Thou Shalt Obey Only Half of These Rules
A resolution currently in the House of Representatives will call the first weekend in May the “Ten Commandments Weekend.” Another related resolution would honor the Ten Commandments Commission, an organization dedicated to educating the public about the Ten Commandments.
This first quote in the article struck me as odd. The House resolution would congratulate the TCC for its:
… key role in promoting and ensuring recognition of the Ten Commandments as the cornerstone of Western law.
Really? We can forget for the moment the ridiculous violation of the Establishment Clause these resolutions present. Of the Ten Commandments, only two are actually law (and arguably a third if you read the “don’t bear false witness” one as committing perjury). Some of the rest, such as not committing adultery, are still considered moral, but about half of them would now be, in and of themself, considered nonsense by a reasonable majority of Americans. Oh, they would deny it of course, but if you went up to someone and said “you can’t say ‘oh my god’ or you will be punished” or “you can’t do anything productive on Saturday,” what do you think their reaction would be?
This isn’t like the Bible, where everyone says it’s so important but never actually read most of it or learn about its history. The ten commandments are everywhere, and yet many Christians still profess how great they are. I don’t understand; have they actually read them?
From my understanding of Old Testament history, the Ten Commandments weren’t even that big of a deal to ancient Jews; they were simply more laws among the hundreds of other laws in the Pentateuch, the first five books (mostly Leviticus). Why the modern interest in these ten laws, most of which are not even considered relevant today? Why do people obsess over these all-important rules, when if they actually analyzed them, they wouldn’t even agree with some of them? Why aren’t they just ignored like the rest of the crazy laws in the Bible?
The Ten Commandments were not the foundation of Western law. The actual laws related to them, against murder and theft, are not values that originated with Christianity, and to try and argue that is ridiculous. Of course, some Christians also claim that democracy/republicanism was founded in Christian values, so I guess people will believe whatever they want to.
Interesting note: the first hit for a Google search for “the ten commandments” is the imdb page for the Charlton Heston movie. At least internet nerds have their priorities straight.
I think their reaction to one of your statements would be to say that the Sabbath is Sunday, not Saturday. The Christian Sabbath is Sunday after all; the Jewish Sabbath is Saturday. And we all know “Judeo-Christian” in America means “Christian”. Also the particular commandments on that sickening Ten Commandments Commission are the Protestant version; Catholics it up into two: coveting houses, and coveting wives.
This crap can’t possibly pass, and if it passes it can’t possibly survive the courts. I fear the day someone rams a Constitutional Amendment through that does away with the establishment clause.
The first article seems to be saying that Congress has passed one of those resolutions for the past two years. While it is horribly unconstitutional, I don’t see how anyone would have standing to challenge it in courts. Even though American tax dollars go to those “faith based initiatives” which are also bad, the courts ruled that the FFR foundation didn’t have standing to challenge it. Which is the worst part about these nonsense pro-religion resolutions; as long as they don’t directly harm anyone, no one can challenge them.