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My starting point was
different. If someone was devoted to religion, not simply out of fear or
prudential concerns, but because he or she believed God to be the source of
moral law, then unless secular law was impoverished, I can't imagine that person
not truthfully testifying merely with the knowledge that perjury is wrong.
In other words, a religiously moral person will be inclined, I would think, to
obey reasonable secular laws. Thus, stronger affirmations are
unnecessary.
But you're right if you
start out with a person whose only reason for obeying the law of God is
fear, then given that God's wrath is exponentially more damaging than secular
punishment, those people who believe in God out of fear might be more
inclined to be truthful if they believe perjurious testimony will damn them
since they swore an oath to God to be truthful.
Although only limited to my
own rather narrow experience, I've found people who follow the religious law for
fear of God only are not those I'd consider genuinely moral individuals.
But again that judgment is limited to my experience.
Bobby
Robert Justin
Lipkin
Professor of Law Widener University School of Law Delaware |
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