The Ten Commandments

Oh, look. Yet another thread in which clever little sanctimonious prigs of goddamn atheists belittling religious morons. (Resolved: 90% of religious people No, I don’t know how to link that. This is my first thread.) The best part is the statement that placing a statue of The Prophet at a court house would show dem damn Christians to respect how stupidly sanctimonious they are. Jesus Christ, how could anyone be so stupid? Don’t they * know* Muslims refer to “people of the Book” for a reason?! The ideals of the Ten Commandments can be found in all cultures, even if the name of god changes, for Chrissakes!

There I convinced you all it was stupid, didn’t I? I thought the Straight Dope was about fighting ignorance. I don’t see where belittling achieves that end. I don’t see where removing public displays, even if they are of a religious nature, achieves that end. Ironically I am sitting in a hotel room in San Antonio – maybe three blocks from that secular shrine to a bloody southern land grab spreading their ideals of white supremacy and slavery over peaceful indigenous populations and the legitimate political power of Mexico – The Alamo.

Of course, the Alamo is more than that. The Alamo is a few hundred brave people risking their lives defending the ideals on which this country was founded – justice for all, the rule of law, republican government – against a tyrannical government. A government whose original invitation used the settlers as pawns in its defense against European claims.

Let’s face it. Americans are an ignorant lot. Among other things, we are ignorant about our historical and cultural legacies. Public edifices help transmit that legacy. And Dopers should be pushing for more public shrines, not fewer. Yeah, the Ten Commandments represent a religion. A religion so enmeshed with our culture that you can’t even swear without paying homage to it.

Instead of tearing down one set of the Ten Commandments - throwing out ideals over three thousand years old for a social ideals at best 100 years old – let’s put up new edifices at every courthouse. The Constitution written out in plain typeface. [Texan]”Well Bob, I don’t see nothin’ there about separation of church and state.”[/Texan] [Joisey]”Yeah, well here’s something about not establishing a religion. Think that’s the same thing?”[/Joisey] [Texan]”Well, I dunno. It seems kind of confusing. That’s our dollars at work there, but this here isn’t really establishing nothin’ ”[/Texan] [/Joisey]And who says that stuffs right anyway? That was just written by some dead white guys long ago. [/Joisey]…. That is fighting ignorance.

We could put up edifices to our pagan heritage. Except that their influence on America is mostly through their influence on the general culture and religion of the English, German and French speaking settlers. And the Indians Instead, let’s put up statues of Plato and Aristotle. Ones that demonstrate Platonic influences on Christianity (e.g., the trinity), and reviled Platonic influences (e.g., eugenics). How about some homages to Locke? Brilliant treatise on the limitations of government and the rights of people to overthrow tyrannical governments? Rich, dead, white guy rationalizing a desired set of ideals based on the false premise that people agree to be governed? Yep.

This isn’t some stupid waste of taxpayer’s money. Every culture in the history of man has “wasted” valuable resources enshrining their ideals. The Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Islamic Arabia, Thailand, India, Mesoamerica. What makes us think we don’t need to do the same. I say let’s put the Ten Commandments on display. Let’s have shrines to the Puritans, the Leni-Lenape, George Washington, Daniel Boone, The Alamo, Lincoln, the Mormons, Geronimo, Vanderbilt, Ford, and Martin Luther. Let’s build lanterns, not hide in the dark.

While I don’t agree with the OP in the least, here’s the link to the thread he’s talking about:
Resolved: 90% of religious people…

Actually, yes, you might be able to do something like that. I was just wondering myself how we could satisfy Alabaman desire to exercise their religious freedoms.

Maybe we could have “free exercise zones”? I’m not for one cent of my tax dollars going for anything but the “jogging trail” and the land I mention in my next hypothetical situation.

Monument Park: five mile jogging trail through a public park with beautiful religious shrines and art objects of every type dotting the landscape.

I guess the city could mow the grass around the monuments.

There has to be a major secular component to all this or it just won’t work. Nor should it.

How the fuck do you reconcile at least three of these ten commandments (no god other than me, no graven images, and keeping the sabbath) with anything other than monotheistic religions…

Anyone got some mushroom spores… this “the ten commandments is universal” crap should provide a fertile medium for growing fungus:smack:

Hey, can we slap Buddhist beliefs up in government buildings? Or how about Hindu? Say, maybe the State can sponsor Aztec-style games where the losing team is sacrificed to Quetzocoatl! I have no problem with anyone’s religion, so long as they don’t try to force it on me. In Jefferson’s original draft for the Virginia Bill of Rights he had a “Freedom From Religion” clause. It seems that the colonists were taxed by the Anglican Church, even if they weren’t Anglican. Many of the Founding Fathers were “Deists” (i.e. they believed in “a God” not “the God” of Christianity.

Our Founding Fathers knew that sticking specific deities in official government documents was a bad idea, which is why they used vaguely worded terms for one. That way, no one could (in theory, at least) point to a line in a government document and say, “See, it’s the Catholic God, not the Baptist one.”

Tuckerfan: I really really really want to slap up both 2 Nephi 2:25 and Alma 41:10[sup]1[/sup] right next to that 10 commandments statue just to see what Moore’s reaction would be.


[sup]1[/sup]Community of Christ edition’s versification:
II Nephi 1:115 and Alma 19:74.

Just put up a shrine to Cthulu. He’ll deal with those pesky other gods soon enough. :wink:

Gosh, yes, what a terrible dilemma. As Dahlia Lithwick asks in her Slate column Does the Constitution hate God?:

She also worries about religion being “chased out of the public square”.

I realize this is indeed a terrible dilemma. Clearly, we need a radical new concept in the United States: Call it, I don’t know, civil society or something like that. Now, I know this is going to sound strange and all, but what I’m proposing is that people do things without involving the government one way or another! “Impossible!”, some may say. “How can we freely exercise our religion if it isn’t endorsed by the government?” Well, I know it’s a strange notion, but I propose that we develop something called private property; if we do this right, we could come up with a “middle ground” in which Christians can express their beliefs in public (from the Official Code of Georgia 16-1-3: “‘Public place’ means any place where the conduct involved may reasonably be expected to be viewed by people other than members of the actor’s family or household”) but still without the endorsement or involvement of the government. In fact, this would apply not only to Christians, but to everyone! We could handle all religious beliefs this way! (And non-religious philosophical beliefs about God or religion as well.)

Call me crazy, but I really think this could be made to work.

Dude! YOU. ARE. THE. MAN!

That is so fucking it! Any time one of these religious nutbags starts going on and on about religion, boom! we whip out the Elder Gods, and proceed to totally fuck with their minds!:cool:

The irony being that it obviously isn’t working…apparently too many people feel that allowing public (as defined above)expression of ideals differing from theirs requires government intervention.

Huh, and here I thought that all along christians had places to exercise their freedom of religion. CHURCHES!

Why in the name of the IPU do we have to get the Government involved? It’s not like jackbooted gestapo are hauling them off for praying…

And bookstores, Christian-owned businesses, their own front lawns, T-shirts, the bumpers of their cars…

Well, actually it all depends how literal you are. Try this. Name a religion that doesn’t espouse its god/pantheon to be the primary mechanism for learning spirtual truths. And all have holidays and celebrations. Yeah, you’re right about no graven images. The other seven though, can be taken literally.

I suspect the lot of you are clever enough to google irony. Give it a shot.

And you all really missed my point. Instead of belittling those with beliefs different your own, why not open up a little. Yeah, you can put up a shrine to Cthulu. Shit, you can play Zoser and build your own damn pyramid. I don’t give a fuck. I’m tired of the same lines in a billion threads with clever people repeating the same snide belittlements. Read what I wrote, I see where I proposed building places of worship. I don’t see it, but maybe I’m too stupid.

Let me try an make my other point very clearly. Our country places less emphasis on concrete representations of its major social and historical influences then any other in the history of the planet. Except in the areas where an event occurred, or the DC area, we have nothing. Maybe we are finally doing something right, but I doubt it. It seems to be a human need.

Now, in this country most of the compelling events and figures are secular in nature. Hence, most edifices would be totally secular. But some would be religious in nature, such as the Mormon migration and the Quaker influence on the underground railroad. It is not establishing a religion to acknowledge its influence. Cthulu has influence a couple of writers, and their geek readers, not much else. For better or for worse, autochtonous religions had little influence, although the conflicts between the aboriginal peoples and western expansionism did. I propose acknowledging that, instead of spouting off how “fair” it would be to build equal numbers of edifices to all the religions that were ever considered and thinking no Christian could possibly appreciate your clever fucking point.

Ok, now go all Kali on me.

Oh, and anybody who thinks physically presenting the Constitution at every courthouse so that some people actually read the thing, is somehow equivalent to having the government build Christian churches is too fucking stupid to bother with. Read the OP.

SlowMindThinking, I can’t figure out what the hell you’re talking about. Your OP seems to be one big heapin’, steamin’ pile of sarcasm stacked on top of more sarcasm. And please don’t tell me to reread the OP. I’ve spent way too much time on it already.

Great suggestion, Tuckerfan! This is a program I can support, especially if we use legislators to make up the teams.

MEBruckner, I was going to post my response to you, but I still haven’t gotten confirmation from the government on whether or not it’s okay. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.

You got a citation for that claim?

Heck, I dare you to say that in English. :wink:

I haven’t even gotten confirmation from the government over whether or not it’s ok to even read this thread…