The Ten Commandments

I don't think The Ten Commandments should be in local or national government buildings because I don't believe our government should favor specific religions. I have one question. What the hell is up with all of the recent claims that The Ten Commandments are what our laws are based upon? As far as I can tell, there are only 2 or 3 of the commandments that have anything at all to do with our laws: do not murder, do not steal and perhaps do not lie. The ideas that we should not murder, steal or lie were popular ones long before someone came up with The Ten Commandments. I'm having a hard time following the logic of this somewhat popular claim.

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I think what the claim boils down to, more or less, is that regardless of whether or not you're a Christian (or even religious at all), you'd be hard pressed to oppose most of the morality that the Ten Commandments espouse.

I don't think the issue is one of Constitutionality, as some have suggested; the only real danger is in a state-sponsored or "official" religion, as I doubt anyone believes that having "Thou Shalt Not Kill" plastered on the wall of a public high school will lead to fascism, theocracy, or much of anything at all. I suppose it's a matter of principle for some, but in my mind it isn't all that different from posting a notice on a school bulletin board.

No. The claim tends to boil down to certain people trying to get other people to believe that our laws are actually based on these commandments, which seems pretty ridiculous to me.

"You shall have no other gods before Me."
I doubt many people other than Christians would agree with this "morality".

"Thou shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them."
Oh yeah; THAT great morality.

"Thou shall not use The Name of The Lord your God in vain; for The Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His Name in vain."
VERY important.

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to The Lord your God."
Everyone I know follows this.

"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which The Lord your God gives you."
Ok; enough sarcasm. This one isn't bad.

"Thou shall not kill."
Excellent one, but we didn't need a list; the vast majority of people would believe in it without this commandment ever existing.

"Thou shall not commit adultery."
Good one.

"Thou shall not steal."
Another good one.

"Thou shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."
Yup yup.

"Thou shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's."

Really? I guess I should give back all of those things I bought because I saw someone else who had them and wanted them for myself.

The fact is that most people don't follow this list. Except for murder and theft, most people -- most Christians included -- have several morals put way ahead of all of The Ten Commandments. And this list certainly has very little in common with the law, wouldn't you agree?

There isn't much wrong with them being up there, in my opinion. But then again, I don't see why it's such a big deal to just take them down. Some people are making this case be a much bigger deal than it has to be, really. If no one had ever made a case up about it, I would likely just let him keep them up there as long as he wanted. But now that one person has spoken up, it's really not a good idea to keep them up for long.

Even as a nonChristian, or nonspiritualist of any kind, most of America's laws were founded on Christian morals. However, I think that if this judge is really desperate to keep them up there, he should be required to post similar passages from the Korran and all the other many religions around the world(forgive my ignorance of their books and things of that nature, Korran was the only thing to come to mind).

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I'm not sure what "certain people" say. Frankly, I've never in my life heard anyone suggest that our laws are based on the Ten Commandments, because the idea is so easily disproven. I have heard people suggest that Christian morality has heavily influenced American law, however.

I think, at worst, very few people believe what you're talking about, and at best, they're merely misphrasing.


Yes, I would. Most people do not follow that list. But most people agree that most of it, ideally, should be followed, which is rather my point.

I always thought that the "Thou Shalt Not Kill" commandment was interesting, politically anyway. How many right-wing (religious) politicians support the death penalty?

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I think that point is pretty irrelavent, in the end. I think the crux of the argument is, does this show government favortism of one religion over another? I'm still not quite sure if it does or not. I'm starting to lean toward it being favortism, but I'm still not quite convinced yet.


Other than taking the lords name in vain, these are pretty safe ideas to live by. It would be best if they could replace it with a secular list, but that, I'm sure, is out of the question.

I'm afraid i wouldn't be comfortable with such a strong endorsement of one religion by my state [the links between state and church in Britain are a joke and not taken seriously by the majority].

The fact that the commandments are there COULD be used by some foolish people to claim their validity and place in enshrined law (but as Yods says, anyone one with a smidgen of info should be able to disprove their points)

The probs for me are with the other all-purpose/secular moralities which everyone agrees on as life-guidelines getting tied up with these commandments:

"You shall have no other gods before Me." and "Thou shall not use The Name of The Lord your God in vain; for The Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His Name in vain."

-As Fire says, these aren't universals. They're Christian/monotheistic specific.

"Thou shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them."

-I actually see this as being broken in some ways through the "worship" of technology that some partake in i.e. the idea that all scientific/technological "advances" are good per se etc etc. I sort of agree with it in that i don't think any ONE segregated thing should be the object of worship as such. Although these things are more in the territory of ideas than things, they have physical representations, which SOME people consider as flawless as long as they're functioning within their own parameters.

-"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to The Lord your God."

This one is fairly spurious to me. Why not worship "god" through your actions every day??

Interesting point on the killing thing by the way r3
For those that claim these guide-lines are absolute that's a bit of a conundrum

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I think it shows favoritism to a certain set of morals. At most, they're showing tolerance and acceptance -- not favoritism -- of a certain religion. They're not stating that schools must have the Ten Commandments posted, after all...just that they can. Erring on the side of freedom.


It'd be rather silly to replace the Ten Commandments with a near-identical list just so that it could be, technically, "secular."


Why not do both? This isn't, to use a favorite phrase of yours, an "either-or" situation. I don't see what's "spurious" about setting aside a special day of rest to honor God.


Not really. I'm fairly certain that the actual translation is "thou shalt not murder."

Erm, why? What's wrong with having a secular set of morals that all can agree on?

Oops - guilty. But what i'm interested in is: why the unnecessary focus? It seems strange to give it equal credence as "thou shalt not murder" for example. Shouldn't it be a sub-commandment or something?

Ok - but how is the death-penalty not murder?

Nothing's wrong with it. And there's nothing wrong with having a religious set of morals that we can all agree on, either. You honestly don't see what's silly about this? "Well, I agree with these rules, and so does everyone else...but they were written by a religious figure, so we need to reword them."


I see the focus as far from unnecessary. And I've no reason to believe that, because they are both "commandments," one is not a more serious offense than the other.


mur·der - The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice.

Erm, the problem your skipping Yods is that I, and many others, DON'T agree with the ten commandments in total. That's where the problem lies. You see?

Ok, but listing them in the style that they are does lend a certain: here-are-the-ten-most-important-ones feel to it. What I'm disputing, as the sunday-thing is such a lesser "moral" (and indeed - not a moral at all to my mind - it's more of a vague guideline or extra preference - not a necesity by any means for a start) ....why is it there? Couldn't we just have the four or five really socailly necessary ones alone. Why do we need these other ones that people like me and many others don't agree with muddled up amongst them?

You're telling me the accepted translation of the bible's intent is that...
(a) the death must be "lawful"? i.e. under God's law only surely - not under state law for a start. State law can't have anything to do with it surely. In which case - how does the bible clarify what these "laws" are that murder crosses. i.e. when is killing "murder"?
(b) ok - if "premeditated" and "malice" are also demonstrably concepts intended in the bible's original wording/language: at least one is true of the death penalty. And the malice thing is debateable in both cases. What about people who don't care about their victims? Is that malice?

I don't think that's where the problem lies at all. Would you have no objection to the idea if not for the one or two commandments you don't agree with? Regardless, the primary objection for most is the document's source, and not its content.


Yes, that is the implication. But that doesn't tell us that one is necessarily as important as another. They're not listed in any specific order of importance, that we know of.


What an odd thing to ask. It boils down to "why can't the list be just like the one I would write?" The answer is that the other commandments, whether they strike your particular fancy or not, are valuable and serve a purpose. I don't see why they should have to answer for the fact that some people don't like them. Disagreement is inevitable.


It doesn't matter if it's malice, because the definition does not REQUIRE its prescence. And no, the Bible does not define the word "murder" for us, but it really doesn't have to: we're given loads of context. We're talking about a statement that could go one of two ways, and one of the ways contradicts virtually everything that was taught before it.

Throw in the fact that nobody scrutinizes statements like "killing is wrong" in day to day life (the exceptions to the rule are always implied), and the issue is really a no-brainer.

It doesn't really matter what you see as the objections as you don't object. It's the people who object who can tell you best why. In my case it's coz:
(a) there's morals i agree with (but not 100%) and morals i don't agree with bundled up together
(b) the fact that the source is a fixed-text (which ironically has changed to suit the time, but is still considered fixed by some) is an added problem, but fairly extraneous here. Only in that it brings in this 100%-true idea does it add to the problem of the ten commandments.

I'm not saying it does. But we can clearly say that things like murder and theft are morals respected with more prevelance thoughout the world to one extent or another (there are exceptions i understand, but normally in small isolated communities that come up with very non-world-checking theories, it seems). And surely there are lots of other sub-morals other than setting Sunday aside etc i.e. turn-the-other-cheek etc. Why aren't they in there? Why isn't the sunday one and other non-"universal" ones removed? I think they should be then - if this is supposed to be a list of morals acceptable to all as you say (and by acceptable i mean secular. That's what we've been talking about: morals that don't introduce one-religion-specific criteria. That's the emphasis.)

Not so.... it's more: why can't the list be one we can reach a consensus view on?

Disagreement is inevitable, but in the case of creationists etc, so is assertion of 100% truth. Most annoying. Glad you accept some of the ten commandments aren't valuable and don't serve a purpose

So why introduce unrelated definitions then dictionary-boy? And MUST you do the it's-either-my-right-way or the-obviously-wrong-way thing again? It's so tiresome. Let me demonstrate why it's not so clear cut...

Where are they implied? Murder CAN be ok. Theft CAN be ok. In the right circumstances. You admit this then? Yet these exceptions are NOT implied when people, like yourself, with a tendancy to apply things 100% (especially when it's God's truth ) when they believe they have a definition of "wrong".

(look at the "evil" thread you just replied to.)

So are you now saying that "thou shalt not murder" is only 90% right?

Please tell me it's so

Chris, I've heard it many times, especially the last week or so. With this whole Judge Moore thing, lots of people are making this claim, including Allen Keys. I've also had 2 religious friends say it to me in the last few days.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the Ten Commandments Jewish as well as Christian? I still have my doubts about this really being favortism.

Then ask yourself how this Judge Moore would feel if a huge sculpture of rules from the Quran were placed in his building. Ask yourself how he would respond to the notion of placing rules from Secular Humanism right next to The Ten Commandments.

From Kong's point of view it doesn't matter if we agree with the morals of the Ten Commandments or not. The fact is that it is a religious text, and its being displayed in government buildings is an endorsement of that text, and since that text is representative of a religion(s) it comes off as an endorsement of that religion(s). It might not be a particularly strong endorsement, but it's an endorsement none-the-less.

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Probably not so well. I said it should be replaced with something secular, but Yoda called it silly.


It is an endorsement of religion, no doubt, but I just don't feel like it's strong enough to warrant removal. Then again, I also still don't see why it's such a large deal to remove it anyway, we're not telling this judge he can't follow the Ten Commandments, just that he should follow them on his own.

I'm still going back and forth on this issue, a lot. My guess is that it will be removed, sooner or later.

Now there's a silly idea...I can't recognize people's objections because I'm not one of the ones objecting?

The overwhelming bulk of people I've talked to on this matter agree that the Ten Commandments are, overall, morally advisable. Kong put it best: it's their source, not their content, that spurs the primary contention. I'll ask again: would you approve of the idea if the "offending" commandments were omitted?


I never said this was supposed to be a list of morals acceptable to all. Whether or not everyone finds them acceptable is up to them. The only thing it's supposed to be is true. Besides: a list of morals that everyone already found fully self-evident wouldn't serve a whole lot of purpose, now would it?


Because there will inevitably be people with differing viewpoints (like yourself)...and the only way to please them all would be to write something untrue. Your question assumes that The Bible was written with a specific agenda in mind, rather than simply written because it was true. You're presupposing that your beliefs are correct.


What?


You asked why the death penalty did not constitute murder, so I produced the definition of the word so answer your question. If you meant to ask whether or not the death penalty constituted murder in the way The Bible describes it, I'd say no, for the same reasons detailed in my last post.


What do you mean "where are they implied?"? If there was a specific place, they wouldn't really be implied at all. They're implied in the absurdity of the alternative. It's rather like saying "this thing weighs a ton." You know the person saying it is exaggerating because no book weighs a ton. Similarly, you know that The Bible is not condemning killing in all forms because there are instances in which not killing leads to more death than killing, so that refraining from the act would be contrary to the rule's purpose, and also because it contradicts the context around it.


You're far too hung up on these made up percentages. It is not "90% right" because it's not "10% wrong." It's a sound principle, but it cannot defy logic...that is, if failing to kill/murder will result in more kills/murders, a potential exception can be made. The fact that certain rules can have exceptions if and when they conflict with their own purpose, or other rules, does not make them partially valid.