The 10 Commandments and the laws of Western Society

[MarchHare]

In the Landover Baptist thread, I was in a bit of a side discussion with Thunderball, who claimed that the Bible forms the basis of the laws of Western society. I challenged him on that fact, and asked which specific Biblical passages he meant. His first reply was, "Well, the 10 Commandments are a pretty obvious one..."

This is, of course, a great fallacy. The 10 Commandments absolutely do not form the basis of our laws. In fact, in several cases, our laws are specifically opposite to what is demanded by the 10 Commandments.

Let's examine this further. For the sake of this discussion, I will only be referring to Canadian law, but most of my points would apply equally to any other Western democratic nation.

We must first, though, define our terms. As this wikipedia article shows, different Judeo-Christian religions define the Commandments in slightly different ways. I am opting to use the interpretation of the Roman Catholic church, since, as of the 2001 census, it was the largest religion in Canada (43.2% of Canadians identified themselves as Catholic).

The 10 Commandments, as interpreted by the Roman Catholic Church, are as follows:

1. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

That's awfully wordy, but the gist of this Commandment is that God demands that we worship him and him alone. This, of course, is exactly contrary of the right to religious freedom as granted in the Charter, which states Canadians are free to worship any god(s) or no god at all.

2. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

According to the second Commandment, blasphemy is wrong. According to the Charter, Canadians have the right of free speech, allowing us to blaspheme until we're blue in the face.

3. Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.

First, we have the fact that God implicitly condones slavery here, but in all enligtened Western nations, slavery is outlawed. Furthermore, keeping slaves is specifically prohibited by Article 4 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Let's ignore that for the moment, however. This Commandment is stating that we must not work on the Sabbath day, for God demands that it be a day of rest and worship. In Canada, there was formerly a law (The Lord's Day Act) which prohibited businesses to be open on Sunday. This law was struct down in its entirety as being a violation of the Charter in 1985, after a Calgary pharmacist had been charged with violating the act and he took his case to the Supreme Court (R. vs. Big M Drug Mart, Ltd.).

4. Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

I'm not quite sure what God means when he asks us to honour our parents, but there is certainly no legal requirement to do so.

5. You shall not kill.

Ah, here we are at the half-way point of the list, and finally we have a Commandment that matches up with a law. However, laws against murder exist in all societies, whether they have a Judeo-Christian heritage or not. Moreover, laws against murder existed in civilizations that pre-dated the 10 Commandments. Nearly 400 years before the estimated time of Moses's life, the Babylonian civilization followed the Code of Hammurabi, the first known written code of laws. Naturally, it prohibited murder.

6. Neither shall you commit adultery.

While it is justifiably grounds for divorce and is almost universally recognized as being immoral, there is no law against cheating on one's spouse.

7. Neither shall you steal.

See #5. Laws against theft exist in every society and pre-date the 10 Commandments. There is certainly no religious basis for those laws.

8. Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor.

Likewise, laws against perjury are also universal across societies of all religious backgrounds.

9. Neither shall you covet your neighbor's wife.

and

10. Neither shall you desire your neighbor's house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

What's this, the thought police? I'm free to desire anything I damn well please. There's no law that says I can't be jealous of my neighbour's green lawn or 60" HDTV. Wanting to keep up with the Jones's is a time-honoured North American pasttime. And what's up with God again implicitly allowing slavery. :P

So, the finaly tally is as follows: only three of the 10 Commandments (5, 7, 8) actually match Canadian law (and the laws of other Western democratic nations); however, those three offenses are regarded as being wrong by all societies and all religions, and laws prohibiting them existed in civilizations that pre-dated Moses. The laws of Canada run totally counter to three other Commandments (1, 2, 3), and the law makes no comment regarding the remaining four (4, 6, 9, 10), thereby making them perfectly legal.

[Claeren]

Good work! That is a christian claim that always bugged me but i never felt like putting in an effort to show why. Now i have it! Thanks!



Claeren.

[Cheese]

wait a second...which 10 commandments?

There are three places in the Old Testament in which they appear: Deuteronomy 5, Exodus 20, and Exodus 34. The first two are somewhat similar, but the third is quite different, as it discusses blood offerings and seething a kid in its mother's milk. This version, although rarely quoted by believers, is the only one actually referred to in the Bible as the "Ten Commandments."

Which ones?

These guys would like us all to live by the 10 Cs..
Society for the Practical Establishment and perpetuation of the 10 Commandments

Snoop around a bit...

What do they mean?
1-5
6-10

[burn_this_city]

Claims that law and morality comes from the bible are humourous.. More often than not in history people used it as a justification for breaking laws and acting immorally.. Most of the basis for our laws today come from Roman times, not the bible..

[Azure]

Oh cool.

How about you 'debunk' these too?

Edit: I did find my compilation of readings from Poli 401... some specific ones to look up:
Leviticus 25: 21 (Basic Property Laws)
Deuteronomy 5 (Basic Conduct), 23, 24 (Lending, Usury Laws, etc.), 27 (Property Laws)
Psalm 15 (Perjury)
Mark 10 (Basic Conduct, Civil Code... not literal)
Acts 5 (Basic Financial conduct, basis for evasion... not literal, very contextual)

I mean, if you're going to call his post a fallacy, at least quote the whole thing.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Azure

Oh cool.

How about you 'debunk' these too?

I mean, if you're going to call his post a fallacy, at least quote the whole thing.

If the claim was that western laws are based on the the Bible, and they've made a case that it isn't.. MarchHare didn't say NO laws are based on the Bible...

[chris lindberg]

Ya know, right from the Canadian Justice System to the Ten Commandments all these laws talk about what you should not do, instead of what you should do.

[CaptainCrunch]

Bizarre argument to say the least.

Western Law is fluid, it changes due to situation, circumstance and changing societal pressures and structures.

The 10 commandments however are not fluid, they don't change and won't change.

I'm betting if you go back to a lot of the early Western Laws, then you will find a lot of influences from the 10 commandments, and a lot of them have been struck down.

We don't punish woman for adultry, but they certainly used to, they don't punish you for working on the sabbath, but I bet if you go back into some of the early state legislatures they did. Frankly it wasn't that long ago that opening your business on Sunday wasn't allowed under the law.

The basis isn't there now, but I'm willing to bet that it was, especially in colonized North America.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Bizarre argument to say the least.

Western Law is fluid, it changes due to situation, circumstance and changing societal pressures and structures.

The 10 commandments however are not fluid, they don't change and won't change.

I'm betting if you go back to a lot of the early Western Laws, then you will find a lot of influences from the 10 commandments, and a lot of them have been struck down.

We don't punish woman for adultry, but they certainly used to, they don't punish you for working on the sabbath, but I bet if you go back into some of the early state legislatures they did. Frankly it wasn't that long ago that opening your business on Sunday wasn't allowed under the law.

The basis isn't there now, but I'm willing to bet that it was, especially in colonized North America.

ever think that it's no coincidence that the more advanced and educated a civilization becomes, the further their laws stray from biblical text? back in those early western civilizations almost everyone WAS religious in some form or another, so of course the laws will reflect the general public belief. but as society progresses and the christian majority gets smaller, the importance of what the bible says goes down dramatically

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

ever think that it's no coincidence that the more advanced and educated a civilization becomes, the further their laws stray from biblical text? back in those early western civilizations almost everyone WAS religious in some form or another, so of course the laws will reflect the general public belief. but as society progresses and the christian majority gets smaller, the importance of what the bible says goes down dramatically

Yet the point still stands.

Biblical laws did play a huge part in the forming of Western Laws.

Of course, given that the Western world is also very much based on being free to do your thing, the laws will evolve to reflect that.

There is an obvious conflict here.

The 10 commandments are just that....a set of laws/rules to tell one how they should live their life. Western society is based on freedom, so enforcing certain laws like the 10 commandments is almost impossible.

Besides, I don't think they were meant to be used as rule of law. To me they're something you choose to follow personally.

But hey, I'm sure when our founding fathers started up Canada they looked back at the Code of Hammurabi....and designed their laws based on that.

[Cheese]

So lets play a game...which of the ten commandments has western society based their laws on?
"Don't kill" and "don't steal", are excellent rules to have on the books but these were already rules which were well received and widely accepted tens of thousands of years before Christians took them as their own. That eliminates #5 and #7 from the posted commandments.

The Code of Hammurabi, which predated the commandments by centuries, and of which we actually have an existing copy are...get this...carved in stone!

The Code of Hammurabi

China, India, Sumeria and Egypt all had written codes thousands of years before the Jews fled into the desert. Each and every one of those codes had prohibitions against murder, theft, adultery, and fraud. And yet Christians persist falsely that they were first.

So lets see...despite claims that the ten commandments are the foundation of our legal system, the ten commandments are not even the foundation of ....get this...the ten commandments. Humanistic laws - don't kill people, don't cheat people, don't steal from people, were around for thousands of years and formed all of the good ideas with a fully rational basis and a wide following, that far predated Moses' alleged face to face with youknowwho.

Weve suggested that Laws 5 and 7 are debunked, what about the rest?

#1. You shall have no other gods before me.
Obviously this commandment serves some of the militants very well...in both Christian and Islamic law. I cant think of any law in the last few hundred years that this forms as a basis for laws of today. This commandment has served as the justification for some of the most horrific atrocities ever perpetrated against fellow humans over matters of conscience.
This commandment is not reflected anywhere in our laws and carries no criminal penalty.

#2. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God
For breaking the first two commandments, the Chrisitan Deity promises dire consequences for three or four generations of your descendents. Not sure where that is used in todays law books...again maybe a better use for Taliban rule. In the past this law was used to ban or outlaw art that wasnt construed as Christian.
This commandment is not reflected anywhere in our laws and carries no criminal penalty, and could not be more thoroughly disregarded or irrelevant.

#3. Observe the sabbath day.
Years ago this may have been followed in Christian countries. There are still a few backwards communities that have this law in effect. They are rapidly disappearing and are not required by federal law.

#4. Honor your father and your mother.
I wonder how many teens would have to be murdered to put this law into effect. Harsh? Maybe. Its irrelavant anyways...its not in our laws or constitution.

#5 was dealt with above...

#6 adultery.
Funny that this is the only form of sex that is outlawed in the bible? In todays law, adultery isnt even worth mentioning and isnt in any federal law.
In the far past the penalty was death....not sure what happened to goat herders who had a special relationship with one of their flock.

#7 dealt with above.

#8 false witness.
This is the first commandment from the bible that doesnt carry the death penalty. Again, written laws against lying LONG preceded the 10Cs. In todays courts the hand on the bible is still used to swear in...if you choose. I wwonder what % of the people who swear on the bible lie their arses off afterwards.

#9 coveting.
Years ago I would have been stoned to death because of my coveting! Im quite sure the vast majority of posters here would have joined me in a mass stoning...and thats not the MaryJane way of stoning! Where in the heck did this come from? Jealous goat herders? Should it be mentioned that our entire economy is built on coveting what everyone else has. This has no basis in law anywhere...other than perhaps some backwoods areas of remote Africa or South America?

#10 falls right in line with #9...

Perhaps an explanation why an omniscient, omnipresent, all knowing, all loving God didnt have any commandments for the following:

Violence of any sort including assault, child abuse, or spousal rape
Beating your pet dog, llama or cat
Alcohol or drug abuse
Porn
Aggressive driving
Anything to excess
War

Anything else that should or could have been in the commandments that was missed?

In the end the Chrisitian commandments are really a whole lot about nothing...mostly stolen from past religions and taken as their own...each and every one ....HUMANISTIC principles all.

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by Azure

Oh cool.

How about you 'debunk' these too?



I mean, if you're going to call his post a fallacy, at least quote the whole thing.

In regards to this...

Leviticus 25: 21 (Basic Property Laws)
Deuteronomy 5 (Basic Conduct), 23, 24 (Lending, Usury Laws, etc.), 27 (Property Laws)
Psalm 15 (Perjury)
Mark 10 (Basic Conduct, Civil Code... not literal)
Acts 5 (Basic Financial conduct, basis for evasion... not literal, very contextual)

Feel free to select the appropriate pasages you wish to discuss. Most are based on the commandments and more confusing is the fact that you use BOTH the OT and NT. I thought todays Christians only used the NT as the base? Do you only use the OT for things the NT cant or doesnt explain? Is there a standard or index we can all follow to know when to use the OT vs the NT?

Property Laws? Leviticus 25:21 Then I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years.

Deuteronomy 5...many to choose from here.

etc etc...

[Calgaryborn]

Here's a link to some written material on the subject:

http://www.clsnet.org/lsmPages/ICLS/bibliography.pdf

Also, as has been explained to you before Cheese; just because you find an earlier reference to a christian principle doesn't mean Christianity isn't responsible for ingraining said principle within society.

[Reggie Dunlop]

More people should own asses.

That's my contribution.

[PYroMaNiaC]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Here's a link to some written material on the subject:

http://www.clsnet.org/lsmPages/ICLS/bibliography.pdf

Also, as has been explained to you before Cheese; just because you find an earlier reference to a christian principle doesn't mean Christianity isn't responsible for ingraining said principle within society.

This is a fairly interesting idea. Do you mean to say that we heathens would run around murdering and stealing without this ingraining? That those cultures that had embraced these ideas well before Christianity would revert back to their hedonistic ways? That these pre-Christian cultures that flourished because they weren't murdering their next door neighbors wouldn't have expanded, exerting their influence on others as their nations populace rose and moved out?

[Vulcan]

I think most of us are born with an innate sense of right and wrong or soon learn it. For those who require more the Golden Rule [as mentioned elsewhere not necessarily first stated by Jesus] is a good basis for life. If a person requires still more, try the Ten Commandments or the law of the land but than lawyers and clergy get involved and that just costs money.

[Calgaryborn]

[quote=Calgaryborn;1144768]Here's a link to some written material on the subject:

http://www.clsnet.org/lsmPages/ICLS/bibliography.pdf

Also, as has been explained to you before Cheese; just because you find an earlier reference to a christian principle doesn't mean Christianity isn't responsible for ingraining said principle within society.[/quote]

Originally Posted by PYroMaNiaC

This is a fairly interesting idea. Do you mean to say that we heathens would run around murdering and stealing without this ingraining? That those cultures that had embraced these ideas well before Christianity would revert back to their hedonistic ways? That these pre-Christian cultures that flourished because they weren't murdering their next door neighbors wouldn't have expanded, exerting their influence on others as their nations populace rose and moved out?

What????? I'm saying that this society has been influenced by Christian teaching both with in its law and it sense of morality. Furthermore, it is irrelevant what similar things other societies and/or religions taught because western society wasn't influenced by them.

[Azure]

Guys....fix your quotes.

Please.

[chris lindberg]

Here's the Native Ten Commandments...

Treat the Earth and all that dwell therein with respect
Remain close to the Great Spirit
Show great respect for your fellow beings
Work together for the benefit of all Mankind
Give assistance and kindness wherever needed
Do what you know to be right
Look after the well-being of Mind and Body
Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater Good
Be truthful and honest at all times
Take full responsibility for your actions

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by chris lindberg

Here's the Native Ten Commandments...

Treat the Earth and all that dwell therein with respect
Remain close to the Great Spirit
Show great respect for your fellow beings
Work together for the benefit of all Mankind
Give assistance and kindness wherever needed
Do what you know to be right
Look after the well-being of Mind and Body
Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater Good
Be truthful and honest at all times
Take full responsibility for your actions

I like those; they seem like good rules to live by.