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Zohran Mamdani’s Qur’an Oath Was Perfectly Legal. Christian Nationalists Can’t Handle That.
(www.friendlyatheist.com)
this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2026
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as an atheist, I'd have to think long and hard about what I took an oath on.
Ultimately, I just don't believe there's anything which I believe would smite me for taking an oath on it and breaking it.
Like my word holds more meaning than books.
I've settled on either the constitution (for federal office) or a sword, as in- if oath is broken, use this.
Maybe they should swear in on a guillotine.
I don't think many politicians think they will face any divine reprisal either. They swear an oath on a bible, then do all the heinous things they do
Kissinger swore an oath on a bible, then signed off on the deaths of tens of thousands
Trump swore an oath on a bible, then spent his first year protecting pedophiles
Rick Scott swore an oath on a bible, shortly after stealing hundreds of millions from tax payers
I mean, the Christian god is cool with genocide, commands it numerous times, tolerates all sorts of heinous things, and is at least as likely to protect pedos as Trump. (May also be one. Depending on how it worked with Marry. Lots to unpack there.)
Constitution (or whatever local equivalent) since that's essentially what you're sweating to uphold anyway, makes way more sense than any holy book
Sure. But there way less interesting than. Calvin and Hobbes. (From another reply,)
My undergrad physics textbook
There you go blurring the line between knowledge & beliefs again!
I'd take an oath on DVDs of TNG season 5.
12” version of tom waits’ rain dogs for me
Given the critical mind that led you to your current atheistic beliefs (what I did there? :P), you have to have developed a mature moral code. I’d argue that taking an oath on something at the core of your being would be more binding than taking one based on any external books or faith system. (Muslim here btw but I love philosophy)
Most people of faith don’t realise how most atheists develop strong intrinsic morality by necessity during their journey. And I’m not saying that all atheists are morally superior! (Humans be humans)
This is just an observation based on my experiences and discussions with most of the open-minded ones I’ve come across thus far.
Education beats indoctrination any day. And the well-informed believer has to go through an atheism phase (to varying degrees, so YMMV) to be honest with themselves. Doubt is a perquisite of developing independent morality that confirms faith. At least that’s what I believe.
Edit: also to anyone reading this, don’t ask me about religious stuff, I’m not an Imam or anything. Just someone who went through some heavy shit and had to think outside the framework to make their life work.
I agree with pretty much everything you said up until you implied they ultimately return to some form of customized religious belief (still gave the thumbs up, tho). If they do that, it's most likely because it's of comfort to them on some level to have that rather than completely obliterate the foundation of their childhood. There's certainly no logic to deciding something religious is responsible for reality when it's obviously one of the many things we are unlikely to ever know the true reason for - mainly because it's recursive: e.g. if "God" created all this, then how did God come to be? Then how did that come to be? Etc. Etc. Etc.
Morality is most certainly possible without any kind of religious foundation. Ask me how I know.
They don’t have to. That’s the beauty of it. Some never do. I don’t fault them for it and never will.
Agency implies choice. So any religion stating that god gave us agency is bound to respect that. It follows that anyone going against this fact or arguing that said agency precludes certain choices does not really understand what free will is, nor the true message being conveyed by their own faith. :)
Fair enough - well said.
All right, now let me to respond to the other stuff without that misunderstanding looming in the way. :P
Are you speaking of Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem? Sorry if that’s not the correct name. I call it the N+1 problem personally (long story), but the gist is that we can’t observe our universe in its entirety without looking from a higher dimension with at least one more axis.
I think that’s essentially the recursiveness you’re speaking of: we cannot study our reality because it requires a perspective/view point that’s located outside of it. Correct?
Poetry used to provide an 'external' answer to Gödel, in that regard. Now I am not sure what, we're stuck with memes I guess.
It’s all about perspective. If we can’t truly see from without, why not nudge the viewport from within a bit? :P
Creative work and literature (memes also count!) are a great medium for exploration in this regard. Like… look at that Robert J. Sawyer’s book “Calculating God” (he’s one of my absolute favourite authors because of that book and others) and the fire it lit under so many butts in some “intellectual” circles, just by exploring the unconventional and discussing something both sides of the argument aren’t comfortable with.
I love things like that. Things that require your brain to do some squats and warm up before reading the next chapter.
You might find the teachings of Bhuddism or The Baha'i faith to be enlightening. Their philosophies are remarkably similar.
I did brush up on Buddhism amongst others during my youth, although not very deeply because I couldn’t do that for all religions without dedicating my entire life to that pursuit. Some things made sense, some are more contextual and require a certain lingual/cultural background/upbringing that I lacked, as is the case with most religions (mine included). A lot of nuance is lost in the translation. Not to mention that this was the early Internet and before machine translation was a thing. Most of that knowledge came from forum discussions, irc, and through books.
As for the Baha’i faith: I’ll admit I’m not very familiar. I might look it up when I have some free time though!
Yeah I'm gonna have to stop you there
No you won’t, because that’d be a knee-jerk reaction resulting from the lack of consideration/understanding of the other, so not so dissimilar to religious zealousness, which you disapprove of judging by that knee-jerk reaction.
Personally, I might go for the Bill of Human Rights, or similar (I'm honestly not studious enough to have read it myself to know if it's lacking in some way, but whatever similar document best serves as what such a document should be would be the one I'd go for).
I’d pick a Calvin and Hobbes book
Maybe Carl Sagan's A Demon-Haunted World