Why the Ten Commandments Should Never Be Displayed in Government Buildings

In recent years there have been a slew of court cases in favor of displaying the biblical Ten Commandments, in one form or another, on property or in buildings owned by the U.S. government.

In June of 2005, the Supreme Court in its first ruling on the Ten Commandments in 25 years was sharply divided, allowing a 6-foot-tall monument of the Ten Commandments to remain on the grounds of the Texas capitol in Austin while forbidding framed copies on the walls of two courthouses in Kentucky.

While the issue is divisive among both religious devotees and nonbelievers alike, it seems odd this subject would even be an issue in a country in which the Constitution, the document by which all laws are measured and upheld, states explicitly in its First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

Quite apart from the "respecting" of one religion over another, there are simply practical purposes for not displaying the Ten Commandments on government property in the U.S.

It may be a good idea at this point to list the Ten Commandments, for reference purposes, for those who may not be familiar with them. Here they are, are paraphrased slightly from The Holy Bible: New International Version (Zondervan, 1984), Exodus 20:2-17:

1. You shall have no other gods before me (the Hebrew God).

2. You shall not make for yourself/worship an idol.

3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.

4. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

5. Honor your father and your mother.

6. You shall not murder.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not give false testimony (lie).

10. You shall not covet.

And here are just a few of the reasons why it is foolish to display these 'laws' on government property, particularly in courthouses:

Of the all the commandments, the U.S. only has laws that fall in line with two.

The only two commandments listed here that have remotely legal implications in the U.S. are the seventh and eighth - murder and stealing. Peter Eckstein in his entertaining informative essay "Posting the Ten Commandments" somewhat generously allows for a third - the ninth commandment, lying - in that lying under oath (perjury) also is against the law.

The Ten Commandments as posted are paraphrased, not the full commands.

The list provided above is similar to lists of the Ten Commandments posted or being advocated for posting on government property around the nation. One problem with the list is that it is heavily abbreviated. For instance, the fifth commandment is listed as "Honor your father and your mother." What the verse actually says is "Honor your father and your mother that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you."

Apart from the obvious scientific fallacy of this commandment - as who in their right mind actually believes that honoring your parents will give you long life - there are reasons fully secular not to want this posted on a court house wall. Do we really want the government to be able to tell us how to treat each other in our households? Should we go to jail - or, if we really want to get biblical, should we be stoned - for talking back to our parents?

The tenth commandment continues to say just what exactly we shouldn't covet, namely our neighbor's wife, his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey. How exactly should the government enforce that law? Should I pay a fine for coveting my neighbor's manservant? And exactly what is the legal definition of "neighbor" in this instance? Or "honor" in the instance above?

The U.S. was not founded as a Christian nation.

An often used defense for displaying the Ten Commandments is that the U.S. was founded on Christian principles, that we are a "Christian nation" whose forefathers would be devastated to see us even debating the issue.

The truth is quite the opposite.

Ben Franklin, maybe the most famous of the Founding Fathers, barring Washington himself, claimed no religion and in his autobiography writes about how he despises going to church. Thomas Paine, whose pamphlets spurred the revolutionaries into action and are considered by many scholars to have been indispensible to the revolutionary movement, also wrote a book called "The Age of Reason," in which Paine excoriates Christianity.

A sample quote from said book:

"Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifiying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity."

And one about the Bible itself:

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel."

Speaking of the Bible, Founding Father Thomas Jefferson actually went so far as to rewrite it, and his "Jefferson Bible," or "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth," removed, among other things, any trace of the supernatural in the book, including Jesus' alleged miracles.

Simple common sense contests the relevancy of the Ten Commandments in modern-day America.

We've been over the issue of coveting manservants. But what about the Sabbath? Not only are we to "keep it holy" (whatever that means), but if we read the rest of that particular commandment we also are to work for six days out of the week, and on the seventh no one - not even our animals - can do any work at all. Why? "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day."

And what about the forbidding of creating idols as outlined in commandment two, where we are "not to bow down to them or worship them," because God is "a jealous God"? That leaves an awfully large part of the population, particularly those ascribing to various Eastern religions, in quite a pickle when their own religion requires them to bow down or show respect to their relics or statuary.

These are just a few of the more obvious reasons displaying the Ten Commandments on government property is a ridiculous proposition. What it comes down to is the U.S. government is by law no respecter of any particular religion, and also the list of 'laws' in question have no bearing in relation to our modern legal system.