To me, oath can be summed up with one word: promise.
Us as greeks should understand what the word oath means more than most people. Upon all of our initiations we all took an oath to live out each others' creeds, missions, ways of life etc... We made promises to not only ourselves but to our organizations that would we stand by what we believe in and what we were taught from our ritual each and every day.
When I think of oath, not only is it a promise but it's also a commitment one makes under the premise of something bigger than themselves. Often times you take an oath on the bible, or commit to yourself to a general public or group. Like the president taking an oath on the bible and committing to the entire country to uphold his position. Or our servicemen taking an oath to uphold the laws and regulations. The main difference between a promise and an oath is that promises are made in intimate situations such as promises to yourself or to a person, but an oath is between you and something bigger than yourself.
To me oath is pretty clear cut and doesn't really need to be explored into much depth. You either live up to your oath, or you don't and can sometimes suffer the consequences.
Nice concise way to sum up oath Huegle. I couldn't agree more that there's no gray area, you either do it or don't do it. Pretty simple.
ReplyDeleteI think you summed it up perfectly when you said that is something bigger than yourself.
ReplyDeleteWell done Alex!
i really like how you compared a promise with an oath and said that an oath deals with something bigger than yourself, whereas a promise is more personal. good job :)
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you said an oath is more than ourselves, and even though that may be over whelming it is still important to live up to it the best way you can. As you said, you either do it or you don't but hopefully most people do
ReplyDeleteIt is something bigger than yourself. You have a nice way of saying it!!!!
ReplyDelete