Paul's blog

I recently introduced two NCOTW’s.

One was Donald E Wildmon, founder and head of the American Family Association, the other one was Dennis Prager, a radio talk show host.

These two people now seem to have found eachother!

Dennis got my NCOTW price for his column in which he rails against a Muslim congressman’s intention to swear his oath on the Koran when he takes office.

Donald’s American Family Association now chips in on the issue by publishing Dennis’ column and urging its three and half million members to take action.

See their webpage here (just ignore their spelling errors).

Donald urges his followers to: “Send an email asking your U.S. Representative and Senators to pass a law making the Bible the book used in the swearing-in ceremony of Representatives and Senators.”

Apart from the fact that such a law would be extremely unconstitutional (See article VI: “.. no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office ..”), it would also be extremely stupid.

Let me try to explain this:

“Senators and Representatives are bound by Oath or Affirmation…”, that is, they can choose between simply promising to uphold the constitution, or they can swear to do so.

Swearing is, by many, considered a stronger version of just promising, and done by invoking something that is sacred to the person swearing (a holy book, a beloved person) (see footnote 1).

The main point is, that they perceive swearing to be much stronger by invoking something that’s sacred to them! Presumably in the sense that if they break their oath, they would be betraying this something or someone sacred!

So, what makes the oath so strong is that something sacred to the person who swears is involved. That‘s the crux of the matter.

For instance, suppose I promise something, but you think it should be stronger than that and ask me to swear on the bible. Since I’m an atheist, the bible doesn’t mean a thing to me (well, at least not a positive thing), so if you really insist, sure, if that makes you happy I’ll do that. The point is that it shouldn’t make you happy, because it’s me who has to keep the promise and I don’t get any extra incentives for keeping my promise from puting my hand on your holy book, the Koran, or last month’s Playboy, to me it would still be a promise.

So .. it comes down to simply this: if you really want someone to swear, that is, promise something in a way that this person feels he can’t break it, then you want him to invoke something that is sacred to him! NOT YOU!

By forcing him to swear on something that’s only sacred to you and not to him you take away the meaning of this little ‘extra’ that an oath has over a promise.

If you want your senators and representatives to swear, you want to make sure that breaking their promise desecrates what they hold holy, not something you consider sacred. By forcing him to swear on your holy books, you actually give him an incentive to break his promise, especially if he finds your holy book offensive!

So, from a pure logical point of view it’s absolute insanity to even consider a law that requires people to swear on a specific holy book.

But then, logic usually involves some thinking, and thinking is exactly what the religious right seeks to ban from society, so I have little hope, that people like Dennis and Donald will ever understand the mindboggling stupidity of their misguided activism.

It’s precisely this fear of thinking and logic that makes people like Dennis come up with drivel like

“America, Not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on”

and has Donald blindly repeat the idiocy on his website.

 

Note 1) In all practicallity, to me personally, there is no difference. If someone doesn’t think my promise is good enough, then I don’t see how my swearing on my late mother would make a difference. The only way it could make a difference is if my promise wasn’t fully “meant”, but that’s not how I personally ‘promise’! But apparently, for other people, swearing on, for example, what they perceive as a holy book, does make a difference (makes me wonder how I should rate such a person’s simple promise, but that’s a different discussion).

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