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by the racism, misogyny, and genocide exacted by God throughout the Old Testament. Even Jesus of Nazareth, reportedly a peace-loving pacifist, says and does some pretty cruel things in the New Testament; not to mention the way the Bible ends, with the Book of Revelation ushering believers into wild bliss while non-believers are left to perish. The bottom line is that the Bible, while obviously important to many Christians, and obviously powerful in a literary and historical context, is an offensive and antiquated text, one which condones female subservience and slavery. Should we, today in 2009, be swearing on such a book?

Some defenders of this practice will claim that the custom is simple tradition, no different from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance - which also claims that we are "one nation under God" - and should not be taken so literally. But should one practice be deemed okay simply because it's what has always been done? The aforementioned founding fathers, who built this nation not on religion but on religious freedom, did so because they were forward thinking men. Religious freedom dictates that not everyone in the country is the same religion, but that all have the right to practice said religion (or no religion) free from prosecution. To force citizens to utilize an obviously religious book and, ostensibly, swear to "God," goes against what the founding fathers actually intended.

It is true that the Bible's influences can be seen even today, from the fine print of our laws to the depths of our morality. But this phenomenon has its origins buried in the past, and is forever unchangeable. We cannot alter what the Bible was used to produce, or how it influenced the law-makers to create that which they deemed just. Those changes have already been made. But we are constantly evolving, making changes to the laws as we find them unjust. To make everyone swear on a book only some believe in is to retard the progress of religious freedom set in motion by our founding fathers. The Bible has no place in the courtroom of an upward moving society, for it is not God's laws that dictate our government, but our own.

Learn more about this author, Andrea Nostramo.
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