by esmani

Created on: January 21, 2008

The institution of governance or justice has an obligation not only to be fair but to be seen as fair.When an element of religion is introduced to a judicial process, it can no longer be seen as fair.That is one reason why the founding fathers had build a nation on a secular platform.The continuing usage of bible in ceremonies and courtrooms is a defiance on freedom of religion and an open gesture of bias. The government or judiciary as an institution has no business in displaying acts of faith.

Let me expand the nature of my argument.First, insisting that the bible is the only holy book worthy of swearing on is proclamation of Christian superiority.But to any person who is not of Christian faith it is an insult.How then are others supposed to feel that the freedom of religion is served.Of course the easy way will be to introduce books of faith of other religion such as Koran, Torah, BhagavadGita and such.But then the government or judiciary will bear the responsibility of defining if a book is holy or not.That in itself is a complex task.And what about the atheist.In a far fetched situation a person might want to swear on a comic book insisting that it is the only literature he believes in.

Secondly, whom is this gesture directed at...to the judge,audience, jury or self.The classic argument is for the self. But if the self is not of Christian faith then the whole gesture is open to mockery.Why do we ask him to perform something that he doesn't believe. Anyway my contention is that it is done for the everybody else.Members of jury who are of Christian faith might not take too kindly to someone refusing to swear upon the Bible or even a display of disrespect during the swearing. In a same scenario, an elected representative might lose popular support. In a nation where most people proclaim leanings to a certain religion, an open act of faith is bound to create a bias, positive or negative.

Thirdly in closing, what is the relevancy of this procedure? Long ago, it might have some point when peoples' word carried more weight and sometimes it is all they had.But in modern times, technology has enabled us to be more critical in analysis. No one is going to get away just by swearing on a bible. So let just do away with this irrelevant act.

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