Quote:
Originally Posted by pshsx1
Swearing on a religious book, for example, doesn't necessarily men you're swearing to that religion.
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Actually, while many today surely see it as just an old-fashioned practice or just "how we do things," that is pretty close to what it means.
To swear is to make an oath, and an oath by definition is an appeal to a deity or something else that one considers sacred (one's honor, one's grandmother's grave, "all that is holy") as a witness or testament to the truth of what one is saying or to the binding nature of what one is promising. The meaning of placing one's hand on a sacred text is to invoke symbolically the deity/ies of whom that text speaks to witness the oath.