I’d argue that it hurts all of us, actually, but it certainly hurts me.
–Cliffy
Having just seen Pineapple Express, I am currently having great trouble not viewing Nedrow as Dale Denton.
Uh huh. As Elvis says, if it has no significant religious content, then why is it always the godbotherers who squeal whenever anybody suggests eliminating it?
I will quote something I put in a different thread on a similar topic:
I’m itching to ask “why the extra Bible?” … but then I realize it makes just as much sense as the first! Religion is some funny shit. Obama should swear on ***three ***Bibles to be the most president-ing mofo to ever president. That’d show em.
Atheists need to learn to pick their fights. This one’s a loser.
\Newdow does not speak for all atheists. For my own part, I am 15% quietly snickering at Newdow for having both the hubris and the available time to waste on this pointless effort, 25% murmuring in support of the general principle despite the practical impossibility of winning such an argument, and 60% screaming in silence in my own head that despite the fact that he’s absolutely right it still sucks that it’s a nonstarter, and may turn out to be counterproductive because the godbotherers are such reactionary whiners. In a couple of days, I’ll go back to 100% quiet smugness about being right while the majority of everybody else is stupidly wrong.
Interestingly, Lincoln is the first president for whom there is a contemporary record of his adding “so help me God” after the oath.
Well, Eisenhower used Washington’s bible in addition to his West Point bible, Truman used the bible he had been sworn in on upon Roosevelt’s death plus one given to him by the town fathers of Independence, and Nixon used two family bibles.
Makes perfect sense in the individual cases - I don’t know why you find it silly.
Since the Constitution itself doesn’t include the “So help me God” in the President’s oath of office, it is technically a matter of personal choice. A non-religious President could simply omit the phrase; a non-Christian President could say “So help me, Goddess” or “By the Sword of Kahless, may my own blood be shed if I violate this vow!” or whatever he or she pleases. I deplore the political reality that a canidate simply quietly repeating words of the oath of office proscribed by the Constitution (and only those words) would cause a great big brouhaha; but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that religious believers should be unable to add some sort of solemnization that’s personally meaningful to them at the end of the statement prescribed by the Constitution.
It’s much more Constitutionally suspect that current U.S. law actually includes the phrase in the oath for other federal office-holders in the text of the law itself:
The legally proscribed words for the enlistment oath for the armed forces also includes “so help me God” as part of the text of the law.
Since the Constitution clearly says that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States” (and also that all such statements may be in either the form of an oath or an affirmation), Congress should never have included any specific religious language in the official wording any such oath required for a federal officeholder–leave it up to the individual doing the swearing to include some such if she or he deems it necessary to somehow make the official words fully binding on his or her conscience.
Sorry, I disagree - for the reason that oaths and affirmations are often used to spell out to someone the full impact of a societal obligation they have - one that they may not have assumed 100% willingly. For conscription or compelling testimony we are imposing an obligation on people.
Appealing to their religious sense is appropriate if they are indeed religious - if they are not an affirmation is just fine.
If you feel that way, campaign to amend the Constitution, then. Because it doesn’t say “no religious tests, unless they would be useful”.
The practice of swearing oaths and making affirmations is itself an attempt to make a promise solemn and binding, as well as having greater legal force than just saying, “Yeah, OK, whatever you say, Jack”. And if someone personally believes that invoking some deity or deities or lofty philosophical principle at the end of the thing will make it more meaningful and hence more binding, fine. Let them do so.
Proscribing a specific religious ritual by law, in addition to being unconstitutional and un-American, just runs the risk to letting off the hook any member of a religion which doesn’t use that particular ritual or form thereof, who happens to have been conscripted or subpoened or whatever. "…So help me God. [aside]Hah, the fools! Since they didn’t make me swear by Cthulhu, their oath means NOTHING to me! I can freely desert at the earliest opportunity/perjure myself without incurring Its dread wrath!"[/aside]
And, more seriously, Americans who are atheists, agnostics, Wiccans, Buddhists, Hindus, etc., should have the same rights and the same duties as Americans who are Christians or Jews.
[quote=“MEBuckner, post:52, topic:481124”]
If you feel that way, campaign to amend the Constitution, then. Because it doesn’t say “no religious tests, unless they would be useful”.
Wouldn’t need to - four times in the original 1787 document the phrase “oath or affirmation” is used - including the section containing the prohibition of religious tests. This phrase requires such for federal officeholders, and an oath has a religious component.
Now, by permitting an affirmation instead, there is no religious test, but oaths are expressly permitted.
Because the goddisbelievers want to.
Because while the phrase itself is void of actual religious significance, the elimination of it it not religiously significant. This does not mean that ignorant people on the religious side believe there is religious significance – after all, ignorant people on the atheist side obviously believe it has religious significance, and why should the atheists have a monopoly on ignorance?
As a matter of settled law, it’s clear.
I think you might have left out a negative somewhere in there, or I am misreading it.
I don’t think anyone denies that ceremonial deism is settled law. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t bad, illogical law.
Translation: “It’s a lawyer’s world, the rest of us just have to suck it up and live here.”
I don’t know about “world.”
But when we’re discussing a LEGAL issue like a LAWSUIT involving a JUDGE and his LEGAL obligations under the Constitution, the supreme LAW of the land… yeah, color me crazy, but I’m thinking there might be a tiny bit of relevance to what the law says.
What is the measure of something having “religious significance”, other than people believing it has religious significance?
When the Court says “This phrase has lost all religious significance,” aren’t they making a statement about whether or not the average person still considers it religiously significant? What are they basing their determination of “no religious significance” on, if not that? And if that is what their determination is based on, then isn’t evidence that people do still consider it religiously significant evidence that the court ruled incorrectly?
As a matter of clarity and coherence in expression, no it ain’t, not hardly.
Then why open the thread? Is this just some legalese gotcha bear trap for anyone doltish enough to think that any group of nine people might occasionally be wrong?