Alternatives to Divorce for Christians

Is marriage/divorce destroying the American culture, cohabitation better?
So many American’s point a finger at marriage/divorce as the main point of America coming apart at it’s seems. Example… last week I was having a cup of hot coco & a cheeseburger at a local convenience store. There is a small area with four little round tables set aside for customers to eat the the prepackaged burgers etc they purchase, so I took a table & started eating my burger. I was reading an article in the newspaper about rising taxes now being automatic yearly due to endless inflation.
I looked over at a gal, I’d say about 50, & said these taxes will destroy America. She looked at me & said…"It’s divorce that is killing America, not taxes." I replied back to her saying, "You really think divorce is taking us down faster than taxes?" Her reply was. "Divorce spawns dysfunctional children which in turn spawn their own dysfunctional children."
To make a long story shorter we did agree that divorce for secular & Christians is at about 50% tho she said that secular marriage is not marriage but just a legal contract. I then asked her if she considered secular marriage as just ‘shacking up’. She replied, "yes." Then she said that to be ‘really’ married one has to be married in a bonified sanctioned church, married in the name of the Lord in the church that they actively attend, & that the married couple must support that church & keep the Lords commandments as given in the sermons.
I thought for a moment then asked her, "What would happen to a Christian man & woman if they found themselves stranded on an Island by themselves & after a year or two desired to marry? She replied, "They could not marry with out the church." I asked "why" & she said marriage is not for the couple getting married, they marry for the body of the church which will eventually be the body of Christ." She then said that Adam & Eve were the only couple blessed in marriage without the church in attendance because they both came pre-married by the Lord.
I’ll admit she had an answer for every question I asked of her & then some! Here’s my questions tho… I always thought that Christian marriage was based on "individuals" IN the Lord that attend services. At least the way I took it(I certainly could be wrong here) she was promoting a ‘group’ or communal(communistic) marriage to a church ‘rather than the Lord God’. I remember as a kid that we were taught that communalism is wrong because communists worship man & his government(church government?) rather than God. I have been talking to an email friend & sent her some alternative marriage data versus Christian marriage data for her opinion on non traditional Christian marriage. I need more input tho so am posting this question.
What’s your opinion on her statements? Do you believe that secular marriage is just ‘shacking up’? Can two stranded people on an island proclaim marriage without the church to ratify it, or would that be blasphemy? Is divorce the reason America is at war & bankrupt in your opinion? I added a secular & Christian divorce rate table so those of you reading the tables can compare the divorce rate between the two.

http://www.aboutdivorce.org/us_divorce_rates.html

http://atheism.about.com/od/atheistfamiliesmarriage/a/AtheistsDivorce.htm

Wow that’s an essay. Just as an FYI, you should post this in the religion and spirituality section they will eat this up.

I don’t want to say that divorce is destroying America. That lady sounds like a nut. If I had to be raised by parents who hated each other but would or could not divorce then I don’t think I would be better off by any means.

If there is anything destroying humanity (because it is not only in America) I would have to go with greed. As long as there are greedy people in the world then we will never truly coexist properly.

So I think that divorce is way far down on the list of evils.

ADD: Zen by greed I mean personal greed. So many people think only of themselves without regard for anyone else. People who use others for their own personal gain without regards to the people who’s necks they are stepping on to get their pretty green paper.
References :

Secular marriage is already shaking up in America, india and all over the world.I justify her statement marriage in church is to edify the body of christ as a Christan’s.it is not blasphemy but adultery without church ratification.one cannot say that divorce or bankruptcy is at war and there are other factors to be taken into consideration.it is true divorce rate are alarming not only in america but in third world countries like India, china and japan too.co -habitation is more worse than divorce.it destroy the foundation for family.
References :

Allow me to add my two cents.

I will tell you from the start. I am not religious, but I am spiritual. I believe in a higher power, or at least, shun away from the notion that all this is really just random, and that it is matter that has always existed, instead of God. One way or another, you are stuck. I choose to go with God. It seems like life is not worth as much without a God. So when you tell me about this woman and her answers, I think, sure anyone can come up with answers that are founded in mysticism and not FACTS. Marriage has been around long before christianity. I find it funny that this woman thinks marriage was born out of christianity. It has existed for thousands of years, long before Christ. Furthermore, as a reasonable man, I cannot believe in magical stories, that defy logic and physics. I like what the overall message is, but I do not think that the bible is the word of god. Ok thats beside the point.

My overall theme is that the collapse of society is responsible for marriage/divorce rates going up, and it is not the other way around. I believe that it is only a symptom of the many things the powers that be have done to us. For starters, I’m not sure if you are familiar with Aaron Russo, but he was a good friend of the Rockefellers. Russo Claimed that Rockefeller told him that they were behind the women’s liberation movement, and pushed the idea of women getting into the work field. That way they could take the children at a young age from their mothers and into the apparatus of the state, our public education system. Here kids can be molded in the way the state wants them to be. Couple this with pharmaceuticals and doctors, who are hooking millions of adults on medications which turn them into zombies and you can see where we are going; but it gets worse. Since 1971, when the dollar was removed from gold. The value of our currency has devalued immensely. It seems like we are in a rat-race. In the 1950′s, you could raise a family of 4 and send your kids off to college with only one working parent. It is the fault of the government that we are seeing a breakdown in culture, which is affecting marriage. Both cohabitation and marriage are fine. I think marriage is done more for show than anything.

EDIT: PEON what do you mean by greed?People who pursue their own self-interests? People who pursue their own best interests will also advance society by doing so.

EDIT:EDIT: Well, so long as people aren’t violating the rights of others, I think competition is a good thing, and by being greedy,you find ways to become more competitive than others in your industry to make more money than you previously did. That is a net gain to society, but yet people can consider you greedy for price cutting. But if you do something fraudulently, or out of bad faith, then yes that is wrong and that type of greed should not go unpunished.

People only trade to make themselves better off. The more you trade, the better off you will be. Those greediest will trade the most, and will thus be better off than the rest. But on their quest to being really well off, they will have had to make a large number of people happy, because otherwise no one would be willing to trade with them, and they could not be successful. These trades can be anything which both parties, at least ex ante, agree makes them better off. It can be labor for money. Goods for money. Goods for other goods. services for money. etc. This is why I say you promoting your own self-interest is best for society. Greed has been given a bad name. In a voluntary society, no person is forced to deal with others who give them no consideration.
References :

What is American culture? Is it Christianity? Is it selfishness? Is it consumerism?

That lady you were talking to sounds crazy if you ask me. It almost sounds like she’s part of a cult. What she believes, doesn’t dictate what other Christian churches believe.

Divorce has nothing to do with the war and the economy. Like someone else said it’s the other way around.

If you ask me, taxes don’t hurt American culture, unless you consider American culture to be consumerism, abundance, and/or selfishness. Other countries pay more taxes than we do, but they also have nice things like free health care or free Universities.
References :

As previously stated, it is not divorce that is causing the breakdown of society, it is the other way around. It is also the fact that for a couple to have any chance of making ends meet, they both have to work, and putting children into the equation only makes this worse. The value of the average Americans wage packet has gone down considerably since the 1970′s, so the era of the stay at home mum is over, one person’s wage is just not enough to run a household.

What is interesting is that despite banging on about Christian values, ultra conservative ‘Christians’ are the worst offenders when it comes to divorce rates, and this woman sounds like she herself belongs to this group. What a lot of the men from this group don’t realise is that Eve was created from the rib of Adam, to be under his protective arm and close to his heart. She was not made from his head bone to be above him, or from his toe bones to be under his foot and trodden on. All the time they deny their women the right to have a say in the marriage, they create the conditions that lead a woman to leave, strike out for herself and seek a divorce, despite the condemnation they will receive from their community for doing so.

What is needed is for the rich to be taxed considerably more, and for the money to be used to support families on low wages, so that the mother has a choice to stay at home and look after them properly. Or for legislation so that a working man with a family has a minimum wage at least triple that of now, so that he can support his family alone. Or there should be an absolute minimum income for all families that should be topped up with taxpayer’s money, (known as Tax Credits in the UK.) This would bring down the stress levels within a marriage, and bring the divorce rate right down.

As for ‘secular’ and ‘Christian’ marriages, what’s the difference, really? In both you have to understand your commitment to each other, to love one another even when it’s hard. Even when she’s being a bitch and he’s being an a$$hole, you hang on in there because in being together in a marriage, you are part of something bigger than yourself. Not just a legal contract, but a spiritual union, a state of oneness that we have recognised throughout the ages as a natural need in all of us. Whether or not it is performed in a church is largely irrelevant.
References :