“and this was his first secular affirmation? “

Maybe he is lying. Xians like to do that. Especially to atheists.

‘So help you God’ is just a tired old tradition. The funny thing is it seems to make not the slightest difference. It’s a technicality that can be pointed to in cases of perjury. But people lie whether they swear or not. It’s an absurd superstition without power.

I was getting a clearance for a job and went through all of the questions, and at the end, I was asked “Do you affirm that all these answers to be true, so help you god?” or something like that. To which my reply was, “No, but I will attest by my honor”. (It was the best I could come up with at this moment, I was surprised) Responding to this remark was a totally confused look, to which I replied, ?I am an Atheist?. I got the job.
Anyone else have something more appropriate to respond with?

My own day in court came and went-finally-but I didn’t need to ask for the secular affirmation. The lawyers arranged a settlement before the case went to the judge.

Still, thanks agaiin for the advise you gave me.

I served on a jury in Texas and was never asked to swear to anything as a member of the jury. Good luck, I don’t know if this will hold everywhere or not. I wondered about it at the time. Maybe the judge forgot.

Also, just because you’ve been summoned the chances of being picked aren’t all that good. Often they call about a hundred people. I’ve been summoned probably about fifteen times but only picked once.

Frankly, I hated it and still feel bad about the sentence the guy got. He was an escaped convict and there was no question but that he had escaped, which is what the trial was about. The guy was 33 and in for sex without consent (not permitted to use the r word). When he took the stand he may have been a good actor, but he insisted the sex was consentual and swore he’d passed the lie detector test.

His sentence was already long. He wasn’t tattooed and didn’t present the picture of a hardened criminal. So who knows? Our criminal justice system has executed innocent people, and maybe–just maybe–he actually had not been guilty in the first place?

But we get our instructions from the judge after all the trial stuff and if he is guilty of escaping, which no question but he had escaped–however his wife had helped him and they got trapped deep in the Texas woods in August enduring temps of about 100 and hords of mosquitos for more than a week, and while he could easily have escaped he refused to leave her when she couldn’t go on–anyway, if he was guilty the mandatory sentence was 25 to 50 years tacked on to his already long sentence.

Well, no question he was guilty. He admitted to that. But most of the people on that jury were out for blood. They wanted to give him 50 years, period! I kept hearing that we had to make an example of him. The judge never mention “making an example,” which I pointed out. For a while it was eleven to one (me)dead-set on the maximum sentence. Finally two others joined me, but before it was over I had to stand my ground and say I would hang the jury if necessary if they insisted on going for 50.

We finally compromised on 33 additional years. I thought even 25 was too much considering he was at no time violent. But when nine of the jurors were dead set on the maximum sentence I agreed to 33 years thinking if it went to trial again he would probably get a full twelve jurors who wanted to give him 50 years.

So he gets an additional 33 years and for a bunch of them he is in 23-hour lock-down, and ever afterward he’ll never be given as much freedom inside as before his escape. The escape was a bad move on his part, but then again, if I had been in his place and had actually been innocent who knows what I, or any of us, would have done.

So the long and short of this tale is that I really hated having to abide by the sentencing guidelines. I would probably have given him an additional 10 years if it had been up to me.

Maybe it would be easier if I’d had to sit in judgement of a real scum-bag. And let me tell you this: it is hard to stand up to eleven other people who are practically screaming for blood!

Afterall, to me, in a secular court of law, having the words “in god we trust” means they don’t trust their own laws, or I guess a kinder interpretation would be that in addition to the laws they also trust in god. Either way I see it as a clear violation of church and state. But then since when did McCarthy ever care about the law?!?!

And in court when they they do the swearing in bit.. just leave out the god part and say “I swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. There’s no need for the mention of god in there anyway. Or if you want to stick it to them say “so help me logic and reason”.

Although isn’t “so help me god” a threat? Meaning that you’ll only tell the truth in fear that some god will smite ya down? Or does it mean the person is soo pathetic god has to “help” them tell the truth? I don’t know, whenever bullshit religion gets involved nothing really makes sense because nothing in religion is based on reality or sense.
So I’m not really sure what they mean when they say “so help me god”, but I expect it’s like “if you don’t behave—wait till your father gets home!”, which is based on doing the right thing in fear of someone else.

My excuse is I was raised by a sailor and a VA nurse. What’s yours?