True story- recent too

Post by **_CaliforniaKid** » Fri May 25, 2007 12:10 am

The Nehor wrote:I know people who have entered into poly relationships. They're athiests.

Athiest polygamists?!? WHY? lol

Post by **_Sethbag** » Fri May 25, 2007 12:43 am

For the sexual and emotional variety, perhaps? Why do people become "swingers"? Why do people have what they call "open" marriages?

Post by **_dartagnan** » Fri May 25, 2007 12:53 am

But marriage in and of itself is a religiously based concept. Atheists willing to break the laws in order to engage in multiple religious concepts, is just too ironic.

Post by **_Sethbag** » Fri May 25, 2007 1:06 am

It's only considered religious in nature by religious folk. I doubt many atheists regard their marriages are religious in nature.

Post by **_The Nehor** » Fri May 25, 2007 3:08 am

CaliforniaKid wrote:Athiest polygamists?!? WHY? lol

It's an interesting household. 2 guys, 2 girls, one guy is in charge basically. I became a friend of his at school. Two of them are married, the rest aren't. I didn't say polygamists, I said poly. Poly generally means very open relationships though this group was closed without approval from one of the guys. He offered to let me keep one of the girls for a week.....awkward, also tempting because she was cute...but morality won out.

I know another guy who just has 2 girls but that's much more closed.

Post by **_harmony** » Fri May 25, 2007 4:06 am

The Nehor wrote:I know another guy who just has 2 girls but that's much more closed.

Sounds like the premise behind polygamy is alive and well: women are things, to be traded, given, used, and discarded. Gosh, I love progress!

Post by **_The Nehor** » Fri May 25, 2007 4:11 am

harmony wrote:
The Nehor wrote:I know another guy who just has 2 girls but that's much more closed.

Sounds like the premise behind polygamy is alive and well: women are things, to be traded, given, used, and discarded. Gosh, I love progress!

Actually in one of the relationships one of the guys was passed around sometimes too, it was an equal opportunity repression situation. But, they all seemed happy to me.

Post by **_harmony** » Fri May 25, 2007 4:31 am

The Nehor wrote:Actually in one of the relationships one of the guys was passed around sometimes too, it was an equal opportunity repression situation. But, they all seemed happy to me.

Yeah, I can see how being degraded could make someone happy. Sure.

Post by **_dartagnan** » Fri May 25, 2007 11:47 am

It's only considered religious in nature by religious folk. I doubt many atheists regard their marriages are religious in nature.

I don't see how they couldn't. The whole idea of one man and one woman being united as man and wife, is deeply rooted in religion, beginning with Adam and Eve. Atheists could live with the opposite sex if they wanted, but why would they want to get married? Getting married means making covenants that are rooted in religious principles, and usually the process usually involves a minister of some sort.

Post by **_Blixa** » Fri May 25, 2007 1:46 pm

dartagnan wrote:
It's only considered religious in nature by religious folk. I doubt many atheists regard their marriages are religious in nature.

I don't see how they couldn't. The whole idea of one man and one woman being united as man and wife, is deeply rooted in religion, beginning with Adam and Eve. Atheists could live with the opposite sex if they wanted, but why would they want to get married? Getting married means making covenants that are rooted in religious principles, and usually the process usually involves a minister of some sort.

[my emphasis]

I think history (not myth, a.k.a., adamandeve) shows that marraige alliances have taken many forms in many different societies outside of a christian paradigm.

Currently, it is just as much a legal/political category as a religious one, if not more so.

I'm an atheist and eschew marriage for the patriarchal baggage it carries, yet my long term boyfriend/partner/comrade/lover and I married because we live in a society in which access to healthcare is not a fundamental right of all citizens. Thus, we married in order to be able to share health insurance.

I certainly never wanted to get married, and assumed I never would. But it seemed a practical compromise worth making. We lived together as a couple for about six years, had talked about getting married if and when one of us had a full-time gig with health insurance and the other needed healthcare. I got my first tenure track job; he needed a root canal. So we bought a license, called the list of people authorized to "solemnize" the thing, booked the first guy who said he'd do it the next day and were married in a courthouse by the mayor of a nearby municipality.

10 years later almost to the date, that damn tooth had to be pulled. I saved it and I'm blinging it out to wear on a chain. I call it "The Marriage Tooth." I think we've been married 14 years now.

How time flies when you're selling out ; )