Should adultery be illegal?

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Fair enough.

But it should also be noted that I'm a reasonably educated and experienced person who has spent time with people of other faiths (in person, not merely in internet discussions) as well as those who have no faith or are anti-faith and have taken a reasonable amount of time to examine many of the things I've been taught. When someone has doubts or questions their faith, they risk one of two outcomes: Either they find that what they've been taught is wrong and reject it, or they find that what they were taught is true and hold to their faith or religion. In my case, I found certain things to be ridiculous and I've abandoned those ideas. Yet I found many more things to actually be true. You can question things, but questioning does not by necessity lead to rejection. There is a risk that you might just believe.

Contradictions? I've wondered about that myself. It turns out that many so-called "contradictions" aren't really so, but rather facets of the same gem. It's easy to quote-mine and take anything you want out of order and context, but that doesn't change the original meaning of the text. It takes a little time spent in study to understand what that means exactly, but it's not intended to be any great mystery. If there is one thing in particular that you have trouble with, I'll be glad to explain it to you.

The trouble with your second point is that God isn't beneficent merely because He says so or because I say so or anyone else says so, but because He simply IS. Seriously, take a God who knows everything. Such a catalog of knowledge would include a total compendium of right and wrong. So if God knows right from wrong, He also knows which is best. Human beings, regardless of faith or lack of have at the very least a sense of personal justice. We get upset when people do us harm. We know being nice=good thing, getting slapped around for no reason=bad thing. Good things in general work towards good results, if nothing else, things that benefit us. Bad things work towards great personal risk and loss and otherwise negative consequences. Logically, a God who knows everything would work out everything in His own favor, not His detriment. We can safely say that God's interests lie within that which is perfectly good rather than evil. Lack of imagination? Not so. I know that you are filled with wonder at the sight of the natural world. If you believed God is the Creator of all things, then you'd also wonder at the creative mind that brought that world about. Empathy? God put Himself in our place in the person of Jesus who worked to heal the sick and unclean. He was tempted just as we are and allowed Himself to die a physical death. Basic consideration? Consider that while the penalty for all sin is death, God considers us enough to let us live in spite of all our misdeeds and loves us enough to correct us when we err.

I think if anyone is accusing you of being merely "stubborn and egotistical," it's more they don't really understand you very well. I, for one, don't fault you for that. As I recall, the only mention I made regarding arrogance was when you tried to make a case for me being arrogant for having insight into the mind of God. All I said in regards to you was a rhetorical question of whether knowing something because it has been revealed makes one arrogant, in which case you would be guilty of the same. You may very well BE arrogant. But if you are, that's not the reason. It's something else, and I suppose that it's the same reason that makes us all a little bit guilty of that.

I suppose that God can be "totally superfluous to normal living" if that's what you want. For myself, though, that's not what I want. God doesn't impose Himself upon you unless you ask Him to. I'm nearing the end of a rather hefty project right now, and my stress level has steadily been increasing since last week when I was asked to give an encore performance of an arrangement I first played a few short weeks ago. I've committed my part to memory, rehearsed too many times to count, run extensive sound checks, and run every "worst-case scenario" I can think of in order to know how to handle any possibility of technical failure, made notes of changes that need to be made, set aside PLENTY time to work out those changes, asked questions, explained to key people involved EXACTLY what their roles are and what they MUST do in the greatest imaginable detail, and I'm STILL scared to death something is going to go wrong because I only get one shot at getting this right the first time. However, I know I'm good at what I do and know that since my redundancies have redundancies which have their own redundancies, everything SHOULD happen as expected.

And if it completely fails in spite of my best efforts, then what? Will I lose my job? No. Will people love me any less? No. Will God love me any less? No. I'll wake up Monday morning and everything will be as it was as though nothing had happened.

And the same thing will happen if I succeed. Even greater is that I will have communicated to people on a level that transcends mere words. If I succeed, then I gain. If I fail, I lose nothing.

So I only stress out about it because I choose to care about it. God is ultimately in charge of my life, so there's no real need for me to worry about anything. That aspect of God in my life is far from superfluous. It's absolutely integral.

I agree that the progress of knowledge will continue and that there is much to be discovered. I rather think that the curiosity people have of the universe God created will always drive them to explore it more and attempt to understand it on an even deeper level as it becomes physically (or technologically) feasible. Religious people who fear that science threatens God don't seem to me to be very secure in their faith. I understand the evidence of the physical world and why those things make sense to you in that way. But I also understand the testimony of eyewitnesses and find that evidence to be likewise overwhelming. We differ in how we view the role of the choices we've made. I've read the evidence and found it acceptable as true. I'm under the impression you have not, but it seems to me inequitable that you so easily accept one kind of evidence and reject another.

My opinion on the matter is we more often get the truth, understand it, but reject it more on the basis of what it implies towards a way of life. A believer in Christ is expected to be a different person entirely in keeping with what Christ taught--and I mean what Christ actually taught, not what THIS church says is right or what THAT preacher says you have to do. I think the trouble is for many they'd rather go on living the same way they always did or believing the same way they did for fear that what God requires is too much work. It's not REALLY a lot of work, but I can see how someone might make that mistake in their thinking. And the rest of it is just unnecessary fear in general. Christianity is not "safe" in terms of what the rest of the world finds acceptable. Part of that may be that most of us live in democracies that foster a spirit of independence. Christ taught complete obedience to and reliance on God. You cannot be a child of God and truly independent. I think we may get intrinsically caught up in that that we miss the forest for the trees. In other words, we miss that total reliance on God results in greater freedoms than we'd have otherwise. Your own words, I think, may even demonstrate that to a degree. You believe you have no choice. I believe that I do have a choice. One would think the opposite--I don't have any real choices because God determines everything. Yet I am free. You do not believe God rules over your life yet you are, in effect, a slave to the natural world because you have no other choice. Surely you see the irony here!

I'm having a rare day during which I actually do have an excess of time and I need to keep my mind occupied in order to avoid having an anxiety attack. My wife has been called away on business and is hobnobbing with lawyers and judges as I write. That puts my already brittle mental/emotional state in a bad place because it means I have to work out time between two jobs to pick up BOTH my children from daycare and still make it to my THIRD job on time, that is accompanying an important choir rehearsal seeing to it that my children are properly cared for in my absence, not to mention having to deal with my wife missing crucial rehearsal time with me for the same event. After today or tomorrow I'll be much less likely to be so verbose.

Should adultery be illegal? According to the 10 Commandments of Moses (Judaism), adultery is illegal (~ 1200 BC). According to the US Supreme Court (which consists of nine judges, the largest group of which are Italian Catholics), adultery is legal (2010 AD).

The things I like about you is I feel you are earnest, honest and articulate. You pull no BS about authorities and you obviously feel deeply about what you say. Religion, after all, for you, is not just some abstract connection with a theoretical superbeing but something that involves every part of your life and your connections with other people and your work. I greatly respect that and I feel you are rather insane but I'm sure you feel somewhat the same about me.
If religion were as good spirited and beneficial and as innocent as you depict it I might find it acceptable as a wrong headed way to look at the world but more or less harmless. Unfortunately this is not so, not in history, not in current affairs. Your characterization of good and evil is a typical simple minded black and white cartoon of reality. It just ain't so. And the nasty and brutal side of religion is too frequently violent and cruel and destructive and abysmally stupid and that I cannot tolerate in any way.

I am not persuaded that adultery is a causa sine qua non for a broken home or a broken marriage. It may be in some cases, certainly, but I think it is too deterministic to say that if adultery occurs then it is always the root cause of the breakdown of a marriage.

If we are going to assign blame upon the adulterer, are we also going to assign blame on the spouse who wilfully refuses consortium? After all, at law, that would be grounds not only for divorce but for anullment.
What of adultery that occurs after the other spouse has engaged in abusive behaviour?



Absolutely not. The cost of raising children is not a punishment, it is a right owned by the child. Both parents are jointly and severally responsible for raising their children without reference to the ongoing marriage, its dissolution, or any fault involved.



Capital punishment for divorce. How's that working out for Iran these days?



Well, that has been working out really well in the "deadbeat dad" circumstance, so your even tougher regieme is bound to be more effective isn't it?

All you have done is give people even more incentive to fight and to litigate. Under "no-fault" divorce, both parties are entitled to an undivided one-half interest in matrimonial property. Each of the parties is responsible for contributing to the care of their children (regardless of custody)--and in most jurisdictions this is a function of each parent's income. Children are entitled to access to both of their parents (it is the child's right, not the partent's). Most of these matters are simply set out in law, and the parties are bound by them.

As soon as you introduce fault, you give parties a new reason to fight, which serves no one's interests. A marriage that has irretrievably broken down should be dissolved as quickly, quietly and painlessly as possible, but in one fell swoop, your revenge based approach would do away with that.

Yes, it bloody well should be made illegal. And in fact all aspies should come to this conclusion as we are the ones who adultery most affect, in laymans terms an aspie is more likely to get cheated on by his girlfriend.

Fornication between two consenting adults should not be illegal. BUT, adultery is a breach of contract and it should be actionable as a tort.

ruveyn

It used to be, back before the "No-Fault Divorce" laws went into effect.

Perhaps it's no longer worth getting married.

Well ... marriage is the single most common cause of every divorce.

I think your legal analysis is wrong on a couple of points.

First, marriage is not a contractual relationship. It shares many aspects of contract in that parties confer rights and obligations on each other--but nowhere do the parties get to define all of these rights and obligations themselves, and they can change many of the rights and obligations without reforming the relationship. The particular nature of contract sets out that the parties are free to define their relationship as they see fit, and that once formed the rights and obligations are fixed.

Second, breach of contract is not a tort. The legal rights arise from the contract. The intersection of contract and tort is the tort of, "intentional interference with contractual rights." This is the means by which a stranger to a contract can be sued by a contractor. But one contractor cannot sue another in tort for a wrong that arises from the contract itself. (Though the theory still brings the stranger to the marriage within the ambit of suit, which a strictly contractual approach would not.)

But most importantly, I think your analysis is wrong on a public policy basis. If the dissolution of marriage becomes a game of winners and losers, then I believe that we create more harm than we solve. Family law matters are already complex enough, and take up vast amounts of court time. Why on earth would we want to create a system that becomes even more cumbersome?

What is a judge to do when confronted with, "he cheated on me!" "Yeah, well she cheated on me, too!" "I only cheated because you cheated!" "I only cheated because you refused to sleep in the same bed with me!" "I only refused to sleep in the same bed with you because you called me..." et cetera ad infinitum?

No dissolution of marriage lies solely on the shoulders of one partner in the marriage, even in cases of infidelity. To pretend otherwise is to be wilfully blind to the realities of marriage in today's society.

There's no such thing as a "NFD," and I don't care what the books say. It's always somebody's fault. NFDs just function to try to sweep the real internal problems right back under the rug so the embarrassment of what went wrong doesn't have to become public. More often than not, divorce grounds become blackmail material to force one party or the other to make material concessions they do not wish to make.

NFDs should be illegal. There are no irreconcilable differences, just cruel selfish people who need to be taught how to be decent human beings and get along. There are a few jurisdictions with alienation of affection tort laws, and I'd never think twice about getting evidence against someone who caused my marriage to break up. Some things are just common decency, and I've never pursued a woman who was engaged (ok, so there was that ONE time, and I count myself lucky that nobody found out and that I'm still alive...) or married. If people can't handle a lifelong marriage contract, they just shouldn't get married. End of story.

Now, I DO think women (and men) in abusive situations deserve to be protected and may need a divorce as well as other court procedures like permanent injunctions against there exes. I do understand that much. But this isn't every situation. If people are miserable when they get together, then they promise to stay miserable together for life. It is not the place of government or court to break up two people who are merely bored with each other. They should have thought about that before the promised themselves to each other.

hmmmm i don't think so really. i don't think we are more vulnerable to adultery than anyone else.

as an aspie, i have some skills that have assisted me in this area, in fact - though not every aspie has the same traits, they are definitely part of my "package".

i am unencumbered by the NT tendency to give eye contact or read body language, so i can instead listen to a person's voice to detect lies more effectively (content of speech and vocal mannerisms are more accurate in lie detection than body language or facial expressions).

also, i am extremely detail-oriented and notice variations in patterns, behaviours and schedules that some NTs may miss.

so i don't really think i am at a diisadvantage. i may be more naive in some ways but in other ways i have some very useful skills.

Should things be illegal just because they are more likely to affect us? I'd say not.

Making adultery illegal will only fill the prisons.

There's no such thing as a "NFD," and I don't care what the books say. It's always somebody's fault. NFDs just function to try to sweep the real internal problems right back under the rug so the embarrassment of what went wrong doesn't have to become public. More often than not, divorce grounds become blackmail material to force one party or the other to make material concessions they do not wish to make. [/quote]

You clearly misunderstand the term. No-fault divorce does not mean that no person is to blame for the breakdown of the marriage. No-fault divorce means that the court is not going to make determinations of rights based upon findings of fault. That's a crucial distinction.

It is not the court's place to set right what was wrong. It is the court's place to determine legal rights. If you want to deal with the internal problem of infidelity, cruelty, neglect, or alcoholism, see a counsellor--not a judge.



Well, I suppose one way to singlehandedly destroy the institution of marriage now and forever is to make it so punitive that no one but a masochist or an idiot would choose to enter into it.



But it is not government breaking them up--they have already seen to that themselves. It is the government recognizing that they have taken the decision for themselves, and giving legal effect to it.

Last time I checked, the law upheld the liberty of the subject. No law can force two people to cohabit. So why should the law stupidly insist upon the existence of a legal relationship where no real relationship exists to give it meaning? No one's interest is being protected when two people come forward and both voluntarily state, "I am done with this marriage," yet the law insists on the fiction that a marriage continues to subsist.

One of the reasons that law works as well as it does (and it is an admirably flexible institution) is that the law is practical.

Not only do i think that adultery should not be illegal, I think that prostitution should not be illegal.

Pimping, on the other hand, should be a life sentence.

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