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New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

independent.co.uk

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Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#91

Post by lukego »

I have always held Carl Sagan in high esteem without actually having read his books.

I was taken aback to watch some Cosmos with my kids last week though, the Neil deGrasse Tyson edition. It came across as overt quasi-religious indoctrination to me. Makes me wonder if science has become a religion in the US.

Tear down the Catholic church, build up the universe as a new drop-in replacement God with infallible science as his doctrine, anoint and celebrate faith-driven martyrs to the cause from history. Yikes. Sounds straight out of The Book of Mormon to me.

(Admittedly it was less extreme than the Bill Nye special on Netflix that I tried to watch with them the year before.)

Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#92

Post by altacc »

seanhunter wrote: post #79
skissane wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traditionally there is a distinction between an oath and an affirmation Swearing an oath was a religious ritual – a solemn promise made invoking the name of the deity, with the implication that any violation of the promise would be risking divine judgement, quite apart from whatever earthly consequences might follow (e.g. criminal prosecution for perjury) Then along came the Quakers, who objected to oaths on religiou…

This oath vs affirmation distinction is made clear in the UK for sure. For example when I became a British citizen I was given the option of swearing allegiance to the queen or making a "solemn affirmation" of the same. The only difference being a slight difference of wording. Weirdly I still remember the wording even though it was more than 30 years ago and I only heard it once just before I said it. > I, Sean Hunte…

When I gained citizenship of a highly religious country I had to swear an oath with my hand on a cross, with silver Jesus attached. I asked if there was an atheist option and the the answer was basically "No, we have enough faith to know that God will punish you for lying."

Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#93

Post by dspillett »

Grustaf wrote: post #31
gigatexal wrote: post #8

Good. The bible is not the only source of mores and norms to swear on. And a turn towards science would be nice, especially in the increasingly alarmingly anti-science USA.

Science is not a source of mores, it’s about observing facts.

To the true believer a religious text is considered as factual as any scientific work, so that isn't really as much of a differentiating factor when you think about it from their PoV.

Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#94

Post by gettodachoppa »

NKosmatos wrote: post #5

IMHO having taken an oath on Carl Sagan’s name and book is more important and serious than swearing on any god/spirit/force/deity (from whatever religion).

Agreed. I felt truly euphoric the moment I read this headline. I immediately called to my wife and my wife's son to show them this wonderful news.

Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#95

Post by noirscape »

tescocles wrote: post #9

Is there any actual strict requirement that you have to swear over a document of some kind? I'd have thought swearing over the bible is a stand-in for swearing "before God", and that God would ultimately be your reckoner should you break your oath. If you don't have that meaning behind the oath, what is the point in using a book at all unless it's something meaningful like the constitution of your country, as another…

The ultimate usefulness of swearing before a God (if you believe in one) isn't that relevant. The psychological reason we tend to request it is because of something far simpler: it reminds us of our convictions. There was a study about a decade ago about this by some social scientists.

They made 10 people swear on the ten commandments before making a test intended to check for their honesty, they made another group of people take the same test while taking an oath on a general document stating they'd be truthful, and finally they did the same test with a control group who wasn't asked to swear on anything.

All participants were checked to be atheists (so not caring much for the words of any God) beforehand as well.

The outcome was that generally speaking, just being asked to swear on something tended to remind people of their own convictions, which in turn tended to result in them answering the subsequent test questions more honestly.

That's all swearing over a document really does - it reminds someone of their morals (usually with the intent of guilt tripping them into not lying afterwards). I don't know about any other social reasons why we do it, but that's the psychological effect it has. (This is presumably why you can do it on any document that you have a sufficient conviction of being important to you as well.)

Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#96

Post by qikInNdOutReply »

WJW wrote: post #77
qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? What has gender to with anything in this regard? I grew up in a cult, the fiercest and deepest believers were all woman, often pushing some married hapeless guy around as a "dog on a leash" to bite and bark for them..

I think the point was that a woman cannot blind "him"-self but rather blinds "her"-self. It was a comment on language, not about which gender can be more or less fierce in their beliefs.

Well, i dont percieve that whole thing that much and just project my own gender upon everything. I assume everyone is just like me and thats the default of the universe. No special treatment for anyone, not even myself.

Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#98

Post by tigerlily »

Grustaf wrote: post #35
bitcharmer wrote: post #2

It's high time. There's no place for superstition in science

Placing your hand on a book and uttering words is the essence of being “superstitious”, at least if you aren’t religious.

In fairness, the act of it could equally be held superstitious even if one is religious.

Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#99

Post by konschubert »

tescocles wrote: post #29
highwaylights wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To follow your argument here, perhaps the person in question believes the Pale Blue Dot to be more meaningful than a legal document. I certainly do - it’s a wonderful book that absolutely captures Carl Sagan’s sense of wonder for the universe, which to me seems like exactly what you should want from a NASA director. Most importantly, it also sends a strong message to the staff within NASA about how the new director v…

I mean, yes, it is a very impactful book; I enjoyed it very much. What I'm meaning, though, is that if you were to go against your duty as the head of NASA, Carl Sagan isn't going to rise from the grave and smite you for your transgression. Whereas I believe that is exactly the point of swearing over a bible. I'm not meaning to say it's meaningless to swear over an important book (or that it doesn't make some kind of…

If you don't believe in God, there is no difference between the Bible and any other book. You then choose whatever you value.

Re: New NASA Director Swears Oath on Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Instead of Bible

#100

Post by WJW »

rob74 wrote: post #87
WJW wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God is not going to smite you for oath-breaking either though. What matters is that you keep your promise to (in this case) society, not whether you swear it on any book in particular. If the law requires the promise to be sworn over a book because the lawmakers at the time were religionists, you might as well choose a book you think represents your values.

Well no, God apparently hasn't done that since the Old Testament, but some Christians certainly do believe that breaking an oath you swore on the Bible will have certain repercussions for you in the afterlife...

And apparently the new NASA director is not a Christian, so what that group believes is not so relevant to this discussion.
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