Fish and Bread
14th August 2007, 01:42 PM
I was pondering that one of the aspects of religion that I sometimes like is a sense of place, even when I sometimes disagree with the actual details. One gets the sense of being in a line of continuity and repeating traditions, there being a norm and a standard of divinely ordained behavior, and so forth -- and sometimes this can be neat even in what is often called sin.
There are whole generations who grow up without a sense of propriety in any way whatsoever. I am not saying this is evil or to be condemned completely, but it in a way is sad for the people involved, who will never have experiences like debauchery on Maundy Thursday and solemn repentance in Lent, or even that idea of having to, say, quickly marry when you get knocked up or knock someone up and claiming the baby was conceived on your wedding night. :) Nowadays in the later situation, people would just not marry at all, in fact many would console against marriage in such a scenario on certain practical grounds.
Then there is annulment and divorce. I do think it should be allowed under select circumstances, the three I have in mind are infidelity, abuse, and denial of intimacy. *However*, again, we've lost the sense that divorce or annulment is something bad that's sort of a last resort that we feel bad about. And I wonder if, even for people in those situations, it might be better for them to have the experience of feeling a little guilty, or doing the best to avoid the circumstance. There's not even a cultural sense that "Hey, we should try to avoid divorce and work things out even if the marriage isn't perfect and marriage is a last resort" anymore, and that that's a virtue to think that way -- so many people nowadays console to just divorce if there's a problem or the spark is gone or you think you'd be happier single or in another marriage. I've even heard people criticized for trying to work things out with their spouse instead of just divorcing for trivial reasons.
There's this sense of no norms or backbone to society any more. Maybe it's for the best, but occasionally I think we've lost something. Not this idea of condemning sin and people going to hell necessarily, but more the idea of what are the ideals we strive for and what is "the right thing to do". Nowadays, we have few if any common ideals or notions of what the right thing is to do exactly. It might be nice if that was there, even while recognizing that there are exceptions to the rules and people can sometimes make alternate choices that are right for them, rather than just saying "there is no general ideal at all".
Just stuff I'm mulling. By no means would I advocate returning to days where everyone had to fit into moral strict moral norms (In fact, I am sometimes critical of churches for doing that), but it'd be neat if we had sort of well acknowledged guidelines that were accepted and then people could deviate from them after really careful consideration and thought according to their evaluation of their own individual circumstance rather than a society with no real guidelines at all.
There are whole generations who grow up without a sense of propriety in any way whatsoever. I am not saying this is evil or to be condemned completely, but it in a way is sad for the people involved, who will never have experiences like debauchery on Maundy Thursday and solemn repentance in Lent, or even that idea of having to, say, quickly marry when you get knocked up or knock someone up and claiming the baby was conceived on your wedding night. :) Nowadays in the later situation, people would just not marry at all, in fact many would console against marriage in such a scenario on certain practical grounds.
Then there is annulment and divorce. I do think it should be allowed under select circumstances, the three I have in mind are infidelity, abuse, and denial of intimacy. *However*, again, we've lost the sense that divorce or annulment is something bad that's sort of a last resort that we feel bad about. And I wonder if, even for people in those situations, it might be better for them to have the experience of feeling a little guilty, or doing the best to avoid the circumstance. There's not even a cultural sense that "Hey, we should try to avoid divorce and work things out even if the marriage isn't perfect and marriage is a last resort" anymore, and that that's a virtue to think that way -- so many people nowadays console to just divorce if there's a problem or the spark is gone or you think you'd be happier single or in another marriage. I've even heard people criticized for trying to work things out with their spouse instead of just divorcing for trivial reasons.
There's this sense of no norms or backbone to society any more. Maybe it's for the best, but occasionally I think we've lost something. Not this idea of condemning sin and people going to hell necessarily, but more the idea of what are the ideals we strive for and what is "the right thing to do". Nowadays, we have few if any common ideals or notions of what the right thing is to do exactly. It might be nice if that was there, even while recognizing that there are exceptions to the rules and people can sometimes make alternate choices that are right for them, rather than just saying "there is no general ideal at all".
Just stuff I'm mulling. By no means would I advocate returning to days where everyone had to fit into moral strict moral norms (In fact, I am sometimes critical of churches for doing that), but it'd be neat if we had sort of well acknowledged guidelines that were accepted and then people could deviate from them after really careful consideration and thought according to their evaluation of their own individual circumstance rather than a society with no real guidelines at all.