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Category Archives: spirituality
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As If I Were Before God?
Even though I was actually looking forward to my half-day of jury duty, there was one part that I was a little unsure about: swearing an oath.
I don’t have a problem with promising that I’ll tell the truth; I would have told the truth in any case — unlike some people who may or may not stretch the truth about their opinions to try to get out of jury duty. No, my problem was going to be about one little clause:
So help me God.
As an atheist, I feel it’s important to choose my battles wisely. In the case of swearing (or affirming) an oath to be truthful, I decided that I wouldn’t make a stink about the word God being included in the oath. After all, I didn’t know at the beginning of the afternoon when the oath-taking would come into play, or what the exact verbiage of it would be, so I had no way of knowing whether I’d even need to object to the wording of the oath itself.
Turns out that the Lucas County Courts give jurors and potential jurors a version of the oath that goes a little something like this:
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the answers you are about to give are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as if you were before God? If so, answer, ‘I do.'”
We had to affirm our oath on two separate occasions, and I didn’t quite catch the exact wording the first time through. I listened carefully the second time, in the courtroom, and took note of how it was phrased. Although there was a mention of God, it was more in the subjunctive — as if you were before God — not an absolute “so help me God.”
Even as an atheist, thinking about it in retrospect, I can appreciate what it would be like to give answers before a god. I can answer as if I were before an omniscient being who knows if I’m lying. I have no problem with having affirmed this oath.
If I were to have to testify in court, however, I assume that I would need to give an officer of the court advance notice that I prefer to affirm my oath, rather than swear on a Bible. Hopefully, I’ll never have to find out.
Book Of Mormon Stories
I used to write about my deconversion from Mormonism a lot more than I do now — I guess I don’t really think about it much anymore. But something that Bill Shunn tweeted earlier this week caught my attention and triggered a memory from years ago, in the days when my deconversion was still fresh and new.
I spent quite a while online this evening, searching for the particular video clip from the Animated Stories of the Book of Mormon™ that I blogged about back in July of 2004, but it doesn’t seem to be posted anywhere.
Still, even without the accompanying video clip to illustrate, I wanted to repost this excerpt from the recesses of my blog:
– – – – – – – – – –
A couple years ago, I actually picked up Volume I of the Book of Mormon Stories VHS set at Goodwill. I made Aaron watch it, too—actually, he was kind of curious. And he was flabbergasted when the climax of the story came about, too. To capitulate: Nephi and his dad and brothers are about to split Jerusalem, but they have to get the record of their family (inscribed on a set of brass plates) from this evil dude named Laban, who owns them. So, Nephi is scared shitless, but he knows he has to come up with something. And, lucky Nephi—when he walks up to Laban’s house, guess who is shitfaced drunk? Yup. Now, in the words of 1 Nephi, Chapter 4:
10. And it came to pass that I was constrained by the Spirit that I should kill Laban; but I said in my heart: Never at any time have I shed the blood of man. And I shrunk and would that I might not slay him.
11. And the Spirit said unto me again: Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands. Yea, and I also knew that he had sought to take away mine own life; yea, and he would not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord; and he also had taken away our property.
…
18. Therefore I did obey the voice of the Spirit, and took Laban by the hair of the head, and I smote off his head with his own sword.
At which point Aaron says, “What?!” Having assumed, of course, that it was only a test, and that God wouldn’t ask Nephi to kill the drunk dude, then put on his clothes and pretend to be him to get the brass plates from his servant. Heh.
We Are All Connected
We are all connected
To each other biologically
To the earth chemically
To the rest of the universe atomically
…
I’m this dot
Standing on a planet
And really I’m just a speck
(I’m just a speck)
Compared with a star
The planet is just another speck
To think about all of this
To think about the vast emptiness of space
And billions and billions of stars
Billions and billions of specks
…
The cosmos is also within us
We’re made of star stuff…