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Qubilai · super star constellation Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Posts: 54

I hate the pledge. A country that is based on ideals of freedom and individual rights shouldn't have people stand up and recite a damn pledge to the flag. To me, that sort of defeats the whole purpose.

As for marriage, I've never been there and I never will go there. I don't believe in marriage. I believe in shacking up for a while and then moving on.

A quirk in my personality, I guess.

Smokey Stover

Quiscalus and others see marriage and children somewhat the way they see the Pledge of Allegiance--as something society wants to push onto them or push them into. I'm not here as an apostle of any of these things--marriage or children or popular patriotism. I like the first two more than the third, but since I'm a sentimentalist I have a taste for various patriotic expressions. For instance, I can give you the most popular set of words for Taps, although I doubt anyone wants to hear them. And I have unbounded enthusiasm for The Stars and Stripes Forever. (To my great surprise, I learned that the English like to play this march at pops concerts.)

But let's not be too facile about it. Society did not just drift into the position of expecting people to get married, or expecting married people to have babies. The scientists like to tell us we are bags of chemicals. I'll go along, and even give the scientific name for one or two of the openings in the integument that serves as the bag--but not here. Here I'm more interested in the chemicals. It's obviously chemicals that drive men and women to seek each other out, and it's chemicals that make having babies a good choice for many couples. Mother Nature plays for keeps, and uses heavy artillery in her cause.

It's obvious to many of us that there are now probably enough babies, that having babies that grow to maturity is no longer the problem it once was. It's equally obvious that living as man and wife is possible without the blessing of any religion, and that such unofficial marriages are perfectly capable of resulting in healthy, happy babies that will grow up to be President. Of something. Like the Chess Club, perhaps.

The second law of thermodynamics is always at our heels. DNA is here to head it off, and culture is what springs from the fact that our DNA is designed to work only for a social species. OUR DNA, that is. DNA alone does not provide any of the protocols or structure we need to live as a society; it provides incentives (via brain chemicals and others, like testosterone and estrogen) and limitations, boundaries, parameters. Many cultures can fit into those parameters, and I'm nudging myself to put this into a new thread somewhere. sometime. Anyone want to encourage me?
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According to Smokey,
Circumstances alter cases.

DurhamDawg · Sliver STAR Joined: 08 May 2006 Posts: 225

go for it, Smokey!
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"Faith is believing what you know ain't so." - Mark Twain

Just Snowy · super star constellation Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 66

ReasoningFilly · Bronze Star Joined: 03 Feb 2007 Posts: 178

quiscalus

ReasoningFilly · Bronze Star Joined: 03 Feb 2007 Posts: 178

quis loves me!!! quis loves me!!!!!!!!!!

I love you too!

Qubilai · super star constellation Joined: 17 Feb 2007 Posts: 54

janicelee · Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 6:41 am Post subject:

Smokey, by all means go for it. Whatever you have to say is generally pretty darn interesting. Quis, so nice to see you here as well.

Oh my what a topic. One I hesitate to post on. Since I'm on the outside with my nose pressed to the window of "Til death do you part." An argument can be made I don't have any business posting on this topic. Well since most of you know I've never let a little thing like not having any business stop me from posting I'm going to go ahead and give my thoughts.

I do believe marriage is and should be sacred, whatever sacred means to you. However, a vow requires two parties to make it sacred. In other words to my mind, the creep who is boozing and smacking around his wife, or the woman who is running around on her husband have violated their vows and to my mind the injuried party then is free to opt out.

Oddly enough I have had more then one chance to date a married woman who wanted to "Take a Walk On the Wild Side." I've always said no. I just couldn't under any circumstances bring myself to come between a married couple. I guess in at least a few instances I took their vows more seriously then they did.

My partner Jen and I talk about marriage often. Perhaps because legally we can't marry in the state we live in. Yes, we could have a commitment ceremony and a vow made before a deity that you believe to be holy should be enough. From a philosphical standpoint we both refuse to do it until we can do it and have the same legal rights and obligations as a hetero couple. I know this kind of shoots giant holes in my argument that a vow is sacred but even without a ceremony neither one of us is shopping around. Maybe what the vow and the ceremony are is just telling the world what you believe and what you want the world to know about you, and the things you intend to live by. Perhaps that works for any vow. Be it a vow of marriage or the Pledge of Allegence or the Boyscout oath.
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still trying to think of something witty for my signature.

quiscalus · Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2008 8:21 am Post subject:

Came online for a work-related second, but something about the marriage posts had come to mind and I had to write it while I was thinking about it:

As someone who studies birds, I've learned that many of them mate for life. Obviously this is not due to social pressure from the avian community. Therefore, smokey, I'll agree: my generalizations were facile.

That's all for now. Bye.

Janicelee, good to hear from you! I'll catch up on your post in the a.m.

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"I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing." -- Melville