There are no cats mentioned in the Bible either. It is assumed that Adam and Eve were married. Their children are described as being married, but their marriages are never mentioned.

Before Adam and Eve had sex or even eatten the fruit, in Genesis 2:25, Eve is called "wife".

When Adam and Eve had eatten the fruit and they hid, Genesis 3:8 says "and Adam and his wife hid themselves". I think it's safe to assume that Adam and Eve were married, even though the marriage itself isn't described.

How can they possibly be married when they are the first 2 people, and there is no mentioning of a priest?

Abra,

One of the major differences between Judaism and Christianity is their approach to sexuality. Christianity, (Spider, please correct me if I am wrong) believes that sex is shameful and sinful - that is why by Catholics a holy person (priest and nuns) are celibate. I believe its based on the concept of original sin. Again I am no expert here and Spider can probably better articulate it.

Judaism believes that sex is a holy act that brings one ultimately closer to G-d because it is the highest form of love between two people. That is why even the holiest Rabbis have sex with their wives. In Judaism there is nothing shameful or disgraceful about sex. However it is a sacred act - an act with the potential to create life - so not to be taken lightly.

Celibacy in Catholicism stems from the responsibility the church had for the widows and orphans of priests. Since the church didn't want to part with any riches, however small, they just forbade the priests to get married.
That's the simple explanation, though the Catholic church dressed it so that there could be no discussion about it.

Abra,

I am confused. Are you saying that you would for sure marry anyone you had pre-marital sex with? If not, regardless of your intentions you ended up hurting the person.

I also don't understand your comparison to marriage. Based on what your saying it seems like your thought process is - that since many marriages end up very hurtful so it must be okay to hurt people before we are married?

Its just as much a terrible thing to marry someone and then hurt them terribly. Its not marriage that makes something good or bad - its your personal growth in being careful to not marry the wrong person for the wrong reasons or to be unable to be kind and loving to the right person that is the problem.

The goal of all religion is to become a kind, loving, thoughtful, and insightful person. The goal of a person like that is to make a lifetime commitment to cherish and love their soulmate.

When things don't work out before or after a marriage - its because of personal failure in some area. Not because we are bad people but because we may not know any better. In either event its something that we can and must rectify.

What I can tell you from the perspective of mainstream protestant Christians is that sex is a beautiful thing. Christians are strickly forbidden from denying their husband/wife sexual intimacy unless it is for religious (holy days, fasting, etc) reasons. This is rarely observed, but it's in the New Testament. The same subject is touched upon in the Old Testament, one of the laws allowed a woman to divorce her husband if he refused to have sex with her. 1 Corinthians 7 covers this issue completely. Since Christians see sex outside of marriage as sinful, Christians are encouraged to marry and have an active sexual relationship with their partner, if they feel they do not have the self control to be celebate.

I believe that the purpose of celibacy in Catholocism is so that priests, monks and nuns can dedicate all of their energy to God and other people, rather than focusing so much on one other person.

That's true of priests, but not of monks and nuns. They have always taken a vow of celibacy.

Maybe they went to the courthouse.

God walked in the garden and talked to them, I suppose God married them. I'm not sure, that's just a guess. But shortly after the creation of Adam and Eve is described, Eve is called Adam's wife.

On the original point of science and religion, I believe that they go hand in hand. On a simplictic topic of creationism or evolution; science proves without a doubt that evolution exists, yet GOD is the creator. My question to everyone is how long were the first few days of creation? There is no way to tell. They could have been millions of years in our space of time. Is it possible that Adam and Eve where the first that God created with souls?

Science cannot explain miracles and faith cannot disprove science. Isn't it possible that they go hand in hand?

that's ok, but if marriage is so very important in Christianity, wouldn't it have been mentioned in the Oh so important bible?

Spider,

Let me see if I understand you, and again, please clarify if I misunderstood.

It seems from what you are saying that mankind would be better off without sexuality. You implied this by saying that having a sexual relationship within marriage is good IF you do not have self control to be celibate. Which implies that celibacy is the highest value. Which implies that sexuality is not a positive thing but rather a default "if one doesn't have self control".

Doesn't that imply that there is something inherently sinful or wrong about sexuality?

OKC Chef

Science has proven no such thing. Its assumed by most people that science has proven it. However it is a theory based on extrapolation with room for much error. I don't see the relevance, once we believe that the initial creation was by G-d, whether He then put evolution into existence or He simply created us fully formed. It doesn't change anything either way. But I have examined evolution closely and I really don't see how anyone can say its proven. At best its an elegant theory that requires much more study before we can jump to conclusions.

Clearly with the divorce rate at about 50% most people who marry weren’t even sure.



You are the one who was trying to use marriage as an example of something less hurtful. Not me.

I think the comparison is totally irrelevant. I don’t believe that pre-marital sex has anything at all to do with the potential for hurt. Period.

You’re either going to hurt someone or you’re not. Whether you had sex with them is irrelevant. Unless of course you just run around getting women pregnant and walking away without taking responsibility.

But that would go against my original premise that your original intent was based on love!



I agree, but what’s that got to do with pre-marital sex? I’m not talking about having meaningless orgies or just sleeping around carelessly. You keep evading my original premise,…

My original premise is that your original intent was based on love!



If God had a soulmate for me why didn’t he introduce me to her? Then we could have married and lived happily ever after just like in the fairytales.



Again, I agree, but again, I don’t see what this has to do with pre-marital sex. Things can work out or not whether you had pre-marital sex or not. It’s totally irrelevant to premarital sex.

FINALLY, and this MUST BE SAID!

Having had pre-marital sex and then deciding to part ways before marriage would not necessarily lead to hurting anyone. Lot’s of people have pre-marital sex and eventually decide that they aren’t interested in making a life-long commitment to each other. They simply part friends. No one needs to be hurt by pre-marital sex.

That’s your suggesting. Pre-martial sex does not automatically equate to hurt. Far from it. In fact, there is nothing inherently hurtful about pre-martial sex in and of itself. If there is any hurt involved it must have arisen from other issues.

In short, there is nothing to support that pre-marital sex needs to lead to hurt even if the couple do not marry.

In fact, I even hold that there is nothing wrong with having unmarried sex knowing full well that neither partner is interested marrying! That wouldn’t negate the LOVE they have for each other.

There is nothing innate about LOVE that requires a lifetime commitment. If you genuinely care about someone you love them. You don’t need to make a commitment to live with them for an entire lifetime in order to care about them deeply. It’s just not a requirement of LOVE. You can even continue to love them after they move on an marry someone else.

After all, you need to have sex with people in order to LOVE them. You love your parents, children, siblings, and so forth, yet you don’t have sex with them!

It’s a mistake to equate love with sex, or vice versa. But it would also be a mistake to have sex with someone you don’t also love.

Is the sarcasm necessary? Where's the love?

Prayer and sacrifice to God were very important in the Old Testament, but Adam and Eve were never described doing either. Their sons were, but they weren't. The Bible doesn't cover every event, it covers the significant events. Cain and Abel sacrificing to God was important, because that resulted in Cain taking Abel's life. Then we read that Cain had sex with his wife...but she wasn't mentioned before, not marriage was described and she wasn't mentioned ever again.

Genesis 2:24


Here we are told that marriage is important. The next verse tells us that Adam was married to Eve. The actual ceremony wasn't important, what was important is that they made that commitment to one another.

I'm not sure what rock your living under, but simple carbon dating has dated artifacts and fossilized remains (not to mention the beginning of geological time). Theology and those who are experts have dated back the time of Adam and Eve. Why is it so hard to believe that both can exist. Did God not create knowledge?

I think it will seem that I am splitting hairs, but bear with me.

Sex outside of marriage is inherenetly sinful. Sex within marriage is not a sin. I'm not sure that I would characterize sex as inherently sinful, because there is a vivid distinction made between married and unmarried sex. The commitment of marriage means that there is no sin in sex or lust for the one to whom you are married.



The above is Paul speaking. What he's saying is that he would prefer if all people could be celibate like he is. But he recognizes his willpower, his ability to be celebate without lust, as a gift from God and acknowleges that not everyone will have that gift.

This is what many people try to explain to the Bible fundamentalists who insist on taking the Bible literally.

Most Christians do indeed accept a more allegorical approach to religious doctrine as you suggest, thus allowing them to accept evolution in their religious belief.

They simply accept that God created Adam from the ‘dust’ of the earth, via evolution. And he made “Eve” via evolution too. Many scholars even believe that Adam and Eve abstractly refer to men and women in general and not to two specific individuals.



Ironically it is the Bible Fundamentalist who insist on literally interpretations who show why this can’t be the case.

They say that the Bible attributes death and imperfect to mankind’s fall to sin.

Well, what evolution tells us is that life was imperfect and death had always occurred even prior to man’s arrival on the scene.

So Bible Literalists are actually suggesting that if evolution is true then the Bible must be false.

I tend to agree with them and accept that the Bible must be false then, because evolution clearly happened.

So for me that ends the debate.

According to Bible Fundamentalists the Bible must be false. Amen.

Maybe the sarcasm is necessary.

If marriage were really so important, do you not think it would be mentioned first?
I do.
I have to draw MY conclusions from what I read since I have not been there, so to me Adam and Eve were NOT married, just told to be fruitful and multiply, without any certificate.
And as far as I'm concerned, a certificate does not change the feelings, only a title before a name, hence it is useless.

That's not the original point. The point I was making is that the Bible describes people who will refuse to admit that God exists. No matter how many miracles are performed, some people will still deny God's existance. I was wondering for those who believe in science as the ultimate arbitor of truth, what would have to happen before they would admit that God exists and is God.

I don't want to discuss science vs religion. Those discussions go nowhere.

Why would you call that sarcasm? It’s an extremely valid point.

Why would an all-wise supreme being fail to mention his most important points in his book?

This brings up the observation then that if the book had been made-up by men it’s makes perfect sense why they failed to write the book with supreme wisdom. They simply didn’t possess supreme wisdom in the first place.

It’s just another reason to that points to the conclusion that the Bible was written by unwise men.