Quote:
Originally Posted by August
See my previous post. To a believer in God, and it's not just Christians we're talking about here, invoking their Deity when making a false statement carries with it the extra repercussion of eternal damnation or at least invites some other negative divine reaction. That ought to have at least some effect on a believer. I do agree however that Atheists and liars probably don't need to be saying anything about God at all when taking an oath.
|
This is why almost all religions came up with a doctrine of terrible eternal torture. This is why great philosophers helped define and scope doctrines for numerous religions and agreed total fear of the afterlife punishment keeps people morally in line and under religious rule. Even Christianity itself hardly embraced eternal hell in the sense it's taught today, except for some outer branches, but under the Roman church, it became a set doctrine as language was redefined once again to make it like all the torturous pagan hell's that existed previously.
Once you have the themes indoctrinated into the public, you add them into the legal system for even more control of the uneducated masses. This actually has proven to have much positive effect in early civilizations where class played such a role and the masses were poor. It kept them in fearful compliance, ready to war and accepting of their place in society, because the divine books said so.
You would think in America where we have separation of Church&State we wouldn't be using such in govt in this modern age. But even most agnostic Politicians still silently agree to the good use of it.