Religious(faith based) debates are not logical, they are evasive, overly simplistic, and ultimately sinister and deceptive, be they Jesuit, Mormon, Jehovas Witness, Evangelical, Creationist, Muslim or otherwise. You cannot start an honest exploration with the conclusion already decided (faith bias), absolute openness to direct observation is the basic requirement for logic and learning.
My characterization is accurate.
But what is to be done, then, if there is in fact a flaw that prevented the marriage from being valid?
For example, how should we treat a marriage if it’s discovered that one of the parties to it was already married, and never divorced? We don’t say that the second marriage “isn’t working” and “put an end to it.” Rather, we say that the secomd marriage never existed… right?
So the PROCESS is not inherently incredible, is it? If you have no trouble with declaring that a marriage never happened under those circumstances, where does Bobby in shower come in?
No, it’s not. You said: “The very act of intellectual scrutiny of a faith is a direct violation of it.”
Plenty of discussions of faith begin without any conclusions decided. And such discussions are not in violation of the faith. I have participated in such discussions, so I can say from personal knowledge that your absolute rejection of the possibility is in error.
The elevators I’ve seen with “Sabbath” settings (which can be set by turning a key) simply cycle up and down the building, stopping and opening the doors at every floor, so that the only action required of a passenger is to step on and off.
That is all.
Elvis, you’re right, from the user’s side, that’s all you see. What I mean is that on the technical side, the amount of force being generated by the meachanism is the same whether the person is on or off the elevator car. I’m pretty sure Sabbath elevators are, in addition to button-less stopping, designed to exert a set amount of force regardless of the amount of weight in the elevator car.
Yes they are. They just start with a set of axioms that you don’t happen to agree with.
Got it, cm. Here is some interesting reading on “Sabbathized” kitchen appliances.
I think the Bobby in the shower element comes from the fact that the marriages which may be invalid under Catholic law, aren’t neccesarily closely scrutinized until one or both parties in the marriage want the marriage to end, so it forms an analogue of a secular divorce.
In other words, the flaw existed from the beginning, so why weren’t there proceedures in place to stop it in the first place? The cynical might think that it’s because the church and the people getting married don’t really care that the impediments exist, but just use them as an excuse to allow disolution of a marriage.
And there’s a long history of this sort of thing. Eleanor of Aquitaine got an annulment from Louis VII of France ostensibly on grounds of consanguinity (being too closely related to marry). Of course, that consanguinity would have existed when they got married, but they presumably didn’t care about it until they wanted to dissolve their marriage.
Right, and then she married Henry II, who she had the same amounbt of consanguinity with as she had with Louis VII. It’s when people do things like this that it makes it seem like it’s motivated more by practicality than real belief.
We could ask the same question about our secular hypothetical. And the answer would be that there are procedures to stop it. An applicant for a marriage license must swear under oath that he has no prior existiing marriages. Nonetheless, people lie in answer to that question. So what we’re faced with is a situation in which safeguards exist, but people fraudulently bypass them. That’s not my idea of a “loophole.” I visualize a loophole as a technical device to comply with the latter of the law while circumventing its spirit. In the case of secular bigamy, I doubt you’d characterize the parties to the second marriage as exploiting a loophole: one is lying; one is an innocent victim of the lie.
So, also, with annulments in the Catholic world… we must merely add mistake to fraud, since Catholics will annul a marriage based not only on fraud, but on someone’s honest mistake about some relevant fact.
Even so, it’s not a loophole… Catholic annulments are handled by a juridical tribunal… a judge, basically, and lawyers. One lawyer represents the party seeking the annulment, and the opposing lawyer is an advocate for the other side. He is called the Defender of the Bond, and he argues, zealously, for the proposition that the marriage was valid. If the tribunal finds that the marriage was valid, then no annulment is granted; if they find that fraud or mistake in relevant measure obtained, then the marriage may be annulled.
That’s roughly the same concept as secular annulments use. The only real difference is the grounds upon which nullity may be found.
So I’m very hesitant to call Catholic annulments a “loophole”.
Kinda hard to keep a straight face about annulment *not * being a loophole after12 years and 2 children, and one of the partners opposing it, though, ain’t it?
Depends. If, after twelve years of marriage and two children, it came out that one pf the partners was married previously and never divorced, could you keep a straight face in annulling the second marriage?
That wasn’t the case here. Click ‘n’ read; you might be surprised.
Please dispense with the false hypotheticals; they smokescreen no one but yourself.
My point in that hypothetical was that even a marriage of twelve years length that produced two children can easily be seen to be null and void, as long as there was a solid reason to reach that determination.
In the case you offer, what was the reason for the granting of the annulment? I can’t seem to find it in the link you provide. Once we know what the reason was, we can certainly judge whether we may “keep a straight face”.
What was it?
Would the second marriage legally exist? I would think not.
Right. And the process of declaring that the second marriage doesn’t legally exist is called an “annulment.”
ElvisL1ves was saying it was hard to keep a straight face about the concept that an annullment was valid when discussing annulling a marriage that was twelve years long and had produced kids. My response was meant to show that it’s perfectly proper to discuss annulling such a marriage, if there is valid reason to do so. The number of years married and the number of kids is not relevant. What is relevant is the question of whether there is a valid reason to annul the marriage.
In the link to the case ElvisL1ves offered, there was no mention of what the cause for annullment was, so I can’t speculate on whether the reason was valid or not. If ElvisL1ves knows the reason the annullment was granted, and will share it here, then we can decide if it meets the “straight face” test.
Sure, the flaw existed from the beginning, but the grounds for annulments aren’t limited to being too closely related or already being married. Those are fairly easy to find out about. But there are other reasons for annulments that aren’t so obvious at the beginning. Suppose one person has no intention of being faithful or having children and hides that from the other person? What procedure could you put in place to avoid that?
This page makes a distinction between void marriages, voidable marriages and invalid marriages. A marriage, where one of the parties is already married, is void ab initio, and does not require an application to the court to dissolve it.
Maybe one of the resident lawyers can comment on the variation in rules among states and provinces.
I’m not saying that the mere existance of annulments are themselves “loopholes”, but that they’re used as loopholes…that an annulment is often times sought obstensibly because the marriage violates canon law, but in reality because of personal incompatibility, or because one of the two wants to marry someone else, or whatever.
Take, for example, the case mentioned earlier…that of Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor and Louis were third cousins once removed…Louis was the great-great grandson of Robert the Pious and his wife Constance, as was Eleanor’s father. This made Louis and Eleanor consanguneous in the fourth degree. Church law at the time declared that incestuous marriages were forbidden, and that incest was defined as consanguinity in the 7th degree or closer, among other things.
So, clearly, the marriage was in violation of canon law, and their blood relationship was known at the time of their marriage. Nevertheless, the marriage was conducted, and the two of them lived as husband and wife for 15 years and had two children.
After 15 years marked by constant fighting by the two of them, and the inability of Eleanor to give Louis a son, and against the advice of Louis’s bishop and the Pope, Louis and Eleanor “discovered” that they were within the forbidden degree of consanguinity, and got an annulment on those grounds. Eleanor then, within about two months of her annulment, married Henry II of England, who also was related to her within a forbidden degree of consanguinity (although they might have gotten a dispensation from that rule…I’m not sure). Louis would eventually go on to marry Adele of Champagne, who was also related to him within a forbidden degree,
This series of events does not suggest to me good faith on either Louis’s or Eleanor’s part, and that the annulment was not sought because both of them felt that their marriage was invalid, but instead because of general incompatibility, along with Louis’s desire to have a son, and Eleanor’s desire to marry Henry.