I'm religious, but I don't see it that way. When a man and a woman are faithful to each other and having a family together, then that is it: they are married.
Actions have a value which are seven thousand times more worth than words, so the covenant with God is automatic in that situation even if the people are ignorant and have never heard of God.
>the covenant with God is automatic in that situation even if the people are ignorant and have never heard of God.
Yes. That's the kind of attitude that can build toward peace & harmony, and to live & let live instead of the hate against nonuniformity often shown by the religious extremists. Whether they are Christian or anything else. Hate is hate.
When an unmarried couple is completely faithful to each other until death, regardless of any other family, there's no way the average religious marriage can compare in that regard.
Not even close, zero is still a very small number.
Statistics are pretty accurate here. With the rate of divorce and unfaithfulness so rampant in religious marriage, it's only become more of a gamble over decades and decades of direct observation and interacton.
IIRC some cultures have shunned the idea of gambling since prehistoric times.
Others have it inscribed in scriptures almost as old, but not universally adhered to by the "faithful" just yet.
Actions have a value which are seven thousand times more worth than words, so the covenant with God is automatic in that situation even if the people are ignorant and have never heard of God.