I really don’t like Corinthians 13:4. Just about every wedding I’ve been to, somehow has to read it. The Bible’s a pretty big book, couldn’t you find something else to read? Or a poem or something? I dunno.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
you can see why it might become a fairly standard part of a marriage rite. though i don’t remember my father, who is a southern baptist minister, ever using it. he usually customizes the reading to the event.
I say most religious theories of how humanity came to exist as bs as most are similar to the adam and eve story, which requires a massive ammount of incest to be true. other’s don’t come to mind as easily as those though.
Yeah, as if the scientific explanation “There was nothing, not even time, and inside that vacuum was a tiny ball of great mass which at some nonexistant point (since time didn’t exist yet) spontaneously exploded. Then, the planets formed, and on Earth, life appeared out of pure randomness.” was any better. As believable as any other creation myth.
@ Pyradonis, We don’t believe it. It’s simply that the evidence points towards it. If the evidence pointed towards something else (Even a Deity) then we would change our minds.
That’s called science.
This whole belief that Atheism and science is a belief confuses me.
Science is a methodology; one specific part of that methodology is that nothing can be attributed to supernatural causes. Atheism is a belief, specifically the belief that Deity does not exist.
Deciding that as a matter of methodology we cannot attribute anything to supernatural causes is not the same thing as proving that no supernatural causes exist.
A decision to never attribute anything to supernatural causes means that no evidence (no matter how powerful it might be to people who have not made that decision) can ever be interpreted as pointing to the existence of Deity.
Since science adopts as an axiom the tenet that there are no supernatural causes, it cannot logically be said to prove that no such causes exist. An axiom is by definition something you accept without proof, that is, on faith rather than on evidence.
No logical system can be considered to prove something it has adopted as an axiom, and everything that a logical system does prove is ultimately founded on one or more of the axioms it has adopted.
Agnosticism – the idea that the truth about the existence of Deity is unknowable (or at least currently unknown) is the only attitude toward Deity that is truly not a belief.
Any other attitude toward the existence of Deity requires taking some sort of a stand. Since science by its very nature cannot be said to prove anything about the existence of Deity, no other attitude toward the existence of Deity can be considered scientifically tenable.
Atheism: The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. There is no science outside of falsified records that can prove that.
She could read from the Jedi Code!
“There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.”
….On second thought, I think Corinthians 13:4 is a bit more appropriate for a wedding.
I feel obligated to point out that there are two “books” (well letters actually) written to the Corinthians, the scripture referenced here is 1 Corinthians 13:4. But to answer your question Dusan, the “poetry” in the Bible is primarily about God (the book of Psalms), only Song of Solomon could apply to a wedding ceremony, but it’s not a section of the Bible that’s “G-rated” per say.
Actually IF I do here Scripture quoted at a wedding, it’s typically Matthew 19:5-6 “And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
Well, could always have her quote Princess Bride. One of my cousins did that for there wedding for a bit.
Hand in hand you now walk this road.
Hand and hand you are no longer alone.
Hand and hand you honor your spouse.
Hand and hand you you join into one house.
Step in step to a future together
Step in step in love forever
Step in step to become wife and man
Step in step with hand in hand.
We did not use I Corinthians 13 in our wedding. Our pastor gave us a list of suggested readings (it was quite a list) and we picked two less known ones. Yes, I Corinthians 13 is on the list, but that doesn’t mean it was required!
I think it is more important for a couple to try to live 1 Cor 13:4 than to have it in their ceremony. Sorry that it isn’t your fav, but ehh, it’s your characters and your webcomic and your storyline so whatever. It just did not seem that funny to me today compared to other ones you have done.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with living it, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the sentiment. I’m just tired of hearing the exact same thing at just about every wedding. With so much in the world written about love and marriage a little variety is more than possible.
Like which ones?… sure there are some that didn’t exist until the 20th Century, but most wedding traditions, including the basic structure, comes from the Romans, or the early Roman Catholic Church, to include the “virgin” bride wearing white, and the carrying across the threshold, just to name a few.
It’s odd that they would have someone officiate at a wedding who didn’t have the patience to put up with such traditions simply because they have been used so much. Will she object also to photos of the groom and bride cutting the cake?
Speaking of traditions, we never got to see Red’s bachelor party. That could have been interesting.
Really? 200 or 300 years? You realize we’ve been looking at the bible the way we have for about 2000 years, and the old testament longer than that? I don’t see it going the way of greek mythology any time soon, maybe one day, possibly, but 200 or 300 years isn’t that long in the grand scheme of Christianity.
Meh, religion isn’t as eternal as one thinks… well the concept is, but the religious “ethnicites” (things like christianity and such) aren’t. and you’re right, it’ll take a couple thousand more years before a religion dies completely, they never die in the hundreds.
Ummm… Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism, & Confucianism are each several thousand years old and at least the first 4 still have millions of followers.
actually, we’ve only been looking at the bible the way we do for about a 500 years.. the bible as we know it originated with the council of trent in 1546AD, and wasn’t finalized until 1672AD. prior to this there was no unified biblical standard, and many bibles included what are now considered apocryphal works like the book of judith (actually considered a part of the ‘bible’ back in the council of nicaea days in 325AD.)
there were a massive amount ‘apocryphal’ of works that were considered fair game prior to the council of trent. all differed in their presentation of the events and theology. when the council of trent established their canon, they picked the books they felt best fit the theological ideal they desired.
and technically, much of the way we approach the bible today has it’s origins in the 1800′s, when bibles became ubiquitous in the european population and literacy rates became high. at this point people started reading it themsleves rather than seeking out a trained religious leader to guide them, resulting in the cacophonous mess we have today, where regardless of how uninformed one is regarding religion and history, anyone can develop their own ideas about what the bible means.
my dad married non religiously, it took about 5 hours less then if he had done it in a church. (no he did not have me out of wedlock, he simply divorced my mother because he no longer loved her and a year or so later married another woman.) and as I recall they did not quote any part of the bible.
5 HOURS?!! What kind of church was he looking at? I video-taped a ceremony in a church that had Scripture reading, 3 groomsmen/bridesmaids, and even a song… it came in at less than 45 minutes long.
Is it possible to “no longer love her” if he truly loved her enough to marry her in the first place? I’m a relatively newly wed, but one thing we did in our ceremony is we demanded that our pastor speak about rough times and divorce. He asked what we wanted him to talk about, and we basically said, “Talk us out of it now, before we begin to think about it.” He did. Wonderful guy to be honest, and his wife is awesome too. One of the things he told me that I’ll never be able to let go of is “If you love her enough now to make her your wife, make sure that when that love falters you remember to lover because she is your wife, and that love will carry you through.”
I love that a joke about a single bible verse that I feel is overused at weddings has sparked this kind of religious debate. Being the Scifi nerd that I am, not to mention scientist and orthodox christian, I’ll leave you all with a quote from Babylon 5. “Faith and reason are the shoes on your feet. You can travel further with both than you can with just one.”
In keeping with the wedding theme – for our’s we had a reading from Star Trek (Klingon creation) and a reading from Babylon 5 – Declaration of Principles, altered slightly.
“With fire and steel the Klingon heart was forged. So fiercely did it beat, so loud was the sound, that they cried, ‘On this day we have brought forth the strongest heart. None can stand before it without trembling at its strength.
But then the Klingon heart weakened, its steady rhythm faltered and they said, ‘Why do you weaken so? We have made you the strongest.’
And the heart said… ‘I am alone.’
And they knew that they had erred. So they went back to their forge and brought forth another heart.
But the second heart beat stronger than the first, and the first was jealous of its power. Fortunately, the second heart was tempered by wisdom.
‘If we join together, no force can stop us.’
And when the two hearts began to beat together, they filled the heavens with a terrible sound. For the first time, they knew fear. They tried to flee, but it was too late. The Klingon hearts destroyed the ones who created them. To this very day, no one can oppose the beating of two Klingon hearts.”
The story of the Klingon Heart – Episode You are cordially invited – Star Trek Deep Space 9 – 1997
The Universe speaks in many languages, but only one voice.
The language is not English or Vulcan or Welsh or Minbari.
It is not Wookie or Canadian or Ewok or Spanish.
It speaks in the language of hope. It speaks in the language of trust.
It speaks in the language of strength, and the language of compassion.
It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul.
But always it is the same voice.
It is the voice of our ancestors speaking through us.
And the voice of our inheritors waiting to be born.
It is the small, still voice that says we are One.
No matter the blood, no matter the skin, No matter the world, no matter the star,
We are One.
No matter the pain, no matter the darkness, No matter the loss, no matter the fear.
We are One.
Here, gathered together in common cause
We agree to recognize this singular truth and this singular rule: That we must be kind to one another.
Because each voice enriches us and ennobles us, And each voice lost diminishes us.
We are the voice of the universe, the soul of creation, The fire that will light
the way to a better future.
We are One.
Declaration of Principles – By Citizen G’kar – Episode: The Paragon of Animals
Babylon 5 – 1998 – J. Michael Straczynski
in case anyone is curious:
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
you can see why it might become a fairly standard part of a marriage rite. though i don’t remember my father, who is a southern baptist minister, ever using it. he usually customizes the reading to the event.
And people look at me angrily when I say the Bible is BS.
Anything sounds like BS if just one part of it’s repeated out of context without anyone remembering what the original meaning was.
I say most religious theories of how humanity came to exist as bs as most are similar to the adam and eve story, which requires a massive ammount of incest to be true. other’s don’t come to mind as easily as those though.
exist are BS*
Yeah, as if the scientific explanation “There was nothing, not even time, and inside that vacuum was a tiny ball of great mass which at some nonexistant point (since time didn’t exist yet) spontaneously exploded. Then, the planets formed, and on Earth, life appeared out of pure randomness.” was any better. As believable as any other creation myth.
@ Pyradonis, We don’t believe it. It’s simply that the evidence points towards it. If the evidence pointed towards something else (Even a Deity) then we would change our minds.
That’s called science.
This whole belief that Atheism and science is a belief confuses me.
Science is a methodology; one specific part of that methodology is that nothing can be attributed to supernatural causes. Atheism is a belief, specifically the belief that Deity does not exist.
Deciding that as a matter of methodology we cannot attribute anything to supernatural causes is not the same thing as proving that no supernatural causes exist.
A decision to never attribute anything to supernatural causes means that no evidence (no matter how powerful it might be to people who have not made that decision) can ever be interpreted as pointing to the existence of Deity.
Since science adopts as an axiom the tenet that there are no supernatural causes, it cannot logically be said to prove that no such causes exist. An axiom is by definition something you accept without proof, that is, on faith rather than on evidence.
No logical system can be considered to prove something it has adopted as an axiom, and everything that a logical system does prove is ultimately founded on one or more of the axioms it has adopted.
Agnosticism – the idea that the truth about the existence of Deity is unknowable (or at least currently unknown) is the only attitude toward Deity that is truly not a belief.
Any other attitude toward the existence of Deity requires taking some sort of a stand. Since science by its very nature cannot be said to prove anything about the existence of Deity, no other attitude toward the existence of Deity can be considered scientifically tenable.
Atheism: The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason whatsoever into self-replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. There is no science outside of falsified records that can prove that.
Wouldn’t she be reading some Jedi scripture anyway?
Then again, I guess all that stuff about non-attachment wouldn’t exactly make the best material for a wedding…
She could read from the Jedi Code!
“There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.”
….On second thought, I think Corinthians 13:4 is a bit more appropriate for a wedding.
I feel obligated to point out that there are two “books” (well letters actually) written to the Corinthians, the scripture referenced here is 1 Corinthians 13:4. But to answer your question Dusan, the “poetry” in the Bible is primarily about God (the book of Psalms), only Song of Solomon could apply to a wedding ceremony, but it’s not a section of the Bible that’s “G-rated” per say.
Actually IF I do here Scripture quoted at a wedding, it’s typically Matthew 19:5-6 “And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
Well, could always have her quote Princess Bride. One of my cousins did that for there wedding for a bit.
Hand in hand you now walk this road.
Hand and hand you are no longer alone.
Hand and hand you honor your spouse.
Hand and hand you you join into one house.
Step in step to a future together
Step in step in love forever
Step in step to become wife and man
Step in step with hand in hand.
Have you the wing?
We did not use I Corinthians 13 in our wedding. Our pastor gave us a list of suggested readings (it was quite a list) and we picked two less known ones. Yes, I Corinthians 13 is on the list, but that doesn’t mean it was required!
Panel 3 is awesome.
I think it is more important for a couple to try to live 1 Cor 13:4 than to have it in their ceremony. Sorry that it isn’t your fav, but ehh, it’s your characters and your webcomic and your storyline so whatever. It just did not seem that funny to me today compared to other ones you have done.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with living it, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the sentiment. I’m just tired of hearing the exact same thing at just about every wedding. With so much in the world written about love and marriage a little variety is more than possible.
wedding is tradition….nuf said
Except wedding traditions aren’t really all that old.
Like which ones?… sure there are some that didn’t exist until the 20th Century, but most wedding traditions, including the basic structure, comes from the Romans, or the early Roman Catholic Church, to include the “virgin” bride wearing white, and the carrying across the threshold, just to name a few.
It’s odd that they would have someone officiate at a wedding who didn’t have the patience to put up with such traditions simply because they have been used so much. Will she object also to photos of the groom and bride cutting the cake?
Speaking of traditions, we never got to see Red’s bachelor party. That could have been interesting.
I agree with MrGBH about the bible. In 200 or 300 years we will look at christianity the same way we now look at Greek, Roman, or Norse mythology.
Really? 200 or 300 years? You realize we’ve been looking at the bible the way we have for about 2000 years, and the old testament longer than that? I don’t see it going the way of greek mythology any time soon, maybe one day, possibly, but 200 or 300 years isn’t that long in the grand scheme of Christianity.
Meh, religion isn’t as eternal as one thinks… well the concept is, but the religious “ethnicites” (things like christianity and such) aren’t. and you’re right, it’ll take a couple thousand more years before a religion dies completely, they never die in the hundreds.
Ummm… Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Taoism, & Confucianism are each several thousand years old and at least the first 4 still have millions of followers.
actually, we’ve only been looking at the bible the way we do for about a 500 years.. the bible as we know it originated with the council of trent in 1546AD, and wasn’t finalized until 1672AD. prior to this there was no unified biblical standard, and many bibles included what are now considered apocryphal works like the book of judith (actually considered a part of the ‘bible’ back in the council of nicaea days in 325AD.)
there were a massive amount ‘apocryphal’ of works that were considered fair game prior to the council of trent. all differed in their presentation of the events and theology. when the council of trent established their canon, they picked the books they felt best fit the theological ideal they desired.
and technically, much of the way we approach the bible today has it’s origins in the 1800′s, when bibles became ubiquitous in the european population and literacy rates became high. at this point people started reading it themsleves rather than seeking out a trained religious leader to guide them, resulting in the cacophonous mess we have today, where regardless of how uninformed one is regarding religion and history, anyone can develop their own ideas about what the bible means.
my dad married non religiously, it took about 5 hours less then if he had done it in a church. (no he did not have me out of wedlock, he simply divorced my mother because he no longer loved her and a year or so later married another woman.) and as I recall they did not quote any part of the bible.
5 HOURS?!! What kind of church was he looking at? I video-taped a ceremony in a church that had Scripture reading, 3 groomsmen/bridesmaids, and even a song… it came in at less than 45 minutes long.
Is it possible to “no longer love her” if he truly loved her enough to marry her in the first place? I’m a relatively newly wed, but one thing we did in our ceremony is we demanded that our pastor speak about rough times and divorce. He asked what we wanted him to talk about, and we basically said, “Talk us out of it now, before we begin to think about it.” He did. Wonderful guy to be honest, and his wife is awesome too. One of the things he told me that I’ll never be able to let go of is “If you love her enough now to make her your wife, make sure that when that love falters you remember to lover because she is your wife, and that love will carry you through.”
Where’s the “like” button?
I love that a joke about a single bible verse that I feel is overused at weddings has sparked this kind of religious debate. Being the Scifi nerd that I am, not to mention scientist and orthodox christian, I’ll leave you all with a quote from Babylon 5. “Faith and reason are the shoes on your feet. You can travel further with both than you can with just one.”
In keeping with the wedding theme – for our’s we had a reading from Star Trek (Klingon creation) and a reading from Babylon 5 – Declaration of Principles, altered slightly.
“With fire and steel the Klingon heart was forged. So fiercely did it beat, so loud was the sound, that they cried, ‘On this day we have brought forth the strongest heart. None can stand before it without trembling at its strength.
But then the Klingon heart weakened, its steady rhythm faltered and they said, ‘Why do you weaken so? We have made you the strongest.’
And the heart said… ‘I am alone.’
And they knew that they had erred. So they went back to their forge and brought forth another heart.
But the second heart beat stronger than the first, and the first was jealous of its power. Fortunately, the second heart was tempered by wisdom.
‘If we join together, no force can stop us.’
And when the two hearts began to beat together, they filled the heavens with a terrible sound. For the first time, they knew fear. They tried to flee, but it was too late. The Klingon hearts destroyed the ones who created them. To this very day, no one can oppose the beating of two Klingon hearts.”
The story of the Klingon Heart – Episode You are cordially invited – Star Trek Deep Space 9 – 1997
The Universe speaks in many languages, but only one voice.
The language is not English or Vulcan or Welsh or Minbari.
It is not Wookie or Canadian or Ewok or Spanish.
It speaks in the language of hope. It speaks in the language of trust.
It speaks in the language of strength, and the language of compassion.
It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul.
But always it is the same voice.
It is the voice of our ancestors speaking through us.
And the voice of our inheritors waiting to be born.
It is the small, still voice that says we are One.
No matter the blood, no matter the skin, No matter the world, no matter the star,
We are One.
No matter the pain, no matter the darkness, No matter the loss, no matter the fear.
We are One.
Here, gathered together in common cause
We agree to recognize this singular truth and this singular rule: That we must be kind to one another.
Because each voice enriches us and ennobles us, And each voice lost diminishes us.
We are the voice of the universe, the soul of creation, The fire that will light
the way to a better future.
We are One.
Declaration of Principles – By Citizen G’kar – Episode: The Paragon of Animals
Babylon 5 – 1998 – J. Michael Straczynski