plausible god.That’s far different.
I mean really, now, who cares what the Bible says about marriage?