Louisiana classrooms now required by law to display the Ten Commandments

[MForbes]

but these duly elected officials are working for public sentiment to be posted in public buildings.

The only way to know if this is really majority public sentiment is for the public to vote on the measure.

 

[MForbes]

Congress should appropriate more money for missionaries in our schools today. Our educational system is failing.

So you're tying the failing educational system with a lack of Christian missionaries in our schools? Incredible.

 

[The Liturgist]

The 1st Amendment does protect the freedom of speech, and the freedom of religion.

Indeed - all it disallows is establishing one church as an official, established church, which this does not do since no one church or even one individual religion claims a monopoly on the Decalogue. Indeed there are at least twenty self-identified distinct religions including but not limited to Samaritanism, Judaism, Christianity, Mormonism, Caodaism, the Bahai Faith and Unitarian Universalism, which regard the Decalogue as inspired prophecy or divine scripture while maintaining a credible distinct religious identity.

Indeed the appeal of it as a religious text is broader than that of the Vedas, and encompasses more distinct religions. I would liken it in terms of its widespread appeal across religions of West Asian heritage to the writings of Confucius, which were accepted by many outside of the confines of the formal Confucian religion and the Neo-Confucian religion (both of which have been effectively suppressed in the PRC and the DPRK but are alive and well in Taiwan, the Hong Kong SAR, the Macau SAR, South Korea, Viet Nam, and Singapore).

Most religions of the world are in fact syncretic and absorb texts from at least one other religion. Roman Catholicism even explains this via the formal principle of general revelation, and Eastern Orthodoxy informally acknowledges this (see Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy, by Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick).

By the way @HARK! , my pious friend, since you know more about Judaism than me, do you think I am right in suggesting most Jews (and Samaritans) would be offended by the conflation of Judaism and Samaritanism, and the refusal to acknowledge or respect the distinctions between the three largest historical supersets of Jewish praxis (the Rabinnical Jews, who encompass Orthodox Jews of Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Romaniote, Bukharan, Kochin, Syrian and other traditions, as well as the Conservative and Masorti Jews, the Reformed Jews, the Reconstructionist Jews, and the various Chassidic dynasties, and the differences in praxis regarding the minhag, for example, the distinctions between Sephardic and Ashkenazi practice we see in the Ashkenazi gloss on Joseph Caro’s Sulchan Aruch, and the distinctions between this and the earlier code written by Maimonides, and the distinctions between the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, and differing opinions over the role of Caballah, to name just a few issues? And then of course we have the Karaite Jews, who reject the Talmud and the Mishnah in favor of a kind of sola scriptura approach in which scripture is interpreted using a Kalaam, similiar to later Islamic approaches to Quranic interpretation using a Kalaam, which were probably inspired by Karaite Judaism, and the interesting possibility that the Masoretes were Karaites? And then we have the Beta Israel, whose individual temples celebrate almost the same liturgy as the Ethiopian Tewahed Orthodox Church, except instead of moving on to an Anaphora of Syrian origin to celebrate what the ancient liturgies of Antioch, like those adapted for use by the Ethiopians, refer to as a “Bloodless and rational sacrifice” of the Eucharist, which is still open to a Lutheran monergistic interpretation, although the text favors a synergistic mutual offering, in which we offer the bread and wine and praise and thanksgiving to God who in turn offered Himself in the person of His Logos and Only Begotten Son, by whose flesh and blood we are redeemed (“Thine own of thine own, we offer unto thee, on behalf of all, and for all” as the Eastern Orthodox divine liturgy of St. John Chrysostom eloquently expresses it), and the Beta Israel on the other hand continue in the animal sacrifices as they were performed in the Second Temple and earlier instead of the Eucharist? Indeed the Chief Rabbinate of Israel wanted the Beta Israel being evacuated from the Communist Derg regime, which had already martyred Emperor Haile Selassie and had its crosshairs fixed on the Jews (Communist regimes have tended towards anti-Semitic paranoia since the reign of Joseph Stalin; if I recall the only high ranking Jew to survive as a member of the Soviet government throughout most of his reign and his death was Kaganov, the rest being purged as “Rootless Cosmopolitans” despite the Soviet Union setting up a “Jewish Autonomous Oblast” in a region of the Russian Federative Soviet Socialist Republic that was so remote I would characterize its location as a kind of veiled anti-Semitic insult by means of geography; if the US did the same thing, we would have given them a portion of wilderness in the deserts of Southern Oregon or the vast emptiness of Wyoming or an isolated part of Alaska with no direct road access to anywhere else, like Juneau, or perhaps the former colony for sufferers of leprosy on the island of Molokai, or one of the minor outlying areas, but this was clearly done so as to provide a diversion to discourage Soviet Jews from making Aliyah to Israel after the Soviet Union realized it actually needed the contributions of its Jewish citizens in fields as diverse as medicine, engineering, aerospace, electronics, computer programming, classical music, military music, and several other fields.

I really don’t like the way different historically distinct and interesting branches of Judaism have been mentioned in what seems to me to be a disdainful and blasé manner by some atheists we are conversing with, and I dislike even more how the Samaritans, who believe themselves to be descended from the tribes of the Holy Patriarchs Ephraim and Manessah the sons of Joseph, and also with regards to their clergy, from the tribe of Levi and from the Kohanim descended from Aaron.

Regarding this by the way, I would also note that aside from the bad taste left in my mouth by the conflation of the three largest distinct forms of Jewish praxis (which seems to be shockingly indifferent to the unique beauty of Jewish civilization particularly in light of the historic mistreatment of the Jews by not only the usual suspects, that being state-run established churches, particularly in the Iberian Peninsula, and by Islamists and indeed Muslim regimes in general, who tended to persecute the Jews and other Dhimmis (people of the Book, including Jews and Sabians - we do not know exactly which religion was meant by the Sabians, but the identity was claimed, in a successful bid to avert genocide or forced conversion to Islam, the Mandaeans, a Gnostic religion which unlike most venerated St. John the Baptist, the Illustrious Forerunner, instead of worshipping the God-Man who St. John was clearing the way for, but who, despite their beliefs disagreeing with ours, deserve the freedom of religion (although unlike Christianity, the Mandaean religion is explicitly anti-Semitic, rejecting the Old Testament, and subscribing to the usual Gnostic claptrap about an evil or incompetent demiurge (for example, we see these in the four Matrix films, which could be branded as Gnosticism: The Movie, since using the contrivance of computer systems and AI they retold the Gnostic mythos, itself heavily inspired by Neo-Platonism and Zoroastrianism: the sinister and incompetent Architect, and his successor, the ruthless, conceited and sadistic Analyst, represent the two usual depictions of the demiurge with the various Gnostic religions such as Mandaeism, with the Agents representing the cruel archons, and numerous other parallels, such as emanationism and salvation by the ritualistic impartation of secret knowledge.

And surely, would not lumping Judaism together with Samaritanism, which has something of an ancient disagreement with the Jews over a multitude of issues not just limited to Mount Gerizim also constitute an attitude many Jews and Samaritans would find in equal measure annoying and offensive, and many Christians as well, in light of our theological differences and our past failures at unity?

 

[essentialsaltes]

Only problem is, that statement is misleading.

Another problem is the Constitution had yet to be written.

 

[HARK!]

By the way @HARK! , my pious friend, since you know more about Judaism than me, do you think I am right in suggesting most Jews (and Samaritans) would be offended by the conflation of Judaism and Samaritanism,

I do. Good point; and I can understand why some Anti-Semites would resist Semitic moral values being openly displayed.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

No one refuted the facts. Perhaps you might attempt that over your bare assertion.

Whereas images of the Ten Commandments are found in many Federal buildings across Washington, DC, including in bronze in the floor of the National Archives; in a bronze statue of Moses in the Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress; in numerous locations at the U.S. Supreme Court, including in the frieze above the Justices, the oak door at the rear of the Chamber, the gable apex, and in dozens of locations on the bronze latticework surrounding the Supreme Court Bar seating;

Are they required to be placed there by law? No? Then you still have not made an argument.

 

[BCP1928]

I do. Good point; and I can understand why some Anti-Semites would resist Semitic moral values being openly displayed.

And what "anti-semites" did you have in mind? Muslims? Or anybody who criticizes Netanyahu's conduct of the war in Gaza? Some of those are Jews, and Muslims revere the Ten Commandments anyway. Never mind, they aren't the real Ten Commandments, anyway, just a paraphrase on a poster. They might as well just post a picture of the tablets with Roman numerals on it. It's only a right-wing gang tag.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Indeed - all it disallows is establishing one church as an official, established church, which this does not do since no one church or even one individual religion claims a monopoly on the Decalogue.

Incorrect. Judicial precedent supports that the 1st amendment disallows the government from requiring any form of religious expression, not just the formal establishment of a state church. The fact that the ten commandments are shared between multiple religions is irrelevant, as they are not shared by all religions. I don't think that there is any belief that is common to all religions.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

I didn't call for a Theocracy, nor did the Founders of this Christian nation.

Mandating Christian missionaries in public school sure sounds like a step in that direction. I want no part of it.

 

[HARK!]

Are they required to be placed there by law? No?

Is not the legislation, that funded those projects, law?

 

[HARK!]

Mandating Christian missionaries in public school sure sounds like a step in that direction. I want no part of it.

The Founders didn't see it that way. I embrace this tradition of our Republic.

 

[HARK!]

And what "anti-semites" did you have in mind? Muslims?

Many Muslims are Semites; and they all hold high regard for the moral values of the 10 Commandments.

Your question is nonsensical.

 

[BCP1928]

Many Muslims are Semites; and they all hold high regard for the moral values of the 10 Commandments.

Your question is nonsensical.

Maybe you mean these "anti-semites?"

Jewish groups protest Louisiana law requiring the 10 commandments in all classrooms

The move is as a result of activism by Christian parents’ groups

www.thejc.com

 

[HARK!]

Maybe you mean these "anti-semites?"

Why would you call them "anti-semites?"

 

[MForbes]

Moses wrote them down in the Torah. It was read aloud regularly.

…..and we have them in the Bible and they are read aloud in churches. Moses didn’t require 10 commandment placards to be posted everywhere.

 

[MForbes]

…duplicate…

 

[BCP1928]

Why would you call them "anti-semites?"

Because they are Jews who oppose the poster. You said "anti-semites" would oppose it. I just wonder which of the groups who oppose the poster are the "anti-semites" you were referring to.

 

[essentialsaltes]

The Founders didn't see it that way. I embrace this tradition of our Republic.

Certainly James Madison did see it that way.

His deserves-to-be-more-famous

Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments​

was specifically about a law to establish Christian religious teachers.

We the subscribers, citizens of the said Commonwealth, having taken into serious consideration, a Bill printed by order of the last Session of General Assembly, entitled “A Bill establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion,”1 and conceiving that the same if finally armed with the sanctions of a law, will be a dangerous abuse of power, are bound as faithful members of a free State to remonstrate against it, and to declare the reasons by which we are determined. We remonstrate against the said Bill,

Because if Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body. The latter are but the creatures and vicegerents of the former. Their jurisdiction is both derivative and limited: it is limited with regard to the co-ordinate departments, more necessarily is it limited with regard to the constituents. The preservation of a free Government requires not merely, that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people.4 The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants.

Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?

Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offence against God, not against man

Because the Bill implies either that the Civil Magistrate is a competent Judge of Religious Truth; or that he may employ Religion as an engine of Civil policy.8 The first is an arrogant pretension falsified by the contradictory opinions of Rulers in all ages, and throughout the world: the second an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation.

 

[BCP1928]

…..and we have them in the Bible and they are read aloud in churches. Moses didn’t require 10 commandment placards to be posted everywhere.

And the Ten Commandments on the poster aren't the Ten Commandments Moses wrote down, anyway.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Is not the legislation, that funded those projects, law?

Generally, funding is appropriated before any designs are made. The funds may be appropriated by law, but the law does not mandate the nature of the decorations. There's also more justification for including them in a legal context - placing them in an elementary classroom is clearly religious, rather than legal, instruction (as decided already when Kentucky tried the same move).