Six Council of State members call for removal of religious oaths

IT letters

Sir, – Congratulations are surely in order to the Referendum Commission for highlighting, without comment, on their website, the religious oath required of those aspiring to be president of our country. The referendum asks us as voters to extend the current religious discrimination to a new cohort of younger citizens, but the realisation of this has yet to permeate the debate in society at large. The contradiction between the Government’s stated commitment to “equality” in the marriage referendum and its upholding of discrimination in the age referendum is hard to comprehend. One would like to put it down to an oversight, but the issue has been pointed out to it by a UN human rights body and various domestic review bodies over the years.

One can only conclude that the Government sees non-religious citizens as unsuitable for high office, unless they are prepared to lie in order to secure office.

Why would it think that, I wonder? – Yours, etc,

DICK SPICER,

Bray,

Co Wicklow.

http://refcom2015.ie/presidential-age/

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/age-of-presidential-candidates-1.2190897?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Article 12 (8)
The President shall enter upon his office by taking and subscribing publicly, in the presence of members of both Houses of the Oireachtas, of Judges of the Supreme Court and of the High Court, and other public personages, the following declaration:

“In the presence of Almighty God I do solemnly and sincerely promise and declare that I will maintain the Constitution of Ireland and uphold its laws, that I will fulfil my duties faithfully and conscientiously in accordance with the Constitution and the law, and that I will dedicate my abilities to the service and welfare of the people of Ireland. May God direct and sustain me.”

would it bother to say that to become the president.

Impossible to prove that someone is lying about their belief in the existence of an unevidenced, non-falsifiable entity...


... so what the **** is the point of having an oath to it in our constitution and laws in the first place?

lazygal wrote: »

So what's the point of invoking a deity at all then?

I'm not a fan of having a legal requirement to invoke a deity, so don't ask me to explain why it's there.

But the fact that it's there does not have the consequences that Brian claims. A campaign to remove it which is based on scaremongering and fiction is counterproductive. There are good, valid arguments for removing it; why make up spurious, bad ones?

recedite wrote: »

If you start off an oath on a false premise (or one that you believe to be false) would that not invalidate whatever follows?

Legally? No, it doesn't.

We need to distinguish here between the Presidential oath and similar oaths of office, and the (rather more common) oath sworn in connection with the giving of evidence.

The Presidential oath is unenforceable, regardless of whether the individual taking it is a theist or not. Whatever duties you have as President (or the holder of any other office) arise because you occupy the office. The oath is symbolic, and taking the oath may serve to establish exactly when you became President, but it doesn't impose any duties (or confer any privileges) that wouldn't arise if there were no requirement for an oath. And, even as far as that limited effect goes, it's well settled that the oath has that effect because the law says that an oath in that form has that effect. The personal views of the person taking the oath are irrelevant.

As for the oath taken by a witness or a person swearing an affidavit, etc, if you then give false evidence that's perjury, attracting heavy penalties. But, again, this is because the law provides so. The penalties for perjury don't depend at all on whether you took an oath or an affirmation, or on your personal views about the form of oath or affirmation that you took. There is no penalty for taking an oath or affirmation in a form which, to your own mind, carries no weight. Conversely having taken an oath or affirmation in a form which, to your own mind, carries no weight is no defence to a subsequent charge of perjury.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Legally? No, it doesn't.

We need to distinguish here between the Presidential oath and similar oaths of office, and the (rather more common) oath sworn in connection with the giving of evidence.

The Presidential oath is unenforceable, regardless of whether the individual taking it is a theist or not. Whatever duties you have as President (or the holder of any other office) arise because you occupy the office. The oath is symbolic, and taking the oath may serve to establish exactly when you became President, but it doesn't impose any duties (or confer any privileges) that wouldn't arise if there were no requirement for an oath. And, even as far as that limited effect goes, it's well settled that the oath has that effect because the law says that an oath in that form has that effect. The personal views of the person taking the oath are irrelevant.

well settled by whom? where?

"Not religious but spiritual" :rolleyes:

If he doesn't identify with any particular god, how can he swear an oath to a god?

recedite wrote: »

I thought he had previously described himself as "humanist" which could be "spiritual" without believing in Almighty God.
Maybe I misheard him. Or maybe not.
Miriam was a bit naughty asking him straight out "Do you believe in God?"
If he had said no, he would have lost the election there and then.
That's not being over dramatic; the dragons den guy Gallagher lost the election during the RTE Frontline TV debate when he became known as a FF "bag-man". A "godless atheist" could hardly be expected to fare any better.

and he said straight out YES he is believer, If I thought he lied there I wouldn't of voted for him, you apparently would.

expectationlost wrote: »

well settled by whom? where?

The issue came up a lot in the UK in the nineteenth century, when there were lots of public offices which required either (a) an oath of allegiance taken in theistic terms, or (b) a declaration of (protestant) religious belief as a condition of taking up office, or exercising some function. There were cases about what was the position where you felt you couldn't, in conscience, take the oath or make the declaration, but there were also cases considering the consequences where you did take the oath or make the declaration, and then someone argued that it was improper or invalid for you to do so because it did not accord with your true beliefs.

There were several cases involving Charles Bradlaugh, an atheist who was elected to Parliament. He asked to affirm his allegiance rather than swearing it in a theistic form. When this was denied he indicated he was willing to swear in order to take up his seat, and that he would regard this as binding in conscience on him. There were several controversies, both in Parliament and in the courts, about what was or was not permitted and what the effect would be and the matter dragged on for years. It was eventually resolved with the passage of legislation allowing him to affirm, but one of the rulings which was handed down along the way was, if he had sworn, that would have been valid and binding. The legal requirement is to take the oath; not to have any particular view about the significance of the wording used, and if you take the oath you have fulfilled the legal requirement and the legally-prescribed consequences flow.

Similar rulings were handed down in cases of people who make legally-required declarations of adherence to the established church, and then continued to worship in dissenting churches or in the Catholic church. The courts would not entertain challenges to the validity or efficacy of their declarations.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

What would Barack Obama say?

He tells theists what they want to hear, without actually endorsing any specific faith (or, on a hard reading. any faith at all)

Reading between the lines, he has one quarter of half of fuck-all time for it, but publicly coming out against it is electorally damaging.

"I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins, and I am redeemed through him." (Barack Obama, 2008, when asked by Rick Warren to describe his religious faith).

"So one Sunday, I put on one of the few clean jackets I had, and went over to Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street on the South Side of Chicago. And I heard Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright deliver a sermon called "The Audacity of Hope." And during the course of that sermon, he introduced me to someone named Jesus Christ. I learned that my sins could be redeemed. I learned that those things I was too weak to accomplish myself, He would accomplish with me if I placed my trust in Him. And in time, I came to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world and in my own life.
It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. I didn't fall out in church, as folks sometimes do. The questions I had didn't magically disappear. The skeptical bent of my mind didn't suddenly vanish. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth and carrying out His works." (Barack Obama, 2008)

So what would it actually take for Obama to be seen as "actually endorsing a specific faith"? Getting John 3:16 tattooed on his forehead?

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

He left Wright's church though, and hasn't joined another.

That's quite common in the States, though. People would make a distinction between being a Christian believer, and being a member of a particular congregation. You can be a believer (and indeed a regular attender) and not be a member of the congregation of the church you attend, or of any other congregation.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

2008 was an election campaign, atheists are unelectable in the US and many other places. Politicians say stuff during election campaigns which most people don't take as gospel, if you'll forgive the pun.

Yes, he said it in 2008. And he had written about it before, too; he discusses his faith and the reasons for it in The Audacity of Hope. Besides, the events he spoke of in 2008 took place years earlier. He came to Christianity in his twenties, in the 1980s, long before he was involved in electoral politics. (He was still in college.) He joined Wright's church in 1992, at the age of 31 - again, years before he ever stood for election. If anything, it was his departure from Wright's church, in 2008, which was motivated by electoral considerations, rather than the previous period of membership.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

I'd say he's an agnostic at best...

Any basis for this, beyond wishful thinking on your part? My recollection is that, at the time of the 2008 campaign, it was observed that he was the most engaged and intentional Christian to contest any presidential election since Jimmy Carter. Each of the competing views that he is (a) an unbeliever or (b) a Muslim seem to me to be about as well grounded in evidence as the other is.

Dear young people of Ireland...