Thank you Supreme Court...

Of course, you would jump on a typo. 4 not 5* They did say it was unconstitutional, read the decision.

Perhaps you should have read the decision.
Even your attempt at correcting your mistake fails.
Perhaps you are right, maybe those people teaching you law really do know nothing. It would certainly explain a lot.

Sorry, government handouts will never be what defines a commitment as intimate as a marriage between two people.

So being "next of kin" is a government handout?????

For example, both Christianity and Islam claim Adam and Eve as the "origins" of humanity. While neither text states clearly that they were married, they both show a picture of a married couple. Their son, Cain is the first specific mention of marriage in religious texts. There are no known non-religious texts or records that would predate the religious claims.

You are correct that it doesn't state that they were married, however it doesn't imply that they were married either so that picture is one you are drawing for yourself.
Cain is indeed the first mention of marriage, but he had to go to the land of Nod to get married. Which suggests that the religious community in Eden didn't have marriage but the ungodly masses living in the other place did. So your religious text clearly undermines the claim you are trying to put on it.

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Cain is indeed the first mention of marriage, but he had to go to the land of Nod to get married. Which suggests that the religious community in Eden didn't have marriage but the ungodly masses living in the other place did. So your religious text clearly undermines the claim you are trying to put on it.

Might as well be a reflection of exogamic traditions, though.

[Oberon]

In the name of Kane!

Might as well be a reflection of exogamic traditions, though.

Well that's where it gets tricky, did he really marry outside of his community or did he marry his twin, or did he perhaps marry one or both of the Abel triplets to avoid the twincest?
If he married outside his community to one of the mortal women who inhabited the earth before the creation of Adam and Eve was he adopting their non religious societal culture and their accepted norms?
Were Michael and Gabriel really best men at the wedding? Or if they had been among those angels shagging the humans before the creation of Adam and Eve were they there as father of the bride or brides?

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Well that's where it gets tricky

It does, and I don't claim to have answers to those questions, especially since it has been at least several years since I last studied that particular part of the Bible. I have just always been somewhat fascinated from the historiographical point of view in how these old stories may be reflecting something from the ancient past, so could hardly resist adding that.

It's not that long since I red a theory proposing the exogamy as a reason for why in the ancient folk tale traditions we so often see the hero going to some far foreign land and ending up married there. I suppose that's where it popped into my mind in the first place. So much for being original. Then there is of course the good old theory of the tales' trolls and similar monsters being reminiscent of the Neanderthals. And so on and so on.

Carry on with the thread subject, I'll tell my inner scholar to sit down and shut up.

It does, and I don't claim to have answers to those questions, especially since it has been at least several years since I last studied that particular part of the Bible. I have just always been somewhat fascinated from the historiographical point of view in how these old stories may be reflecting something from the ancient past, so could hardly resist adding that.

The beauty about that bit of the bible when it comes to study is that there are so many versions and so many contradictions both within each version and between versions.
Plus of course so many attempts over thousands of years to try and make them balance, fill in the big gaps and rework the contradictions to lend it some form of maintainable credibility.

[Wolferz]

Maybe the Westboro Baptist Curch is running things now?
Christians drinking the haterade?