Over on Dalrock, there is scuttlebutt about a new commandment by the Christian god, that all Christian men must marry.
Cane Caldo explains:
there is a command is for each man and each woman to marry, but that concessions–exceptions–might and should be made in specific cases for specific reasons.
Later on, BillyS agrees and amplifies:
God said it was not good for a man to be alone and made a woman for him. That is the baseline principle. Exceptions, such as Paul, exist, but they are just that, exceptions. Review the Scriptures I already posted.
The problem that Cane and Billy have is a simple one. There is no “Thou shalt marry” commandment, anywhere in the new testament. So, Cane and Billy are fabricating new commandments, and weaving justification for their new commandments from minor allusions found here and there in the text.
Astute readers will remember that Artisanal Toad seemed to do something precisely similar. When asked where the “Thou shalt marry multiple women” and “Thou shalt let thine wives dyke out in weird lesbo group sex orgies” commandments were, he’d go on a long, dull tirade, about how ya boy Boxer was too worldly and too stupid to get the hidden meaning in the text.
Now Billy and Cane are asserting that the Christian god says something which he clearly doesn’t say. Their motivations for making this assertion are unclear, and don’t matter anyway. Let’s assume that both Cane and Billy are perfectly sincere in their beliefs, and are not trying to lead anyone astray for the sake of any ulterior motive. Since their beliefs neither correspond nor cohere with the propositions in the New Testament, there are a finite number of possibilities available to explain the disparity.
- The Christian god has given a new commandment, by revelation, through internet bloggers.
- Cane and Billy are starting a new, post-Christian religious movement.
- Cane and Billy are reading the text through the lens of ideology.
While all of these are plausible scenarios, the first doesn’t seem likely. The text itself warns against false prophets, and implies that it constitutes both the completeness of the theory and a final revelation. It also pronounces a curse on anyone who claims to have had a subsequent revelation (Galatians 1:8-9). Billy and Cane both study the New Testament, so they know this themselves.
The second also doesn’t seem likely. Neither Billy nor Cane has ever denounced any of the central tenets of Christianity, nor have I ever seen either of them claim to be anything other than a sincere Christian.
So, assuming (as I do) that these guys aren’t purposely lying to people, I am left with the final scenario as the one that seems most likely to be the case. They are reading the New Testament through the lens of ideology.
What is ideology, and what does it mean to read a text through the lens of ideology?
Ideology is a Marxist term which (like most weighty philosophical items) takes some effort to unpack. We might say that it is a social phenomenon, which originates in the false state of consciousness, arising out of the mode of being prevalent in our particular historical epoch. Marx would point out that the mode-of-being in the epoch is brought into being by the mode-of-production, but we’re not going to go that far. The bare concept is itself hard to understand.
We live in a world that prioritizes certain things (fame, money, status, women) and thus we adopt certain inherent biases that color any new sense data we are exposed to. When sense data hits our eyes, our brain instantly begins working to translate such stuff into intelligible information. It does this by making associations through a conditioned structure. That’s part of ideology.
The warm fuzzies that the wimminz get when they see a lavish wedding, or the sympathy that a man feels when he sees a suffering child… some of that may be inborn, but most of it is ideology. We have each been conditioned and socialized to respond in certain ways, and the conditioning is at least partly subconscious.
The Marxist term is usually considered a subset of what Hegel called a world-spirit (weltgeist). We theorize about history, that is about our place in society, as we navigate all the currents that brought us to the now, in terms that our place in society offers us. To some extent, we are limited by language and pop culture to certain channels of thought, whereas other possibilities are closed off to us.
So what does it mean to speculate that some people read texts through the lens of ideology? In truth, we all do. This is why so many texts can be interpreted in such a variety of different ways.
The truth of this statement often gives way for linguistic relativism, and an idea that nothing inherently means anything: that in the war between text and subtext, context is the only winner. While students of ideology should examine the truths available from a variety of interpretations, we should also be careful about adopting the view that the interpretation is everything. If meaning is chiefly interpretive, then text is deprecated.
In an answer to the bizarre assertions of Cane Caldo, I had to ask:
Where is this command that each man marry? Chapter and verse, please.
Of course, Cane had no answer. Neither did anyone on his side of the argument. I did get a few replies, though. My man Earl said:
It’s not there. There are commands on what you are supposed to do when you get married…and what you are supposed to do if you are not married (the common theme for both is sexual morality)…but there is no command that states you are to get married.
That’s the way I read the text also. Of course, I read the text at face value, and try to keep my Marxist critique-of-ideology shades on, whenever I turn a new page in it.
One thing many of my secular readers might not appreciate are the differences between the Christian god, and the Mormon god. These are, despite all the protests to the contrary (by Christians and Mormons both) very different gods. Mormons have a specific commandment to play up our similarities when among Christians, but in private we tell our children the score. We can pass as Christians, but we are not Christians.
One of the differences between the Mormon god and the Christian god is what each calls his people to do. The Christian god does not make any specific commandment to marry; but, the Mormon god did command his people to marry.
To obtain the highest degree of the celestial kingdom, a man must enter into the new and everlasting covenant of marriage (D&C 131 1-4)
The Mormon heaven is only for married people. Mormons who never marry will not be allowed in. Not only this, but the Mormon man or woman who marries in a secular ceremony, will also be counted as an unmarried person after death, and will likewise never be allowed into the Mormon heaven.
If a man marry a wife not by me, their covenant and marriage is not of force when they are dead (D&C 132 15)
Mormons are not only commanded to marry, but they are further commanded to marry other Mormons, in temple ceremonies. Failure to do so precludes a brother from any leadership positions in the church, any sort of benefits or employment within the church, and he will die condemned.
This, in fact, is the greatest example of the superiority of Jesus (the name of the Christian god) and his disciple St. Paul over Elohim (the Mormon god, who definitely has nothing to do with Jesus) and his disciple Joseph Smith. Jesus allows for those of us who may want to choose another vocation to do so.
I will always be a Mormon, and I will always love my people; but I will never bow the knee to the Mormon folk religion, and I encourage my Mormon brothers to explore the truths that can be found in the works of St. Paul, and, for that matter, Karl Marx.
Whether they are mixing and matching their feelz or just self-delusional .. it doesn’t matter.
They wish to lead men astray .. no different than AT.
I love how married men and even (now) divorced men tout marriage .. on the opposite side you have women purposefully destroying their (male & female) relationships even if they are in a good one (at the moment). So, my theory is they are (acting like) women.
And, when asked to provide the very verse that calls for marriage they resort to deflection & re(mis)-direction.
Thusly for that reason .. they are (useless) idiots in my book.
Interesting about the Mormon deity. There was one time a couple of missionaries came to my apartment to talk about Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and the church. I came back with my ten cent theology of the Gospel and wondered why someone claiming to have a dream of Peter, James, and John had a better idea of a church than the church that had the physical Peter, James, and John who were taught by Jesus.
They invited me to their temple…I invted them to the Catholic church. Needless to say we never saw each other again.
one clarification .. women deatroy their FRIENDS relationships
Dear fellas:
Earl sez:
Mormons are taught that Catholicism is polytheism. The reformation (in the Mormon retelling) was an uninspired attempt to rectify this, but was ultimately unsuccessful. No devout Mormon will ever go into a Catholic church unless he’s compelled in some way (a funeral for one’s boss, that one will be disadvantaged for skipping, for example).
My own affinity for Catholicism was probably, originally, motivated by rebellion; though at this point I genuinely love the aesthetics of it.
Honeycomb sez:
Jayzus Christ, they sure do. It’s simultaneously hilarious and pathetic to watch. I’m convinced that wimminz are hard-wired, when in any group of two or more, to reduce the social dynamic to the absolute barest form of animal existence possible.
Best,
Boxer
‘one clarification .. women deatroy their FRIENDS relationships’
It’s knowledge like this that makes me think twice when a woman wants to be friends…or when a wife says she married ‘her best friend’.
Whoa, three blog topics for the price of one. I have a question for the philosophical aside and Mormonism later and will stick with marriage for now.
I will offer myself for inspection to you and your readers as one who mostly agrees with Billy here, though I don’t see the differences between you and him that clearly.
You said Billy said it was a commandment, but his words used principle. Why care about feminism destroying marriage and headship unless it is something you value and which you see God value? But you do express care, and so it seems you also see marriage as at least a fundamental aspect of civilization so what is your beef with him saying it is an expected norm, or principle?
I don’t see marriage as a scriptural commandment, so lets avoid that distraction.
As a bible believing and GOD Fearing man .. I do agree that marriage is a fundamental form of society / civilization.
Men are the headship .. women are to be a helpmate .. children are the fruit of that labor and we are all better for it.
When civilization / society is in suffering due to not heeding the advice of the bible it is a man’s right and duty to avoid the entrapment of your tormentor.
I fall into the category of not wanting wife or children. What a burden that is not necessary in a healthy society / civilization. Now, if everyone did what I do it would not be a healthy society. It would be on the decline in child births. But, in an un-healthy society why would you or we try to solve a problem that not one person in power wishes to solve. They’re pushing (/ invested in) the very agenda that makes this a problem?
The very women we see today existed in the Old Testament .. read Proverbs .. what did men do then? Men have been conditioned to accept the burden of a woman .. but in old times they were given either a virgin and/ or a dowry. Her wealth was his on marriage and if she left she left with nothing. Not even the kids. Society survived just fine. Jesus Christ was asked about divorce in the New Testament .. and as a man with knowledge of all (even the lay-man who had read proverbs knows the nature of women .. without the stories of the bible) women have done and will do didn’t marry one.
Yes he was living for His Bride (i.e. The Church) but .. as a physical man he never had the desire to have (physical) knowledge of a woman.
If men were stronger and put themselves first (like Jesus, the Christ, did) then all of this would be different with regard to women. Maybe men would be men and teach these bitches to heel.
Dear Swanny:
Here’s what Billy said, in:
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2017/09/11/wendy-griffiths-secular-doppelganger/#comment-245319
I interpret this as a (distinctly Toadesque) proclamation that the real message in the text is contextual. Billy is saying that things that aren’t explicitly commanded are implicit commandments. This appeal to intuition is a problem for those of us who read the text at face value. If “principles” which are equivalent to commandments are available, as you and Billy claim, then why aren’t they spelled out? If they’re not spelled out because they’re “reasonable and consistent” then you are both compelled to explain why other reasonable readers disagree with your interpretation.
On the other hand, if “principles” aren’t really equivalent to commandments, then you should agree with us, that there is no compulsion to marry, only to be chaste as an unmarried man. If that were the case, then Billy and Cane wouldn’t be arguing so eristically.
Best,
Boxer
Over on Dalrock, someone sez:
Earl replies:
Another (I guess, sorta interesting) difference between Mormon and Christian theology is illustrated here. For Mormons, Jesus was a married man. Here’s Apostle Orson Hyde:
Now there was actually a marriage [at Cana (John 2:1–11)]; and if Jesus was not the bridegroom on that occasion, please tell who was. If any man can show this, and prove that it was not the Savior of the world, then I will acknowledge I am in error. We say it was Jesus Christ who was married, to be brought into the relation whereby he could see his seed (Isaiah 53:10), before he was crucified. “Has he indeed passed by the nature of angels, and taken upon himself the seed of Abraham, to die without leaving a seed to bear his name on the earth?” No. But when the secret is fully out, the seed of the blessed shall be gathered in, in the last days; and he who has not the blood of Abraham flowing in his veins, who has not one particle of the Savior’s in him, I am afraid is a stereotyped Gentile, who will be left out and not be gathered in the last days; for I tell you it is the chosen of God, the seed of the blessed, that shall be gathered. I do not despise to be called a son of Abraham, if he had a dozen wives; or to be called a brother, a son, a child of the Savior, if he had Mary, and Martha, and several others, as wives; and though he did cast seven devils out of one of them, it is all the same to me.
(Journal of Discourses 2:82)
It’s important to note that Mormonism places great theoretical stock in monotheism. There is only one God, for Mormons. Jesus was something akin to a great prophet and a living example, but he definitely isn’t someone we pray to or invoke in our ordinances. Mormons are caught in a dilemma, in that Jesus necessarily must be married, as all Mormons must be married, since he was strictly a man and our example. Thus we get stuff like this, from Mormon prophets.
Best,
Boxer
‘and if Jesus was not the bridegroom on that occasion, please tell who was. If any man can show this, and prove that it was not the Savior of the world, then I will acknowledge I am in error.’
Well for starters…if He was the bridegroom, why would He need to be invited to his own wedding? Mork calling Orson…come in Orson.
‘On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, and Jesus and His disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ‘ John 2:1-2
‘ Jesus was something akin to a great prophet and a living example, but he definitely isn’t someone we pray to or invoke in our ordinances.’
That was something I did find out about the Mormon religion…my first thought was how that sounded like another guy who made a similar claim…Muhammad.
I agree, principles are not the same as commandments and that marriage is not commanded. I would say chastity might be a commandment, since I think it is equivalent to fleeing sexual immorality. But you used an excellent word to focus on getting married, that is it something we compel others and ourselves to do. We don’t do it now, except Mormons and Indians, but it does seem like it was a compulsion for most of Christian history. I could make the case that is not now compelled is because it is a fruit of the weakening of the church and not a prescriptive doctrine.
I would have responded poorly had I been pushed into it if everything else had been the same, but I don’t conclude from that, that marriage is just a matter of private conscience (ideally).
‘ I would say chastity might be a commandment, since I think it is equivalent to fleeing sexual immorality.’
Chastity is a virtue.
The commandment when it comes to sexual matters is the sixth one…’Thou shall not commit adultery’. At least within the Catholic church it states that’s where the basis of all sexual sins come from (not just you are married and marry someone else).
Impressive, Boxer. I was wondering where you got your command of the Scripture from. Turns out you’re an ideas man through and through.
Earl and Boxer kind of answered a Mormon question I was going to ask to Mormon missionaries the next opportunity I get, which was, “Since you say you are a Christian, then why don’t you just go to my church instead of your Mormon service? What is the answer they give in response in public?
My other question is for Boxer, what do you mean when you say you will always be a Mormon? I was raised Lutheran and don’t have the sense of kinship to them that you have to Mormons.
Dear Swanny:
Being a Mormon is sorta like being the citizen of a nation. It’s not about believing in anything. It’s something you’re born into. We’re descended from a particular group of people. We had our own country for a while (it was called Deseret).
Bear in mind that you’re talking about members of the LDS church. That’s the largest institutional apparatus which echoes our folk religion, but lots of LDS people are converts (i.e. not Mormons). Then there are lots of Mormons (like me) who are secular, or members of other religious organizations.
Hell, I dunno. They’d probably lie to you and tell you that they have been to other church services before. Mormons generally don’t consider outsiders to be fully human, so we have no problem lying to you guys whenever we find it convenient.
I’ll always be a Mormon, in the same way I’ll always be white, and I’ll always be a Canadian. It’s a function of geography and genealogy, rather than anything I chose. There is not really an option to leave — though I do wish most of my cousins would quit being so silly and superstitious.
Best,
Boxer
Wow – that last paragraph threw me for a loop. Boxer, I would not have pegged you as a Mormon (or rather someone who identifies as such). I thought you were probably an atheist…although some might identify Mormons as atheist in the sense that they do not believe in one god above all things everywhere, but in a multitude of co-god in a continuum with no beginning and no end.
I’m digressing here, but before I get off of the Mormon topic, I have to bring a couple of things up…
You say that a man dies condemned if he doesn’t marry in the temple; but remember that your quote from the D&C talks about him being precluded from obtaining “the highest degree of the celestial kingdom”. Remember that in Mormonism, there are three levels: the celestial, the terrestrial and the telestial. Failure to marry (for a man*) means that he doesn’t get to become a god, get his own planet and impregnate his wife or wives, in order to give birth to spirit children who grow up, then shrink down and become born as babies again on the new planet; but the lower two kingdoms are said to be pretty pleasant. *Now isn’t it interesting that this hard-and-fast rule only applies to men, and that exceptions could be made for women to get them into the celestial kingdom? I always assumed that this was another man-up thing, where all of the onus for hooking up is on the man, as if the male side of things has all the means of making it happen and the women have no say on the matter, or even veto power (we know the real truth)…but then it dawned on me: how can there be polygamy in the celestial kingdom if they don’t thin out the male population? It’s the same thing that the Short Creekers are doing as they kick as many males out of the sect as they can – they need to keep the gender ratio as skewed female as possible in order to reward the suck-asses with harems. Yes, many parallels between Mormonism and Islam, actually…
But please, don’t think that you have to identify as a Mormon if you don’t believe in the Joseph Smith story. There certainly is an option to leave, and if you don’t believe in that charlatan from the early 1800s, then you’ve already left. You don’t need to be excommunicated or even be taken out of their roles. Sure, they may still consider you to be one of them (in part to shore up their numbers for advertising purposes) but your right and ability to identify as a non-Mormon doesn’t happen on their say-so. Their authority to define who is and who isn’t a Mormon is supposedly authority from God, but if it’s a false religion with no such authority, they it doesn’t matter what they think – you can call yourself non-Mormon.
As for the marriage mandate outside of Mormonism, indeed, it would seem to be bullet point #3. Calvinists seem to have this attitude a lot, and Orthodox Christianity (from what I heard from an Orthodox priest) believes that you either have to be married or become a monk. Where Catholics believe in three acceptable life vocations (married, single and religious), Orthodoxy apparently only has two (married and religious).
A lot of Protestant religions love to cherry pick things out of the Old Testament to support the ideas they like. The line from Genesis about it man not being alone is a perfect example. Somehow they think that this verse, which I would say referred specifically to Adam, is more applicable to the lives of all men living today as a one-size-fits-all commandment than does Paul’s very specific breakdown of the options regarding marriage in 1st Corinthians, chapter 7. Since they obviously don’t think that EVERYTHING in the Old Testament applies to them (otherwise they’d be practicing Messianic Orthodox Jews or something), what I wonder is how they justify which things become edicts handed down from the pulpit next Sunday, and which are considered to be history/fulfilled covenant/only for Israelites. Whatever the case, I basically do the latter with their own edicts – consider them to be commandments only for people in that church and culture, and not for me. Their own back country road congregations are the only people who listen to them with a serious ear anyway, as far as I can tell. You start getting into some of these nuptial-mania Calvinists and some of the things they say, and it’s clear that in their church and culture, it’s more or less arranged marriage, and guys on the bottom rungs of sexual marketplace value (whether they like that term or not) are in a double bind, since there is no way they could get her father’s approval, even if she herself would touch him with a 10-foot pole.
Simply walk away, and be glad that it isn’t you in such a double bind.
Ms Wendy Griffith says this ..
I’ve never been married and I’m in my 40’s. There are a lot of families present, but it seems like the men come only after they’re married. The few guys that are there usually aren’t the “manly” men that I know I’m looking for. I think there is a lack of “real” men in the church.
…
[Churches] have singles outreaches for the 20-something crowd and early 30’s, but they don’t have anything for those over 40. But, even if they did, the men just aren’t there! But, thank God that there are some ways to connect online. The men are out there, as the statistics show. But, finding them, that’s the issue.
FIFY Wendy ..
I think there is a lack of “real”
menWOMEN in the church.Example below ..
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/12/13/texas-middle-school-teacher-31-accused-sex-with-boy-high-school-student-in-church-group.html
ONCE AGAIN men are messing up FEE’Money’ists plans to have it all.
Dear Boxer:
Well, I just saw this. I followed honeycomb’s comment here. And I confess I read only about the first five paragraphs of your lengthy post.
There’s no commandment per se that each man and each woman must marry. The commandment was “be fruitful, and multiply”, but that commandment was given to Adam and Eve who were already married. God basically told them, in crude vernacular: “Bang, and get pregnant and have lots of kids.”
Rather, in the Christian faith common to those steeped in it, it’s this (emphasis added):
“You can get married if you want to, and you can stay single and unmarried if you want to. It’s up to you. However, if you want to have sex and have kids, the only place you can do that and still obey God is when you’re married to one person of the opposite sex. Any sex outside of marriage or before you are married is sinful and disobedient to God, and damaging to you, so don’t do it.”
You don’t have to get married. But according to every Christian sect, if you want to have sex (and almost all people do), then you have to get married and you have to have sex with only that person you’re married to.
But here’s the thing, and here’s the dirty little secret:
All those good Christian kids? They’re all having premarital sex. Fully 85% of Christian women report having sex at least once before they get married. (And those are the girls who fess up to it. Never mind the ones who are too ashamed to admit it, even anonymously.) It’s something the Church (i.e. Christians in the North American church) know full well is going on, but turn a blind eye to it.
Agreed .. what’do’ya’wanna’bet (yes that is one word in Alabama) Ms Wendy Griffith is as big a CC rider as her non-Christian counter-parts.?.?
And, oh how funny it is that she’s demanding a Good-Man ™.
Yeah. I don’t believe for one minute that Wendy Griffith is a virgin. It’s extremely difficult to go through puberty and then the next 40 years without sex, unless you’ve taken vows of chastity, which she hasn’t. But she’s never going to talk publicly about that, because that would ruin her image as expert woman builder-upper and expert on women getting men into relationships (despite her complete inability to get and keep a relationship with a man herself).
Just another 30’s christian (?) woman looking for a good man ..
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/12/15/teacher-32-had-oral-sex-intercourse-in-school-with-teen-boy-student.html
If only the Good Men ™ she needed to appear outta nowhere would’ve applied for the job .. this and many more, future, tragedy’s could be stopped.
You Adult Men are screwing up fee’money’ists plans to have it all.
You know how you can tell some guys just look like they have creepy perv written all over them.
She has the look of a predator written all over her.
Earl ..
Yes .. she has that 1000 coc’ka stare .. but her narrow eye-set is one of chester the molester.
Regardless .. this is how it’s viewed .. and I quote ..She’s accused of having a tryst with a student.
If it was chester the molester just asking for pics (i.e. not even getting to 1st base) .. he’d be a monster for asking for sex .. no tryst involved .. heh.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/12/13/teachers-aide-solicited-nude-photos-sex-from-girls-authorities-say.html
Wanna guess who gets more time in jail?
I bet you know the answer.