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Showing posts with label Secularism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Secularism. Show all posts

September 8, 2015

Pointless Petition du jour: The meaning of inauguration oaths taken by public office holders

Secular jihadists have set their sights on the inauguration oath typically taken by many public office holders.  Here is a new petition -- undoubtedly inspired by the Kim Davis kerfuffle -- at whitehouse.gov:


I think it's worth pondering the purpose of inauguration oaths.

The whole point of an oath is to increase the credibility of a promise. The oath-taker is essentially calling judgment down upon him/herself if the promise isn't kept.  When the oath-taker is considered to be sincere in such an oath, it generally adds weight to the promise being made.  If the oath-taker doesn't believe in a higher power, the oath is pointless both to the one doing the promising and to the one being promised.

In this light, swearing on the Constitution (as the petition demands) is even more pointless, regardless of one's belief system -- what does "I swear by the Constitution that I will obey the Constitution" even mean?

Image source: Bizarro
The real issue is not that many people prefer to add meaning to their oath by placing their hand on the text that underlies their moral value system; the real issue is that the oath itself is effectively meaningless to the oath-taker.

At one time, the inauguration oath served a real purpose in a culture where the moral value system of Christianity served as an actual constraint on the behavior of the citizenry and (in many cases) public officials.  Now that Christianity is being systematically purged from the culture, even pro forma declarations of religious sentiment among public officials are becoming less common.

So, again: is there any point to inauguration oaths any more?  It's not like most oath-takers are actually sincere in the affirmations being made (or fear any repercussions of violating those affirmations), so why undergo the ritual in the first place?

May 10, 2011

Europe’s cultural suicide

I have written many times about the ongoing demographic collapse of Europe – namely, the fact that the native populations of the various European countries seem to be uninterested in reproducing themselves.

As the native populations are slowly replaced by immigrant populations, the native culture of the various countries is also slowly being diluted – more so by the natives than by the immigrants.  The process is slow and sporadic enough that most people don’t see it.   It’s there, however, for anyone able and willing to step back and look at the broader currents of events.

Two seemingly minor, disparate recent occurrences serve to illustrate the culture shift.

First, from The Telegraph (UK), May 2:

The European Commission has apologised for printing more than three million school diaries containing no reference to Easter or Christmas.

The diaries - 330,000 of which were delivered to UK schools - note Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Chinese festivals, as well as highlighting ''Europe Day'' which falls on May 9.

But the lack of any acknowledgement of Easter, Christmas or any other Christian holiday angered church leaders and politicians.

Earlier this year a Commission official admitted the omission was a ''blunder''.

A “blunder”, yes – but one that would have been unthinkable a generation ago.

Next, from The Daily Mail (UK), May 9 (emphasis added):

Rules to prevent religious discrimination can now also be used to protect a belief in the BBC’s ethos of public service broadcasting, a tribunal has ruled.

Its extraordinary decision elevates the BBC’s core principle to a place in the law equivalent to Christianity.

And the move leaves the way clear for long-serving employee Devan Maistry to sue the Corporation for wrongful dismissal.

South African-born Mr Maistry, who worked for the BBC Asian Network, says he suffered discrimination for six years until he was dismissed last year.

He has filed a claim for ‘religious or belief discrimination’, which allegedly took place against his philosophical view that ‘public service broadcasting has the higher purpose of promoting cultural interchange and social cohesion’.

Birmingham employment tribunal chairman Pam Hughes decided Mr Maistry has a worthy case, and gave him the right to a full hearing later this year.

In doing so, the tribunal chairman established the principle that Mr Maistry’s love of public service broadcasting amounted to a belief which should have the same protection from discrimination that the law gives to followers of religious faiths.

It seems clear to me that the religious shift in Europe is toward secular fundamentalism – the aggressive undermining of traditional religious belief of any kind.  We can see this in both of the above stories.

In the first story, Christianity loses its privileged place in Europe’s cultural history through a “blunder” communicating that Christianity is so irrelevant to the ruling elites, nobody noticed it was missing.

In the second story (read the entire article for more examples), all religions are consigned to irrelevance through the principle espoused by the villain in the movie The Incredibles: “Everyone can be super! And when everyone's super, no-one will be.”

In the end, the joke will be on the secular fundamentalists.  Once the destruction of Europe’s native culture has reached a certain point, do they really think their secularist utopia will be realized? 

Hardly.  The immigrant populations that are filling the void left by the demographic decline of the native populations will eventually also fill the cultural void, whether the secularists like it or not.