Fourth of July Special: The Seven Lost Commandments By Eldon Goopnik
03 Jul 20
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/10commsg.htm

The Seven Lost Commandments

This article was recently shared in various Internet Newsgroups.


By Eldon Goopnik

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 *****...." 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.

*****************************************************************************************
You are invited to check out the following:

The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html

[and the discussion group for the above site listed below]

HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/

[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members]

For people in Hampton Roads you are also invited to join

NORFOLK/VA. B. SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE MEETUP GROUP
http://churchandstate.meetup.com/47/

Virginia Chapter Americans United for Separation of Church and State
http://au-va.org/

***************************************************************

. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why
"a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v.
Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
. . .

****************************************************************

THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html

"Dedicated to combatting 'history by sound bite'."

Now including a re-publication of Tom Peters
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE HOME PAGE
and
Audio links to Supreme Court oral arguments and
Speech by civil rights/constitutional lawyer and others.

This site is a member of the following web rings:

Freethought Ring--&--Freethought, Religion & Beliefs Ring

The First Amendment Ring--&--The Church-State Ring

American History WebRing--&--The History Ring

Let Freedom Ring--&--Religious Freedom Ring

Law Issues Ring--&--Legal Research Ring

****************************************************************

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.