# Our Pagan Heritage **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 21, 2003, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745 "2003-08-21T19:00:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![LyricalReckoner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/df788c/32.png) [@LyricalReckoner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LyricalReckoner)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2003, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/1 "2003-08-21T19:00:13Z")
Chief Justice Roy Moore claims that U.S. law is somehow based on the Ten Commandments. Seems that lots of people just assume that to be the case. But is it? Does our civilization come from a small tribe of Asians, or some powerful Pagans? Chew on this and then chime: [http://www.misterthorne.org/NEWS/JUL\_2003.htm#subhead9](http://www.misterthorne.org/NEWS/JUL_2003.htm#subhead9) ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2003, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/2 "2003-08-21T21:36:47Z")
US law is based on the Ten Commandments. US law is based on the Code of Hammurabi. US law is based on Plato. US law is based on Aristotle. US law is based on St. Thomas Aquinas. US law is based on St. Augustine’s _City of God_ US law is based on a lot of different things. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2003, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/3 "2003-08-21T22:57:36Z")
Democracy is Pagan. I’m not aware of anything in the US Constitution that derives in any way from the Ten Commandments, in fact the First Amendment _contradicts_ a bunch of the commandments. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2003, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/4 "2003-08-21T23:51:46Z")
I was always taught our nationhood grew from the political philosophy of John Locke. Not pagan, but then not especially noted for Christianity either. More of an Enlightenment figure, although he lived in the 17th century. The religious thought associated with the Enlightenment is called Deism, which is pretty well non-Christian. ---
**Author:** ![Avalonian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@Avalonian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Avalonian)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/5 "2003-08-22T00:30:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dogface \* > **US law is based on the Code of Hammurabi.** Makes me wonder how ol’ Justice Moore would feel about a monument depicting the [Code of Hammurabi](http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM) in his court building… not quite as interested in protecting it as he is in the Ten Commandments, I expect. ---
**Author:** ![Super\_Gnat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Super\_Gnat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Super_Gnat)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/6 "2003-08-22T01:25:27Z")
Actually, that would be pretty cool. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/7 "2003-08-22T02:15:05Z")
In fairness, the Constitution and the “nationhood” (whatever that is) are not the whole-all of “our laws”. We do have laws and social customs (which can often be more powerful than law) with a judeochristian heritage (that they usually coincide with other sources of law, is a different story) Moore’s (and others’) error lies in apparently believing that it’s somehow proven that the 10C trump everything else and that all Western Law derives therefrom and otherwise we’d be a bunch of lying, looting, killing, raping, coveting heathens w/o civil society. This is of course silly. ---
**Author:** ![LyricalReckoner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/df788c/32.png) [@LyricalReckoner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LyricalReckoner)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/8 "2003-08-22T02:48:45Z")
Well . . . at the least, Judge Moore’s an interesting sort, what with all of his talk about organic law and such. He’s not nearly as menacing as Governor Wallace was when he tried this stunt way back when, but he does seem to have the same knack for dragging the hillbillies down from the hills and before the cameras to remind us all about the dangers of incest. ---
**Author:** ![Kalt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Kalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalt)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/9 "2003-08-22T03:43:53Z")
This whole aluhhhbama thing shows why electing judges is always a bad idea. Dumb people get to vote, and dumb people greatly outnumber intelligent ones. That messes up elections as it is, but we usually have the judiciary to fix the mistakes the elected idiots make. But when the judiciary itself is elected, we have nowhere to turn. Sad, sad, sad. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/10 "2003-08-22T10:51:17Z")
George Wallace may have been an amoral opportunist who evilly exploited racism. One thing he was not was a religious nut; in fact, the opposite. He insisted that no state funds would ever go to any religious activity. Wallace was from an earlier era of conservatism, before the fundie Christians took over. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/11 "2003-08-22T12:22:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by LyricalReckoner \* > \*\*… he does seem to have the same knack for dragging the hillbillies down from the hills and before the cameras to remind us all about the dangers of incest. \*\* Please keep your ethnic bigotry to yourself. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/12 "2003-08-22T15:11:20Z")
Posted by **LonesomePolecat:** > [@](#): > > Please keep your ethnic bigotry to yourself. But why? Rednecks – i.e., Highland Southerners of English or Scotch-Irish ancestry – are the one ethnic subculture in America that is still fair game for bigotry! Just look at Jeff Foxworthy’s career! A back-country farmer named Hollis Used snakes and opossums for solace. The offspring had scales And prehensile tails And voted for Governor Wallace. ``` -- Isaac Asimov ``` As for our “pagan heritage” – there is something to that. The whole set of liberal-humanist ideas that drove the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the American Revolution derived from reaching back through the centuries of medieval Christendom to the philosophers of pagan Greece and Rome. Check out this article [[http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&pubID=598](http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&pubID=598) by Michael Lind. Excerpt: > [@](#): > > My claim is that the civilisation shared by most Prospect readers is humanist, a relatively young global civilisation based on the post-medieval, Italian-Dutch-Anglo-American tradition of the constitutional, commercial society. Needless to say, this definition of humanist civilisation differs dramatically from conventional catechisms about the “rise of the west.” > > For example, the familiar idea that there is a unitary liberal “west” that is defined by the RRE tradition-Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment-is untrue. Renaissance humanism is incompatible with Reformation Protestantism, while Enlightenment rationalism is alien to both. The fact that these three traditions have coexisted in Britain, the US and other countries does not mean that they are three phases of the same tradition. > > Another version of the “rise of the west” story, more sympathetic to Catholicism than the RRE approach, holds that the “west” is a synthesis of the “Greco-Roman” and “Judaeo-Christian” traditions. In fact, the “Judaeo-Christian” tradition has little to do with the tolerant, individualist, commercial society. > > Consider the claim that Christianity is responsible for the liberal ideal of political equality. In reality, early-modern liberal republican theorists derived this from Cicero and the Stoics. Christians and Muslims believe in the equality of believers before God, a conception which was not interpreted until recently to mandate equality. Indeed, Paul admonished slaves to return to their spiritually-equal masters. The Christian churches only turned against chattel slavery after secular philosophers like David Hume had begun denouncing it. Southern Protestants in the US defended slavery throughout the civil war, and the Catholic church defended it until it was abolished decades later in Catholic Cuba and Brazil. > > Popular sovereignty, republicanism, democracy, the rule of law rather than the rule of men, the idea of a natural law transcending the conventional law of nations-these, too, are part of a pre-Christian, Greco-Roman heritage familiar to educated Europeans and westerners from the Renaissance until the 19th century. Credit for these concepts can no more be given to Moses and Jesus than to Muhammad. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/13 "2003-08-22T15:53:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \* > \*\*I was always taught our nationhood grew from the political philosophy of John Locke. Not pagan, but then not especially noted for Christianity either. More of an Enlightenment figure, although he lived in the 17th century. The religious thought associated with the Enlightenment is called Deism, which is pretty well non-Christian. \*\* Uhhhh, was this the John Locke who wrote THE REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY? Skim Locke’s TWO TREATISES ON GOVERNMENT - a cursory glance will find tons of references to the Bible & the Christian faith as a source of authority for him. Actually, there were many Deisms- not all of them non-Christian. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/14 "2003-08-22T16:13:31Z")
Just because someone wrote two books does not mean that the second book is based on the first. ---
**Author:** ![Freyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freyr/32/5763_2.png) [@Freyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freyr)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/15 "2003-08-22T16:43:47Z")
I opened [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=206221) thread in GQ to track the connection between the Decalogue and English common law. So far, the connection is tenuous, at best. As for our Pagan heritage, while western society has been molded by Christian values for the past 1500 years, at least, there remains a strong current of Pagan symbols and ideas in our culture. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/16 "2003-08-22T18:06:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \* > \*\* Wallace was from an earlier era of conservatism, before the fundie Christians took over. \*\* Actually, I don’t know that I’d call George Wallace a conservative at all. He was more of a Southern Populist/New Deal Democrat. Here, btw, is the 1968 Independence Party platform. It’s segregationist, and law and order (and sort of gives up on the inner cities), but it also calls for increasing Social Security, expanding job training for the poor, giving more aid to farmers, strengthening the power of labor unions, and negotiating a withdrawal from Vietnam. [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wallace/filmmore/reference/primary/68platform.html](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wallace/filmmore/reference/primary/68platform.html) ---
**Author:** ![Thranduil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/57b2e6/32.png) [@Thranduil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thranduil)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2003, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/17 "2003-08-22T20:35:37Z")
My good friend is a Pagan, and he saw no problem with the 10 Commandment display. He told me that those laws are not different than other laws from other faiths. And that are the basis for modern law Sounds logical to me. Funny how they saw the Christains are forcing the monuments to others… As a Jew I see it as a Jewish monument. ---
**Author:** ![Gjorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c4cdca/32.png) [@Gjorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gjorp)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2003, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/18 "2003-08-23T00:53:37Z")
> [@](#): > > This whole aluhhhbama thing shows why electing judges is always a bad idea. Dumb people get to vote, and dumb people greatly outnumber intelligent ones. That messes up elections as it is, but we usually have the judiciary to fix the mistakes the elected idiots make. But when the judiciary itself is elected, we have nowhere to turn. Sad, sad, sad. “_When will people learn, democracy doesn’t work_” Homer Simpson or “_Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest_” Winston Churchill hmm… don’t know how accurate that Winston Churchill quote was, but I know the Homer Simpson one is 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![j.c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@j.c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j.c)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2003, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/19 "2003-08-23T01:54:37Z")
> [@](#): > > As for our Pagan heritage, while western society has been molded by Christian values for the past 1500 years, at least, there remains a strong current of Pagan symbols and ideas in our culture. This current of Pagan symbols and ideas is certainly there, but these relics are as adapted for the prevailing mores of the last 1500 years, which were Christian… and the current has certainly had ebb and flow. No society springs full-blown from some long-winded book. Progress is slow. It took about a thousand years to go from a state where most people where the chattel of others to the current state. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2003, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745/20 "2003-08-23T14:36:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrainGlutton \* > \*\*Posted by **LonesomePolecat:** > But why? Rednecks – i.e., Highland Southerners of English or Scotch-Irish ancestry – are the one ethnic subculture in America that is still fair game for bigotry! Just look at Jeff Foxworthy’s career! Because ethnic and racial slurs are not allowed on the SDMB, not even in the BBQ Pit. You and LyricalReckoner are ill-mannered louts. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/our-pagan-heritage/196745.md?page=2)