Things people obviously don't care about when getting married and divorced

[MrDawn]

If you have ever been to a Christian wedding, you know that marriage is a big deal. You have the priest or minister standing with the couple reading from the Bible and praying. The ceremony takes place in a church -- the house of God. Dozens or hundreds of witnesses are on hand. In front of God, a representative of God and all of these witnesses, a couple declares that they will wed "til death do us part."

The Christian faith also puts a very, very large stigma on divorce. For example, in Matthew 5:32 Jesus says:

But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.
In Matthew 19:9, Jesus repeats that sentiment:

I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery

Adultery is a major problem in the Christian faith. First, one of the commandments in the Ten Commandments specifically forbids adultery. Even worse, in Leviticus 20 we find this:

If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.

Adulterers get the death penalty. Clearly, God and Jesus want Christians to stay married for life.
So let's review. When a Christian couple gets married, we have all of these forces that should be working to keep them married:

The marriage is performed in God's presence...
...in God's house...
...in front of God's representative (a minister or priest)...
...and in front of many Christian witnesses.
The couple presumably prays before and after the wedding for a good marriage...
...as do all of the witnesses...
...and the minister/priest.
The couple knows that if they divorce/remarry, it is an act of adultery...
...which God has forbidden...
...and which the Bible says is punishable by death.

And don't forget this important line from the ceremony: What God has joined together let no man put asunder. Now think about this. God is the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe. If God puts something together, shouldn't it be impossible to break it? Isn't that what "all-powerful" means?
Given all of this, and given the fact that an all-powerful, prayer-answering God is supposedly looking over the lives of a Christian couple, guiding them in the spirit and so on, what would you expect the divorce rate for Christians to be? Clearly, the Christian divorce rate should be zero.

But when we look at the divorce statistics of American couples, and compare Christian vs. non-Christian divorce rates, we find this strange statistic: divorce rates among Christians match those among the rest of the population. It does not matter whether the couple is Christian or not. According to this article, "'While it may be alarming to discover that born-again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce, that pattern has been in place for quite some time,' said George Barna, president of Barna Research Group." There are a millions ways to crunch the data, but no matter how you slice it, it is easy to see that Christians divorce just as often as non-Christians.

The reason for the high divorce rate among Christians is easy to see: God is imaginary.That I can tell.

 

[Raven]

People get married because it is 'the norm' these days, they don't think about religion.

It is the reason I will NEVER get married.

 

[Nebulous]

If you have ever been to a Christian wedding, you know that marriage is a big deal. You have the priest or minister standing with the couple reading from the Bible and praying. The ceremony takes place in a church -- the house of God. Dozens or hundreds of witnesses are on hand. In front of God, a representative of God and all of these witnesses, a couple declares that they will wed "til death do us part."

The Christian faith also puts a very, very large stigma on divorce. For example, in Matthew 5:32 Jesus says:

But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.
In Matthew 19:9, Jesus repeats that sentiment:

I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery

Adultery is a major problem in the Christian faith. First, one of the commandments in the Ten Commandments specifically forbids adultery. Even worse, in Leviticus 20 we find this:

If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.

Adulterers get the death penalty. Clearly, God and Jesus want Christians to stay married for life.
So let's review. When a Christian couple gets married, we have all of these forces that should be working to keep them married:

The marriage is performed in God's presence...
...in God's house...
...in front of God's representative (a minister or priest)...
...and in front of many Christian witnesses.
The couple presumably prays before and after the wedding for a good marriage...
...as do all of the witnesses...
...and the minister/priest.
The couple knows that if they divorce/remarry, it is an act of adultery...
...which God has forbidden...
...and which the Bible says is punishable by death.

And don't forget this important line from the ceremony: What God has joined together let no man put asunder. Now think about this. God is the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe. If God puts something together, shouldn't it be impossible to break it? Isn't that what "all-powerful" means?
Given all of this, and given the fact that an all-powerful, prayer-answering God is supposedly looking over the lives of a Christian couple, guiding them in the spirit and so on, what would you expect the divorce rate for Christians to be? Clearly, the Christian divorce rate should be zero.

But when we look at the divorce statistics of American couples, and compare Christian vs. non-Christian divorce rates, we find this strange statistic: divorce rates among Christians match those among the rest of the population. It does not matter whether the couple is Christian or not. According to this article, "'While it may be alarming to discover that born-again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce, that pattern has been in place for quite some time,' said George Barna, president of Barna Research Group." There are a millions ways to crunch the data, but no matter how you slice it, it is easy to see that Christians divorce just as often as non-Christians.

The reason for the high divorce rate among Christians is easy to see: God is imaginary.That I can tell.

This is assuming that everyone who gets married is a extremist and devout Christian.   If that was the case, then the divorce rate would be zero.
For many it has nothing to do with religion, but everyone wants a traditional wedding because that's the thing to do.