"While many officeholders across the country have placed their hands on books by Dr Suess, the US Constitution, copies of the Quran or other documents, this seems to be the first time someone was sworn in on a book by Sagan."
This caught my attention, wondering who got sworn in on a Dr. Suess book??
"A newly elected single mother of two wanted her kids to walk away from her swearing-in with an empowering message. So instead of placing her hand on a Bible to take her oath of office as councilwoman for St. Louis County, Kelli Dunaway chose “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” by Dr. Seuss."
To me this is one of the greatest things about this country: it's foundation was granted to the people by the people, not some foreign, non-elected embodiment of a divine authority.
That someone could just as much be sworn in with a Quran, a Dr. Suess book or the US Constitution itself is just something exceptionally American and profoundly inspiring. E Pluribus Unum.
> Incoming US congressman Robert Garcia will be sworn in using the US Constitution - and a Superman comic.
>Although using the Superman comic may be a bit unorthodox when taking the oath of office, technically it's not illegal, per Article VI of the US Constitution. The Article states, in part, that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States".
Is there any actual strict requirement that you have to swear over a document of some kind?
I'd have thought swearing over the bible is a stand-in for swearing "before God", and that God would ultimately be your reckoner should you break your oath.
If you don't have that meaning behind the oath, what is the point in using a book at all unless it's something meaningful like the constitution of your country, as another poster has used as an example, or some other relevant document that is there as physical representation of something abstract?
If I, not being religious, were being sworn in as the head of NASA, I'd find it much more poignant to swear over the US constitution, or on nothing at all.
The ultimate usefulness of swearing before a God (if you believe in one) isn't that relevant. The psychological reason we tend to request it is because of something far simpler: it reminds us of our convictions. There was a study about a decade ago about this by some social scientists.
They made 10 people swear on the ten commandments before making a test intended to check for their honesty, they made another group of people take the same test while taking an oath on a general document stating they'd be truthful, and finally they did the same test with a control group who wasn't asked to swear on anything.
All participants were checked to be atheists (so not caring much for the words of any God) beforehand as well.
The outcome was that generally speaking, just being asked to swear on something tended to remind people of their own convictions, which in turn tended to result in them answering the subsequent test questions more honestly.
That's all swearing over a document really does - it reminds someone of their morals (usually with the intent of guilt tripping them into not lying afterwards). I don't know about any other social reasons why we do it, but that's the psychological effect it has. (This is presumably why you can do it on any document that you have a sufficient conviction of being important to you as well.)
To follow your argument here, perhaps the person in question believes the Pale Blue Dot to be more meaningful than a legal document. I certainly do - it’s a wonderful book that absolutely captures Carl Sagan’s sense of wonder for the universe, which to me seems like exactly what you should want from a NASA director.
Most importantly, it also sends a strong message to the staff within NASA about how the new director views them and their work given how political appointments have become.
Traditionally there is a distinction between an oath and an affirmation
Swearing an oath was a religious ritual – a solemn promise made invoking the name of the deity, with the implication that any violation of the promise would be risking divine judgement, quite apart from whatever earthly consequences might follow (e.g. criminal prosecution for perjury)
Then along came the Quakers, who objected to oaths on religious grounds. Their objection was not the invocation of God as such – rather, they believed that God wanted them to tell the truth at all times, so making a special promise to God to tell the truth on a particular occasion was wrong, because it implied it was okay to not tell the truth on other occasions.
This caused a lot of problems in 17th century England – Quakers would refuse to swear oaths before courts as a matter of principle, and that refusal was a crime. In response, in 1695, the English Parliament enacted the Quakers Act, which allowed Quakers to make an affirmation instead – a solemn declaration that they were telling the truth on this occasion, but without making any special promise to the deity in doing so. And while the right to make an affirmation rather than swear an oath was initially limited only to Quakers, over time it became extended to apply to anyone who had an objection to swearing an oath, for whatever reason – and that legal provision for making an affirmation instead of swearing an oath was inherited by most of the English-speaking world.
But nowadays, many people appear ignorant of the oath-versus-affirmation distinction, and start talking about "non-religious oaths", which historically speaking doesn't make a lot of sense – swearing an oath was always seen as a religious act, and people who object to that religious act (whether for religious reasons or non-religious reasons) should really be making an affirmation instead – something most English-speaking legal systems let people do.
I don't know if she actually did swear an oath though. Possibly, she made an affirmation rather than an oath, but the journalist is calling it an "oath" because they don't know the difference (or assume their readers don't)
> If I, not being religious, were being sworn in as the head of NASA, I'd find it much more poignant to swear over the US constitution, or on nothing at all.
Confusing headline, she isn't head of NASA, just one of NASA's centres. Some federal agencies have a head called "Director" (e.g. the FBI); but for NASA, the head is called the "Administrator", and "Director" is a more junior position.
Oaths tend to be sworn to people with a deity as a guarantor and with the understanding that the invoked deity will punish you accordingly if you break your oath.
Without the "deity as a guarantor" element, the oath becomes a bit weird. The substitution of, say, the US government for the deity would probably work in the narrow sense (the government will, after all, probably retribute painfully if you break your oath - at least for oaths that matter to them), but then again the religious dimension becomes awkward, because public servants are mere mortals like you.
Bret Devereaux has a useful blog article on this topic:
As with many other rituals inherited from a distant past, there is a discrepancy between what we do and what we believe. In the times when oaths were first introduced, open atheism would be extremely rare. Nowadays, it isn't, so the original construction starts to come apart at the seams.
You don't even have to swear at all, the Constitution allows officials to swear or affirm. This is because some religious groups at the time of the drafting of the constitution were morally opposed to swearing oaths: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmation_(law)
> If you don't have that meaning behind the oath, what is the point in using a book at all unless?
Which is why it's not done in lots of places. Here it's only a sentence which is either translated "So help me God almighty" or "That I declare and promise" (pinky swear basically)
The legal meaning is that you can be held accountable to the preceding promise. Apparently God is only there to help you since you are unable to do it yourself but has no game in the promise.
It doesn't have to be a document, but I think it does need to be a thing. For example, most courthouses have an eagle feather you can swear oaths on if you want (several native American tribes do this).
I think you can also "affirm" instead of "swearing an oath," and that avoids any need for an object.
>If you don't have that meaning behind the oath, what is the point in using a book at all unless?
the point is a childish rebellion against traditions the nation was founded on as a social signal to their in-group for validation. Might as well tip a fedora while giving the oath
This discussion is fascinating, anthropologically speaking. Some observations:
* Many commenters seem to be holding to this weird idea that if you don't believe God will smite you, you will not be able to behave responsibly, give your word in a trustworthy manner, etc. If there's not a supernatural enforcer then there are no consequences to lying/breaking your oath. Interestingly, it looks to me that even atheists are endorsing this false idea here!
* An understanding of symbolism and its nuances is also lacking. Perhaps this isn't a surprise, as Enlightenment thinking and literalist Protestant thought have largely erased cultural understanding of symbolism. Thus we have confusion in two ways: many folks swear on the Bible out of convention or lack of critical thought, rather than belief, but will rationalize if pressed, and then folks who are very thoughtful may choose the Bible (looking "normal") or something else (looking "different"). The document chosen, if there is a conscious choice made, symbolizes something about their approach to the ceremony and the position. It is not necessarily a magical choice. (A magical approach takes symbolism a step further and imbues the symbolic object with supernatural power. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a universal approach vis a vis the Bible. Remember that the Christian church and Christian faith and practice existed before the Bible was written, easy to forget in a "sola scriptura" cultural milieu!)
* Amusingly, some really Bible-believing folks will not swear, on a Bible or on anything else, due to Matthew 5:34-37. This intellectual consistency is lost of course when we reduce swearing on the Bible to either convention or magic.
Human rituals cannot be usefully be interpreted as legal acts or as declarations of intellectual belief in a set of propositions. They are symbols. The intellectual incoherency of commonly swearing on a book that says not to swear alone ought to tip you off. I sympathize, folks! I grew up quite literal-minded and so have had quite a struggle coming to terms with the Protestantism I grew up with. Learning the intellectual history of thought and religion and understanding the ways different cultures engage with the divine/supernatural/morality has been very helpful -- and some of that learning must be experiential. Taking part in physical rituals taps into a very different part of the human experience than reading philosophy.
The Princess Alice experiments imply superstition would have a practical role in a society where (lacking CCTV and other modern technology to supervise) it's important that people do what they're supposed to without actual oversight:
Children in that study are markedly less likely to "cheat" in a task if they believe they are being supervised. This can happen because an actual adult supervises them, or because they believe (as they were told) that an invisible person "Princess Alice" is supervising them.
Sceptical children confirmed Princess Alice wasn't real behaviourally, that is, they'd verify that she just doesn't exist by passing their hand through the space supposedly occupied by Alice, having done so they would cheat at the same rate as unsupervised children. If you remove those children from the results, Alice and an actual supervising adult are equally effective in deterring cheating.
> If there's not a supernatural enforcer then there are no consequences to lying/breaking your oath. Interestingly, it looks to me that even atheists are endorsing this false idea here!
Most Christian theology holds that God is the present age is not going smite people for breaking such oaths. I think you are right to frame this ritually not theologically.
I would argue that purpose of swearing on an object is that it demonstrates that the oath is being made seriously, as an oath. Lying and breaking minor promises is socially acceptable in almost all human societies, and in some circumstances it is more socially acceptable to lie than be truthful. An oath is a different sort of object. An oath is something which is not socially acceptable to break, and thus swearing on an object which is deeply important to the oath taker ritually emphasizes this fact both to the oath taker themselves and to society at large.
A modernist view of rituals is that they create Schelling fences[0]. You agree to X, everyone knows you agreed to X, you know that you agreed to X, and you know that everyone knows that you agreed to X. Thus, if you do !X, you know that you have broken an important oath and everyone knows that you have broken an important oath. There is a clear line and there are mutually reenforcing internal and external pressures not to cross that line. Furthermore, if someone tells you to d !X, you have an ironclad reason to tell them no and it is much harder for them to take the rejection personally since it is personal. You can point to a public pre-commited attestation to never do !X.
> Many commenters seem to be holding to this weird idea that if you don't believe God will smite you, you will not be able to behave responsibly
If anyone actually believed that a god would smite them, or in hell or any of that stuff, they would behave very differently. It's stupidly easy to find "Christians" who completely disregard any teachings of Jesus. It's stupidly easy to find Muslims who drink alcohol, including (or perhaps mainly) those from Muslim countries. It's stupidly easy to find Jews who flagrantly break the rules the second someone discovers the smallest loophole.
I see only two possibilities: either they live every day in conflict knowing what they are doing is wrong but they don't have the will to make the necessary changes, or they simply don't believe. I am sure there are many in the former category (I was a carnivore for many years but knew I needed to stop so I know it's possible), but I believe most are in the latter.
Humans are just the total sum of their actions. Actions beget being and so rituals beget a practiced being. Humans practice rituals every day without even thinking about it. Ever sat in your chair and immediately wanted a cold one?
> If there's not a supernatural enforcer then there are no consequences to lying/breaking your oath. Interestingly, it looks to me that even atheists are endorsing this false idea here!
> many folks swear on the Bible out of convention or lack of critical thought, rather than belief, but will rationalize if pressed
You have contradicted yourself here. When someone asks why you swore on the Bible, you tell them the surrounding context, which is a story. You don't need to believe a story to appreciate it, or to continue its tradition. That's what symbolism is all about.
> Amusingly, some really Bible-believing folks will not swear, on a Bible or on anything else, due to Matthew 5:34-37. This intellectual consistency is lost of course when we reduce swearing on the Bible to either convention or magic.
The Bible is infamous for being logically inconsistent. It contradicts itself at every turn.
The result is not that humans are unable to use it to back their opinions! Quite the opposite: nearly any arbitrary opinion can be found to have biblical support.
Of course, religious belief is based on the circular conclusion that arbitrary morals come from The Bible itself, and not from the people reading it. That belief doesn't break the system. Instead, humans simply live with the conflicted ambiguity: it's called "cognitive dissonance".
This is the power of natural language at work: ambiguity. It allows us to hear, express, and manipulate ideas that are not logically sound. Symbols can be explicit and literal, or implicit and symbolic.
Just like GPT is claimed to have "features" and "limitations", the ambiguity of language is a double edged sword. The good news <insert bible joke here> is that we know about it. We are able to objectively recognize the difference between explicit definition and inference. We are able to recognize logical fallacies and their implications. We are able to use science and reason to literally reach new horizons.
And that is why I can see someone "swear on" this book, and feel that I would do the same. It's a beautiful symbol, and a thought-provoking response to a tradition that I, like you, am generally quick to criticize.
I come from a country where the majority of people count themselves as non religious. As atheism became a mainstream opinion in the 1980s a "solemn pledge" was introduced into the Constitution as an alternative to swearing on the Bible.
Keeping Christianity around as some hollow ritual handed down by our ancestors seems to me much more insulting to true believers.
Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.
This is why I'm perpetually confused by the official swearing of oaths by practicing Christians. There aren't a lot of new rules in the New Testament, but this is one of them.
I think the whole purpose of the ritual is shared solemnity. Laying aside Matthew 5:34-37, using the Bible fits in the context of Western civilization. Likewise, using nothing and merely affirming fits as well. But by its very nature bringing in any book or other item because it has "meaning" to you doesn't fit. It violates shared solemnity by the individualist nature of the act and opens the ritual to trivialization. What's next, someone's Teddy Bear?
IMHO having taken an oath on Carl Sagan’s name and book is more important and serious than swearing on any god/spirit/force/deity (from whatever religion).
I don’t think this is a big deal. Swearing in is pointless anyway…I can swear on a religious book and go do the opposite of what it says. The ultimate source of consequence is the constitution, laws, and regulations.
Maybe I’ll swear on the biography of Steve Jobs if I’m appointed.
This title (and the original article title) makes it sound like she will lead NASA, but actually she's leading Goddard Spaceflight Center, one of the 19 NASA Centers. (NASA leader is called the Administrator, center leader is a Director.)
What’s interesting is that many theologians believe swearing to God in public this way actually breaks the third commandment. Interesting quirks of Protestant culture in America.
That whole "swearing in" is so dumb, in my opinion.
What is the point, other than ceremonial, I guess.
One can raise their right hand and swear on the bible or swear on "Pale Blue Dot" and still not do what they swore to do. And someone might not swear at all and keep faithful and do what he or she is supposed to do.
How does swearing in make a bit of difference? It's nuts. Just hire me and let me get on with the job.
The whole point of swearing on a Bible is for people who actually respect and fear God as the ultimate judge at the end of their lives. Otherwise they should just swear, but not on a Bible.
More importantly, the New Testament portion of the Bible teaches not to swear at all, so the whole practice is misguided.
What’s the point of this? Presumably the idea of swearing on the Bible is that the person being sworn in believes they are making a promise to God. Hopefully this person does not have that kind of fear of Carl Sagan.
Seems to be a positive signal, somebody willing to do his duty with both eyes open, instead of blinding himself and escaping into self-chosen irresponsibility.
Good. The bible is not the only source of mores and norms to swear on. And a turn towards science would be nice, especially in the increasingly alarmingly anti-science USA.
[+] [-] neom|2 years ago|reply
This caught my attention, wondering who got sworn in on a Dr. Suess book??
"A newly elected single mother of two wanted her kids to walk away from her swearing-in with an empowering message. So instead of placing her hand on a Bible to take her oath of office as councilwoman for St. Louis County, Kelli Dunaway chose “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” by Dr. Seuss."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/21/why-count...
[+] [-] 908B64B197|2 years ago|reply
That someone could just as much be sworn in with a Quran, a Dr. Suess book or the US Constitution itself is just something exceptionally American and profoundly inspiring. E Pluribus Unum.
[+] [-] 1659447091|2 years ago|reply
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64167015
> Incoming US congressman Robert Garcia will be sworn in using the US Constitution - and a Superman comic.
>Although using the Superman comic may be a bit unorthodox when taking the oath of office, technically it's not illegal, per Article VI of the US Constitution. The Article states, in part, that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States".
[+] [-] weinzierl|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KyeRussell|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mixmastamyk|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tescocles|2 years ago|reply
I'd have thought swearing over the bible is a stand-in for swearing "before God", and that God would ultimately be your reckoner should you break your oath.
If you don't have that meaning behind the oath, what is the point in using a book at all unless it's something meaningful like the constitution of your country, as another poster has used as an example, or some other relevant document that is there as physical representation of something abstract?
If I, not being religious, were being sworn in as the head of NASA, I'd find it much more poignant to swear over the US constitution, or on nothing at all.
[+] [-] noirscape|2 years ago|reply
They made 10 people swear on the ten commandments before making a test intended to check for their honesty, they made another group of people take the same test while taking an oath on a general document stating they'd be truthful, and finally they did the same test with a control group who wasn't asked to swear on anything.
All participants were checked to be atheists (so not caring much for the words of any God) beforehand as well.
The outcome was that generally speaking, just being asked to swear on something tended to remind people of their own convictions, which in turn tended to result in them answering the subsequent test questions more honestly.
That's all swearing over a document really does - it reminds someone of their morals (usually with the intent of guilt tripping them into not lying afterwards). I don't know about any other social reasons why we do it, but that's the psychological effect it has. (This is presumably why you can do it on any document that you have a sufficient conviction of being important to you as well.)
[+] [-] highwaylights|2 years ago|reply
Most importantly, it also sends a strong message to the staff within NASA about how the new director views them and their work given how political appointments have become.
[+] [-] skissane|2 years ago|reply
Swearing an oath was a religious ritual – a solemn promise made invoking the name of the deity, with the implication that any violation of the promise would be risking divine judgement, quite apart from whatever earthly consequences might follow (e.g. criminal prosecution for perjury)
Then along came the Quakers, who objected to oaths on religious grounds. Their objection was not the invocation of God as such – rather, they believed that God wanted them to tell the truth at all times, so making a special promise to God to tell the truth on a particular occasion was wrong, because it implied it was okay to not tell the truth on other occasions.
This caused a lot of problems in 17th century England – Quakers would refuse to swear oaths before courts as a matter of principle, and that refusal was a crime. In response, in 1695, the English Parliament enacted the Quakers Act, which allowed Quakers to make an affirmation instead – a solemn declaration that they were telling the truth on this occasion, but without making any special promise to the deity in doing so. And while the right to make an affirmation rather than swear an oath was initially limited only to Quakers, over time it became extended to apply to anyone who had an objection to swearing an oath, for whatever reason – and that legal provision for making an affirmation instead of swearing an oath was inherited by most of the English-speaking world.
But nowadays, many people appear ignorant of the oath-versus-affirmation distinction, and start talking about "non-religious oaths", which historically speaking doesn't make a lot of sense – swearing an oath was always seen as a religious act, and people who object to that religious act (whether for religious reasons or non-religious reasons) should really be making an affirmation instead – something most English-speaking legal systems let people do.
I don't know if she actually did swear an oath though. Possibly, she made an affirmation rather than an oath, but the journalist is calling it an "oath" because they don't know the difference (or assume their readers don't)
> If I, not being religious, were being sworn in as the head of NASA, I'd find it much more poignant to swear over the US constitution, or on nothing at all.
Confusing headline, she isn't head of NASA, just one of NASA's centres. Some federal agencies have a head called "Director" (e.g. the FBI); but for NASA, the head is called the "Administrator", and "Director" is a more junior position.
[+] [-] xupybd|2 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_5#Verse_12
[+] [-] quitit|2 years ago|reply
Since swearing in on a document has no official requirement, the idea is to telegraph your values.
[+] [-] Tams80|2 years ago|reply
The point is that what you swear is important to you and something you wouldn't want to let down.
I'm not sure why you are so upset about this.
[+] [-] inglor_cz|2 years ago|reply
Without the "deity as a guarantor" element, the oath becomes a bit weird. The substitution of, say, the US government for the deity would probably work in the narrow sense (the government will, after all, probably retribute painfully if you break your oath - at least for oaths that matter to them), but then again the religious dimension becomes awkward, because public servants are mere mortals like you.
Bret Devereaux has a useful blog article on this topic:
https://acoup.blog/2019/06/28/collections-oaths-how-do-they-...
As with many other rituals inherited from a distant past, there is a discrepancy between what we do and what we believe. In the times when oaths were first introduced, open atheism would be extremely rare. Nowadays, it isn't, so the original construction starts to come apart at the seams.
[+] [-] throwboatyface|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] consp|2 years ago|reply
Which is why it's not done in lots of places. Here it's only a sentence which is either translated "So help me God almighty" or "That I declare and promise" (pinky swear basically)
The legal meaning is that you can be held accountable to the preceding promise. Apparently God is only there to help you since you are unable to do it yourself but has no game in the promise.
[+] [-] pclmulqdq|2 years ago|reply
I think you can also "affirm" instead of "swearing an oath," and that avoids any need for an object.
[+] [-] giantg2|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shadowgovt|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ren_engineer|2 years ago|reply
the point is a childish rebellion against traditions the nation was founded on as a social signal to their in-group for validation. Might as well tip a fedora while giving the oath
[+] [-] jackmott|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kaitai|2 years ago|reply
* Many commenters seem to be holding to this weird idea that if you don't believe God will smite you, you will not be able to behave responsibly, give your word in a trustworthy manner, etc. If there's not a supernatural enforcer then there are no consequences to lying/breaking your oath. Interestingly, it looks to me that even atheists are endorsing this false idea here!
* An understanding of symbolism and its nuances is also lacking. Perhaps this isn't a surprise, as Enlightenment thinking and literalist Protestant thought have largely erased cultural understanding of symbolism. Thus we have confusion in two ways: many folks swear on the Bible out of convention or lack of critical thought, rather than belief, but will rationalize if pressed, and then folks who are very thoughtful may choose the Bible (looking "normal") or something else (looking "different"). The document chosen, if there is a conscious choice made, symbolizes something about their approach to the ceremony and the position. It is not necessarily a magical choice. (A magical approach takes symbolism a step further and imbues the symbolic object with supernatural power. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a universal approach vis a vis the Bible. Remember that the Christian church and Christian faith and practice existed before the Bible was written, easy to forget in a "sola scriptura" cultural milieu!)
* Amusingly, some really Bible-believing folks will not swear, on a Bible or on anything else, due to Matthew 5:34-37. This intellectual consistency is lost of course when we reduce swearing on the Bible to either convention or magic.
Human rituals cannot be usefully be interpreted as legal acts or as declarations of intellectual belief in a set of propositions. They are symbols. The intellectual incoherency of commonly swearing on a book that says not to swear alone ought to tip you off. I sympathize, folks! I grew up quite literal-minded and so have had quite a struggle coming to terms with the Protestantism I grew up with. Learning the intellectual history of thought and religion and understanding the ways different cultures engage with the divine/supernatural/morality has been very helpful -- and some of that learning must be experiential. Taking part in physical rituals taps into a very different part of the human experience than reading philosophy.
[+] [-] tialaramex|2 years ago|reply
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21377689/
Children in that study are markedly less likely to "cheat" in a task if they believe they are being supervised. This can happen because an actual adult supervises them, or because they believe (as they were told) that an invisible person "Princess Alice" is supervising them.
Sceptical children confirmed Princess Alice wasn't real behaviourally, that is, they'd verify that she just doesn't exist by passing their hand through the space supposedly occupied by Alice, having done so they would cheat at the same rate as unsupervised children. If you remove those children from the results, Alice and an actual supervising adult are equally effective in deterring cheating.
[+] [-] EthanHeilman|2 years ago|reply
Most Christian theology holds that God is the present age is not going smite people for breaking such oaths. I think you are right to frame this ritually not theologically.
I would argue that purpose of swearing on an object is that it demonstrates that the oath is being made seriously, as an oath. Lying and breaking minor promises is socially acceptable in almost all human societies, and in some circumstances it is more socially acceptable to lie than be truthful. An oath is a different sort of object. An oath is something which is not socially acceptable to break, and thus swearing on an object which is deeply important to the oath taker ritually emphasizes this fact both to the oath taker themselves and to society at large.
A modernist view of rituals is that they create Schelling fences[0]. You agree to X, everyone knows you agreed to X, you know that you agreed to X, and you know that everyone knows that you agreed to X. Thus, if you do !X, you know that you have broken an important oath and everyone knows that you have broken an important oath. There is a clear line and there are mutually reenforcing internal and external pressures not to cross that line. Furthermore, if someone tells you to d !X, you have an ironclad reason to tell them no and it is much harder for them to take the rejection personally since it is personal. You can point to a public pre-commited attestation to never do !X.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_point_(game_theory)
[+] [-] globular-toast|2 years ago|reply
If anyone actually believed that a god would smite them, or in hell or any of that stuff, they would behave very differently. It's stupidly easy to find "Christians" who completely disregard any teachings of Jesus. It's stupidly easy to find Muslims who drink alcohol, including (or perhaps mainly) those from Muslim countries. It's stupidly easy to find Jews who flagrantly break the rules the second someone discovers the smallest loophole.
I see only two possibilities: either they live every day in conflict knowing what they are doing is wrong but they don't have the will to make the necessary changes, or they simply don't believe. I am sure there are many in the former category (I was a carnivore for many years but knew I needed to stop so I know it's possible), but I believe most are in the latter.
[+] [-] leroy-is-here|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thomastjeffery|2 years ago|reply
> many folks swear on the Bible out of convention or lack of critical thought, rather than belief, but will rationalize if pressed
You have contradicted yourself here. When someone asks why you swore on the Bible, you tell them the surrounding context, which is a story. You don't need to believe a story to appreciate it, or to continue its tradition. That's what symbolism is all about.
> Amusingly, some really Bible-believing folks will not swear, on a Bible or on anything else, due to Matthew 5:34-37. This intellectual consistency is lost of course when we reduce swearing on the Bible to either convention or magic.
The Bible is infamous for being logically inconsistent. It contradicts itself at every turn.
The result is not that humans are unable to use it to back their opinions! Quite the opposite: nearly any arbitrary opinion can be found to have biblical support.
Of course, religious belief is based on the circular conclusion that arbitrary morals come from The Bible itself, and not from the people reading it. That belief doesn't break the system. Instead, humans simply live with the conflicted ambiguity: it's called "cognitive dissonance".
This is the power of natural language at work: ambiguity. It allows us to hear, express, and manipulate ideas that are not logically sound. Symbols can be explicit and literal, or implicit and symbolic.
Just like GPT is claimed to have "features" and "limitations", the ambiguity of language is a double edged sword. The good news <insert bible joke here> is that we know about it. We are able to objectively recognize the difference between explicit definition and inference. We are able to recognize logical fallacies and their implications. We are able to use science and reason to literally reach new horizons.
And that is why I can see someone "swear on" this book, and feel that I would do the same. It's a beautiful symbol, and a thought-provoking response to a tradition that I, like you, am generally quick to criticize.
[+] [-] WeylandYutani|2 years ago|reply
Keeping Christianity around as some hollow ritual handed down by our ancestors seems to me much more insulting to true believers.
[+] [-] ammojamo|2 years ago|reply
(Matthew 5:33-37)
[+] [-] jbaber|2 years ago|reply
Am I misinterpreting the passage?
[+] [-] rainworld|2 years ago|reply
https://www.catholic.com/qa/why-are-oaths-allowed
[+] [-] courseofaction|2 years ago|reply
It is utterly forbidden to kill in the bible.
200 years after Christ, the Roman army was "Christian".
Hmm.
[+] [-] pedrogpimenta|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] echelon|2 years ago|reply
I wonder if AI can discover patterns in language or other signal domains that totally disrupt the modern brain and cause humans to crash.
Biblical passages nearly do that to me, so I think that they must exist.
[+] [-] boredhedgehog|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mariodiana|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NKosmatos|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boeingUH60|2 years ago|reply
Maybe I’ll swear on the biography of Steve Jobs if I’m appointed.
[+] [-] foobarbecue|2 years ago|reply
Awesome news though; I love it.
[+] [-] commitpizza|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qikInNdOutReply|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mensetmanusman|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FrontierPsych|2 years ago|reply
What is the point, other than ceremonial, I guess.
One can raise their right hand and swear on the bible or swear on "Pale Blue Dot" and still not do what they swore to do. And someone might not swear at all and keep faithful and do what he or she is supposed to do.
How does swearing in make a bit of difference? It's nuts. Just hire me and let me get on with the job.
[+] [-] hereme888|2 years ago|reply
More importantly, the New Testament portion of the Bible teaches not to swear at all, so the whole practice is misguided.
[+] [-] Grustaf|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qikInNdOutReply|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] b1c1jones|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krys1010|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gigatexal|2 years ago|reply