Rob Boston has a great article on Talk 2 Action about religious right Congresspeople who think it is part of their elected duties to showcase the Ten Commandments (and they're not even Jewish!). Seems that Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, just don't much care whether or not the Ten Commandments get a big play in Washington or anywhere else. Or maybe they think Congress has more important things to worry about.
Boston set the scene: "Gas is inching up to $4 per gallon, rice has doubled in price, home foreclosures continue to spiral and more that 80 percent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track.
"What's to be done? According to the Religious Right, it's time for a Ten Commandments Weekend!"
Bill Murray, another anachronistic moron of the Christian Right is connected with something call the Religious Freedom Coalition, and he's pissed at both Pelosi and Reed for their "unChristian" attitude. It's because of those two, says Murray, that "We can't get these [resolutions authorizing a Ten Commandments Weekend that recognizes all ten as the source of our country's laws] out and open and celebrate the Ten Commandments."
Boston notes Murray's a liar. Murray and his church and any of his religious right friends can celebrate the Ten Commandments as much as they wish in any way they wish. Nobody's stopping them.
Furthermore, says Boston, "the resolution is dishonest. The Ten Commandments are not the source of American law. Our laws were informed by many sources - Roman, Byzantine, the Napoleonic Code, European Common Law, etc. Many of these systems of law had religious components, but those features long ago were discarded in America, where separation of church and state is the law of the land. ...
"Secondly, Congress has probably shelved this resolution because it's a waste of time. There are more pressing things to deal with. Polls show Americans are worried about the economy, their jobs, gas prices, home mortgages and so on. The polls don't show people clamoring for a Ten Commandments weekend."
And all the people said, "Amen!"
Read the whole of Mr. Boston's article here.
1 comment:
The Ten Commandments have more than one version of the original words carved on the two tablets God gave Moses, according to the Old Testament. As far as I know, it is the only time God gave a handwritten message to anyone. Moses should have kept it intact and handed it down to someone for safe keeping. It would bring a fortune on E Bay today, assuming it was not in the basement vaults at the Vatican or in some collector’s vault somewhere. Due to changes over time by various translators, printing errors, etc, we shall probably never know which the correct one is, unless God validates which one He actually wrote at the time. So far, no one has managed to get God to tell us. Not even Pat Robertson or Barbra Walter or any blogger claims to know. One wonders why God has not picked one, so there would be no argument as to exactly what He wanted to convey. The only think we can be sure of, is that it was not in English, at least as we speak it here in the USA. There is not law against wearing a condensed version around one’s next, or as a tattoo, or even a dashboard decoration. We see rather villainous looking people with all sorts of crosses and religious messages tattooed on their huge, muscular arms. We see whores, murderers, criminals etc all wearing crosses as jewelry around their necks. Apparently such visible signs of piety and devotion do not stop people from doing things not approved of by Pat Robertson or any other religious leader. We had heinous crimes, petty crimes, homosexuals, whores, criminals, politicians, etc even when we did allow God into the classrooms. We even had Priests committing crimes while wearing their official garb and even crying out to god while performing ungodly acts upon innocent children. We had bad things before 1AD and ever since, regardless of visible signs telling us that God would not be pleased by our behavior. Whatever happened to turning people into a pillar of stone; getting hit by a thunderbolt, drowned by a sea opening at the wrong time, flooding the earth etc when God wanted to make a point? Has God turned over his role as director to a bunch of amateurs’ who couldn’t make a stick into a snake if they had all week to do so? Have these clowns never heard of cause and effect? Why don’t we ask them to wear the words they think will stop bad behavior tattooed on their foreheads, for all to see? Then when they poke their noses into everyone’s face, we could read their message and cease and desist our bad behavior. Start doing everything Leviticus tells us to do and stop doing those things Leviticus tells us to stop doing. That would please God and win us all some points,
Bob Poris
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