SanDiegoAtheist

Hiya TP. I'll admit to the sweeping generalizations - I was specifically referring to those Christians who are the most militant about posting the 10C's, and argue specifically for them as the basis of US and English law. I did point out that only "some" Christians believe in them as the basis for all law past, present, and future - certainly not all.

As to your question...

1st - Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.

2nd - Thou shalt not take the name of God in vain.

3rd - Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

These 3 are all OBVIOUS violations of the First Amendment. To enforce or codify any one of these three would certainly be making a law respecting a religion.

4th - Honor thy father and mother.

This one is more towards freedom of speech, and a bit less straightforward - however, legally binding one to 'honor thy father and mother' would certainly have the effect of stifling freedom of speech vis a vis those parents.

9th - Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors house
10th - Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors wife, ass, etc.

These appear to me to be unenforcible under ANY legal code, unless the person STATES that they are 'coveting'...and in which case, it certainly would be a violation of freedom of speech to declare 'coveting' against the law. I can 'covet' whatever the heck I want to...I simply can't TAKE it. If they DO figure out a way to determine whether one is 'coveting' without impedin speech, it would probably violate the 4th amendment against unreasonable search and seizure (thought police anyone?)


3 are definitely violations of the first amendment, 1 is probably a violation of the first amendment, and 2 are completely unenforcible unless the first amendment is violated.

Cheers,

The San Diego Atheist

Buffman

Welcome Zippy.

Though I suspect you are more interested in the personal views you will find in these forums, I have a tendency to post URLs as a means of folks obtaining background information concerning specific issues or personal questions rather than simply reposting information that is well known to those who have prowled the Sec Web for lengthy periods of time. Therefore, might I recommend that you go to...

<a href="http://www.au.org/" target="_blank">http://www.au.org/</a>

...and type "10 Commandments" in their Search window. There is a ton of info there. Additionally, you might wish to take a look through the following recent discussion we had right here.

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=59&t=000219" target="_blank">http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=59&t=000219</a>

Now I'll ask you some questions from your off-shore perspective. "Is there an ultimate goal/agenda behind this specific group of Christians attempting to introduce their interpretations of biblical verse into a pluralistic, democratic, federal republic government? If so, what do you believe their ultimate goal might be? And if it were achieved, what would that mean to every American's Constitutional right to express their religious or non-religious conscience without fear of government intervention? How would America's allies react if American foreign policies were guided by a dogmatic interpretation of one set of biblical 10 Commandments?"

enemigo

Richard Carrier wrote an excellent article about Moses' Ten Commandents vs. Salon's Ten Commandments and their effect on American law and society.

<a href="http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=2" target="_blank">http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=2</a>


richard

Zippy

Thanks for the replies. I thought it was a load of old cobblers...

Buffman, whilst I'm probably not intelligent enough to answer your questions (my head spins reading them), I will say this: From my UK perspective, the conservative Christians of the United States seem little different to the Taliban. I'm sure that's a vulgar comparison, but that doesn't detract from the truthfulness of it.

England is a very atheistic country. I don't know a single person that believes in God (old people being the exception). Perhaps this explains the horror I feel when I read the Infidels Newswire and see so much fanatacism which is apparently regarded as perfectly normal.

Paul

[ June 06, 2002: Message edited by: Zippy ]</p>

HRG

My nitpicking compulsion takes over ......

As so often, this is not a 0/1-situation. The laws of all continental European countries contains Germanic elements, and English law contains Roman elements.

What is different is the proportion: about 3:1 (Germanic vs. Roman) in the case of English law and 1:3 in the case of continental laws.
Both sworn witnesses and jury trials existed in Rome as well, although there is no direct line connecting Roman jury trials with modern ones.
The Napoleonic Code is only the basis "west of the Rhine" (as you might say) and in Italy. Central and Eastern European law had a different history.
About that, I agree 100%.

Regards,
HRG, who once had to learn all that stuff ....

ohwilleke

Not to be untrue to my own cause, but there are parts of the common law and European civil law that have roots in Catholic canon law, although pretty exclusively in the area of family law.

In England, canon law governed inheritance of personal property (share and share alike), while the English common law of primogenature (oldest living son gets it all) governed inhertance of real estate and titles. The stern limitations on divorce can also be traced to canon law. European civil procedure, in which witnesses give tesimony to a judge who takes notes, and then hands his notes to other judges who participate in the decision making process, also has its roots in canon law.

Buffman

Zippy

I thought it was a load of old cobblers...

Your initial post led me to suspect that. That's what prompted me to ask the questions I did. I had hoped to help you view the current American Christian Crusade through my eyes and my more direct contact with its consequences.

When you responded with "(my head spins reading them)", I had to smile. Just imagine how my head spins as I watch our constitutional protections (Chruch-State separation) going down-the-tubes because of the propaganda and lies of the zealous supernaturalists and promoters of biblical myths. IMHO, their blind faith crusade is leading America back into the Dark Ages of religious despotism. Additionally, far too many in the Islamic world have never been allowed to emerge from those Dark Ages because of their myopic clerics working with the reigning governments to keep the masses from rebelling and seeking the "secular" individual freedoms that aided the West in moving into a modern world. This current War on Terrorism isn't about freedom versus slavery. It is about the religious faith beliefs of Christianity versus those of Islam. Each of these religions offers a route to a life after death. IMHO, that's the real cause of this insanity.

(Personal rant)

America is war crazy. We have been involved with approximately 150 wars/conflicts since the Jamestown Massacre of 1622...and when there wasn't an external threat, we made war on ourselves (Civil War) or manufactured wars like those on Poverty and Drugs. Now we have "The War on Terrorism." Why isn't it titled correctly? It should be "The War on Religious Crazies...Both Foreign and Domestic." War is war! Death is death! Whether death comes from the minds and hands of religious zealots or national military forces, it is still death. We talk about the death of "innocent civilians" as though they were automatically neutral in a war because they have been imbued with some sort of ethical/moral shield against death. However, when an "innocent civilian" is brainwashed into believing that death is more desirable than life, then innocence becomes a weapon of war. When supernatural faith beliefs become the chosen method of arming the weapon, then the ethical/moral shield of innocence is destroyed. Why aren't we declaring war on those who arm the weapon...the religious clerics who brainwash the masses with their supernatural bunkum. Unfortunately, much of the leadership of the most powerful nation on the planet has already been brainwashed by its own clerics, or sold-out to vested interests.

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A18077-2002Apr19&notFound=true" target="_blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A18077-2002Apr19&notFound=true</a>

<a href="http://www.tylwythteg.com/enemies/tom.html" target="_blank">http://www.tylwythteg.com/enemies/tom.html</a>

The above, so-called, Christian was elected to office as were those of a similar fundamentalist Christian ilk...and it is a very long, and scary, list.These individuals consider the Holy Bible as the defining document, not the U.S. Constitution that they swore to uphold. They, like far too many politicians that preceded them, need wars to keep the masses pre-occupied in a state of fear in order to achieve their vested goals. They, like most humans, are driven by greed and the desire for power. The Framing Fathers clearly understood that human drive and attempted to devise checks and balances in order to prevent one group/individual from gaining control of the government.

Thomas Jefferson recognized that those governmental checks and balances would not be enough if this new form of government were to last. That is why he supported the freedom of the press (media:Fourth Estate) and the education of the citizenry.

<a href="http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1600.htm" target="_blank">http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1600.htm</a>

<a href="http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1350.htm" target="_blank">http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1350.htm</a>

But what has happened to American "Freedom of the Press?" Who are the people who control that press today? Who are the people behind the effort to undermine our public school education system...and replace it with private religious education paid for from the taxpayer treasuries? It isn't the following group of theists:

<a href="http://www.interfaithalliance.org/" target="_blank">http://www.interfaithalliance.org/</a>

So which group of theists are attempting to destroy the wall of separation between Church and State...and why?

(End rant)

GaryP

Buffman--

To paraphrase members of a certain media cult; Ditto! <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

lpetrich

It might be fun to ask the thumpers and theocrats where they think these words came from:

Democracy
Republic
Senate
Capitol

They did not come from the Bible.

There are plenty of councils of citizens, or at least aristocratic citizens, from Greek, Roman, and Germanic traditions. However, there are no such councils in the Bible.

Also, the more literate Greeks and Romans tended to view governments as human inventions, rather than as divine decrees -- just like the US Constitution, which credits, "we, the people" as the source of its authority, and not some deity. Our Founding Fathers had much more in common with Polybius, for example, than with anyone in the Bible.

GaryP

It has been interesting during the preist scandal to hear defenders of the church declare that the RCC "is NOT a democracy" and therefore doesn't have to listen to what the common folks are saying.