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There’s a lot of stink over this Proposition 8 being passed. Here is a solution: let’s make marriages a religious thing and just give out civil unions for everyone. This way, anyone can have a civil union with whoever they want. This solves everything.

Then what will become of marriages? It’ll become a strict religious ceremony. It’ll be religious as a baptism or a communion—both of which secular people have no interest taking part of. This way we won’t have these debates, the church and state will be separate, and we’ll live happily ever after.

Then again, non-theists would probably say that there was a such thing called marriage before the popular religions were established. On the other hand, theists can say that since God created the world from the beginning, He also created marriage with it. Which means that marriage was always synonymous with theism. So there could be debate of that. Well, you can’t win them all. I guess pesudo-intellectual people who love to argue for the sake of arguing will debate about everything.

On a Different Note

One reason I propose this is because of the differences between getting married at a court house and getting married at a religious institution. For example, we had to fill out 3-4 pages of personal information about our faith and ourselves to be considered to be married at Mt. Paran’s. Not only that, we had to go through a month long, mandatory pre-marital counseling session.

At a court house, you just have to show up and the judge will marry you in 5 minutes.

Also most churches view marriage as something more than just a contract. This means that 2 people are physically bonded into one. It’s like two cells joining together into one cell. So separating that cell back into 2 cells is extremely difficult and painful.¹ The church kind of don’t like it when their members get divorced.

In a more secular marriage, all you have between the husband and wife is a piece of paper saying they’re married. It’s still messy and hurts a lot, but it’s easy to do.

By the way, Christian couples get divorced just as much as non-Christian ones. So I guess it’s easy for everyone.

What Was My Original Point?

I propose California to change all marriages into “Civil Unions.” And for the religous people who want to remain “married” can do so via their religious institution. So maybe in 20 years, couples will say, “we’re in a civil union.” Or if they’re religious, they’ll say they’re married.

1. I’m not a Biologist so don’t nitpick here. I have no idea how cells work [↩]

So back in January, I decided to read the entire Bible in a year. I haven’t finished yet because I still have a few days left. I have a few chapters left in Job, Revelations and some of the Minor prophet books. Overall, the entire venture was an okay experience.

Even though it took max 30 minutes a day, it was still an ordeal. There were a lot of books in the Old Testament that were incredibly boring to read. It was hard to pay attention and stay awake when reading some of these books. Some of the stuff I read just flew by my head.

Interestingly, some of my favorite books were in the Old Testament. I thought Proverbs were great. It was the most practical book ever. Also the entire book of Genesis was incredible and fascinating. I also liked Jonah and some of the stuff in Judges. Of course the Old Testament also had the coolest woman ever: Jezebel. I wonder if I should feel guilty that one of my favorite character in the Bible was evil.

The year long Bible reading plan is a great tool to keep you disciplined. It also gave some sort of pressure too. I don’t like pressure. So I got stressed out when I skipped a few nights on December due to holiday stuff. But I’m at the home stretch, and I have a few more chapters left.

I’m going to do this again next year because I only remember like 5% of what I read. I’m going use a different year long Bible reading plan just to mix it up. But hey, at the end of this year, I get to be in “elite” company because only a small population has actually read the Bible in its entirety. Yay.