Forevergrey wrote:
So, you lost your point, so your trying to sidetrack us with crap that doesnt have anything to do with what we were discussing, which was your inane claim that marriage is litrally thousands of years older than modern religions.
Admit it.
You Lost.
What, is this your only tactic? Insult twice and then claim victory without having addressed any of the points made?
Now, according to Jewish tradition, Abraham was born in the city of Ur circa 1800 BC.
This is the earliest date that can be claimed for the origins of Judaism.
For a bit of perspective.... this is roughly the same time as the beginnings of the Hittite
empire - please note that the the civilization can reasonably be assumed to predate the empire by a considerable degree. Abraham was also likely a near-contemporary of Hammurabi, whose Code of Laws does specifically cover marriage. So, obviously, marriage at the absolute minimum developed simultaneous with and independent of Judaism.
But it doesn't stop there. The great pyramid of Khufu was completed around 2560 BC. over seven centuries before the birth of Abraham. I bring this up because a surprising many of our marriage customs actually originate from Egyptian culture. A good example of this is the marriage band, which has been shown to be used by the ancient Egyptians at least as early as 2800 BC (
Why, that's a milennium before Abraham!). And that was only 3rd dynasty - further forays into the origins of marriage vanish into antiquity, since I'm not going to make an attempt on pre-Egyptian Sumer. Nonetheless simple inference indicates that such customs do not happen overnight nor rapidly at all, and so one can readily assume that marriage predates even these vastly ancient dates by a not inconsiderable degree.
My point through this is simply that no modern culture or religion originated "marriage" and so no one can claim to have the definite and final claim on its definition. Lacking that, therefore, we should consider secular authority which while not being able to lay even a false claim on the origins of the institution does have control over its implementation. And lacking in non-secular arguments there are scant reasons offered to prevent homosexual marriages.