Interesting question

This is from Scott Adam's book God's Debris

“Four billion people say they believe in God, but few
genuinely believe. If people believed in God, they would
live every minute of their lives in support of that belief. Rich
people would give their wealth to the needy. Everyone
would be frantic to determine which religion was the true
one. No one could be comfortable in the thought that they
might have picked the wrong religion and blundered into
eternal damnation, or bad reincarnation, or some other
unthinkable consequence. People would dedicate their lives
to converting others to their religions.
“A belief in God would demand one hundred percent
obsessive devotion, influencing every waking moment of
this brief life on earth. But your four billion so-called believers
do not live their lives in that fashion, except for a few.
The majority believe in the usefulness of their beliefs—an
earthly and practical utility—but they do not believe in the
underlying reality.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “If you asked
them, they’d say they believe.”
“They say that they believe because pretending to
believe is necessary to get the benefits of religion. They tell
other people that they believe and they do believer-like
things, like praying and reading holy books. But they don’t
do the things that a true believer would do, the things a true
believer would have to do.
“If you believe a truck is coming toward you, you will
jump out of the way. That is belief in the reality of the truck.
If you tell people you fear the truck but do nothing to get
out of the way, that is not belief in the truck. Likewise, it is
not belief to say God exists and then continue sinning and
hoarding your wealth while innocent people die of starva-
tion. When belief does not control your most important
decisions, it is not belief in the underlying reality, it is belief
in the usefulness of believing.”

Questioning the Governments Gay Marriage Ban

I wrote this in response to the following list: 12 reasons for banning Gay Marriage. I am just posting it now but I will more than likely expand on it later. Mainly I want to ask can our government ban gay marriage under its current working philosophy, not whether gay marriage is correct or not.

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Very interesting list, one which I whole heartily agree with. But I think there is an underlying assumption that I don't agree with, that the government is the institution to define marriage. This seems really bogus to me, the only legitimate reasons, that I can see, where the government has taken over the role as defining marriage fall into three categories:

(1) To give out extra benefits to encourage families, i.e. tax breaks for building population.

(2) To determine property rights at the end of a marriage.

(3) To oppress those whose marriages are "unsanctified".

(2) is merely a semantic issue that could simple be redefined in a more appropriate manner. (3) is something that societies should, maybe I am being facetious calling it a legitimate reason, avoid but alas history can point to numerous cases where it doesn't. But (1), has a little bit more merit than I think people give credit.

But before I say anything about (1), marriage has been a religious construct in every society for probably all of civilization. It is one of the major tenets of almost every religion. For good reason, people who are committed to one another seem to be better individuals rather than alone. This of course doesn't hold in every case. But the role of marriage in the lives of people differ greatly, from merely a contract of procreation and political maneuver to a romantic encounter nutured throughout the people's lives. At any rate, gay marriage seems to be largely a modern construct. I can point to history where gay lifestyles are not considered immoral but gay marriage seems not to be done. Although this rambling is nice, it does not bring any light to why the current US government should not allow for gay marriage, especially since it seems to be condoned by religion rather than government regulations. Thus to promote marriage at all seems, the government is condoning a religious stance.

But the fact remains that for many people marriage is a societal construct, with no bearing from religion. In this manner the government, recognizes this construct and awards it with tax breaks. These tax breaks could be recognized as a way to better society, just like tax breaks for car pooling, or extra taxes on cigarettes, but if that is the case one has to ask if heterosexual marriage brings any benefits to society over homosexual marriage. But these advantages can be given for more specific reasons over not allowing marriage,i.e. if tax breaks are given for car poolers we don't revoke your drivers license if you don't car pool. So saying that two people can't be married because they won't qualify for some benefits seems illogical.

One resolution is to allow for marriage of all people, but that seems to be a religious construct that too many ties have been attached to. Another solution is to de-emphasize the government's role in marriage, maybe only hand out civil unions. It would be awkward I agree, and but it would also uphold the separation of church and state mentality that the government has been working off of for the last 50 years.