Excellent article.
By coincidence, I was just reading Gibbon last night, where he talks about the tolerance of the Romans to the different religions that the various tribes that were brought into the empire brought with them. I even marked the passage where he wrote "The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true, by the philosopher, as equally false, and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord."
Especially he notes that the belief that people would answer to the gods in the afterlife was important in assuring the truth of sworn testimony. That's a major problem in the courts today, as I can personally attest -- people who have no religion and who recognize that there is almost never a prosecution for perjury except in very high profile cases have no bar other than their personal integrity not to lie, and when it's a matter of personal integrity vs. personal financial interests or liberty, integrity very often loses. But when I get an Evangalical on the witness stand swearing on the Bible that what he or she testifies is true, and that they believe they will burn in hell for all time if they violate their oath, I can be pretty sure what I'm getting is what they really believe to be the truth. |
