h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

<>

I'd say it's a little simpler. It's about power. The biggest tribes have more warriors to beat up other tribes. Organised religion is just tribalism with a silly hat (especially Xtians/Mohammedans)and their lust for domination involves aggressive evangelism/conversions/breeding.

Subtly different from what you're saying.

Well...I'd say not. Beating people up is one way of getting shit. Working at t'mill is another. Both are (ahem) modes of production. This is why religion continues in a slightly different forms in tribal, agricultural, feudal and industrial societies. It's a little simplistic just to see it as gangs, I feel - although elements of that remain.

I suppose this is why in 'The Wire', Omar is outside the normal gang structure.

"What have the CoE got? Nobody goes to church any more except for hatchings, matchings and dispatchings. Less kids are being Christened, and humanist funerals seem to be on the rise, so the one jealously guarded arrow in their quiver is marriage." [Mr603]

When I read Dr. Z's initial post, I wasn't sure how international he wanted his question to be. Did he have the Church of England's position in mind? Or the Mormon Church? Or the Southern [U.S. Baptists?]. Granted, in the U.S. the Church of England exists under a different name: Episcopal. Plus, there are Christian Scientists, Seventh Day Adventists, Muslims, Hindus, People of the Jewish faith, and many others. Do they all have the same opposition to gay marriage? I'm not an expert on ecclesiastical positions; maybe they are all opposed but for different reasons? Heck, we have major denominations in the U.S. that have appointed gay people as pastors. I believe that a few gay couples have been married in Christian churches by clergymen. To my mind, this would not imply opposition....

Note also that most of religion *isn't* a matter of domination over other peoples. By and large gang warfare is not its signal feature. Only sometimes. Mostly it's people living ordinary lives.

*Within* those lives it acts as the social infrastructure - any any perceived threat to that is frowned upon.

It's not discriminatory against gays only insofar as it's got just as much of a problem with me, and I'm not gay (unless you're from the north, and by "gay" you mean "owns a coat". (c) Jimmy Carr, 2006.)

The gays are just one bunch not conforming to their narrow definition of acceptable. I'm part of another (adulterers), and I'm sure if the church could find some way of preventing my access to something I want (e.g. more poontang) they'd sure as shit do it.

It's just that they don't have anything I want. They seem to think they have something the gays want, which is some control over who gets to get married. However, slowly, gradually, they are discovering that actually they don't have control over that any more.

The bald answer to the question in the subject line is "It doesn't, duh." But the question is really "Why do religious people SAY that?"

To which the reliable answer is "because differing only by degrees they are all, without exception, batshit crazy".

"most of religion *isn't* a matter of domination over other peoples"

My experience of it was that it was precisely that. It was almost entirely about controlling and limiting behaviour, within the home, within the church, within the school, within the community... creating a tight-knit group that saw itself as "us", and defined itself as in opposition to "them". "Them" was a movable feast - Catholics, the government, science, the people in the next parish, the French... but the well-polished dynamic was to create an in-group with a sense of belonging, just like you try to do with an armed forces unit.

Every church, every mosque, every synagogue and every gurdwara in the country is a sleeper cell. I've always had a healthy respect for the Sikhs because they are at least a bit more upfront about the fact than any of the others.

You have free access to what you want Hoo - people who want gay marriage haven't that's where the discrimination lies. Though your point is well-made and well-taken: the Church is picking a fight with gays rather than tarts because it thinks it can win against the former whilst against the latter it is hopelessly outnumbered.

My last was @ SoRB.

To me as a gay person those degrees are at least large obtuse.

I wouldn't use that word though about the overwhelming majority of religious people I've ever met. It's not my idea of 'crazy'. Only a small minority of Christians here still thank god.

z did you have any sort of idea of what kind of answer you might get?

In any case I only really worry how people treat you.

The liberals need to start standing up to the hardliners.

It's always about politics in any human social structure.

SoRB:

>>My experience of it was that it was precisely that. It was almost entirely about controlling and limiting behaviour

You mistake me. I deliberately said 'peopleS'. On the whole and by and large, religion isn't about fighting other religions. Not most of the time. No argument from me that it's about reinforcing a social model.

I have a couple of caveats. Firstly - much of the social control is voluntary: religion is what people do. Secondly - religion is an integral part of rather than a separate imposition of society. The social control that religion imposes is that which society requires to keep it running along in a certain direction. Whether we as individuals should want it to run in a constrained direction - marriage and family geared towards supporting production in a specified mode - is another issue.

Frs:

>>It's always about politics in any human social structure.

That's a pretty pithy encapsulation of what I've been trying to express.

"I deliberately said 'peopleS'."

I did spot that.

The army have a mantra: train hard, fight easy. Do you think the church does social control for its own sake?

I propose that its social control is its training. At root, Abrahamic religions define themselves by their persecution and their need to defend themselves against The Other.

The only reason anyone has any difficulty seeing this (as you are currently having) is this: http://amptoons.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/christian_oppression_pie.png

I think some people feel that:

a) two people of the same sex "getting married" is an offence against God. It is something evil, like theft or beating someone up.

b) calling this "marriage" therefore associates "marriage" with something evil.

c) this gives marriage a bad name, thereby affecting the righteous bigot's own marriage.

>>I propose that its social control is its training. At root, Abrahamic religions define themselves by their persecution and their need to defend themselves against The Other.

Well, maybe. But it doesn't specifically explain why homosexuality is The Other. Surely that's down to day-to-day factors - it doesn't fit in with the normative family model required for a stable mode of production? If all the husbands were off with other husbands and all the wives off with other wives we'd be in a right old two and eight.

I do take the point to the extent that at some level societies will always be gearing up for conflict, and obviously religion is often an integral part of that. But in our own society - it's not only the religious who reinforce Us against Them, is it?

This conversation (or the tangents) relates to a book I'm reading at the moment by the historian Ian Morris.

Tracking societal development in the East & West he notes that the West went into decline around 200AD and never really recovered to Roman levels until around 1750AD whilst the East saw a general increase until, were it not for the Mongols, the Industrial Revolution would have occurred in China around 1200AD. One reason for this decline and stagnation in the West he postulates is Christianity and Islam - both of which retarded science and the societal advances of the likes of the Greeks. Xtianity and Islam were locked in an expansionist struggle against each other for centuries. Only with the Renaissance did we see society place value upon the achievements of the Ancient World and seek to emulate them. This saw the West improve steadily generation upon generation. However, the East went into decline as the Emperors looked to the conservatism of Confucianism to bind their empire together, rejecting material advances for spiritual ones.

In short, Islam and Xtianity retarded Western development.

As for gays, I reckon Xtianity is in denial about what kind of chap Christ really was. Methinks they doth protest too much

"If two men or two women get married how will this harm our marriage?"

Playing (ha ha) Devil's Advocate... - not just to be contrary but in case it's illuminating:

Opponents aren't worried that it will harm individual marriages. They're worried that it will harm the idea of marriage.

If you believe that "marriage" describes a union between a man and a woman, then same sex marriage affects it by changing the meaning of the word.

On paper, some would protest that same sex marriages are like letting non-Jews have bar mitzvahs. A bar mitzvah is meant to be something that Jews do among themselves. How can you let non-Jews have them without eroding the meaning of the rite?

They might say you should invent something new for the non-Jews, that's considered exactly equal to a bar mitzvah and gets you just as many presents, but which is called something else. This is the argument for civil partnerships: let them have all the perks of a marriage, but don't let them call it one. It's almost a purely semantic position.

Like I said, I'm playing Devil's Advocate. The reason this argument doesn't really hold water is because the church lost control of marriage a while ago. Unlike bar mitzvahs and other religious ceremonies, marriage is and has long been common among secular people. If atheists can get married, then surely gays can too - or rather, if gays can't, then neither should lots of us.

>On paper, some would protest that same sex marriages are like letting non-Jews have bar mitzvahs. A bar mitzvah is meant to be something that Jews do among themselves. How can you let non-Jews have them without eroding the meaning of the rite?<


Also the analogy is flawed because 'Jew' is a very circumscribed group of people, defined by various 'rules'. Although not defined by secular Law, it is still a cultural grouping recognised the world over as such, for thousands of years.


All of us who are citizens of England should have the same rights under English Law to be married by the state church, the Church of England. We are a group of people clearly defined by a set of 'rules' that happen to have a legalistic framework.

Sexuality is not something defined by a certain set of cultural 'rules'. It's biologically innate.

(Yes I know you're playing Devil's advocate..makes for intersting discussion, so I'm not debating with you in point scoring mode here but to explore what you said in your post).

@hoopy:

Well, sure. That's an explanation of the rule - and possibly the best we could hope to get. It might be a bit too much to expect an explanation of why there's a rule in the first place.

That's the same for all of us, mind. The rules and social structures that we buy into are so obvious to us that we don't even notice that they're there. How could there possibly be another way? And so we have the problem:

'How does gay marriage harm marriage?'

'Duh! Because!!!'

They have a point. Within certain limits.