Democrat Kyrsten Sinema was sworn into Congress on Monday, but she didn't need the so called 'Holy Bible' to complete that process. Instead, she took her oath with her hand upon the United States Constitution -- and to be honest, this is something that all politicians should do. The Constitution is what this country and its laws were founded upon, not religion and certainly not the Christian religion. So this congresswoman deserves mad kudos for doing what's right.
It seems rather hypocritical to have a separation of church and state, only to put your hand on the Bible in official government settings for oaths and the like. Rational thinkers and those who respect the U.S. Constitution are together in that taking oaths on religious material for governmental purposes is not only a bit tacky, but it's just not fundamentally "right."
Sources report that Kyrsten Sinema isn't an open and out atheist, but "many believe" she is. She is known to quote that all Americans deserve freedom "of and from religion" -- a motto often used by atheists and agnostics as well as those in alternative religions.
Well good for her for standing up for what's right, and hopefully others follow suit. Of course those on the Christian right will have something negative to say about it, but who cares?
Photo: MSN
Chelsea Hoffman is a candidly opinionated crime analyst with a lifelong interest in criminology and activism. She also owns 'Girl Nerdology' and is the author of several fiction stories. Follow her on Twitter @TheRealChelseaH or email her privately through Chelsea Hoffman: Case to Case.
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Comments: 96 ( 1 removed by Chelsea Hoffman )
Once when testifying at a trial I declined to use the Bible and instead used a book of the writings of Baha'u'llah, the founder of my faith, instead. No problem.
Swearing on the US constitution when taking an oath for an elected post in the US government is a sensible option. Taking an oath with your hand over your heart would be just as meaningful. Whatever.
But if someone is not a Christian or is not an observant Christian then their use of the Bible while swearing an oath would not fill me with confidence in their reliability. Quite the contrary, if they were willing to pretend fealty to a faith they felt no allegiance to I would be suspect of their honesty.
This would include most of the Christian Right who violate Jesus' teachings constantly with their political outlook.
My thought is when there is so many cockroaches in one place you have to fumigate. I just wish we could vote them out, but the vote is a joke.
Politicians are human beings and are called upon to make public statements on controversial matters very often, statements upon which their jobs and career advancement may depend. This means the stakes are high and someone is paying attention. So lying becomes somewhat more likely and also more likely to be exposed.
Politicians are also buffeted by many strong forces. They have a constituency that is never homogenous in its views, that often is contentious and passionate about their differences, that have expectations that usually are unrealistic (in part because the politicians themselves make unrealistic promises). They are subjected to the intense glare of the modern media which takes the concept of "informing the public" past the point of diminishing returns.
But all of that aside, I don't think that politicians are by nature more prone to lying than the average joe. They are just humans who have a propensity to lie and are somewhat more tempted to do so than the average joe by the circumstances of their role.
I am not advocating that we adopt a tendency to trust politicians with knee-jerk reflex. But I am saying that to distrust them with knee-jerk reflex is probably equally unproductive.
Name one honest one.
Name one honest non-politician.
Then give me your definition of honest.
Mark, your ears and eyes may be open, but they are filtered, that is for sure.
Rory, you are just too perfect.
It's not my responsibility to lower the reading comprehension standards of my posts. If you can't properly read something without making wildly inaccurate assumptions based off nothing at all, then you obviously wouldn't be able to grasp any other explanation I dumb down.
You started the post with the optimistic view that a bigoted anti-religious rant would carry the day as "logical" and righteous. You clearly forgot that individual values are important, and that people (even newly-elected members of Congress) have the right to commit themselves to public service based on their own values. We have, instead, from you, a demagogic rant against anyone whose beliefs aren't a duplicate of your own. You've been instructed, wisely, in the comments that your views are not only insular but (and I'll emphasize it here) anti-American. Your views represent an ignorant and isolated splinter of American society who doesn't properly understand the founding principles of the country (which explicitly provided for diversity of opinion and religious preference) and feel, inappropriately, that the country should be shaped to their own armchair conception.
Scroll up and pay more attention.
Cheap theatrics. I sent you a personal message expressing my disgust at you childishness. Don't know you, but I certainly don't respect you.
The admonition is repeated in the Epistle of St. James.
The command of Jesus is, "let your yea be yea, and your nay be nay".
Good advice.
Which of course brings us back to the subject at hand. Using the name of God, or just God, can hardly be considered swearing, since swearing requires an oath. I am expressing a wish (highly elliptical in this case) that some portion of the experience I am relating (here, being told what Real Men do or do not do) is so wretched that God has damned, or is sure to damn, it. The art of swearing has declined greatly in the past hundred years or so; when I was growing up reading adventure books (well over a hundred years ago, judging from the books I read) the phrase "to swear like a sailor" indicated oaths so obscene and yet so heroic in stature that I could not wait to read them, try them out and hear their peroration in my reedy preadolescent voice. But when I joined the Navy, I found that the art of swearing had shriveled up like a salted snail, foaming and twitching into nothingness. 99.63% of all swearing which I heard involved the use of the same four letter word beginning with an unvoiced labiodental fricative. (It is perhaps interesting to note that this word, and the word "fricative", share the same Teutonic root.)
Swearing is a way of requesting God (or the gods, since the practice long predates even Abraham) to witness and marvel at the vehemence of the speaker, but also to bestow instantaneous acceptance (or rejection) of what that speaker is saying, and the fact that God has been pretty lax in punishing those who swear falsely is probably a major contributor to the decline of the practice. I recall a fellow by the name of Nixon, I think it was, who swore to do certain things, very similar to what I swore to do as one of his underlings (he being at the time my Commander-in-Chief) and which he neglected to do, refused to do, or was just incapable of doing, such as supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. He was not struck dead on the spot by a vengeful God whose name he had taken in vain, more's the pity. Actually I don't believe that God is mentioned in this oath; we assume that through sympathetic magic, placing our hand on one of God's books will have the same effect. But I still believe that swearing in officials and other such functionaries is a good idea (as is swearing at them). If it makes them stop and think just for an instant, at least they will have had one thought at some point during their tenure.
They do?
fricative from Latin fricāre to rub
the other f word, from farcere to stuff.
Interestingly to me at any rate because I have a sub arachnoid infarction, the medical term infarction comes from the same latin root. So when doctors say you have a myocardial infarction its just a fancy way of letting you know you're f***ed.
The large number of mistakes and memory lapses of the past two weeks have me worried; I am hoping that they are the result of stress and a cold I can't shake; the best alternative explanation is probably some sort of dementia, and since I'm only 63, that's probably the Big A. At least, with Alzheimer's, you meet so many new people.
So, let's have some understanding: it's everyone's choice to clarify their statements, or to acknowledge that they mean what they appear to mean, or to respond to the other's points meaningfully. Tell me what you think I got wrong, Rory, and I will respond.
It's also a choice, of course, to pretend to have been misunderstood without being willing to explain in what way, and to make disparaging (if quite entertaining) comments about the dissenting commenters' reading comprehension instead. Fake quotes are an option, too. Who has done which of these things is a matter of record here (unless Chelsea starts deleting, of course).
Chelsea said:. "..taking oaths on religious material for governmental purposes is not only a bit tacky, but it's just not fundamentally "right." "
You paraphrased that above as: "...she says the choice to use a religious text is "fundamentally wrong". "
The difference between the two is subtle but meaningful. Not fundamentally right could be taken as a neutral statement, indicating that this is not the morally sanctioned and correct thing to do. Fundamentally wrong crosses the line into clear judgement, saying it is actively bad or evil.
You took all possible ambivalence out of her statement and decided to put meaning into it that she may or may not have intended.
Thanks
P.s. Why should I waste my time explaining myself to people who can't tell the difference between "fundamentally right" and "personally right" ??
Representative Sinema's courageous decision to break with a tradition that's not personally meaningful to her is an excellent opportunity to affirm and celebrate choice and religious pluralism in our democratic society. A post that fails to do that and instead suggests - with much rhetorical panache but without attempting to work through the argument - that those who make a different choice are in some way hypocritical in their observation of the Constitution is not only a bit tacky, but it's just not fundamentally "right."
(Oh my, an anti-christian fundamentalist ; )
In your effort to post a sarcastic comment meant to denigrate the author of this article (Chelsea Hoffman) you have actually posted a comment which is in reality, an oxymoron. Inasmuch as the terms "Anti Christain and Fundamentalist" are opposits in their individual meanings, yet you have used them together with one (fundamentalist) being the extention of the other. (anti Christian).
1) Anti Christian is to be against the Christian faith, teachings and doctrine
Whereas:
2) Fundamentalist is a specific segment of the Evangelical Christian Faith
Fundamentalism is not restricted to Christianity alone, let alone Evangelicals. For example, Islamicists are Islamic fundamentalists. But even outside of religious orders, sects or beliefs systems fundamentalism exists. For example, Richard Dawkins is an atheist fundamentalist.
I would say anyone who categorically states that God does not exist or that all religion is false is an atheist fundamentalist.
Atheists can no more know that God does not exist than theists or deists can know God does exist. If one is truly a "free thinker" and not a fundamentalist then one relies on science. Science has provided no evidence to support either of the following statements:
1) God exists.
2) God does not exist.
Science is silent on the matter.
/ˌfəndəˈmentlˌizəm/
Noun
A form of Protestant Christianity that upholds belief in the strict and literal interpretation of the Bible.
Strict maintenance of ancient or fundamental doctrines of any religion or ideology, notably Islam.
There are no "fundamentals" of atheism for one to be a fundamentalist. Atheists are all over the board. We all are. Atheist fundamentalism doesn't make sense.
Unless the "fundamental" is the rejection of deities. That would be the only fundamental. And atheists reject deities. So meh?
"Science is silent on the matter"
On the contrary, "science" has done its fair share of systematically eliminating once-arcane theories since the dawn of mankind. While "science" (referring to it as an entity feels weird) hasn't come out and entirely disproved a deity it has disproved many of the claims and elements supporting the belief of said deities. And while there will always be people who are ignorant of rational explanations for the unknown, the number of people who don't believe in mythology as fact is increasing with each year that goes by.
It's not about "disproving god" -- it's about educating the masses so they can disprove and dispel myths on their own.
Keep in mind that it was just a few centuries ago that we believed rats spontaneously materialized from wheat beyond other nonsensical claims made behind religious motives and lack of understanding of natural events. That concept was called abiogenesis.
Science has also proven that the world is not flat, that bats are mammals and not "birds." Science has proven that men and women have the same number of ribs. These are just some of the many different elements that were once believed as told in the bible and other religious teachings -- until "science" came and debunked it.
There comes a time after 2,000 years of medical and scientific advancements with medicine and myth after myth after myth debunked by logic, science and archaelogy, that it's not about "science being silent" one way or the other -- about the main question "does god exist?" -- after 2,000 years of debunking nearly every element used to try to convince people that these deities exist, it doesn't really matter. Enough has already been shown to debunk the existence of deities than has been done for those who worship these deities to prove their existences. And the burden of proof is on the believers in the first place, but they lag behind all that science in its many forms has already proven/accomplished.
So no, science hasn't necessarily been silent on the matter. There is just a chunk of the world population who refuses to listen/hear it.
I understand your challenge to my statement, however, I was responding to the usage of the word "Fundamentalist" in the context of the Christian religion as it was being applied by JK in his comment, not in the broad sense of the words varied meanings.
2. the beliefs held by those in this movement.
3. strict adherence to any set of basic ideas or principles: the fundamentalism of the extreme conservatives.
Emphasis mine.
Science cannot prove one thing by disproving another. We do not support a theory by disproving a rival theory. Rather we have to actually find evidence that supports the theory itself.
I neither dispute nor was unaware of the scientific evidence disproving all the myths you refer to, but I do not attribute to any of those the status of "disproving the existence of God".
I am no less committed to scientific method and evidence than you are, but you do the principles there of no credit by trying to represent them as proving something that you happen to agree with in the absence of actual evidence that they do.
In fact, that is exactly what Creationists do by trying to use pseudo science to "prove" their narrow, literalist interpretation of the Bible. Granted, you are not straying so far afield as they are, but it is the same principle. You are still jumping to an unsupported conclusion.
Science has proven that many of the stories in the Bible cannot be literally true. That is in no way the same things a proving there is no God.
While the word "fundamentalist" was coined to describe a Christian movement opposed to "modernism", and it is usually capitalized in that sense, it has also been used (with a lowercase f) for half a century to refer to those who stress a strict and literal adherence to a set of narrowly understood principles in other religions and ideological stances. Examples with just about any religion, philosophy, ideology, or political affiliation abound. That is how language works (except to fundamentalists of any stripes, of course). (Here's Merriam-Webster's entry.)
Atheism, defined as "the absence of belief in deities", cannot be fundamentalist - but that requires a true "passive" or weak definition of "atheism" - not a positive belief no deity exists, and no other content on the matter. Members of atheist organizations, clubs, etc, do have a set of positive beliefs about the nature of the world, history, religion, etc, that then go on to define these organizations' culture. Purists/fundamentalists have been observed yelling at and excluding "heretics" - the not good enough atheists - in atheist groups. Humans are, surprisingly, human.
Science cannot "prove" or "disprove" the existence of deities or miracles or further realities. Its realm is restricted to that which is measurable, quantifiable, and repeatable within this universe. It could provide good evidence, for example, that the material that makes up the Shroud of Turin is from the middle ages. It cannot prove (as a matter of basic logic) that God doesn't exist or that Jesus didn't resurrect from the dead.
I think zombies have been all but debunked.
I think zombies have been all but debunked.
I thought so too, until I read about "bath salts"! ;-)
There is nothing fresh and brilliant about the belief that a 2,000 year old man died then reanimated his dead flesh in three days to make a grand gesture of cleansing the so called sins of mankind. Enough people have tried to recreate the reanimation of dead flesh during the course of our species' existence to no success, so it's highly unlikely that some dude managed to pull it off in an era when people thought the earth was flat and that bats were "birds". 0_x
Unless of course someone managed to connect electrodes to Jesus's brain to stimulate his nervous system post-mortem, of course.
Maybe aliens?
lolz
Unfortunately people taking it literally did diminish the message and expose it to the whole question of scientific "disproof".
Well, I mean... when a book makes such grandiose claims whattaya want? :P
It would be interesting to hear what "scientific disproof" is proposed, by the way. What experiment can be designed to accomplish this goal? Stone-age people knew that dead men don't get up and walk again - this is hardly a modern scientific insight. If people hadn't known that in Jesus's day, the story of the resurrection would hardly have gotten much attention.
Nothing of substance is added to a baseline skepticism by the fact that "resurrection stories" exist in pre-Christian belief systems. Of course they do: all human stories repeat themselves throughout human culture. But the similarities between those "resurrection stories" and Jesus's story as told in the gospels are minor and superficial (the word parallelomania has been coined for just such "theories"), and the the majority of scholars (Christians and otherwise) reject them for strong historical reasons.
There is, in addition, no dualistic opposition between a story having happened for real and an "allegorical nature". Allegory emerges in human minds contemplating a story, and its raw material can be any kind of narrative. And the very message of redemption you refer to, Rory, denies the duality: it's broad, wide, spreads out, and is shared by the two views you contrast.
as for allegorical v literal meanings -- if the followers of this and other nutty religions/cults didn't treat their scripture as if it was fundamental and literal, there wouldn't be any reason to argue whether or not the bible or any other scripture for that matter is literal or allegorical. The fact of the matter is that the bible (among other so called holy books) give actual commands to their readers, their followers, their sheep -- telling them how to live, how to behave, how to think, how to treat others -- right down to the instructions on "how to sell your daughter" (huh, wonder if that Lisa Biron woman used this part of the bible to justify what she did to her daughter. Google her.)
So when you have one book making actual claims against science fact (i.e. flat earth, rabbits chewing cud, women being made from a man's rib, talking snakes, talking donkeys. The book is a bloody disney fairy tale and all it's missing is a princess singing in the forest. And a huge, staggering number of people believe this book word-for-word -- so arguing that it MAY have allegorical meaning as opposed to literal is a moot point when we can thank Christianity and other religions for such REAL LIFE tragedies as:
The crusades
The Spanish Inquisition
The thousands of pagans who were slain up to the 6th century for simply being pagan
The execution of thousands of women and CHILDREN by emperor theodosius
The england witch burnings
the salem whitch burnings
The holocaust
The decimation of indigenous people all in the name of "missionary work."
How about the Massacre at Sand Creek? Yeah, they sure only took their bibles in the allegorical sense.. (/sarcasm).
So is it allegorical when the Bible commands the murders of people, including normal innocents like homosexuals, children, people who simply don't believe in god? No, it's not -- because far too many of the followers don't use it in the allegorical sense. It has been followed literally for thousands of years. So, no, I will not buy into the idea that any scientific claims made in the bible were done so as a metaphor.
(It was of course not "some dude" that was supposed to have pulled it off, but the same one that brought the universe into existence. The resurrection seems like an easy project within that context.)
Oh well that doesn't make them look slow in the head at all, does it? That makes it totally diff. In the end of the day, the only final thing that can be said by someone who believes in this nonsense is "well, he was god so that's why." lolz
"Evolution/natural selection/etc are some of the first concepts covered in *basic* biology. Life origin theories are heavily covered in the first chapters of many entry-level college biology books."
So what? Why "treat their scripture as if it was fundamental and literal", when you must realize those things are written by people? Not all-knowing gods, just people, who might act as though what they once learned out of such writings themselves was written by gods of some sort, but that just proves they are gullible (or dishonest), as far as I'm concerned.
Those who don't understand the limitations of science, might fall for the idea that biologists actually know that nothing but "evolution by natural selection" has gone on here, but in reality-land, they can't even know in any scientific sense that it happened at all, even once.
By definition there is no way to actually observe "evolution by natural selection" (as Mr. Darwin himself understood and spoke of), it can only be imagined. Being able to imagine things cannot be rightly considered scientific proof they happened, as though the mind of a biologist has been transformed into a truth telling magic crystal ball, by going to school for a few years. That idea is purely hokum, but it obviously does get the "evolutionist" more money and fame, to forget to explain that they are really just imagining things, and calling them scientific facts . .
IMO, The swearing of any oath is subject to one's honesty, ethical standards and personal morality. No book ever published upon which an oath is taken, is going to assure that a person will abide by that which is being sworn to.
Religious individuals, regardless of which religion they follow, may hestitate to lie under the oath of their religion. But, when it comes to self preservation, they will lie under oath, the same as a non religious person will lie under oath. We are human, and therefore we have many ingrained fallacies, the act of lying being but one. Religion may cause a person consternation and feelings of guilt, but will not keep that person from lying. According, those who hold a religion have singular claim to guilty feelings, inasmuch as all moral humans have a mental conscious as a mentor for their actions.
If choosing a certain book, written material or nothing at all, makes a person more at ease, then that's fine with me. However, I am and always have been opposed to the Christian Bible being the official book by which a person is expected to pledge an oath.
If, for the sake of argument, one ask whether or not the U.S. Constitution is a document of fiction, the answer would be resoundingly be "NO," it is a document of truth in writing which can be validated and therefore, it is non fiction. But, if one would ask the same question of the Christian Bible, the answers would be varied, depending upon who is asked the question. Therefore, when using logical reasoning, which document would it be more appropriate to require an oath to be taken upon, a book which may or may not be fiction or a document which is known to be non fiction. The same comparison can be made of most written material. As such, and IMO, a person should not be required to give an oath using any specificate document, but, by simply swearing the wording of the oath and nothing more.
I'll be waiting for the Christian shoe to fall.
The point of swearing on the Bible had less to do with the question of whether the Bible was truth or fiction, and more to do with how the person swearing sees the Bible. If the party swearing believes the Bible to be the word of God, and believes that her/his immortal soul hangs in the balance should he/she lie while equating her/his own word with the word of God, then that person may be far less likely to lie. In theory, at least.
At a time when most folks in our society were, at least nominally, Christian, this made at least some sense. Probably the most effect it had was whether the judge or jury were more inclined to believe the person's word when a Biblical oath was sworn. That also likely depended on how devout the individual was perceived to be by their community.
If someone's word is not to be trusted, however, then why would you trust their oath.
(As to the Bible being fiction or truth, I would say rather that it is myth conveying truth. By myth I don't mean it is untrue, but rather that the stories in the Bible were never intended to be taken literally, but rather were illustrative of deeper truths. Many Christians have a hard time seeing this, taking umbrage at the use of the word myth. But myths are powerful things and vastly under appreciated today. We have no trouble understanding that Aesop's fables are not true stories but there is real wisdom and good morals behind them. This is the perspective from which the Bible makes the most sense. Obviously, in my humble opinion.)
As usual, we agree on the basis of what either's opinion suggest.
"By myth I don't mean it is untrue, but rather that the stories in the Bible were never intended to be taken literally . . "
I see absolutely nothing in that Book which indicates that. You may believe it, but please think about what you said above;
"I am no less committed to scientific method and evidence than you are, but you do the principles there of no credit by trying to represent them as proving something that you happen to agree with in the absence of actual evidence that they do."
I once thought of the Book much as you do, but I never thought or asserted that it could not be what it claims to be, as though my beliefs were somehow proof that a Creator God does not exist, which if true, would naturally make the stories in the Book potentially true too.
There is no rational way to speak of this or that "miraculous" occurrence as being impossible within a universe such a God Created. To say that something like the virgin birth, or fire that does not consume a burning bush is impossible, or the Creation of this or that form of living thing, makes no sense within that hypothetical potential circumstance. Gods, by definition, can do things that seem impossible to us . . So to say that "miraculous" things couldn't possibly have happened, is essentially the same as saying there is no real God, logically speaking. If there is, then "miraculous" things are possible, obviously.
So, as a student of science and logic, and other philosophies and such, I could not be consistent and rule out the potential that the Book was genuine, without excluding the potential that a real God existed. It didn't really matter that I figured one didn't exist, I knew there was no way to prove there wasn't, so I had to leave the potential that some writing that claimed to be a communication from God, actually was. Not a big potential, to my mind, but still possible. Something like Aesop's Fables is not in that class, they were obviously meant to be seen as "fictional" devices. The Book is certainly not obviously a "myth" therefor, in that same sense. (Though some things in it are, obviously often openly, meant to be seen as "fictional " devises)
This use of the word myth, I do not take "umbrage" to;
*I think the Bible is a book of myths*
This I do, and would have twenty years ago when that same declaration could have been truthfully made by me;
*The Bible is a book of myths*
There were a few other "sacred texts" in that sort of special class, and even now I can't rule some out completely, because though I am now very convinced there is a God, I am also even more convinced that His Mind, is not my mind ; )
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
I believe In God, but I also believe that the truth in the Bible is allegorical truth, not literal truth. To me it is far more meaningful and relevant as such than it would be as literal truth.
The laws of the physical universe being, after all, God's laws, are not something I see Him violating. I also think it far, far more likely that what has changed since Biblical times to today is not God but mankind. In other words, He did not go about performing miracles that violated His own natural laws in olden days and then simply foreswore doing so.
"The laws of the physical universe being, after all, God's laws, are not something I see Him violating."
We just call them laws, He doesn't, Rory. They are laws in a mathematical.computational sense, there is no implication that objects are obeying any decrees or rules . . just that we are, when we calculate stuff according to what we understand of physics. We can't just make true "laws" that He is in any sense bound by, simply by naming our working computational rules 'laws'. Those so called laws change for goodness sake, as our investigation of the joint goes further . .
I would prefer that politicians sign a contract with specific codes of conduct that would immediately terminate their employment and public trust if they violate the terms.
I would prefer that politicians sign a contract with specific codes of conduct that would immediately terminate their employment and public trust if they violate the terms.
Not a bad suggestion, as far as a politicians conduct in office is concerned. However, it is non practical in being applied to actions by a politician in office. Inasmuch as elected officials become responsible for the majority of the local, state or nation (depending on seat of office) once they take office. Therefore, what might be the right thing for the constituents who elected the politician to office, may not be the right approach or answer for the majority of those the politician actually represents after assuming office.