Flag priorities....

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by August

If the person believes in the God he is swearing to then I'd say yes. At least that is the hope.

I see it the same as with the Pledge. A true patriot may be willing to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, but he doesn't really need it. An imposter will recite it willingly because he wants to look like a true patriot. A true Christian will gladly say "So help me God", but he doesn't really need to. Someone trying to look more honest will recite the words to help his case. How does someone else tell the difference? The words are just words, and like all words can be used for any purpose.

I guess neither of us were listening to him whe we took our oath of enlistment then right?

Putting aside the fact that I wasn't a believer at that time...

I think it would have been a case of rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. How badly would I really want to join up? Would a true believer swear fealty to anyone other than his God? There's a lot of soul-searching there for someone who claims that God comes before everything else.

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Well that depends on which text you read. In Shem Tov's Hebrew text of the book of Matthew 5:33-37. It was written Jesus said not to swear by anything 'falsely'. Which, unlike the Greek text would not contradict Torah.

None of the New Testament was written in Hebrew. Since the book you cite was written in 1385 changes to the Gospel can only be counted as "after the fact" and are altered to meet the beliefs of the translator. That makes them invalid as proof for a discussion of the original text. A better argument might be to question how much of the quotations in the Gospels were said by Jesus at all.

Deuteronomy 10:20, "YHWH your God you shall fear, and Him shall you worship, and to him shall you cling, and in His name shall you swear."

Leviticus 19:12 And you shall not swear by my name falsely, nor shall you profane the name of your God; I am YHWH.

The problem there is that in the Matthew passages following the Beatitudes Jesus is specifically addressing and contravening those Old Testament quotes, following the fashion of "You have heard it said...but I say to you..."

When he says not to swear an oath at all, that is what Christians have to judge their actions by, not by what a later source claims he said or by an Old Testament quote.