Which Ten Commandments?
I was going to do a post about how posting the Ten Commandments in schools and courts is a bad idea because so few of the laws given in them apply to a secular society like ours.
But then I hit a hang up looking for the exact text of the Commandments.
When they're not printed as big Roman numerals, there's quite a bit of disagreement over which Commandment is which.
ReligiousTolerance.org provides a good overview of the Ten Commandments, with the text, various viewpoints on who wrote them, and the way different denominations split up the commandments. Positive Atheism provides a side-by-side list of the Ten Commandments as used by Jews, Protestants, and Catholics (if you don't want to be influenced by their atheism, just read the commandments).
Which version of the Commandments are we going to post in the schools? Shall we discriminate against the Jews, the Protestants or the Catholics (along, of course, with the Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, Sikhs, etc.)?
posted by Luke Francl @ 10:14 PM |
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6 Comments:
"is a bad idea because so few of the laws given in them apply to a secular society like ours."
LOL.
Well Luke, if by "ours" you mean the "it's all good" wing of the left you're probably right.
But outside the bubble, you couldn't be more off base.
The first two Commandments speak to our relations with God Himself which by it's very definition excludes the secular. Nothing in the Constitution prohibits you from sculpting up that statue of Michael Moore out of pure hog lard to worship if you want, so enjoy!
#3 is Sunday. Ever wonder why you can't buy your berry spritzers on Sunday? Or buy a car? Or why people who work on Sunday get paid "premium rates"?
#4 is interesting. Here's a bit of history for you:
In the U.S., in 1908 Ana Jarvis, from Grafton, West Virginia, began a campaign to establish a national Mother's Day. Jarvis persuaded her mother's church in Grafton, West Virginia to celebrate Mother's Day on the anniversary of her mother's death. A memorial service was held there on May 10, 1908 and in Philadelphia the following year where Jarvis moved.
President Woodrow Wilson, in 1914, made the official announcement proclaiming Mother's Day a national observance that was to be held each year on the 2nd Sunday of May.
Ah, there's that Sunday thing again. Think that may have had anything to do with the fact that people don't ordinarily work on Sundays?
Do #'s 5, 6 and 7 need an explaination? They don't ring a bell for you? Maybe you should check with the nearest "Lardy Micheal" statue to be sure.
#'s 8, 9, and 10. (sigh)
Well, I guess I have to admit that your utopian secular society would have no use for these..who need a buzz kill like that eh?
From a PJ O'Rourke speech about liberty in China...
"collectivism is, I think, not only silly and untruthful but immoral.
The Ten Commandments in the Old Testament of the Bible are very clear about this.
Now the Bible might seem to be a strange place to do economic research--particularly for a person who is not very religious and here in a country that is not predominately Jewish or Christian.
However, I have been thinking--from a political economy point of view--about the Tenth Commandment.
The first nine commandments concern theological principles and social law: thou shalt not commit adultery, steal, kill, etc. All religions contain such rules. But then there's the tenth commandment: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covert thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's."
Here are God's basic rules about how the Tribes of Israel should live, a very brief list of sacred obligations and solemn moral precepts, and right at the end of it is, "Don't envy your friend's cow."
What is that doing in there? Why would God, with just ten things to tell Moses, choose, as one of them, jealousy about the things the man next door has? And yet think about how important to the well-being of a community this commandment is. If you want a donkey, if you want a meal, if you want an employee, don't complain about what other people have, go get your own. The tenth commandment sends a message to collectivists, to people who believe wealth is best obtained by redistribution. And the message is clear and concise: Go to hell.
Collectivism is silly, deceitful, a sin. It's also cowardly. We fear the power others have over us. And wealth is power. So we fear the rich.
But how rational is this fear? Take a midnight stroll through a rich neighborhood then take a midnight stroll through the U.S. Capital. Yes, you can get in a lot of trouble in Monte Carlo. You can lose at roulette. But you're more likely to get robbed in the slums of Washington.
Not that we should begrudge the crimes of those poor people. They're just practicing a little "free-lance collectivism." They're doing what the U.S. Government does, in their own small way. Because the real alternative to the power of the rich is not the power of the poor but plain, simple power. If we don't want the world's wealth to be controlled by people with money then the alternative is to have the world's wealth controlled by people with guns. Governments have plenty of guns.
The theory of this is quite good. The robber puts down his pistol, picks up the ballot box and steals from rich people instead of from you. But the reality is different. Witness the track record of collectivism in this century: The holocaust, Stalin's purges, the suffering caused by the Great Leap Forward here."
Swiftee,
I know you're a little slow, but the sabbath is on Saturday not Sunday.
You're just helping me make my point.
Well if the point is that I proving that you're attempting (again) to prostelityze against something which you know absolutely nothing about, I agree.
Jews hold the Sabbath to be Saturday, Christians Sunday. The day is completely arbitrary and either meets God's Commandment
"Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God."
The fact that in the US, the secular as well as religious day of rest is Sunday simply reinforces the fact that we are a by far and away a Christian nation.
Keep digging.
It's a little more complicated than that, Swiftee. Educate yourself:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/sabbath.htmIn any case, not working on Sunday in the US has more to do with the labor movement than the Ten Commandments.
Swiftee, when did the Native Americans ever celebrate sabbath, afterall....this was once their land.
They were and continue to be religious in their own way but, it has nothing to do with chritianity.
Remember, christians killed, maimed and burned to get to where they are today. Not a very likable cult, if you ask me.
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