Blue Mass Group

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Egg and sperm means marriage

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Funny, I never knew this before, but I happened to be looking at a definition of gamete, and I learned where it comes from:

New Latin gameta, from Greek gamete, wife and gametes, husband, from gamein, to marry, from gamos, marriage.

That means that gametes are more directly related to marriage than even I had realized.  they are marriage, by the ancient, original, proto definition.

Cool, huh?

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    • the right way to look at it is that not all marriages are legal marriages.  Sort of like the “woman at the well” that tells Jesus she’s never been married, but he tells her she’s been married five times.  So bastards are people born to illegitmate marriages. 

      • So bastards are people born to illegitmate marriages.

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        It is not unusual for the father of an “illegitimate child”* to be married to another woman.  So, if, as you suggest, a bastard is born to an illegitimate marriage, the father is a polygamist.

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        *The child is not illegitimate, he or she is a real child.  The “illegitimate” aspect is that the child is not a “legitimate” heir of the father, precisely because he or she is not an “issue” of a marriage.  Legitimate heirs are issues of a marriage.  That’s where the “illegitimate” characterization comes from.

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        • … in that he procreated with someone with whom he didn’t register with the government to recieve government sanctioned egg and sperm procreation rights (marraige)?

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          [snark]

          • What is really happening when they get a marriage license is the establishment of official consent to conceive together by all parties.  The two people that would like to be allowed to conceive together, and the government, all give consent to conception of children and agree to take on the responsibilities to each other and any children.  The government makes sure they aren’t already married to someone else, related to each other in certain ways, or under-age.

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            Unmarried sex is non-consensual and therefore rape, though because it is mutual rape, it is called fornication.

        • What I was saying, in response to CMD’s comment that “bastards aren’t even people”, was that all joining of egg and sperm is a marriage, and that the joining of egg and sperm by people that are not legally married is still marriage, it is just illegal marriage.  Illegal marriages produce what we used to call “illegitimate” children.  Legal marriages produce legitimate children.  I don’t use those terms regarding children, nor do I use the term “bastard” like CMD apparently still does, because it unfairly stigmatizes and burdens the innocent child.  All children should have equal rights regardless of the legal status of their parents.  It is the marriage which is really legitimate or illegitimate. 

  2. Somewhere in there is a little male and female marriage legitimacy. Not sure what other types of unions could be, but probably not marriage.

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    “Among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” With respect, maybe those who seek same sex unions would be well advised to stop there, and just pursue happiness, instead of pursuing the degradation of Christian sacraments.

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    Best,
    Chuck

      • Its easy to just get mad at you for not seeing that same-sex couples should not pursue conception through genetic engineering.  But then I remember how much you’ve invested in this whole “equal marriage” slogan, and am able to maintain a level of respect for your efforts, even though they are tragically misguided, bigoted and hurtful.  It’s not your fault, it’s my own for not finding the right way to explain it to you.

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        And regarding this proto-greek “gamos”, it does show that marriage, right from the start, was about egg and sperm, joining gametes and conceiving of children, not about companionship or property.  Or, maybe that’s wrong, maybe it shows that when gametes were discovered under microscopes, the discoverer named them after the greek word for marriage.  PErhaps that is more plausible.  Nevertheless, it IS possible for the two gametes, and the marriage, to belong to people of the same sex, but it is very unwise to allow someone to try to do that. 

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        why do you insist on allowing same-sex conception?  You’ve never explained your cost-benefit analysis of that.  Please don’t just insist it should be allowed because your gay rights dogma insists that it shoudl be allowed.  That’s what the post above might have been trying to say: with respect, open your mind, consider the whole picture, explain your reasoning, and maybe come to understand that gay people are better served with federal civil unions and a ban on GE’d conceptions.

        • “And regarding this proto-greek ‘gamos’, it does show that marriage, right from the start, was about egg and sperm.”

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          This linguistic thing is the most stuipid thing I’ve heard in this discussion.  Its right up there with saying that daylight savings time contributes to global warming.

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          If a chinese biologist doesn’t use the word, does that mean it isn’t about marraige for them?

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          Tell me though, what does the word ‘bigot’ show? 

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          I suppose because the root greek word for diabetic means ‘syphon’ that it ‘shows’ that diabetes is all about driking alot of water and urinating too much.

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          (sigh)

          • It was just interesting to me that the ancient greek word marriage was gamos, and that’s where we get the word gamete.  It does show a historical connection of marriage and conception.  But I’ve decided that my later interpretation is probably correct, that the ancient greeks didn’t know about sperm and eggs, and that when Leeuwenhook discovered sperm, he named them after marriage.  So, sure, whatever…  But I would be interested to know if the Chinese word for marriage is related to their word for gamete too.  The Chinese word for “bigot” is “??????” meaning “????, ??????, ???”

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            It’s intersting that “bigot” “was used by the French as a term of abuse for the Normans, but not in a religious sense. Later, however, the word, or very possibly a homonym, was used abusively in French for the Beguines, members of a Roman Catholic lay sisterhood.”  So, maybe they were saying that the Normans were intolerant, but it sure seems like it was the French who were being intolerant.  It was just slung as a plain old insult by intolerant poeple, much like it is used today.

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            You don’t need to accept genetic engineering in order to not be a bigot.  Again, it’s more the opposite: implying that gay people require genetic engineering in order to be fully human really implies that gay people are not capable of being fully human without this technology.  People do not require technology for them to have dignity and full human value.

            • could fix those ????’s.  I didn’t used to get those all the time, now BMG can’t display a quoatation mark or pronounciation accents.  They display in the Preview, but they turn to question marks when they go ina dn out of the database.

    • ….thing is I am married to another man but there is nothing “Christian” about our union, by design.  Civil marriage and sacraments are mutually exclusive….and thank God for that.

    • One: the sacrament of marriage.

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      Two:  The ability to file taxes jointly, own propert by the entireties, have inheritance rights and rights under family law, health insurance, and a bunch of other things I’m forgetting. Oh, and the ability to have the thing that we have called a “marriage.”

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      These are separate things, as the last time I checked, the political power in this Commonwealth is not weilded by ecclesiastical authorities.  Ever.

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      If this is confusing because the word “marriage” may have multiple meanings, depending on the context, well, welcome to the English speaking world.

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      To repeat:  the state does not administer sacraments.  If you think it does, please reread the previous sentence.

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      The God I believe in doesn’t require me to advocate the arbitrary denial of these secular rights because of an accident of someone’s birth.  Having actually read the New Testament, I believe that God rather takes the opposite view.

  3. be prepared to wholly accept other ancient definitions and strictures on society.  are you prepared, for example, to be  my helot?  but i suspect i would quickly tire of your indolence and sell you, at a loss, to the stone quarry master.  your price of freedom: finding and splitting the rock harder than your head.  such a rock is fable to exist, but i don’t believe it.  but why let Sysiphus have all the fun?  i’ll enjoy the spectacle of your labor.

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