Court rules Ten Commandments can stay at Capitol

[J-Excel]

Originally posted by wallie_x
"The Ten Commandments are undoubtedly a sacred religious text, but they are also a foundational document in the development of Western legal codes and culture,"

Another opinion of one zealot. If the 10C's were a foundational document where are the laws for all of the 10C's? There are some basic laws like laws against murder that happen to be in both the 10C's and our laws, but you only find a few common sense laws that are in both the 10C's and in our laws. These are laws that are common in most cultures, predating the 10C’s. Morals are morals.Religious morals, just like secular morals, are defined by man based on the will of society. Murder was immoral long before Moses chiseled the 10C's into stone tablets. Murder will be immoral long after Christianity is dead and gone.

[wallie_x]

Your statement is a separate issue relative to the place the 10 C's have held in our culture and tradition. We must look at how the 10 C's were seen by our predecessors, not just by us.

Originally posted by wallie_x


I plead guilty, but with mitigating circumstances. (see above)

And perhaps that really struck a cord with me... It makes me LIVID!!! when that happens to me! Arggggghhhhhh.
I plead guilty to perhaps over reacting.

[wallie_x]

Isn't this what debate is suppose to be about?

[shahani]

Wallie_x:

When interpreting or looking at law we must take history and tradition as our guide. My point is that most societies have held tradition in high esteem as it is an ongoing expression of their core values or 'ethos', this 'ethos' is the core fundamentalism of: who we are! (as a people)

Yes, that is true. Where I differ is that while tradition and history define a society's core values, most modern and progressive societies are dynamic and in a constant state of flux. Whether demographic change, technological and scientific change or moral/ethical change. Core values must keep pace notwithstanding historical tradition.

The authors of The Constitution would never have imagined our society today. While I don't suggest societies break away totally from tradition, I do feel it is necessary to evolve and develop cultures and societies in line with changing times.

Let me illustrate with the caste system prevalent on the Indian subcontinent for thousands of years. When it was born, it addressed needs of the society at the time. The system was based on placing Priests at the very top of the totempole and garbage collectors at the bottom. Warriers, tailors, farmers were between the two extremes.

This was, perhaps, necessary for the requirements of society at the time. Today, it is redundant.

Unless societies and cultures excogitate these changes, they will collapse.

[Theophylact]

Ben Sargent's take on this stuff:

[wallie_x]

Shahani,
I agree with you; a society must change, but it should do so for two primary reasons: 1) to adapt to change, and, 2) to evolve. Since societies are dynamic and our knowledge is growing me must evolve, but it has to be both intellectually and spiritually.

Picture a radical society like North Korea with the actual capabilities to hit the US with multiple nuclear tipped ICBM's. Who wants a rouge nation to have that much power? Now if the latter country was stable and mature, showing restrain instead of radicalism, we wouldn’t feel that threatened. What I mean is that we have to use our growing knowledge wisely which means we must grow both intellectually and spiritually.

Equally, you cannot just knock out some of the pillars of society and not expect unintended circumstances. Just how do you think animals like Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot ever came to power (at the cost of millions upon millions of lives out and out murdered)? Partially because new knowledge and a radical shedding of the old culture so destabilized their societies that they could ascend to power. Would it astound you to hear that Hitler’s premise about Arian’s being “The Superior Race’ came directly from Darwin’s premises on evolution? And how about Stalin, secular communism could only have been perpetuated in a society that echoed Nietzsche’s bold proclamation about the modernism of his time: God is dead. Both of the latter concepts destabilized societies that once were almost devoid of the existential dread that both Darwin and Nietzsche ideas wrought.

You cannot elicit radical change without sometimes evoking disastrous consequences. And knocking out some of the former pillars of our society too quickly could do just that.

Worse, the current trend of an ‘absolute’ separation of church and state, with an equal ridding of society of all former vestiges of Christian symbolism reeks of shocking similitude’s with that of the Iconoclasts.

[Theophylact]

Here's a letter to the editor in today's New York Times:

To the Editor:

First you state that Alabama's Court of the Judiciary acted courageously in removing Roy S. Moore from the Alabama Supreme Court ("Judicial Courage in Alabama," editorial, Nov. 14). Then you express confidence in Americans' "respect for the rule of law."

But that makes no sense. The reason the decision was courageous was that it was made in the face of apparently overwhelming support within Alabama for Mr. Moore, despite his obvious unfitness for the bench. Will anyone be surprised if Alabama's voters return him to the Alabama Supreme Court or elect him to some other statewide office?

There is reason to be concerned that millions of our fellow citizens believe that the Bible, not the Constitution, is the law of the land. I find that deeply disturbing.

MASON FRICHETTE

Sequim, Wash., Nov. 14, 2003

[wallie_x]

MASON FRICHETTE sez:

There is reason to be concerned that millions of our fellow citizens believe that the Bible, not the Constitution, is the law of the land. I find that deeply disturbing.

I find it deeply disturbing that such thinking shows an almost blind indifference to history, and the idea of tolerance. Rather it is the epitome of intolerance.
One of our societies binding premises is Freedom of Religion. The only way we could do away with the mindset of people, who so seemingly disturb Mr. Frichette, would be to do away with the freedom of religion clause, and then force some state sanctioned 'Big Brother' ideas to replace the ones they have. But then where would that leave our beloved, "Land of the Free, and Home of the Brave!"?
In the trashcan is where it would leave it.

millions of our fellow citizens believe that the Bible, not the Constitution, is the law of the land. I find that deeply disturbing.

Does he realize that the ethics with in the Constitution are strongly evolved from Judeo-Christian sources? (Albeit also watered from neo Platonic and Greco-Roman wells.)
The Neo-Iconoclast's amaze me with their one-dimensional thinking.

[J-Excel]

Dig deleted.

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