Church & State Basics - Secular vs Religious: Where Should the Line Be Drawn?
Sunday June 15, 2008
Where should we draw the line between 'religious' and 'secular?' How can a religious symbol or ritual become secular? These might appear to be odd questions, but their importance is slowly and silently growing. We cannot afford to ignore them - our answers will have a profound impact on the course of our society and the nature of church/state separation in America.
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I wonder who visited the White House? Too bad we will NEVER find out.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10961.html
I think that if we post the 10 Commandments as history of law, then we should add the rest of Moses’ commandments and laws as well as those of Sargon and Hammurabi. Both preceded Moses and at least one had a similar life history. Some of their laws are similar to those of Moses. His may have been a steal (plagiarism?)
As for Christmas, we have had in my state people who claim that Christmas is a religious holiday and that the Puritans brought it into this country. No way. Christmas was brought into this country by the Jamestown settlers. The Puritans thought it was too licentious a holiday and banned it for a number of years in Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies.
I so agree with Chuck. However, the Ten Commandments that they want to put in place are not the correct ones, especially the last one that states “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk”. Deuteronomy Chapter 14.
There are 613 commandments in all - so where are they going to place all of those, and all of the nonsense they have written in them? If you only do 10 it seems to short change all the others. Maybe it’s because the churches won’t tell the truth about the actual commandments and what they are they are so ridiculous given this generation.
Most of those have in fact been plagiarized - they match almost perfectly.
The 10 Commandments should be restricted to private property. Why do fundanazis feel they must use force and fraud to push their religion?
As we mostly know, there are three versions of the Ten Commandments in the Bible and they do not agree with each other.
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Further, even choosing one particular set, there are disagreements such as between Roman Catholic and Lutheran versions.
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But the biblical sets of commandments are not original. All but one of them are in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, thousands of years earlier than the alleged Moses.
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They can be seen as the Papyrus of the Scribe Nebseni, in the British Museum.
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Why not post the Ten Amendments to the US Constitution, not the Ten Commandments, in public places?
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I’m not sure it’s logical to say that American law shares any legacy with Biblical law. Most of our legal system is either completely unique to the US or inherited from England’s.
England’s legal system was defined by the Enlightenment as a slow progression away from feudalism and has nothing at all to do with any religion, let alone specific laws from a specific religion.
Ultimately our legal system owes its nascence to the secular Code of Hammurabi, which covered long before the Bible was written the only laws which our government shares with the 10 commandments.
Here’s what I mean:
Commandment - Law?
1. No other gods. - No.
2. No idols. - No.
3. No ‘God’s name in vain’. - No.
4. Honor the Sababth - No.
5. Honor father, mother. - No.
6. No murder. - Yes.
7. No adultery. - No.*
8. Do not steal. - Yes.
9. Do not bear false witness. - Partially.**
10. Do not covet. - No.***
* Adultery is not illegal at the federal level and very few states have anti-adultery laws. Those which do typically merely establish it as a grounds for divorce. The worst things which can happen are, thus, indirect consequences of divorce such as money division, child custody exchange, and child support payments.
** This one is covered by the law of perjury, stating that lying UNDER OATH is illegal. Lying in any other context is usually legal.
*** Coveting one’s neighbor’s property is not only completely legal, but so ingrained in society that it has a name all its own: “Keeping up with the Joneses.” It’s a definitive part of American society and capitalism in general. And, as George Carlin famously remarked, it’s what keeps the economy going! Obeying the tenth commandment is not only impossible, but would spell disaster for any free market economy.
If you ignore the two natural laws of “no murder” and “no stealing”, the Ten Commandments are batting 0/8. 0%. If you leave them in, it’s still only 2/10. 1/5. 20%.
So to summarize:
1. American law does not derive, in whole or in part, or in any fashion, whatsoever, from the Ten Commandments, even indirectly.
2. American law shares only the most simplistic rules (no murder, no theft) in common with the Ten Commandments.
3. American law is derived entirely from its own democratic process, inheritances from the English legal system, and ultimately the Code of Hammurabi and other such secular legal systems.
4. The Constitution of the United States of America, the ultimate authority on law in the nation, specifically prohibits establishing any religious laws.
5. The people of the United States have never once contested, in majority, or even any sizable minority, the First Amendment (prohibiting religious law) in over two centuries.
I think it’s safe to say that the US legal system and the Bible’s Ten Commandments are completely unrelated.