Ohio judge can't post Ten Commandments in courtroom
- Thread starter §outh§tar
- Start date
Are you an idiot? 'Establishment of the law aside'?
If he put them on his own law I wouldn't give a fuck.
The whole issue is that it is a court of law.
It doesn't matter if you care. The fact that you don't seem to care explains why you are appearing so dense.
If he put them on his own law I wouldn't give a fuck.
The whole issue is that it is a court of law.
It doesn't matter if you care. The fact that you don't seem to care explains why you are appearing so dense.
WorriedAmerican
Registered Member
Might find some good reading here....... http://members.tripod.com/~candst/toc.htm
The following is a brief, but relevant [to the topic of the 10 com's being the basis for our judicial system]essay found on the page above
[it's linked to from the page above, I should say....]
From: Eldon Goopnik
Newsgroups: milw.general,wi.general
Subject: Fourth of July Special: The Seven Lost Commandments
Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2003 13:52:01 -0500
07/03/03
When fundamentalist Christians want to assert that the United States was founded as a Christian country, they must finally resort to the Declaration of Independence, which mentions a diety. From that Fourth of July proclamation they progress to insisting that our laws are based on the famous Ten Commandments found in the Hebrew Bible.
Since so many people who use the Ten Commandments as justification for extreme positions don't know what they actually say or mean, it's fitting on this Independence Day to review them.
The Seven Lost Commandments
"The Ten Commandments" has become a "hot-button" phrase in our country. One has only to utter the words to see people react like Pavlov's salivating dogs did when he rang a bell: "Western civilization depends on them...Our country was founded upon them...Without them, society will be destroyed...Yada yada yada."
Lofty sentiments, but the actual laws of civilized Western countries, and particularly of the United States, seem to be more in conflict with Bible's Ten Commandments than in agreement with them. That's not surprising, for Thomas Jefferson traced our laws to Anglo-Saxon pagans, and our Western civilization owes more to Greek pagans than to the Hebrew Bible. Our pagan fathers never heard of any Ten Commandments.
Now Russian psychologist Pavlov's dogs were trained to respond to a bell as a signal that food was on the way, and so they salivated at every sound of that bell, even when no food followed. The average American has been trained to believe certain things about the Ten Commandments, and so reacts in a certain way to their very mention. But is there any "food" in the famous Ten?
Take a moment, and consider what the Ten Commandments REALLY say:
Commandment number one is "You shall not have other gods besides me." Ignoring this, our government has not outlawed Hinduism. That's understandable, since the First Amendment directly contradicts the First Commandment. (And the Christian God, if one thinks about it, is not the same as the Jewish or Moslem God: No Jew will accept that Jesus Christ is God, and the Koran specifically says he is not. So, the Christian God being different from the God of the Ten Commandments, the Christian religion is itself the most flagrant violation of them.)
Next comes "You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain." We have repealed our blasphemy laws, which discriminated against non-Christian religions. Our free-speech laws directly contradict this Commandment.
"Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day." (Forbids work on the seventh day of the week.) At one time we banned some Sabbath work, but on the first day, not the seventh. (Jews, Moslems, and Christians can't agree which day is the Sabbath, but that's not surprising, since they don't worship the same God.) This is another precept our laws contradict.
"Honor your father and your mother." We all agree, but have no law directly enforcing this. (The Bible suggests one when it commands that children who curse their parents be put to death.)
"You shall not kill." This agrees with our laws, but flows not from the Ten Commandments, but from fundamental common sense, and is found throughout the pagan world among people who never heard of the Ten Commandments.
"You shall not commit adultery." Jesus connected divorce with adultery, but today so many people live in sinful divorce-adultery that our laws have been changed from condemning to protecting it. This is another commandment contradicted by our laws.
"You shall not steal." Another fundamental law flowing from common sense and found all over the world, including among people who never heard of the Ten Commandments.
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." While we do indeed have perjury laws to ban false witness, the original Hebrew Commandment forbids only false witness of one Jew against a fellow Jew, which is the correct meaning of the word translated as "neighbor." In other words, it's quite acceptable, according to the Ten Commandments, to bear false witness against a Hindu, a Moslem, or even a Christian.
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house." My dictionary defines "covet" as "desire enviously." Our laws don't attempt to control such thoughts.
Finally, "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male or female slave, nor his ox or ass...." Even though this Commandment recognizes and protects slavery, nobody admits to wanting to re-introduce it. Politicians who regularly recommend the Ten Commandments as "good advice" simply don't know what's contained in them, and I'm happy to report that our laws ignore this commandment.
The bottom line is that:
* Our laws directly contradict 4 commandments.
* Our laws ignore 3 of them.
* Our laws agree with 3, but that is a coincidence.
Our laws are NOT based on the Ten Commandments.
The following is a brief, but relevant [to the topic of the 10 com's being the basis for our judicial system]essay found on the page above
[it's linked to from the page above, I should say....]
From: Eldon Goopnik
Newsgroups: milw.general,wi.general
Subject: Fourth of July Special: The Seven Lost Commandments
Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2003 13:52:01 -0500
07/03/03
When fundamentalist Christians want to assert that the United States was founded as a Christian country, they must finally resort to the Declaration of Independence, which mentions a diety. From that Fourth of July proclamation they progress to insisting that our laws are based on the famous Ten Commandments found in the Hebrew Bible.
Since so many people who use the Ten Commandments as justification for extreme positions don't know what they actually say or mean, it's fitting on this Independence Day to review them.
The Seven Lost Commandments
"The Ten Commandments" has become a "hot-button" phrase in our country. One has only to utter the words to see people react like Pavlov's salivating dogs did when he rang a bell: "Western civilization depends on them...Our country was founded upon them...Without them, society will be destroyed...Yada yada yada."
Lofty sentiments, but the actual laws of civilized Western countries, and particularly of the United States, seem to be more in conflict with Bible's Ten Commandments than in agreement with them. That's not surprising, for Thomas Jefferson traced our laws to Anglo-Saxon pagans, and our Western civilization owes more to Greek pagans than to the Hebrew Bible. Our pagan fathers never heard of any Ten Commandments.
Now Russian psychologist Pavlov's dogs were trained to respond to a bell as a signal that food was on the way, and so they salivated at every sound of that bell, even when no food followed. The average American has been trained to believe certain things about the Ten Commandments, and so reacts in a certain way to their very mention. But is there any "food" in the famous Ten?
Take a moment, and consider what the Ten Commandments REALLY say:
Commandment number one is "You shall not have other gods besides me." Ignoring this, our government has not outlawed Hinduism. That's understandable, since the First Amendment directly contradicts the First Commandment. (And the Christian God, if one thinks about it, is not the same as the Jewish or Moslem God: No Jew will accept that Jesus Christ is God, and the Koran specifically says he is not. So, the Christian God being different from the God of the Ten Commandments, the Christian religion is itself the most flagrant violation of them.)
Next comes "You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain." We have repealed our blasphemy laws, which discriminated against non-Christian religions. Our free-speech laws directly contradict this Commandment.
"Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day." (Forbids work on the seventh day of the week.) At one time we banned some Sabbath work, but on the first day, not the seventh. (Jews, Moslems, and Christians can't agree which day is the Sabbath, but that's not surprising, since they don't worship the same God.) This is another precept our laws contradict.
"Honor your father and your mother." We all agree, but have no law directly enforcing this. (The Bible suggests one when it commands that children who curse their parents be put to death.)
"You shall not kill." This agrees with our laws, but flows not from the Ten Commandments, but from fundamental common sense, and is found throughout the pagan world among people who never heard of the Ten Commandments.
"You shall not commit adultery." Jesus connected divorce with adultery, but today so many people live in sinful divorce-adultery that our laws have been changed from condemning to protecting it. This is another commandment contradicted by our laws.
"You shall not steal." Another fundamental law flowing from common sense and found all over the world, including among people who never heard of the Ten Commandments.
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." While we do indeed have perjury laws to ban false witness, the original Hebrew Commandment forbids only false witness of one Jew against a fellow Jew, which is the correct meaning of the word translated as "neighbor." In other words, it's quite acceptable, according to the Ten Commandments, to bear false witness against a Hindu, a Moslem, or even a Christian.
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house." My dictionary defines "covet" as "desire enviously." Our laws don't attempt to control such thoughts.
Finally, "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male or female slave, nor his ox or ass...." Even though this Commandment recognizes and protects slavery, nobody admits to wanting to re-introduce it. Politicians who regularly recommend the Ten Commandments as "good advice" simply don't know what's contained in them, and I'm happy to report that our laws ignore this commandment.
The bottom line is that:
* Our laws directly contradict 4 commandments.
* Our laws ignore 3 of them.
* Our laws agree with 3, but that is a coincidence.
Our laws are NOT based on the Ten Commandments.
No one's saying they are but they do have historical value, and for the state to express this is entirely valid. It would be like a teacher teaching about the pilgrims and then showing the class what laws they abided.
A Christian could claim separation of Church and State is based upon Christian values because Christ said "give to caeser what is caeser's and to God what is God's." Do you think that this saying is religious?
L
laughing weasel
Guest
There is a trend towards allowing rural churches to rent/use local schools on Sundays for church meetings. Do you have a problem with this? I admit to a double standard on this issue. I would have a major problem with a satanic church meeting at a local school. I think that the local community standards should determine what is allowed and that if any one is offended then the state cannot allow any religion to be supported by the state. If a Muslim has a problem with a Christian church using his children’s school on the weekend then it should not be allowed to meet at the school. The majority should always be over respectful of the minority’s rights.
• Obviously, Caesar/God is a religious saying
• Separation of church and state, however, is not a religious saying because of Caesar/God
The idea that the separation of Church and State is based on Christian values is tenuous at best. First off, "Christian values" often have nothing to do with Christ. In the case of the separation of church and state, we might compare what Jesus said (e.g. Caesar/God) to the historical nicety that "separation of church and state" in Western society involved wresting political power away from the Christian churches.
You must, by law, proclaim a belief in God in order to serve as an elected official in South Carolina. (Has that been overturned? Anyone? Anyone?) There are still places in the United States where your purchase range is restricted on Sundays out of respect for the Lord. (e.g. No alcohol, &c.) The Oregon Citizens' Alliance (a Christian-advocacy PAC) attempted to insert a belief in God into the Oregon State Constitution, as well as carried out a decade-long religiously-based anti-homosexual campaign. (Turns out they're still at it.) We know what Christ's values are, but what are Christian values? Separation of church and state or legislation of the Bible?
L
laughing weasel
Guest
While it is true that the war in Iraq is not attracting all of the terrorists in the world it is causing a lot of them to poke their heads up where they can get hammered. A lot of the resistance in Iraq is being caused by professional foreign forces. If these forces are occupied attempting to kill American soldiers then there is a much smaller pool of volunteers to draw on for other missions. Terrorism is expensive and requires a great deal of funding and sovereign nations are a great source for terrorist. America simply said that if you support people who actively wish to harm us then we will insure that you are no longer in a position to do so. While I do not like bush’s stand on freedom and privacy I believe that he is like flu in American politics we can recover from him. I believe that a pull out will only encourage more terrorism and waste the lives of all those who have died over there
L
laughing weasel
Guest
oops! wrong thread
Enigma'07 said:
No, it wasn't. Read the Constitution, m'man ... there's one reference to God in the document, and that's a perfunctory "In the Year of our Lord." That's it. If it was intended to be a Christian nation, don't ya' think they would've included a few more references to the divine voyeur in the law of the land?
And while a few other people have mentioned this, I'm going to repeat myself ... the Ten Commandments have absolutely nothing to do with our legal system. Lying is only illegal in the context of perjury, and other than that, murder is the only point on which both agree. Hence, posting the Ten Commandments serves no purpose than allowing this asshole to turn the gavel into a pulpit.
L
laughing weasel
Guest
There is nothing against the Koran or the book of shadows in the constitution either but I would object strongly to their being posted on the court room wall. It can’t be both ways. He should be allowed to say a prayer before starting court as long as he doesn’t force others to participate. He does not have the right to place personal religious items in public areas. Religious freedom is sort of like sexual harassment you should be free to practice pretty much anything that does not offend any one but whenever it does become offensive it needs to be treated extremely cautiously to protect the minorities’ rights. When Christianity becomes a minority we cannot complain if we receive the same treatment that we have given other minorities.
§outh§tar said:
Christianity has failed in its efforts to make men moral and has therefore been established as vanity.
Enigma'07 said:
First quote proves that the Bible was part of being well educated at the time. Doesn't mean they wanted to establish a theocracy.
Do you have any proof of the second quote?
The third quote? Great, and Washington also attacked political parties. Besides which, it was a farewell adress, not a piece of legislation.
The fourth quote refers to a case heard by the New York Supreme Court, not the United States Supreme Court.
Everyone participating in this discussion, PLEASE read this article (very short) and provide your input:
http://www.americandaily.com/article/3756
http://www.americandaily.com/article/3756
Even if our laws were based on Judeo-Christian principles, they are not exactly the same principles, there is even some debate about what Judeo-Christian principles are. Someone, at some point, had to assume authority about interpretation of those principles, and that person was a mere mortal. The ten commandments say thou shalt not kill, but if we followed that, then we could not defend ourselves in time of war. Jesus said to turn the other cheek, but when was the last time we did that as a country? Obviously, our laws have evolved beyond Judeo-Christian principles, and we need to keep moving forward, not back, we need to adapt to changing times, not inhibit progress. Moral choices are driven by culture, even if Christians claim they are not being relativistic. The fact is there are no absolute standards of right and wrong, but the legal system demands that those lines be drawn somewhere. Conservatives want everything to stay just as it is, but this is antagonistic to one of the few laws we can derive from nature- everything is in a process of change, and nothing is permanent.