Um, I guess I don't know if you can read it without aol.
So will the ACLU fight for my right to swear on the Book of Mormon? Are people who swear on the Koran subject to Sha'riah penalties if they lie? (I don't actually know if they do the tongue cutting out, but that's the kind of hyperbole I'm going for here.) How long before some Wiccan text is used?
I say we go back to the etymological source of "testify".
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Pooka: Would you be loath to swear on the Bible? Just say, "I swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God, so long as what I say is translated correctly." Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Well, I think it makes sense to swear on something the person actually cares about since the whole point is that you would never lie in the name of your faith- it's supposed to be a moral binding to the truth. If you swear on the Bible and you don't believe in the Bible, that moral binding is nullified.
Personally, I think we should do away with all faith -based swearing to tell the truth and swear on something more secular. I think that the actual amount of truth told because of the moral binding to the Bible/Koran/etc. is minimal (that is- because of the Bible that otherwise wouldn't be told).
EDIT: Although that may be just me.
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: So will the ACLU fight for my right to swear on the Book of Mormon?
According to the article, they did:
quote: Judge Paul Ridgeway said both common law and state Supreme Court precedent allow witnesses and jurors to use the text "most sacred and obligatory upon their conscience."
quote: The group sought a court order declaring the statute unconstitutional or clarifying that it was broad enough to allow the use of multiple religious texts.
quote:Originally posted by pooka: So will the ACLU fight for my right to swear on the Book of Mormon?
If someone is trying to stop you, they should. And I suspect they would.
quote:Are people who swear on the Koran subject to Sha'riah penalties if they lie? (I don't actually know if they do the tongue cutting out, but that's the kind of hyperbole I'm going for here.)
Are people who swear on the Bible subject to the rule of law laid out in Leviticus? If a witness swears on the Bible, should he or she be legally required to follow the Ten Commandments? I don't remember if stoning was specifically required as punishment for breaking a Commandment, but that's the kind of hyperbole I'm going for here.
quote:How long before some Wiccan text is used?
Does it matter? Why would you care if someone chose to make their oath on a Wiccan text?
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I think when we discussed it before, it came up that Jewish people aren't thrilled to swear on a New Testament. I forget if there are provisions for this or if they just accept it as a form of cultural oppression.
I'd generally be fine swearing on the Bible except the article says:
quote:Judge Paul Ridgeway said both common law and state Supreme Court precedent allow witnesses and jurors to use the text "most sacred and obligatory upon their conscience."
. Throwing a "most" in there would say I should use a Book of Mormon. Of course, I'm pretty sure the Book of Mormon quotes the New Testament in saying "swear not by thy head... nor by the Earth... nor by the heavens" and that bit about just saying "yea, yea, nay, nay."
So I guess in that sense, swearing at the peril of your reproductive capacity is also wrong.
I think swearing on a Wiccan text and swearing on a Book of Mormon are both unneccessary. I guess we could swear on a constitution.
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: I say we go back to the etymological source of "testify".
Well...that might get women of the hook for subpeonas
quote:WORD HISTORY The resemblance between testimony, testify, testis, and testicle shows an etymological relationship, but linguists are not agreed on precisely how English testis came to have its current meaning. The Latin testis originally meant “witness,” and etymologically means “third (person) standing by”: the te– part comes from an older tri–, a combining form of the word for “three,” and –stis is a noun derived from the Indo-European root stā- meaning “stand.” How this also came to refer to the body part(s) is disputed. An old theory has it that the Romans placed their right hands on their testicles and swore by them before giving testimony in court. Another theory says that the sense of testicle in Latin testis is due to a calque, or loan translation, from Greek. The Greek noun parastatēs means “defender (in law), supporter” (para– “by, alongside,” as in paramilitary and –statēs from histanai, “to stand”). In the dual number, used in many languages for naturally occurring, contrasting, or complementary pairs such as hands, eyes, and ears, parastatēs had the technical medical sense “testicles,” that is “two glands side by side.” The Romans simply took this sense of parastatēs and added it to testis, the Latin word for legal supporter, witness.
or maybe not:
quote: Byron Annis wrote: A couple of years ago, I read in a novel that the word testify is derived from the same Greek root as testicle. It was explained that in ancient Greece men giving testimony were required to cover their genitals with their hand. Finding this interesting and worth further investigation, I looked up the word in all of the etymological sources in our local library and found only one citation which indicated that the word was derived from Latin and was related to Roman custom, but there was no mention of the aforementioned male appendages. Can you elucidate? This etymology has appeared in a number of places, in print and on the Internet, but it isn't true. However, the words are interesting, and the relationship between them isn't completely clear. There is no evidence anywhere that a Roman or a Greek had to put his hand on his testicles in order to validate his testimony when swearing in court.
Let's start with the Latin root since that's where both of these words come from. The Latin word testis originally meant 'witness'. It comes from the Indo-European roots *tre- meaning 'three' and *sta- meaning 'stand'. A witness was 'a third person standing by'. From that came the verb testificare 'to bear witness', which evolved into Middle English testify in the fourteenth century.
Where it gets confusing is that testis also -- although not originally -- meant testicle in Latin. The English word testicle comes from Latin testiculus, a diminutive of testis, and first appeared in the fifteenth century. If testis meaning 'witness' and testis meaning 'testicle' are indeed the same word, then the etymology could be that the testicles are 'witness' or evidence of virility.
There is also a theory that testis/testicle comes from the Latin testa 'pot', referring to the testicle's shape.
The Oxford Latin Dictionary says that testis meaning 'testicle' is probably "a special application" of testis meaning 'witness' and refers the reader to the Greek word parastates which means 'one who stands alongside another'. In addition to singular and plural, Greek (along with Old English, Arabic, and a few other languages) has what is called a "dual" that denotes two of whatever is being talked about; it is used for things that come in pairs, like hands and feet. The dual form of parastates means 'testicles', which are 'two glands standing alongside each other'. It is conceivable that Latin simply took these two senses of the Greek word and translated them with testis. That seems to me to be the theory that makes the most sense.
In the book of Genesis there are several passages in which a man who is taking an oath puts his hand "under the thigh" of the man to whom he is swearing: "And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house...Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: And I will make thee swear by the Lord...." The Hebrew word in this passage is yarek, which means 'thigh' throughout the Old Testament. My Biblical expert says that this ritual seems to come from the idea that the thigh is the locus of power, probably because it's near the genitals. He also notes that some modern interpreters of the Bible envision it as a swearing on the genitals, with "under the thigh" being a euphemism which goes all the way back to the Hebrew.
I think it is very likely that these Biblical passages are the source of the popular notion that testify derived from testicle.
quote:Originally posted by pooka: I think when we discussed it before, it came up that Jewish people aren't thrilled to swear on a New Testament. I forget if there are provisions for this or if they just accept it as a form of cultural oppression.
From the article you linked:
quote:State law allows witnesses preparing to testify in court to take their oath by laying a hand over "the Holy Scriptures," by saying "so help me God" without the use of a religious book or by an affirmation using no religious symbols. (emphasis mine)
Actually, swearing on a Tanach would be worse in many ways. Swearing an oath at all is problematic -- hence "I affirm."
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There is no holy text for Wiccans. However, if they wished to swear on an Oak Tree, I believe the responsibility of bringing the tree into court would be the Wiccans.
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kmboots, you mistake the origins of the word testify. The word you are thinking of comes from the Latin verb "to witness", not the other way around.
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Rivka, there's no need to roll your eyes.
kmboots, you mistake the origins of the word testify. The word you are thinking of comes from the Latin verb "to witness", not the other way around.
Hence the second quote...
(I was assuming that Pooka was making the reference with her suggestion. Suggesting that we check the etymology of "testify" to find "witness" doesn't make much sense.)
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quote:Originally posted by katharina: Rivka, there's no need to roll your eyes.
Do you even know what I'm rolling my eyes about? I'm guessing not. It's an issue I have with pooka's "cultural oppression" bit, not with the notion of swearing on a Christian bible.
Do I get to tell you when to roll your eyes now?
FC, why would they be unable to simply affirm?
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I've always found it odd to swear on the Bible in light of Jesus' express desire that people not swear oaths but make their yays mean yes and the nays mean no.
Pretty sure that is why the Quakers swear no oaths.
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I say we just throw out the whole swearing thing at all. Let people stand up in court, and say something along the lines of: "I affirm that everything I am about to say in my testimony is the truth, with acknowledgement that the court can assess penalties if I perjure myself."
Done. No mention of religion, no mention of what someone holds most sacred, just an acknowledgement that you will tell the truth and that you are aware there are penalties for not telling the truth.
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: I say we just throw out the whole swearing thing at all. Let people stand up in court, and say something along the lines of: "I affirm that everything I am about to say in my testimony is the truth, with acknowledgement that the court can assess penalties if I perjure myself."
Done. No mention of religion, no mention of what someone holds most sacred, just an acknowledgement that you will tell the truth and that you are aware there are penalties for not telling the truth.
Sounds good to me, unfortunately I am sure right leaning religious folks would probably throw a fit and see it as another step in throwing God out of the country.
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The problem is, if you the type who values the Bible a lot, you're likely to speak the truth; but if you are the type who's going to perjure yourself, you probably don't value the Bible or any other religious text a whole lot anyway. So what difference does it make what you swear on? It doesn't really make dishonest people honest, because they don't care about the rules in the Bible.
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Remember that part in Fried Green Tomatoes? But that was the olden times.
Annie says it's probably bunk, but Gandhi supposedly said happiness is when our thoughts, words and deeds are one. Put another way, do we ever do things when we're alone that we wouldn't if we were being observed? I think the swearing on a Bible thing is supposed to invoke the that kind of circumspectness for folks who haven't quite become happy by the standard attributed to Gandhi.
Sorry I offended you, rivka. I had meant to be inclusive but we often have disconnects on anything involving Judaism.
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quote:The problem is, if you the type who values the Bible a lot, you're likely to speak the truth; but if you are the type who's going to perjure yourself, you probably don't value the Bible or any other religious text a whole lot anyway.
Jenna, did you mean to be ridiculously offensive just now, or was it accidental?
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quote:Originally posted by Belle: I say we just throw out the whole swearing thing at all. Let people stand up in court, and say something along the lines of: "I affirm that everything I am about to say in my testimony is the truth, with acknowledgement that the court can assess penalties if I perjure myself."
Done. No mention of religion, no mention of what someone holds most sacred, just an acknowledgement that you will tell the truth and that you are aware there are penalties for not telling the truth.
I would want the oath to be sworn on the person's honor, at least, not just on penalty of perjury. I don't mind if the oath isn't affixed to religious beliefs, but I think calling on the person's honor is very important.
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quote:The problem is, if you the type who values the Bible a lot, you're likely to speak the truth; but if you are the type who's going to perjure yourself, you probably don't value the Bible or any other religious text a whole lot anyway.
Jenna, did you mean to be ridiculously offensive just now, or was it accidental?
Could you explain what you find offensive?
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quote:The problem is, if you the type who values the Bible a lot, you're likely to speak the truth; but if you are the type who's going to perjure yourself, you probably don't value the Bible or any other religious text a whole lot anyway.
Jenna, did you mean to be ridiculously offensive just now, or was it accidental?
Could you explain what you find offensive?
It's an implication that those who are not religious are more likely to perjure, because they don't value the Bible or a religious text.
It may not have been meant that way, but that's how it reads.
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quote:FC, why would they be unable to simply affirm?
It was a joke, rivka.
Though I am curious, you always hear the "...so help you God" line on TV - but is that really spoken when swearing in witnesses?
If it is, do they poll the witness before hand to see if that's appropriate? What if someone specifically requests a text they don't value so they don't feel as bad perjuring themselves?
The more I think about this whole situation, the more bizarre it sounds.
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I once heard that something they don't do on TV is have people state their name, because if they did, then the actor would be committing perjury.
Also, I was told the that testimony had to do with testicles by my Latin teacher. Maybe she was just trying to gross us out. There was a fair bit of that in classics education.
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A Wiccan died in Iraq, and his wife wanted to put a pentagram on his tombstone in Arlington, but you were only allowed to choose between I think a cross, a star of David, and a crescent moon, the three big guys. His wife had to fight it out in court to allow the pentagram, and eventually they allowed it.
Personally I don't understand why it was ever an issue.
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You're allowed to have nothing on your tombstone at Arlington, as well as separate crosses for methodists, Eastern orthodox, Masons, Rotarians, and even Mormons have a little angel Moroni thing you can choose, or again, have nothing. I don't know when they introduced the Angel Moroni.
I imagine it was a fight over why they should have a pentagram and not nothing. But I don't know. My son's tombstone has my husband's name and not mine, and the section of the cemetery he's buried in is an unlucky number for me. Maybe I should just be grateful the government paid to have him buried there.
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"Throwing a "most" in there would say I should use a Book of Mormon."
I don't even know why you say this. Although I could see a Mormon swearing on a Book of Mormon, there wouldn't be any problems with swearing on a Bible. In fact, I would say a Mormon would swear on a Book of Mormon as some kind of statement more than how "holy" it is considered.
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quote:The problem is, if you the type who values the Bible a lot, you're likely to speak the truth; but if you are the type who's going to perjure yourself, you probably don't value the Bible or any other religious text a whole lot anyway.
Jenna, did you mean to be ridiculously offensive just now, or was it accidental?
Now Tom, I was very very careful about how I worded my post, because I know there are atheists here who would be honest.
I never said that if you don't believe the Bible, you're less likely to be honest. I said if you DO believe the Bible, you are likely to value honesty; and that if you are the type to not be honest, you probably don't care about the Bible so swearing on it wouldn't matter to you.
I didn't mention the third subset of people who don't care about the Bible but would be honest anyway. My point was just that having the Bible or other religious text there isn't going to affect the honesty of one's testimony. (Which is kind of an obvious point, so I don't know why I felt compelled to make it.)
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: Sorry I offended you, rivka. I had meant to be inclusive but we often have disconnects on anything involving Judaism.
I'm not offended. I just find two things very hard to understand: Why you don't seem to have read the article you linked, and why you think culture has anything to do with the issue.
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Some of us won't swear, period. Hence "I affirm."
Anyway, I don't really see the point of swearing on the Constutuition or other historically significant document, as opposed to swearing on nothing at all.
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Sorry, I was using "swearing" and "affirming" in the same sense in my head.
And I agree with you Rivka. We shouldn't have to put our hand on any book/document before we give testimony. But if we have to, I thought something like the Bill of Rights would work because chances are, if you're an American citizen, you're going to like the Bill of Rights.
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quote:I said if you DO believe the Bible, you are likely to value honesty...
I'm not sure there's a strong correlation.
How ironic that you are offended when somebody comes close to suggesting that an atheist might not be as honest as a Christian who holds the Bible to be sacred. And yet, just later, you suggest that believing the Bible to be the word of God has little to no correlation in whether one is honest.
If I am reading you incorrectly please feel free to tell me so, I rather like you Tom.
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What kmbboots said. Tom is just saying that believing the bible has no correlation in whether one is honest.
A person is honest or she is not honest. Believing in the bible or not believing in it doesn't seem to have anything to do with it.
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quote:Originally posted by Javert: And I agree with you Rivka. We shouldn't have to put our hand on any book/document before we give testimony. But if we have to, I thought something like the Bill of Rights would work because chances are, if you're an American citizen, you're going to like the Bill of Rights.
Well, sure. But does liking a document, or even considering it really important, matter much in terms of swearing on it? It's not like your average American considers the Bill of Rights sacred, do they?
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quote:Originally posted by Javert: And I agree with you Rivka. We shouldn't have to put our hand on any book/document before we give testimony. But if we have to, I thought something like the Bill of Rights would work because chances are, if you're an American citizen, you're going to like the Bill of Rights.
Well, sure. But does liking a document, or even considering it really important, matter much in terms of swearing on it? It's not like your average American considers the Bill of Rights sacred, do they?
I shouldn't have used the word like. I want to say that it would work because people believe in the Bill of Rights, but even 'believe' is the wrong word.
Maybe by using the Bill of Rights we could make it less like swearing and more like agreeing to a contract. By putting your hand on the document and affirming you will speak the truth, you're saying "Our society holds up these rights for the good of every individual, and in return I will tell the truth for the good of society." Does that make sense? (Really asking. I'm not sure if it even makes sense to me, but it sounds good in my head. )
Does believe something to be sacred matter much in terms of swearing on it?
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: And yet, just later, you suggest that believing the Bible to be the word of God has little to no correlation in whether one is honest.
Conceivably you are thinking that "no correlation" means "Bible believers are less likely to be honest"? That would be an anti-correlation. "No correlation" means just that: Bible believers are exactly as likely to be honest as non-Bible-believers.
An interesting statistic in this context is that jails contain a rather larger percentage of Christians than the general population.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: An interesting statistic in this context is that jails contain a rather larger percentage of Christians than the general population.
Aren't the majority people who "got religion" while imprisoned?
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