Cecilie1200
Diamond Member
First off, my disclaimers. This is NOT a thread about homosexual relationships. If you want to proselytize either for or against, go start your own thread.
This is also NOT a thread about whether or not you believe in God or think people who do are idiots. If you came in here wanting to post about how there is no God and so no one should care what He wants from marriage, do us all a favor and go fuck yourself now.
As to the reason I AM starting this thread . . .
As many of you are aware, I have decided to end my marriage of 18 years. Despite having asked virtually no one's opinion or input on this decision, I have nevertheless received a deluge of same, nonetheless. While most has simply been of the "I'm sorry for your pain and I wish you the best" variety - for which I am profoundly grateful - many people have felt the need to project their feelings about their own relationships or their parents' divorces or what-have-you onto me, and many others have felt compelled to tell me how I'm going against God's will and committing a sin. It is this last that I wish to discuss.
While I am sure many of you consider my abrupt and abrasive manner and salty speech to be at odds with your personal views of what Christians should be like, I am in fact quite concerned about what God expects from me and what His will for my life is. I gave a great deal of consideration to this before I decided to end my marriage, and I continue to consider it throughout this confusing time.
It has always seemed to me that human beings love to have set rules and routines and procedures to follow for everything, to the point where we create them even where they're not necessary or even counter-productive. Anyone who's ever dealt with a bureaucracy can testify to this. I have often thought that a large part of every organized religion blurs from trying to understand God's will and purpose to trying to turn Christianity into a bureaucracy. (No, this is not a rant against organized religion. It still beats disorganized religion, in my opinion.)
What I hear so little of today, in the morass of "God works in mysterious ways" mysticism that passes for theology, is WHY God gives us rules to live our lives by. The truth is that there is not a single rule of behavior handed down in the Bible that doesn't actually have a purpose for existing, a goal it's trying to achieve, and a consequence it is trying to prevent.
So what is God's purpose in the institution of marriage? And how is it served - if, indeed, it IS served - by the rigid ideology and dogma so many Christians attach to it of "preserve the marriage at all costs"? I'm not saying that the quick and easy "You don't make my toes curl anymore, so I'm outta here" attitude toward marriage that seems so prevalent these days is ideal for Christians or anyone else, but does God really value the institution itself above everything else, simply for its own sake? Or does it, like all other institutions, exist for a purpose that it must serve in order to have value? If so, what is that purpose?
This is also NOT a thread about whether or not you believe in God or think people who do are idiots. If you came in here wanting to post about how there is no God and so no one should care what He wants from marriage, do us all a favor and go fuck yourself now.
As to the reason I AM starting this thread . . .
As many of you are aware, I have decided to end my marriage of 18 years. Despite having asked virtually no one's opinion or input on this decision, I have nevertheless received a deluge of same, nonetheless. While most has simply been of the "I'm sorry for your pain and I wish you the best" variety - for which I am profoundly grateful - many people have felt the need to project their feelings about their own relationships or their parents' divorces or what-have-you onto me, and many others have felt compelled to tell me how I'm going against God's will and committing a sin. It is this last that I wish to discuss.
While I am sure many of you consider my abrupt and abrasive manner and salty speech to be at odds with your personal views of what Christians should be like, I am in fact quite concerned about what God expects from me and what His will for my life is. I gave a great deal of consideration to this before I decided to end my marriage, and I continue to consider it throughout this confusing time.
It has always seemed to me that human beings love to have set rules and routines and procedures to follow for everything, to the point where we create them even where they're not necessary or even counter-productive. Anyone who's ever dealt with a bureaucracy can testify to this. I have often thought that a large part of every organized religion blurs from trying to understand God's will and purpose to trying to turn Christianity into a bureaucracy. (No, this is not a rant against organized religion. It still beats disorganized religion, in my opinion.)
What I hear so little of today, in the morass of "God works in mysterious ways" mysticism that passes for theology, is WHY God gives us rules to live our lives by. The truth is that there is not a single rule of behavior handed down in the Bible that doesn't actually have a purpose for existing, a goal it's trying to achieve, and a consequence it is trying to prevent.
So what is God's purpose in the institution of marriage? And how is it served - if, indeed, it IS served - by the rigid ideology and dogma so many Christians attach to it of "preserve the marriage at all costs"? I'm not saying that the quick and easy "You don't make my toes curl anymore, so I'm outta here" attitude toward marriage that seems so prevalent these days is ideal for Christians or anyone else, but does God really value the institution itself above everything else, simply for its own sake? Or does it, like all other institutions, exist for a purpose that it must serve in order to have value? If so, what is that purpose?
