Actually most churches require couples to have a license from the government first, and the the church officiant signs the license and returns it to the government to make it "valid" (in the government's eyes).
Stop and think about why you think this is okay, or why any self-respecting religious denomination would think it's okay. If marriage is something that God recognizes and requires, why should a church need permission from the government to marry it adherents?
Would you be okay with a church requiring a government license before performing a baptism, if the government started issuing such documents? What if the government stopped issuing marriage licenses to people who belonged to religions it didn't approve of? Or refusing to recognize marriages if the license was signed by an officiant affiliated with a non-approved religion? This has happened in our country's history, with the Mormons, before there was any talk of polygamy being introduced to their beliefs and practices. Certain states declared that since Mormons weren't a legitimate religion, in the state officials' opinion, then marriages performed by Mormon clergy were not valid.
There's also a history in this country of state governments refusing to issue marriage licenses for or recognize the validity of marriages between a man and woman of different races. So did that make it okay for churches whose beliefs didn't require same-race marriages to refuse to marry intteracial couples on the grounds that they didn't have a marriage license?
And part of China's population control program included setting a rather high minimum age for marriage (22 for men and 20 for women), and prohibiting any marriages where both parties didn't meet the age requirement. This is still in effect, so a pair of 21 year olds can't legally marry. And of course it's illegal to have babies out of wedlock. But now that the government wants to increase the birth rate, it has proposed lowering the marriage age to 18.
The reason our situation with marriage and low birth rate is so fucked is because of Chinese programs after their one child policy failed so abysmally in terms of the strength of their country. Steven Mosher has a lot of good info on that
Why on earth would the Chinese government want to increase their population? Isn't their second largest issue economically, outside of communism of course, the fact that their population is too large to know what to do with?
Nope. China has plenty of unsettled land, and population naturally stabilizes after a certain point, without government intervention. What the Chinese government did was Malthusian nonsense, and cultural suicide. They no longer have a working population large enough to care for their elder population. That's part of the reason they released COVID-19, as a cover to burn their elderly alive in bodybags. But they have a bigger problem coming up. Their male/female ratio is WAY off balance, as every family wanted their one child to be a boy. It's something like 5:1. China is on the verge of a complete collapse, and when it happens, it won't be pretty. Think WWIII.
I would assume that US govt has already worked through these scenarios and has our response ready w regard to their nukes, etc. I can see a conventional skirmish for certain things but not WWIII. Source: None. Just a wag.
They were a bit too successful with their one-child policy and it's creating a demographic problem, with not enough young people to keep the economy going and support the elderly and the huge military force. The one-child policy was replaced with a two-child policy in December 2015. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-27/chinas-one-child-policy-officially-scrapped/7055834
The church marries you, always.
You file your marriage with the government after that.
How did you think it worked?
Actually most churches require couples to have a license from the government first, and the the church officiant signs the license and returns it to the government to make it "valid" (in the government's eyes).
Stop and think about why you think this is okay, or why any self-respecting religious denomination would think it's okay. If marriage is something that God recognizes and requires, why should a church need permission from the government to marry it adherents?
Would you be okay with a church requiring a government license before performing a baptism, if the government started issuing such documents? What if the government stopped issuing marriage licenses to people who belonged to religions it didn't approve of? Or refusing to recognize marriages if the license was signed by an officiant affiliated with a non-approved religion? This has happened in our country's history, with the Mormons, before there was any talk of polygamy being introduced to their beliefs and practices. Certain states declared that since Mormons weren't a legitimate religion, in the state officials' opinion, then marriages performed by Mormon clergy were not valid.
There's also a history in this country of state governments refusing to issue marriage licenses for or recognize the validity of marriages between a man and woman of different races. So did that make it okay for churches whose beliefs didn't require same-race marriages to refuse to marry intteracial couples on the grounds that they didn't have a marriage license?
And part of China's population control program included setting a rather high minimum age for marriage (22 for men and 20 for women), and prohibiting any marriages where both parties didn't meet the age requirement. This is still in effect, so a pair of 21 year olds can't legally marry. And of course it's illegal to have babies out of wedlock. But now that the government wants to increase the birth rate, it has proposed lowering the marriage age to 18.
Government regulation of marriage is a bad thing.
The reason our situation with marriage and low birth rate is so fucked is because of Chinese programs after their one child policy failed so abysmally in terms of the strength of their country. Steven Mosher has a lot of good info on that
Why on earth would the Chinese government want to increase their population? Isn't their second largest issue economically, outside of communism of course, the fact that their population is too large to know what to do with?
Nope. China has plenty of unsettled land, and population naturally stabilizes after a certain point, without government intervention. What the Chinese government did was Malthusian nonsense, and cultural suicide. They no longer have a working population large enough to care for their elder population. That's part of the reason they released COVID-19, as a cover to burn their elderly alive in bodybags. But they have a bigger problem coming up. Their male/female ratio is WAY off balance, as every family wanted their one child to be a boy. It's something like 5:1. China is on the verge of a complete collapse, and when it happens, it won't be pretty. Think WWIII.
I would assume that US govt has already worked through these scenarios and has our response ready w regard to their nukes, etc. I can see a conventional skirmish for certain things but not WWIII. Source: None. Just a wag.
They were a bit too successful with their one-child policy and it's creating a demographic problem, with not enough young people to keep the economy going and support the elderly and the huge military force. The one-child policy was replaced with a two-child policy in December 2015. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-27/chinas-one-child-policy-officially-scrapped/7055834
He's saying leave out step 2.
It looks to me like having 2 incomes is better to an extent for taxes, more money to hit the same bracket a single person does.
I see
It sounded to me like he was specifically stating something very different if you read his post