[tescocles]

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.

[noirscape]

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.)

[rbanffy]

When I graduated as an Engineer, I swore an oath. I still remember one value that gets tested from time to time is to remember my work is for the betterment of the human condition, not only the perfection of machines. This has guided me through some difficult choices.

[FredPret]

Maybe we engineers should swear on a stack of Star Trek DVD's

[rbanffy]

That's one future I work for.

[TheNewsIsHere]

It made me really happy to hear that. Thank you.

I’ve been told plenty of times that such a future is implausible. And I grant that our future may look a lot more like The Orville than Star Trek. But from an engineering, public health, and social perspective it seems that both of those visions have more similarities than differences. I accept that the individual work most of us do don’t directly build that future alone, but someone up-thread was quoting “E Pluribus Unum” and that’s how we get there.

(Auto-correct wished that to be “E Pluribus Ubuntu,” but I’ve always suspected LCARS is a lot more like BSD, Arch or Gentoo.)

[rbanffy]

And so what that it's implausible and quite possible unattainable as well? We may never get there, but getting there was never the point - the point is to be better than we were yesterday, and the day before, and so on.

Our present is equally implausible.

[HTTP418]

I always assumed we would hit some big filter and die off. If not a filter maybe something in the dark forest would get us

[ChrisMarshallNY]

It would be nice if all schools did this, but I suspect that doing so, would render the oath almost meaningless.

[criddell]

It's pretty common and the Engineer's I've worked with take it pretty seriously.

https://www.nspe.org/resources/pe-magazine/july-2009/called-....

There's also a code of ethics:

https://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics/engineers-...

Sadly, most software engineers aren't licensed professional engineers.

[miah_]

Either that, or we wouldn't be living in the ethical and morally absent world we live in today.

[gowld]

The point is that the oath is for the benefit of the oathtaker, so extra useless oaths don't hurt.

[jpm_sd]

What school did you graduate from? This is great.

[bryanlarsen]

Canadian engineering schools do a ceremony and oath designed by Rudyard Kipling. It has some serious gravitas and leaves a real impression on young minds.

The Kipling oath isn't phrased that way so it probably wasn't a Canadian school, but it does have a similar intent.

[roter]

Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual_of_the_Calling_of_an_En...

[brenainn]

They get cool rings as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring

I'm not Canadian, but I took some engineering classes and these oaths and rings were brought up when discussing ethics. Funnily enough we were told they were forged from the material of a collapsed bridge as a reminder to not build shitty bridges, but according to the article that's a myth.

[rbanffy]

Before moving to Ireland, Canada was our #1 option. I started some research on what would I need to have my Brazilian degree validated so I could take the oath and be accepted into the EIC.

[rbanffy]

It's called FEI, which translates to College of Industrial Engineering. It's in Brazil, on a (mostly industrial, and uncannily rainy) city called São Bernardo do Campo.

[masfuerte]

I think there's another reason. It's a public line in the sand. If you're a doctor or a chartered engineer and management is pushing you to do something unethical you can point to the oath and say we don't do that. Other people will take it more seriously than an ethical stance that appears to be a mere personal preference. It's not just about the oath taker.

[Wowfunhappy]

As an atheist, I think it would be interesting to see the experiment repeated with a group of (self-described) religious people.

[MarkPNeyer]

I can believe that being reminded of your convictions helps you abide by them, but this is only true if you really have convictions! If you think your being in power is more important than being honest, for example, then the oath your swear might just be one more example of saying the right thing to get into power.

[mensetmanusman]

Sounds like a study that wouldn’t replicate.

[hajile]

That's a huge conclusion about personalities from a selection of just 30 people.

What happens when you start crossing religious, educational, economic, and cultural boundaries? There's absolutely no way to cover those things with fewer than a few thousand people.

[JohnFen]

Is it really being reminded, or is it the public declaration of the oath and your acceptance of it that makes it effective?

It's much like reciting wedding vows. You are making a very public promise, with a real threat of social ostracization if you break it.

[highwaylights]

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.

[tescocles]

I mean, yes, it is a very impactful book; I enjoyed it very much.

What I'm meaning, though, is that if you were to go against your duty as the head of NASA, Carl Sagan isn't going to rise from the grave and smite you for your transgression. Whereas I believe that is exactly the point of swearing over a bible.

I'm not meaning to say it's meaningless to swear over an important book (or that it doesn't make some kind of point), rather that an important element of what it means to swear over a religious text is lost. The whole point of rationalism is that the universe isn't sentient and won't and cannot judge your actions.

An oath is a promise to someone that you will act for the greater good, and you do so with your hand over a representation of who will witness and judge you for that.

I don't really know if I'm trying to say anything in particular. It's just some thoughts I had when reading.

[autoexec]

> if you were to go against your duty as the head of NASA, Carl Sagan isn't going to rise from the grave and smite you for your transgression.

It's like swearing something 'on your mother's grave'. That's not something done because zombie mothers will rise up to enforce anything. It's supposed to signify that you hold great reverence for your mother and that your conviction is as strong as that respect. Swearing on the grave of your mother and lying would be dishonoring her and betraying the reverence you supposedly held. Swearing on Carl Sagan's book is expressing that the new director has great respect for Sagan (or at least that particular work) and that she'll treat her oath with the same level of respect. I think it's pretty appropriate given the role.

[MarkPNeyer]

> That's not something done because zombie mothers will rise up to enforce anything.

This was done in cultures where people really believed their deceased ancestors were watching them and judging their every move, and that in the future they’d either see their ancestors in paradise, or they wouldn’t.

We just kept doing it long after those beliefs became uncool, like a lot of other vestiges of our religious past.

[solarkraft]

I wouldn't mind Carl Sagan judging my every move. Maybe I'll imagine this from now on.

[zrail]

She

[autoexec]

Corrected! thanks!

[nonethewiser]

That’s awfully presumptuous, don’t you think?

[nonethewiser]

> It's like swearing something 'on your mother's grave'.

But they don’t swear people in over their mothers grave. If they did I hope everyone would agree that it’s meaningless, unless that person actually believed in some power of his dead mother.

[klodolph]

People definitely do not agree with what you’re saying. Not everyone thinks that swearing an oath on something is only meaningful if that thing has some kind of power.

[ToValueFunfetti]

To elaborate on this, if I swear on my mother's grave, I'm pinning my respect for the oath to my respect for my dead mother. If I violate the oath, I'm also violating something I consider sacred. My mother never has to find out for me to feel the consequences.

Probably this doesn't work on everybody. Even if it only works on 5%, it's essentially free so why not?

[gowld]

I could give you my word as a Spaniard?

[jen729w]

> you do so with your hand over a representation of who will witness and judge you for that

The premise is flawed.

I don’t believe that there is any being who ‘will witness and judge me’.

That is, other than my peers. Who are not supernatural. My using a Sagan book is therefore nothing more than symbolism: here’s who I am. Here’s what I represent. If you see this and think, ‘hell yeah!’, then you are in the cohort whose approval I seek; you are one of those to whom I give my promise to do right.

But I know it’s only symbolism. Nothing actually happens. Whereas those who solemnly swear on the bible believe that they will literally be judged by god and sent to heaven or hell as a result.

[MarkPNeyer]

For some reason this seems really hard for people to accept: That religious people actually think there are consequences for their choices, even if no human being ever knows.

[CydeWeys]

The thing about religious people is, even if they lose their religion, they don't suddenly start committing all the wanton acts that when they were religious they insisted they only didn't do because fear of God was holding them back.

Swearing an oath is similar. You're not more or less trustworthy simply for being religious; it's just that, it you're religious, you think you are (but actually it's just based on internal factors of who you actually are and how you behave).

[klodolph]

I’m an atheist, and I believe that there are consequences to my choices, even if no human ever knows. Maybe I don’t understand what you are trying to say.

[kiba]

There's always consequences for your action, regardless of anyone's watching you.

[gowld]

"Religious" people love using that to trick religious people.

[WJW]

God is not going to smite you for oath-breaking either though. What matters is that you keep your promise to (in this case) society, not whether you swear it on any book in particular. If the law requires the promise to be sworn over a book because the lawmakers at the time were religionists, you might as well choose a book you think represents your values.

[rob74]

Well no, God apparently hasn't done that since the Old Testament, but some Christians certainly do believe that breaking an oath you swore on the Bible will have certain repercussions for you in the afterlife...

[WJW]

And apparently the new NASA director is not a Christian, so what that group believes is not so relevant to this discussion.

[nonethewiser]

I don’t think you’re following the argument, which is that swearing an oath over something like Sagans book doesn’t mean as much because the person making the oath doesn’t believe Sagan will hold them accountable.

[drummojg]

What I keep thinking of following this is from Matthew 5:

> Again, you have heard that it was said to the ancients, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill your vows to the Lord.’ 34But I tell you not to swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35or by the earth, for it is His footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King...

Implying that even in a religious context, one might swear on "one's mother's grave"in the metaphorical sense. So then I think there must be a natural and historical reverence to oaths in general, which sends my mind down more Neil Gaiman-ish paths. I would bet that the significance of an Oath is older than every extant religion.

[nonethewiser]

The point is there is a belief in a consequence for lying to God. Whether or not there is an actual consequence is irrelevant.

Furthermore, you can’t prove what happens after you die. I mean you may very well be right, but it’s just your personal belief.

[SigmundA]

Based on my interpretation of the Pale Blue Dot someone swearing to it would most likely be trying to convey a belief in consequences that occur regardless of the existence of a supreme being.

That is a belief in personal responsibility not motivated by fear of punishment by a supreme being.

This quote from Sagan convey's that meaning among others IMO:

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Also see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_o...

Where fear of gods punishement would be at the lowest level.

[Beltiras]

I have way more faith in the oath made to a real principle than a made up one. I haven't read the book in question but am familiar with the picture with the same name and Sagan's works. Someone that chooses to make an oath to something that is essentially meaningless except for itself is in my opinion way less likely to break that oath.

[MarkPNeyer]

Can you give an example of a principle that isn’t made up?

[Beltiras]

I suppose that's an inaccurate choice of words. I meant to juxtapose something meaningful to someone in stead of the Skygod that the Christians pretend to worship on Sundays.

[docandrew]

Please don’t denigrate others’ faith here.

[konschubert]

If you don't believe in God, there is no difference between the Bible and any other book. You then choose whatever you value.

[nonethewiser]

But do believe that the book you value will hold you accountable for breaking the oath?

That’s the point - that a non religious oath is emptier gesture because you don’t expect the thing you’re swearing on to hold you accountable.

The point is not that she shouldn’t be able to swear on Sagans book. Or that it doesn’t have meaning to her. Just that there are inherently religious roots to these oaths and when you remove them the oath makes less sense.

[gowld]

Antithesis: Turning it around, one could say that religious people are demonstrably either delusional or frauds, so their oaths mean nothing.

Synthesis: Oaths mean nothing to anyone but the oathtaker, and you can't magically wish someone into an unbreakable bond.

[jenadine]

I believe religious people are delusional. But from that one cannot conclude that their oauths means nothing, quite the contrary.

[PeterisP]

To a non-believer swearing on Sagan's book has exactly the same "accountability" as swearing on a Bible (i.e. none of these books will hold you accountable in any way whatsoever), so the non-religious oath is exactly as meaningful as swearing on a Bible; it's not an emptier gesture, it's the same.

[klodolph]

This is obviously incorrect. It sounds like you are assuming that the ONLY significance of swearing on a bible is that you believe that God will punish you? Well, that’s wrong, the ritual has other significance.

[JohnFen]

> that a non religious oath is emptier gesture because you don’t expect the thing you’re swearing on to hold you accountable.

If you're of the mindset that the value of an oath is that an external force will hold you accountable to it, then I think the nonreligious oath is a more powerful one, because the people you're making the oath to will hold you accountable in the here and now, not some ephemeral being at some point after you die.

[CydeWeys]

> What I'm meaning, though, is that if you were to go against your duty as the head of NASA, Carl Sagan isn't going to rise from the grave and smite you for your transgression. Whereas I believe that is exactly the point of swearing over a bible.

Oh come on, god doesn't smite people anymore. He doesn't smite anyone except in the text of an old book. Religious people now swearing on the Bible are not seriously fearful of God personally smiting them should they break their oath.

[em-bee]

what got me wondering is, how much the contents of the book is actually relevant. that is, i think it is, because it suggests that the person is promising to act according to the principles given in that book, at which point i want to ask how anyone else can accept a book whose contents they are not familiar with, or worse whose contents they would object to?

Carl Sagan isn't going to rise from the grave and smite you for your transgression. Whereas I believe that is exactly the point of swearing over a bible

that depends on what someone believes. for a believer in god, god may well judge that person for violating the goals or principles from carl sagan's book. or they may meet carl sagan in the afterlife and face his disappointment there.

again, the problem for me is not what the person swearing the oath believes, but what everyone else around believes about the gesture. and for them, if the document is not something that everyone is familiar with and supports, the gesture becomes meaningless.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

Meaningless enough to engage a global-level conversation about the meaning of it.

[em-bee]

well, in this case we can guess that carl sagan is meaningful to a larger than average subset of hackernews readers.

[xrd]

I feel like you just wrote the skeleton of a great sci-fi story...

[williamtrask]

What you're referring to is society's attempt to re-build itself based on rationality and individualism as a replacement to political and religious institutions. A canonical response to your point would be that we're seeking to build a society where the rational action would be for the head of NASA further the aims of NASA. This follows from an ideology set out by Ayn Rand. There are a collection of documentaries by Adam Curtis covering the arc of this philosophy: "All watched over by machines of loving grace." is probably the main one here, but "Century of the Self", and "Can't get you out of my head" are also very good.

Naturally, the problem with society's attempt to do this is that rationality is not sufficient for the head of NASA to not go against her duty as NASA's head. A utopia of radical individuals free from any ideology or institution hasn't (yet?) been realized. It's probably not a good idea, but it's the central dogma of silicon valley, the blockchain movement, the AGI movement (especially the sentience-heavy ones), much of the modern scientific community, and (as it happens) hacker news. So here we are.

Also, your logic holds that swearing on a Bible is — in the limit — more likely to lead to moral behavior than swearing on Carl Sagan's work. Nobody believes that Carl will punish wrongdoers (he might even reward them for being rational, or face questions on why he's pushing morality on others). However, people do believe that God punishes. So regardless of whether a deity exists, swearing on religious texts is more likely to alter behavior than on Sagan's.

[jacquesm]

> This follows from an ideology set out by Ayn Rand.

How does that follow? Ayn Rand did not create any ideology worth mentioning in this context.

[phonescreen_man]

I followed it, I read some of Ayn Rands books a long time ago and thought there was a lot of ideological thought that has context in this discussion. Individual responsibility vs crowd think - taking the oath on a Carl Sagan book rather than the Bible certainly seems to me an act of individual responsibility

[jacquesm]

Ayn Rand is at best a bad inspiration for people that are gullible and greedy, at worst a person that wrong footed the world about what the social contract is all about but didn't mind being the recipient of that very same social contract. She is nowhere near to Carl Sagan in influence, ethics or worldview and to see the two mentioned in one breath is sickening.

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

[Kung Fu Monkey -- Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]”

[nonethewiser]

But what does meaning have to do with it? Your marriage certificate and car title have meaning. But if the people being sworn in don’t view their documents as having some authority over their promise then what is the point? It’s equivalent to no document in that regard.

It really doesnt make much sense unless you’re using a Bible, Quran, etc.

Edit: Here is the crux:

God holds you accountable, or at least is believed to do so, by nature. Is the nature of the values symbolized in Dr. Seuss or Sagans book similar? Do those promising on them expect divine justice from the principles of science or fun word play with kids?

[pigsty]

A person who doesn’t believe in religion being sworn in on a religious book is probably just annoyed. They’re not going to feel loyal to it.

Sworn statements as a whole are just entirely symbolic and don’t really guarantee loyalty or honesty, but if someone who doesn’t believe rejects a religious text that they disbelieve and instead choose something that has meaning and value to them, it’s better in the symbolic sense. A scientist swearing in on a scientific text that’s meaningful to them and that also addresses human morality makes as much sense and symbolically reflects their devotion to their mission as a Bible to a devout Christian.

[seanhunter]

That's absurd.

If God exists then God holds you accountable for your actions whether you swear or not, whether you use a Bible, Carl Sagan, Dr Seuss or a copy of TCP/IP Illustrated by W Richard Stevens.

If God doesn't exist then it clearly doesn't matter what document you swear on at all, because the document is just a signal of values in that case.

Either way you are legally bound by the oath you have made and if you broke it the authorities would be able to enforce that against you to the extent enabled by law regardless of what document you use or indeed no document at all.

The document is (like the ceremony itself) just an artifact that is part of the ritual which is a public observance of a binding promise. In that context, choosing one that has personal meaning makes total sense, whether it is a religious text or something else.

[yetihehe]

People give meaning to things. Bible, Quran, etc have meaning only because people express that meaning.

> But if the people being sworn in don’t view their documents as having some authority over their promise then what is the point?

The point is that swearing on a "Pale blue dot" is exactly expression of submitting to authority of that book.

[mnw21cam]

> People give meaning to things. Bible, Quran, etc have meaning only because people express that meaning.

A fairly central part of the philosophy of quite a few religions is that there is a God who is quite capable of giving meaning to things independently of humans. Not everyone views these as "that's nice" documents. I mean, there's a bit in the Bible (1 Corinthians 15) that says that if the stuff in the Bible is actually true, then it's the most important thing in the world, but if it isn't, then there really isn't any point paying any attention to it at all.

[yetihehe]

> A fairly central part of the philosophy of quite a few religions is that there is a God who is quite capable of giving meaning to things independently of humans.

I think it's like that with all religions. I'd like to speak a little with that god about some meanings.

> Not everyone views these as "that's nice" documents.

You say that those people give a meaning to those documents?

Addendum:

What I mean is that when there is no people who express some meaning, it ceases to exist. If there appeared a god before me to give me a new meaning for something, I would accept it as given from god. But none did so far, ALL meanings are currently expressed by people as far as I know.

[mnw21cam]

Consider the statement "2 + 2 = 4". If there were no people to express what that meant, it would still be true and have meaning.

[nonethewiser]

People believe different things about the Bible. She me people think swearing on it is making a promise to God.

Does the person swearing on Sagans book think Sagan is going to hold them accountable to a broken promise?

[sokoloff]

I conclude that person thinks Sagan will hold them equally as accountable as God would if they’d chosen His book.

[yetihehe]

Yes, I think it's equivalent and Sagan will held them as accountable as your chosen god. For "the person", you can just ask directly.

[prawn]

They might be doing it intending that they will remember and endeavour to hold true to some message of the book.

[sokoloff]

Many people view those religious texts no differently than they do a book of secular fairy tales.

It’s not hard to imagine those people finding more meaning in ceremonially swearing over a Constitution, science text, or other important document.

[skissane]

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.

[seanhunter]

This oath vs affirmation distinction is made clear in the UK for sure. For example when I became a British citizen I was given the option of swearing allegiance to the queen or making a "solemn affirmation" of the same. The only difference being a slight difference of wording. Weirdly I still remember the wording even though it was more than 30 years ago and I only heard it once just before I said it.

   > I, Sean Hunter, do hereby swear by Almighty God/solemnly affirm that I wil bear faithful and true allegiance to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the second, her heirs and successors according to the law.

[skissane]

I became a British citizen too, and had to say the same thing. I honestly can't remember now if I swore or affirmed–I was just mumbling words because I wanted a piece of paper, which would enable me to acquire other pieces of paper, which would have allowed me to do things I never got around to actually doing. Indeed, maybe somewhat unusually, despite going to the effort of becoming a British citizen, I've never actually stepped foot in the UK (or Europe for that matter) – I said those words from the British Consulate in Sydney, Australia. Great view of Sydney Harbour in the background.

But it isn't just a British (or Commonwealth) thing, Americans have the exact same distinction, part of their British inheritance. Here's a quote from Article II, Section 1, of the US Constitution:

> Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

[solarkraft]

> Indeed, maybe somewhat unusually, despite going to the effort of becoming a British citizen, I've never actually stepped foot in the UK

That sounds funny. Doesn't this give you more disadvantages than advantages? I'm surprised it's even possible; in other countries you have to have lived there for around 7 years or so until you get citizenship.

[skissane]

> Doesn't this give you more disadvantages than advantages?

No real disadvantages. Being a British citizen means I can live and work in the UK if I want. As I said, I’ve never been there-but you never know what the future holds.

Pre-Brexit, it let me live and work anywhere in the EU-not that I ever did that either. But I thought about it. My brother actually did it for a bit.

Maybe one day Scotland will become independent, and I’ll trade my British citizenship for Scottish, and then Scotland will rejoin the EU and I’ll get my EU citizenship back. A man can dream.

One drawback, is as a dual Australian citizen, the Australian constitution says I’m not allowed to run for (federal) Parliament. I doubt I’m ever going into politics, but if I was, I’d legally have to renounce my UK citizenship before nominating as a (federal) candidate. By contrast, the UK doesn’t bar dual citizens from Parliament-in fact, it even lets Australians vote, and run for Parliament-and I mean sole Australian citizens, who aren’t UK dual citizens.

> I'm surprised it's even possible; in other countries you have to have lived there for around 7 years or so until you get citizenship.

Due to the UK’s colonial/imperial history, its citizenship laws are insanely complex-arguably more complicated than any other nation on earth’s-full of all kinds of obscure complex exceptions-I’m one of those. You see, my mother was born in Scotland. My younger siblings, they inherited UK citizenship from her at birth. However, I was born when the old (pre-1983) law was still in force, which said legitimate children could only inherit British citizenship from their father (whereas, illegitimate children could only inherit it from their mother.) Since I was legitimate, and it was my mother not my father who was the UK citizen - no UK citizenship for me. Until, in my 20s, they changed the law so people in my situation could apply for citizenship by registration. Registration is legally equivalent to naturalisation - the ceremony is the same, the legal consequences are almost identical - the difference is, no residency requirements. So that’s how I got to go to my UK citizenship ceremony without ever having stepped foot in the UK in my life

[seanhunter]

   >  By contrast, the UK doesn’t bar dual citizens from Parliament-in fact, it even lets Australians vote, and run for Parliament-and I mean sole Australian citizens, who aren’t UK dual citizens.

In fact we have had a prime minister (Boris Johnson) who had been a dual UK/US citizen although he renounced it when he became foreign secretary[1] and one (Rishi Sunak) who had a US green card but didn't go on to get citizenship[2].

[1] https://money.cnn.com/2017/02/09/news/boris-johnson-us-citiz...

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61044847

[eesmith]

"I, sovereign Lidia Thorpe, do solemnly and sincerely affirm and declare that I will be faithful and I bear true allegiance to the colonising Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the second ..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAJQ_K_CzCE

She was then required to follow the provided text. It's clear she didn't mean it.

Off-screen comment "None of us like it."

[altacc]

When I gained citizenship of a highly religious country I had to swear an oath with my hand on a cross, with silver Jesus attached. I asked if there was an atheist option and the the answer was basically "No, we have enough faith to know that God will punish you for lying."

[angelbar]

Great... no danger from being prosecuted for anything in that country... Jesus will take charge of that...

[altacc]

Well, it also happens to be an incredibly corrupt country with inadequate policing and government, so "let God deal with it" pretty much sums up the approach to everything.

[phonescreen_man]

And she’s buying a stairway to heaven…

[xupybd]

As someone who does believe in God, it seems odd to get someone to swear on a book that tells you not to swear an oath at all.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_5#Verse_12

[seabass-labrax]

Matthew 5:37 records that Jesus said something similar during his 'Sermon on the Mount' (which predates the Epistle of James): "All you need to say is simply “Yes,” or “No”; anything beyond this comes from the evil one."

I also read a 20th century book which made the interpretation that "thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" of the Ten Commandments is an instruction not to swear oaths on the Bible, since everyone is fallible and so can't guarantee them anyway. I can't remember off-hand which book it was though.

[angelbar]

mmm... has I remember you can... only not in vain...

[quitit]

This article by the New Yorker gets to the meat of your question within the first few paragraphs: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-brief-history-...

Since swearing in on a document has no official requirement, the idea is to telegraph your values.

[seanhunter]

Yes.

Fun fact about swearing on things: There is a widely-held but probably untrue belief that the origin of the words "testify", "testimony" etc was that in ancient Rome you swore an oath with one hand on your testicles, I guess the implication being "If I don't tell the truth you can cut these off". Women weren't allowed to give legal testimony so the fact they wouldn't be able to do this isn't a drawback to this theory. This is probably a myth because there's no written evidence of this particular form of oath being taken in Rome and the word for "witness" is "testis". "Testicle" actually derives from the diminutive of this word (rather than the other way around).[1]

The origin of this myth seems to be a biblical passage in which such an oath was taken.

[1] https://worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-swe1.htm

[Tams80]

Or, you know, it's just all symbolism.

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]

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:

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.

[mindslight]

It only "comes apart at the seams" for people that believe there is some ambient authority, which then becomes less powerful or disinterested due to not being involved with the oath.

The secular view is that the person swearing is pointing to a symbol and promising to uphold the values it represents, regardless of whether that symbol represents a traditional organized religion or not.

[azernik]

Though there is, as I commented there, in which the "on penalty of perjury" construction very closely mirrors the original religious structure, with punishment by the state taking the place of punishment by God or the gods. Interestingly, lots of states require the "on penalty of perjury" only in cases where a religious oath is not being made.

[throwboatyface]

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)

[consp]

> 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.

[pclmulqdq]

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.

[JohnFen]

Why does there need to be a thing?

[pclmulqdq]

I think it's traditionally supposed to be a representation of a deity who is "backing" your oath.

[giantg2]

Another point to this is that if you're not religious you no longer have to swear. You can affirm instead.

[shadowgovt]

I suppose this obligates Ann Druyan to hunt her down should she violate her trust.

[ren_engineer]

>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

[roywiggins]

Thomas Jefferson literally sliced up a bible to produce a version of the Jesus narrative without all the miracles! The founders were busily questioning their own traditions at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible?wprov=sfla1

Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in without a Bible:

https://guides.loc.gov/presidential-inaugurations/1897-1925#...

[Robotbeat]

But I find it very Protestant and American, in a way, to challenge conventional rituals done for ritual sake regardless of belief.

As a protestant myself, give me an atheist pledging the oath over something they believe in (not in a religious sense here, but a personal philosophy sense) over an atheist making a mockery of religion by pledging the oath over something they don't believe in (and may detest).

[tekla]

> traditions the nation was founded on

Remind me which of those they were, considering much of the founding fathers directly based much of the nation on the French system of government and after Enlightenment ideals, which famously rejected the role of God in Government

[jackothy]

Religion can be rebelled against for reasons that are not childish.

Also, I'm sure there are even many Christians that would specifically not want you to swear on a Bible if you are not a believer, because that would be dishonest.

[klodolph]

Please try to keep the discussion civil. That comment is not civil.

People naturally have different interpretations of the ceremony where you swear an oath. Some people believe that the ceremony is symbolic—there is no actual entity whose wrath they are invoking if they break the oath. It is natural to want to make the ceremony conform somewhat to your actual, personal beliefs, rather than participating inauthentically. That’s all that’s needed here to understand the decision.