New NASA Official Took Her Oath of Office on Carl Sagan's 'Pale Blue Dot' (gizmodo.com) 95
When Dr. Makenzie Lystrup was sworn in as the new director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center last week, she didn't take her oath of office on the Bible or the U.S. Constitution, but rather on a tome revered by space enthusiasts everywhere: Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot. From a report: The book, published in 1994, is named after an iconic image of Earth, snapped by the Voyager I probe, that depicts the planet as a small speck smothered by the emptiness of space. That photo inspired astronomer Carl Sagan to write: "Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us." For many, the book serves as a reminder of humanity's place in the universe and the need to preserve our home planet, which makes it similar to holy scripture for a newly appointed NASA director. On Thursday, when Lystrup chose to place her left hand on a copy of Sagan's book while being sworn in by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a photographer captured the moment, and NASA Goddard's social media shared the image. The constitution does not require that government officials be sworn in using a particular text, just that they "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution." Most U.S. politicians and officials end up using the Bible.
The constitution does not require... (Score:2, Insightful)
So why is one (always) used? Good for her on showing a little fashion sense.
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Tradition mostly. It was what was used before the constitution. Taking an oath on the constitution itself seems very odd to me though, it's not like it's ever been a sacred text, certainly it's not divinely inspired (ow, someone is throwing rocks just now).
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And 225 years later, people still think separation of church and state was a bad idea and have been trying to undermine this the whole time ("in God we trust" added to money in the Civil War era, then Teddy Roosevelt though mixing God and money was vulgar and removed it from some coins, then congress forced it back on). Although there's not a firm "separation" listed in the constitution, it just says don't establish an official religion. Thus early founders didn't find it wrong to have to swear on a Bible
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Although there's not a firm "separation" listed in the constitution, it just says don't establish an official religion.
So, reading comprehension isn't your thing?
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James Madison would highly disagree [millercenter.org] with this statement. He also, later, made mention that his call for a day of prayer and chaplains in the military were inconsistent with the Constitution [uchicago.edu].
Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom?
In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation.
If you believe Mr. Madison, the guy who wrote the Constitution, the guy who lived the Constitution, the guy who quoted the Constitution, is wrong, you are free to take up the issue with him at your convenience.
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Right, he disagreed. But the wording in the constitution, the part that matters legally, leaves wiggle room here. Now if the originalists on the supreme court really cared about the intent of the framers like some claim, they would solidify the separation.
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No, it doesn't. There is no "wiggle room". It is clear and decisive. No national religion of any kind. The government does not fund any religious institutions. The only thing the government does is to protect people's right to worship, or not worship, as they choose. That is the only thing government does.
Reading the debate in the Senate about ratifying this portion makes it quite clear no one wanted a n
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Yes I agree with that. But the constitution does NOT say "separation of church and state". However one may validly deduce that the separation is implied, which I do. I think there's a strong legal argument that government allowing a legislative chaplain or allowing religious symbols on courtrooms creates a government preference, and that such a preference violates the constitution. You will also find many people who strongly dispute that, even some lawyers and judges who presumably have had more legal tr
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Swearing on a bible for a government position symbolically links the government to religion.
Which, for a good chunk of the US, is essential to both getting into, and staying in, office.
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There's no evidence the bible is divinely inspired either. If anything, quite the opposite - you wouldn't expect a divinely inspired document to conflict with testable reality nearly so often. God would presumably have known how the universe actually works, rather than being limited to the spotty and inaccurate knowledge available to bronze-age clergymen.
Meanwhile "sacred" doesn't necessarily have anything to do with gods or divinity - one of its definitions is simply "Worthy of respect; venerable.".
Ultim
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If anything, quite the opposite - you wouldn't expect a divinely inspired document to conflict with testable reality nearly so often..
Oh, you mean our scientific "reality" where:
- We have to posit the existence of 96% of the mass-energy of the universe because of the missing mass needed to explain star velocities in galaxies (dark matter) and to force-equate distances with a constant of integration (dark energy) -- when we have no direct observation of either of these.
- We pretend everything is ok (for GR and the SM to coexist) when they have yet to be reconciled for 50+ years.
- Where an expanding earth model fits geolog
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I can think of a couple cults where members would swear on their lives and go on record "documenting" disproved things -- even dying for it later. So yeah, I'm really going to believe a bunch of primitives thousands of years ago who'd worship any children's magician... oh, and these people were documented by a tiny tiny group of people who were literate - all of whom were just writing down oral "history" passed around like a game of telephone; they were not witnesses.
FYI - Dinos became today's birds who's
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There's really only one big difference between science and religion: Religion is based on "revealed truth", and accepts no challenges, while science embraces challenge as its foundation - generally accepted theories are accepted precisely because nobody has managed to disprove them - despite there being whole armies worth of hyper-competitive nerds dedicating their lives to trying to do so. When someone finally succeeds (and they always have, eventually), it opens the door to developing a new theory that
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Right - but you would presume that if the religious truth were actually provided by God (rather than being made up by clergy looking to accumulate worldly influence), He wouldn't get simple facts wrong in the telling.
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So if any text is fine, I wonder how long before someone requests to be sworn in using a copy of the Kamasutra, or other text.
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What started this was learning that there are Christian pilgrimages to Washington D.C., searching for them on Google yields a great number of results and apparently it's quite a large industry.
From what I have learned, there has been for quite some time a belief that, when
Good for her on showing a little fashion sense (Score:2, Troll)
Seriously, this woman has style for days. It's a perfect text upon which to take her oath of office and I hope it reflects her motivations.
RIP Carl, we miss you.
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Because it's America's favorite national theatrical prop.
--George Carlin
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It is not always used. I guarantee there is more than one sitting congressperson, state assembly person, or judge that took their oath of office on a koran, torah, or other religious text that they are more closely aligned with.
You see, we have that whole separation-of-church-and-state thing, as well as a constitutionally-mandated and actively enforced non-denominational government, even if there are holes in certain places, and a particular cross-section of religious zealots that constantly try to end it.
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A Bible was used because most people at the time were pretty devout. Swearing upon the Bible was taken seriously by many (going against an oath could get you in serious trouble with God). Over time, I think that this is taken less and less seriously (hence the tone of most of the comments to this story).
Psychologically, it probably has a real impact. The very act of swearing in adds some weight to the importance of the job you will be doing. Of course an oath never guaranteed anything, especially with polit
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I have long thought (Score:1, Interesting)
that the thing to put my hand on would be an encyclopedia - something that contains (mainly) truth rather than mythology.
What if no text is sacred to you? (Score:2)
As an atheist, swearing on any religious book would be silly for me, because it would hold no meaning. In fact, I can't think of any text that I consider to be sacred. So.. what then?
The only time I've had to do anything like take an oath as an adult was in court, and in Canada one has the option to affirm to tell the truth rather than to swear to tell the truth, and so I affirmed.
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"In fact, I can't think of any text that I consider to be sacred. So.. what then?"
Sure but if you are being sworn as Director of an agency empowered and subject to the Constitution of the United States it is something of an issue if you won't swear under or to the Constitution.
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Which raises the point, why isn't the standard to swear on the constitution? If you don't believe in it, get a different job.
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If you mean vs the bible or other religious text; requiring someone put their loyalty to the nation ahead of their loyalty to their notion of God would violate freedom of religion and conflict with many religions. The weight of facing the judgement of their higher power is enough for most. Plus it is tradition which predates the Constitution.
Since an atheist has no higher power the oath carries no actual weight, any obligation to keep their oath vanishes if they change their mind. So they normally affirm th
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Since an atheist has no higher power the oath carries no actual weight, any obligation to keep their oath vanishes if they change their mind.
Now explain how that differs from religion. People reject their religion every day.
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First it isn't massively different.
But since I'm a little pedantic, there are some differences.
The religious person swearing to their God had the incentive of not pissing said deity off at the time of swearing even if they would be fine lying to us all day long, the atheist has no reason not to lie unless there is both a consequence and an undeniable way to prove it. So of the two you only have reason to believe the former actually has a commitment to the Constitution in the first place. Second the religiou
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I would like to see studies on rates of "oath keeping" by methods of swearing and religiosity. I suspect that there is almost zero impact by method - any one individual probably "keeps their word" at similar rates if they use a holy book and place hand on heart or if they merely "pinky swear". I also would not be surprised to learn that atheists had similar (or higher) rates of "word keeping" than otherwise similar "people of faith". My experience is that the vast majority of "reliable" people are that way
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"Such studies would be challenging to implement and analyze I am confident."
No doubt, first you'd have to get people to agree the oath has been broken.
"I suspect that there is almost zero impact by method"
It's entirely possible. But all else being equal it remains that someone who genuinely believes their religion has a two factor lock whereas someone without has only their continued whim to keep the promise.
Ultimately, either the person is going to keep their word or they aren't. I don't think the oath is
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They would probably argue that they were expressing a strong support for the constitutional system under which they were operating. Specifically, Article Six of the constitution forbids religious tests for public office. How does holding a book while swearing an oath "express disdain for the Constitution"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It
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"How does holding a book while swearing an oath "express disdain for the Constitution"?"
Because the standard alternative is to swear upon the Constitution. They opt'd to snub it instead.
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The thing is, we can never know, even in theory what anyone "genuinely believes". Giving any "extra" weight towards those who take oaths with religious symbolism provides an incentive to be disingenuous. How can you possibly tell if someone is sincere about the form of their oath? Who is likely to be more trustworthy - someone
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"How can you possibly tell if someone is sincere about the form of their oath?"
Me: "Ultimately, either the person is going to keep their word or they aren't. I don't think the oath is normally going to make the difference. There is absolutely no reason a sociopath can't just walk up and mumble whatever words you want to hear holding their hand on anything."
You can't, and I said as much, you just didn't selectively quote that part. But if they are sincere the religious person has two reasons, their commitmen
Re:What if no text is sacred to you? (Score:4, Informative)
Oddly, you seem to agree with Jesus:
But I say to you, do not swear at all; not by heaven, for it is God's throne;
nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black.
Let your 'Yes' mean 'Yes,' and your 'No' mean 'No.' Anything more is from the evil one.
Matthew 5:34-37
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He called people to repentance to all sorts of sins, telling the whore "go, and sin no more".
Not "a whore." The translation is "a woman caught in adultery." Which is, pretty specifically, misogynistic slut-shaming [biblehub.com] since they didn't do anything to the man.
But hey, keep trying to argue that your primitive skydaddy death cult is somehow a good thing...
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He called people to repentance to all sorts of sins, telling the whore "go, and sin no more".
Not "a whore." The translation is "a woman caught in adultery."
So... a whore.
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So, kind of like the Romans who lynched him, then?
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Jeebus?
Have you ever read the Bible, or just been hit around the head with it?
Jeebus was detained by the due authorities (that he thought they were illegitimate is completely irrelevant to whether they were the "due authorities" ; the Army thought they were "due", and they're the ones with the pointy people-spikes), put on trial by the standards of the day, tried, convicted, sentenced and punished.
That's not a lynching in my legal textbook. By definition, lynching is an extra-judicial execution
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As an atheist, swearing on any religious book would be silly for me, because it would hold no meaning. In fact, I can't think of any text that I consider to be sacred.
Well how about your integrity then?
Not long ago, your word was your bond. The practice of "swearing in" reflected this formally, so as if you were you break your oath -- your bond -- then others could rightfully accuse you of falling out of integrity with yourself (and your higher beliefs). In harsher times, losing your credibility was one worst consequences for someone who wanted his family to survive and be prosperous. A man with no honor or integrity and could not be trusted and was useful for li
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Well yes, exactly... which is why I affirm. I affirm that my word is my bond. But for some reason, some people think you need more than that.
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A man with no honor or integrity and could not be trusted and was useful for little -- and still holds true.
That doesn't mesh with several of the last occupants of the white house, and all but a select few senators/congresspeeps.
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Some people will only keep their promises if they think they'll be tortured for eternity for breaking them. Other people manage to act morally without supernatural threats, despite the insistence by the first group that such things are not possible.
I suppose if you have to rely on the first kind, you might as well do what you can to make the best of it.
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Well, there are probably some texts that are more important to you than others. In this context, she probably didn't want the bi
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For affirming, you don't need any sort of object. You just affirm.
If I were forced to pick some sort of text, I think I'd choose a table of random numbers.
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If only I'd kept my book of random numbers, from Sadistics many years ago.
Logic Book (Score:1)
Swear in on a logic book. Either way, conservatives will freak out.
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Well, if you're taking an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America and don't feel connected to any other "sacred" text, use the Constitution of the United States of America as your sacred text - you're reaffirming it's sacredness in the oath, after all.
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No you're not. When you affirm, or swear on a piece of used toilet paper (which used to be a page of the Bible, hanging on a nail on the privy door) the "moral test" is entirely in your personal word, not anything external to the interior of your skull.
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Where did you get the idea superstition and rituals were always connected? Are you really that stupid, or are you simply one of those ultra-conservative closeted gay people who like to poison every public discussion they can.
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Where did you get the idea superstition and rituals were unconnected?
Miles_O'Toole implied that superstition and rituals are not always connected, not that they are never connected.
If you're wondering why his comment seemed over the top, you might want to have another look at the over-the-top comment which you posted and he replied to. The "Stupid woman" dig was inflammatory and uncalled-for; and whether or not you realized it, you implied that she's not worthy of the position merely because she acceded to a ritual. You erroneously believe that ritual automatically implies s
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I do not 'believe that ritual automatically implies superstition."
The appointment of Kamala Harris makes it reasonable to assume that any woman given a top job under this administration is there because of her genitalia.
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Thanks for that.
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Rituals serve as a psychological reinforcement, similar to the Pavlov effect. Nothing about ritual requires superstition.
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A vital part of not believing in a a god is not believing in silly superstition and rituals.
Rituals like swearing on a book.
Do you not believe in your work contract either? There is a requirement to swear on something when taking an oath of office. It doesn't have to be a bible, but it does have to be something.
You used the word "stupid". Real stupidity would be not coming up with a creative workaround to get through a pointless ritual you don't believe in simply to bypass a bible you don't give two shits about.
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does have to be something."
Untrue.
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I know it's Slashdot, but it is normal (-ish) for people to actually Read The Friendly Summary.
Space futurism is a kind of faith. (Score:2)
Space exploration should be approached with an unquenchable inner fire and wanderlust. Real passion is dangerous and dramatic, not serene.
Re:Space futurism is a kind of faith. (Score:5, Interesting)
What I loved about the Golden Age SF writers was their tendency to use engineers and technicians as their protagonists. Survival in space was a problem to be solved, and it was solved by people with know-how and resolve. The heroes of most of the stories by guys like Clarke and Asimov didn't run around with blasters in hand ready to blow up their way to success.
My two favorite SF movies are 2001 and The Martian. 2001 deals with enormous philosophical questions, but in a way that is pretty much the antithesis of a "bang boom zoom", and the most emotion we see in the entire film comes from a computer that the protagonist is in the process of dismembering. The latter invokes the literal spirit of the old "scientists are the best" kind of SF, and frankly "I'm going to have to science the shit out of this" is one of my favorite lines from cinema history. In one line who I view as the best kind of space explorer, someone who solves one problem at a time, and applies his wits and his fortitude to a seemingly impossible explanation. When other people get involved, they all apply precisely the same spirit. "Hey fuck, we left a guy on Mars, what are we gonna do about it?" And then promptly everyone solves the problem.
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The Martian was a little too broad for me to love, but I liked it and its message. Also a bit nostalgic because I had a few experiences with JPL in college.
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(My wife spent about a year working as a moderator for TikTok. She couldn't explain it to me either.)
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Still fun. And the great thing about my Princess Leia hairdo is that I can eat the cinnamon buns on the way home.
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That's not a bad choice... (Score:2)
Re:That's not a bad choice... (Score:5, Funny)
Me, I'd have used the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics.
I'd use the service manual for my BMW, a book I use a lot while swearing.
I like it simple. (Score:2)
I don't swear in, I just swear.
great choice. (Score:1)
You Must Speak the Words (Score:2)
If i were swearing in... (Score:1)