On America and the Ten Commandments

I cruise a number of major news sources daily, because I have no life. On the plus side, it keeps me away from people, and gives me something other than "today, I stared at a ceiling fan for three hours" to write in this here blog. On the down side, I have no life.

Every site I checked had a piece about the Ten Commandments cases in front of the Supreme Court. As they should -- it's a big story.

I'll say this -- I'm pretty conflicted on the subject. On the one hand, freedom of speech, equality in the eyes of the law, all that. Leave the statue. On the other hand, government property, public forum, and this is the government upholding certain religious beliefs above others (see: Commandments 1 through 4). Remove the statue.

So, instead of ranting about how things should be one way or the other, I'm just going to spend my time (because, as we've established, I have no life) criticizing certain points in a few of the various articles.

From the Kansas City Star (Google News Headline)...

"Imagine a Muslim or a Hindu; should they feel as though they are considered outsiders to their own government?" asked Chemerinsky.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said he was troubled by the opposite: "the obsessive concern" for any government mention of the nation's diverse and widespread religious faith.

"That suggests to some a hostility toward religion," Kennedy said.

Yeah. Of the two groups, it’s atheists who are the hostile ones. I mean, Christians may have hatemongers like Ann Coulter or Fred Phelps, but we atheists have even worse people on our side! Like, um… And… uh… Well, names aren’t important. You know it’s true.

From FoxNews...

"The Constitution does not mention God," Lynn said.

But, countered former Alabama Justice Roy Moore, "The Constitution would not exist without the laws of God.

"We have to explicitly recognize that religious liberty comes from God. Without recognition of God, there would be no First Amendment," he told FOX News.

Well, as an atheist I have to contend that not only can there be a First Amendment without God, there is a First Amendment without God.

1. The First Amendment was not based on Judeo-Christian beliefs -- in fact, any dissenting view in the bible is treated with nothing but hostility and often bodily harm; and
   
2. I believe God doesn’t exist, so in a literal sense there is a First Amendment without God.

From CNN...

Justice Antonin Scalia noted that legislative proclamations and prayer invoking God's name are permissible. "I don't see why the one is good and the other is bad," he said.

I agree completely. But, you should only fight one injustice at a time.

From MSNBC...

Scalia took the most assertive stance, saying the monument should be seen as “a symbol of the fact that government derives its authority from God” and such a symbol on state grounds was quite “appropriate,” he said.

Scalia later told Chemerinsky that the American people understood that a display of the Ten Commandments stands for the proposition that “our laws are derived from God.”

Our laws are not derived from God. Our laws are specifically and deliberately secular. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, “[Common law] is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England …about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century. …We may safely affirm (though contradicted by all the judges and writers on earth) that Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.”

And an interesting perspective on the Constitution and the Ten Commandments from the Atheism/Agnosticism section of About.com...

The Constitution is, in fact, unusually secular for the time when it was written. That this was very obvious to the people at the time can be seen in the fact that so many Christian preachers stood up and attacked it specifically because it lacked any overt protection or promotion of Christianity. A favorite target seems to have been the prohibition of any religious tests for public offices.

Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore, in their book The Godless Constitution, quote an article widely reprinted at the time which complained that, without religious tests, the following would have a say in politics: "1st. Quakers, who will make the blacks saucy, and at the same time deprive us of the means of defence - 2dly. Mahometans, who ridicule the Trinity - 3dly. Deists, abominable wretches - 4thly. Negroes, the seed of Cain - 5thly. Beggars, who when set on horseback will ride to the devil - 6thly. Jews etc. etc."

Kramnick and Moore quote a number of others who wrote in newspapers at the time; many reflect the above concern with Quakers whose pacifism and anti-slavery stance seems to have given many the sort of shudders which are today reserved for the most extreme "cults." Writers complained about how the authors of the Constitution showed "general disregard of" and "cold indifference towards religion.”

One person observed that the "Constitution is de[i]stical in principle, and in all probability the composers had no thought of God in all their conclusions."

In short, the Ten Commandments are no more a basis for our laws than paganism, and are no more a part of our history than any other system of beliefs. These two defenses are ludicrous and shouldn't be used. Eliminate them and then decide how you feel on the subject.