Controversial Topic Discussion

There was no marriage before there were societies. Hunter-gatherer groups did not marry. Bonding in monogamous pairs is not marriage unless prairie voles, Canadian geese, and various other bird, fish, and mammal species marry. What makes a pair bonding a marriage is the social contract, otherwise it is simply 'shacking up' no matter who it occurs before.

Monogamous pair bonding is very probably a result of chemical prompting, from hormones such as vasopressin and oxytocin, as we know receptors for these chemicals are more prevalent in these monogamous pair bonding animals than in their non-pair bonding brethren. There have also been studies conducted in which it is shown that human subjects exposed to higher levels of these hormones (sprayed into the nose) become more trusting of other humans. We are prompted by evolution to form these familial units, but this says nothing about our contract of marriage.

Marriage is not about procreation or monogamy or the fitting together of male and female. It can not be as these are natural phenomenon and marriage is a social contract, an agreement that only exists as it exists between men.

As to half the worlds problems being from not sticking to the Biblical guidelines 'we' lived by in the past, I assume by 'we' you mean Christians, as the majority of people have not lived by Biblical guidelines in the past. There has always been a great variety of moral understandings in different social groups

I would also like to note that all the problems we have today aren't half the problems we have had in the past. Everyone views history through a distorted lens of romanticism. The past was hard. People died violently more often than they do today. They also died from disease, poverty and ignorance at a much higher rate. From 1 A.D. to 1800 A.D. the world economy increased only 24%. Since then it has sky-rocketed bringing with it a life our ancestors could never have imagined. We live in a world today of such ease and such safety as we have never known before. No amount of religion has ever been able to supply us (over thousands of years) with 1% of what science, via the Enlightenment, has provided us in just the past two hundred years.

I also don't think you would recognize the Biblical morality of past generations. These biblical morals believers love to bandy about have changed drastically over the course of history. Over the course of history many believers would not recognize their great grandfather's god. Understandings and morals, whether biblically based or not, change over time as our perception of the greater world changes.There is no grand moral code which has been professed by any religious group, at any particular time, that has withstood the test of time, and therefor they have all had to evolve to fit new understandings.

Anyway, we can cling to antiquated ideals or we can change our understandings, hopefully for the better, as we acquire more information about the nature of our being. Societies can be inclusive or exclusive. I will leave everyone to make up their own mind about which is the 'right' type of society.