Scrupuli
blunt essays with sharp points
The 10 Suggestions [link]
by ScrvpvlvsMar 8, 2005 4:52 PM–
As the Supreme Court considers whether the government should endorse the 10 Commandments, it is worth examining some of the myths propagated by those who obey them religiously, or at least would like others to do so.
The Ten Commandments are not the basis of our legal system. And for this we can thank God. Otherwise heresy would be a capital offense, adultery would be punished with stoning, and back-talking kids would find themselves in jail.
They are not the basis of any legal system, in fact. Religious leaders would have us believe that murder, adultery, and theft were all perfectly legal until Moses came down from Sinai. This isn't even true for the Middle East, as the Code of Hammurabi, from which the Commandments seem to be partly derived, pre-dates Moses by at least 500 years, and the Egyptians, at least, had a law making it legal to hold Jewish slaves.
But this is all irrelevant to our own legal system, which is based on English common law. Our law has Germanic, Viking, northern precedents, and these people, our legal ancestors, enjoyed a highly sophisticated and evolving legal code for at least a thousand years before they even heard of Moses.
Our system of political divisions, down to the sheriff of the local county, is pagan. The tolerance of other religions embedded in our law is pagan. Monogamous marriage itself was foreign to the Middle East; it's not a commandment of the Eastern desert God, but of Norse inheritance law.
Each day of the week, we genuflect to those pagan Gods: the Sun, the Moon, Tiw (Mars), Oden, Thor, Freya, and Saturn. Our unacknowledged debt to the worshippers of Thor and Zeus is more than just another aspect of Christian historical ignorance, it's an affront to those who bequeathed us the law we live under, and it cries out for a statue of the mighty hammer-wielding warrior in every courthouse in this nation. Can I get an Amen?
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