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I think it depends on the oath.
For me, the reason oaths are important is that it makes a statement about how reliable someone is and what their name is worth. Their integrity and their value as a person.

I am okay with someone breaking their word for the right reasons, so I look at it on a case by case basis.

Those are logical responses wink I'm asking about purely emotional reactions.

When your family may or may not have forced on you at a young age when you haven't been properly exposed to other ideas.. I think it's a little more understandable.
So sometimes, it's okay. Doing it just for the hell of it and being wishywashy isn't fair to the gods though, and just not right.. they should take it seriously.

I guess part of me sees it as.. if not even your god(s) can trust you to keep to your promises, how can I?

Sure! I'll tell you what inspired this question in the first place.

Some time ago someone I knew left Heathenry for Islam. I don't dislike Islam. Its values are different to my own, but most Muslims I've met are pretty cool people and the faith as they practice it is accepting and respectful. But it troubled me on an emotional level, not because of where this person was going but because she had made a commitment to these deities and broken it.

I don't hold anything against this person; it's not the person who troubles me so much as the situation itself. I worked on this emotional reaction because I recognize that it's not a reasonable one.... she'd broken a commitment but I'm not familiar with how strong that commitment was, so I can't comment on it.

The other example was a person on Livejournal whose journal I followed. She was a Heathen, and a devout one; she had written and self-published devotionals, she fasted, she worked hard on spiritual goals. Then for a year, I didn't use that journal or follow the people I had friended on there. When I came back to it, I discovered she was working towards officially converting to Judaism. This threw me utterly, because i had been privy to her spiritual journal, her hopes and aims and troubles, and I knew how dedicated she had been. How could she turn her back on deities she'd loved so well? I admit I unfollowed her, and not just because her journal was no longer relevant to my interests. I felt uncomfortable around her.

But I wondered to myself how I would feel if someone had a serious commitment to, say, the Egyptian deities and left them for my gods. Would I be uncomfortable around them, because of the way in which they broke oaths they'd made so seriously? Are these people to be trusted?

I don't feel so bad were they Christian beforehand, and I'm not sure whether I'm excusing it away because I never found anything there for myself, or whether it's indeed more logical because Christianity is presented as the only theistic option for many people, whether they're raised Christian or not. Maybe it's because I've met so many people who came out of Christianity for whom it was a difficult journey, so I understand the reasons for breaking these oaths and the way in which it is done.

So... I think if it were a stupid oath to begin with I'd be more annoyed, because they weren't serious about something I am serious about, but less disturbed by it, because it wasn't a genuine bond that was broken. Again I don't know the ins and outs of most situations because they are personal - this is merely my immediate emotional reaction.

Again, Tsukiyo, I'm not really interested in their reasons. I'm talking about emotional reactions. Logic doesn't factor into it.

Besides, that's a poor excuse. If the gods who want you see fit to make your path a difficult one, then your path is a difficult one. No one pretends it's easy. Piking out is only going to make it worse, surely? Breaking oaths when things get tough is defeating the purpose of making an oath.

My emotional reactions tend to be curiosity, instead of discomfort.

I guess in those cases I'd be a bit more polite than "Well, don't let the door hit you on the way out."

On an emotional level, I wouldn't want someone who didn't feel they belonged trying to force themselves into "my religion".

It's difficult. My immediate reaction is that an oath is an oath and not to be broken lightly. It would probably make me immediatly uncomfortable but I would soon want to know more before actually judging a situation. Sometimes, a person changes so much that the oaths they made previously were basically sworn by a different person. I would prefer some form of formal acknowledgment of this though. Other times, they just don't seem to understand that such things are important and not just a game. That I have issues with.