Catholic Marriage and the Government

With all of the red equal signs popping up on Facebook, the gay marriage debate is surely reaching its peak. This lasting debate seemed to be between constitutionality and the conception of a traditional marriage. However, the core of the problem starts with the state itself. The state expresses its power to legally "marry" people. However, the state is merely performing a civil union. The founding fathers, dare I say it, messed up. I (semi) honestly hate to disappoint you    gung ho 'Murikans out there, but the Founding Fathers made a severe mistake when calling the civil union of the government a marriage.  The conception of a marriage is subjective to each culture, meaning allowing the state to determine what is and isn't a marriage forces these cultures to either conflict with each other and the government or be oppressed. This is the kind of conflict that stimulates today's debate. Some people believe it counts as marriage while others do not.

I think the root of the conflict is the concept of marriage. The problem is that people who oppose gay marriage don't want it to be called marriage. They believe that it should be kept in the traditional (religious) sense. However, I think this reveals a huge hypocrisy on their part. They don't want the governmental marriage associated with their own, and demand the government stays out of religion. At the same time, they want to call their civil, legal union a marriage via the government. The solution is to call all "marriages" made by the state "civil partnerships" or something that has no religious roots and allow people to have their marriage acknowledged by a Church of their choice. That's a true separation of state. And, it solves the problem. The traditionalists gain freedom from calling it marriage and those who support gay marriage get equality. There is no inequality in the state, and all can choose to or not to acknowledge the marriage as legitimate.

As a final clarification: I do not support gay marriage. It is against the Bible and has been infallibly ruled to be wrong.  However, I do believe it is unconstitutional for them to not have the ability to have he civil union. At the same time, those who want the state to institute a Catholic conception of marriage are wrong as well. The state should institute a "civil union" between two people. Each culture and religion ought to have the choice to rule it as legitimate or not. The Supreme Court decision will not solve the problem. They're gonna put a band-aid on the issue and call it a minor boo-boo. However, it represents the improper way of going about politics in America: trying to solve the problem at the surface instead of the root of the conflict.

All in all, it's safe to conclude that the state isn't using the right terminology in its civil unions. The Church is the only entity that can endorse a proper marriage. As such, the government should call it what it is: a civil union. For those who are unsure of what Catholic teaching is, the true catholic teaching is one where the state possesses no power to unite people beyond a civil union.

What is Heaven?

There are a lot of concepts of Heaven. The rainbow bridge, the golden city of Heaven (pictured), are examples of the conceptions of what heaven may look like.  However, there is no clear conception of what heaven is.  There is both good and bad reason for this.  The good reason is that there is no physical conception of heaven. The bad reason is that a metaphysical conception of Heaven is still as foreign as a life without sin.

Heaven isn't a physical world. It isn't a mental state. It isn't a figment of our imagination.  The question is: What is it?  The answer is simple and at the same time hard to grasp.  Heaven is a communion with God. This seems very simple, but it also raises quite a few questions.  Heaven isn't like having an eternal conversations with the buddies. It doesn't seem like it would be an eternal hug.  The reason we cannot grasp what it means to be in God's presence is because our minds are wired to evaluate experience. God isn't of this Earth, and it is impossible for us to feel true happiness in our Earthly lives. We can get close, through love of each other and God.  But we can't quite get to true happiness. This is a pretty huge mental block. The mind is hardwired to evaluate experience first. This means God stands out of our solid, tangible experience.  So when we say we are in communion with God, we mean we are in a state of total happiness and perfection we have not yet experienced. True happiness is being in communion with God himself, meaning it's just awesome.

Figure 1

Of course, this raises the question of "why can't it be physical" from your typical skeptic. First, God is metaphysical. Looking up "God" in the Yellow Pages won't turn up any entries. You haven't seen a picture of God. God doesn't do door to door sales for his son's magazine sales. God doesn't physically exist. However, we must deconstruct my previous sentence. Physically is not a word used for empty emphasis. It is used to describe the existence God does not partake in. He is not merely invisible, but he embodies existence. This means that existence is a part of God. [Refer to Figure One]. Existence is God, but God isn't just existence. This means God cannot be confined to existence.  Now that we know god isn't a physical entity, lets discuss heaven. Communion with God cannot be physical. Why? God isn't physical.  Thus, communion with him cannot be physical. Further, an experience of human happiness is purely metaphysical. You can't look at an emotion. You can't smell, taste, or hear an emotion. An emotion, like happiness, is metaphysical, meaning it cannot be confined to physical things. Since communion with God is really just a really awesome emotion, it can't be physical. No matter how many times we see that kid in Grown Ups try to find Heaven with the GPS, it'll never happen.