POL Top Ten Signs...
David C Kifer
Cases
10. Justice Breyer's first-born son suddenly feeling "under the weather".
9. God now saying that justices are allowed "on" heaven, but not "in" heaven.
8. When the bailiff cried "God Save this Honorable Court!" at the beginning of
the session, he suddenly turned into a pillar of salt.
7. Every evening, it seems like it now takes Justice Souter 40 years to find his
car in the Supreme Court parking lot.
6. Justice Scalia's Sunday golf game interrupted by plague of locusts.
5. Testimony from false witnesses now completely admissible.
4. Justice O'Connor suddenly the recipient of unwanted "coveting."
3. The Potomac turned blood red. Wait! -- that's just pollution.
2. Manna supply has suddenly run out.
1. The golden calf the justices had installed inside the court suddenly burst in
twain.
-- The Colossus
Comments
I'm sorry, but you still have this wrong. You can no longer refer to them as Ten
Commandments, but as 10 Strongly Worded Actionable Sentences as commandments
would give the imprimatur of a higher being demanding action. But, since this is
your first offense, your crime will be reduced to sandblasting Moses and the 10
Cs off the murals at the Supreme Court building.
-- lawhawk
I was thinking, maybe The Ten Precedents? Nah, because if they were precedents,
the court might have respected them . . . I'll go with your formulation, instead.
--The Colossus
all at
http://www.colossusblog.com/mt/archives/000752.html
--
Dave
"Tam multi libri, tam breve tempus!"
(Et brevis pecunia.) [Et breve spatium.]
Amazing Grace
visiting fellow at the Center for Inquiry, home of the Council for
Secular Humanism, added:
"I am sure it will come as a surprise to the many people of genuine
faith in Texas - Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Jews, Unitarians,
Presbyterians etc. - when they discover that their state has adopted a
Lutheran version of the Ten Commandments as the official Ten
Commandments of the state. This is an offense to people of all faiths
who do not consider the Ten Commandments to be a holy text." Finkelman
lamented that "millions of other Americans of various faiths, or no
faiths at all, will now be faced with the prospect of their government
imposing religious values on them. This is a threat to all Americans -
religious and nonreligious."
--
Amazing Grace's Eclectic Quotation Collection
*125,000 quotations, proverbs, by people of all philosophies, ages and
cultures. CD-ROM For more info. or free sample of one category, send a
personal e-mail: gem...@shoescomcast.net (remove shoes)
. . . Grace McGarvie . . .
. . Plymouth,Mn. 55447 U.S.A.
Robert M. Wilson
"Amazing Grace" <gemcga...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:Z-udnXM4jra...@comcast.com...
> Paul Finkelman, a professor of law at the University of Tulsa and a
> visiting fellow at the Center for Inquiry, home of the Council for Secular
> Humanism, added:
>
> "I am sure it will come as a surprise to the many people of genuine faith
> in Texas - Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Jews, Unitarians,
> Presbyterians etc. - when they discover that their state has adopted a
> Lutheran version of the Ten Commandments as the official Ten Commandments
> of the state. This is an offense to people of all faiths who do not
> consider the Ten Commandments to be a holy text." Finkelman lamented that
> "millions of other Americans of various faiths, or no faiths at all, will
> now be faced with the prospect of their government imposing religious
> values on them. This is a threat to all Americans - religious and
> nonreligious."
If I recall correctly, Luther's translation has "Honour thy father and
mother, etc." as the fouth Commandment, whereas the KJV has it as the fifth.
Corrections welcome.
ObQ:
Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be
condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.
-- 'Luke' 6:37.
Amazing Grace
justice of the great state of Alabama to keep his 2-ton monument to the
Ten Commandments in his office building in Montgomery.
Next question:
Which Ten Commandments?
You've got your Jewish Ten Commandments, your Catholic Ten Commandments,
your Lutheran Ten Commandments, your Charlton Heston Ten Commandments,
your King James Bible Ten Commandments, your New Revised Standard
Version Ten Commandments, and they don't all agree as to which
commandment is which -- or what they really mean.
Even the Bible contains two versions, one in Exodus 20:1-17 and a
slightly different one in Deuteronomy 5:6-21.
There are, of course, various English translations of those ancient
Hebrew texts.
Further complicating the commandments are the fact that neither Exodus
nor Deuteronomy neatly number the no-nos from one to 10.
By some counts, there are actually Twenty-Nine Commandments, not Ten
Commandments.
For example, the Alabama monument to "the laws of nature and of nature's
God," uses the "thou shalt" of the King James Bible rather than the "you
shall" of the New Revised Standard Version.
The monument in Montgomery slashes its version of the Tenth Commandment
down to a mere four words:
Thou Shalt Not Covet.
What King James really says is a bit more specific:
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy
neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any
thing that is thy neighbor's."
Is that six commandments, one commandment, two commandments or the Tenth
Commandment?
Different denominations use various numbering systems because they
differ on what to include in the First and Tenth Commandments.
The Tenth Commandment for Jews and most Protestants is the entire "thou
shalt not covet" passage. But Catholics and Lutherans list two "thou
shalt not covet" commandments: one against coveting your neighbor's wife
and one against coveting your neighbor's property, including his ass.
Then there is the question of what the commandments were meant to mean.
For example, the First Commandment that "Thou shalt have no other gods
before me" indicates that it was OK to have gods other than Yahweh, so
long as Yahweh was No. 1.
Monotheism came later.
"Thou shalt not commit adultery" is either commandment six or seven and
originally only forbade sex with a married woman.
Married men were free to have sex with other females. That's because
establishing paternity, not maintaining sexual purity, was the reason
for that commandment.
Then there are the commandments in the next chapter of Exodus, which
allow fathers to sell their daughters into slavery (21:7) and say that
"whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death" (21:17).
Neither of those commandments is included among the Ten Commandments
currently residing under the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court building.
Don Lattin at dla...@sfchronicle.com.
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle |
--
John Bonanno
There are a lot more than ten commandments in that unholy book.
Why do you want to pay attention to just the ten (or does it go all the way
to eleven, or twelve?) delivered by Moses?
What about not wearing clothes that blend more than one fiber?
Do you like to eat crustaceans and pigs?
Why don't you Bible thumpers really rest on the Sabbath like it says? You
can't work. Your family can't work. Your servants can't work. And even
foreigners among you can't work!!
Have you cursed your mother or father? If so you should be put to death!
And when you go out for a nice steak, how do you know some pagan bastard
hasn't sacrificed it to his heathen gods before it went to the restaurant?
"It has been contended for many years that the Ten Commandments are the
foundations of all ideas of justice and law. ...Nothing can be more stupidly
false than such assertions. Thousands of years before Moses was born, the
Egyptians had a code of laws. ...far better than the Mosaic." -Robert G.
Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses"
"[on the September 11 terrorist attacks] We have allowed rampant secularism
and occult, etc. to be broadcast on television. We have permitted somewhere
in the neighborhood of 35 to 40 million unborn babies to be slaughtered in
our society. We have a court that has essentially stuck its finger in God's
eye and said we're going to legislate you out of the schools. We're going to
take your commandments from off the courthouse steps in various states.
We're not going to let little children read the commandments of God. We're
not going to let the Bible be read, no prayer in our schools. We have
insulted God at the highest levels of our government. And, then we say 'why
does this happen?' It is happening because God Almighty is lifting His
protection from us. -Pat Robertson, "The 700 Club," 9/13/2001
Shit, Pat, do these ambiguous rulings today mean that god is going to send
more terrorism or not?
"If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man's only moral
commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a 'moral commandment' is a
contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the
understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no
commandments." --Ayn Rand
"From a religious view, putting the (Ten Commandments) in a courtroom is
idolatry. It constructs a god, not the God of Israel or Jesus Christ, but a
god that is useful to us, because it gives us the illusion that we really do
have this deep agreement, when we don't." --Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T.
Rowe professor of theological ethics at Duke Divinity School, in ABC news
article "Display This!" 4-30-98
"My duty under the Constitution is to acknowledge the Judeo-Christian God,
not the gods of other faiths. We are not a nation founded upon the Hindu god
or Buddha. They do not acknowledge the God of the holy Bible on which this
country was founded." --Alabama Judge Roy Moore, in defiance of court orders
demanding that he remove a replica of the 10 Commandments from his courtroom
and cease opening court with prayer
"Some of the old laws of Israel are clearly savage taboos of a familiar type
thinly disguised as commands of the deity." --Sir James G. Frazer
And when you get all that public breastbeating out of your system, just
remember this:
Matthew 6:5,6 (Jesus speaking)
"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray
standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be
seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
But when you pray, go into your room,
close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who
sees what is done in secret, will
reward you."
SteveMR200
<B56dneHA-KF...@adelphia.com>:
>Ho Hum Deedle Deedle Dumb
Fi, fie, fo fum
>There are a lot more than ten commandments in that unholy book.
>Why do you want to pay attention to just the ten (or does it go
>all the way to eleven, or twelve?) delivered by Moses?
Well--actually there was more, but there was this
little accident. You really do have to see _History
Of The World, Part I_ to understand it.
ObQuote:
Behold! All pay heed! From the Most High I bring
you these fifteen comm--Oops! <smash> Err--Ten!
These ten commandments!
--"Moses" (Mel Brooks)
(ln the film _History of the World, Part I_ [1981],
screenplay by Mel Brooks)
Incidentally, it's Mel Brooks' birthday tomorrow.
How about a big "Happy birthday to you" for Mel
Brooks? Don't worry, I'll be sure to post some
Mel Brooks quotes tomorrow.
--
Steve
Sr. Eveline
>>There are a lot more than ten commandments in that unholy book.
>>Why do you want to pay attention to just the ten (or does it go
>>all the way to eleven, or twelve?) delivered by Moses?
>
>
> Well--actually there was more, but there was this
> little accident. You really do have to see _History
> Of The World, Part I_ to understand it.
>
> ObQuote:
> Behold! All pay heed! From the Most High I bring
> you these fifteen comm--Oops! <smash> Err--Ten!
> These ten commandments!
> --"Moses" (Mel Brooks)
> (ln the film _History of the World, Part I_ [1981],
> screenplay by Mel Brooks)
__________________
Moses was brave, coming down from that mountain and saying to the
Israelites, 'I've got him down to ten!
~Tom O'Connor
--
Sr. Eveline
______________
Robert M. Wilson
A fuller description than I have previously seen
A Catholic version is now:
1.. I, the Lord, am your God. You shall not have other gods besides me.
2.. You shall not take the name of the Lord God in vain
3.. Remember to keep holy the Lord's Day
4.. Honor your father and your mother
5.. You shall not kill
6.. You shall not commit adultery
7.. You shall not steal
8.. You shall not bear false witness
9.. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife
10.. You shall not covet your neighbor's goods
Note the absence of
"2. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in
heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth." as in
The New American Standard Bible.
It was a version of this which led to much of the destruction of great works
of art during and after the Reformation.
As an additional note, in my more than average reading of Mediaeval
literature, I do not recall any mention of the TEN commandments, only God's
or His commandments. I would be interested if anyone can point to one?
"Amazing Grace" <gemcga...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:YIqdnY5gUvC...@comcast.com...
Amazing Grace
their personal beliefs. But we do not count heads before enforcing the
First Amendment."
JUSTICE SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR, concurring in a ruling against government
displays of religious symbols.
Theodore Roosevelt wrote in 1908, "To discriminate against a thoroughly
upright citizen because he belongs to some particular church, or
because, like Abraham Lincoln, he has not avowed his allegiance to any
church, is an outrage against that liberty of conscience which is one of
the foundations of American life."
Graham Weeks
Robert M. Wilson wrote:
> Thank you Amazing One.
> A fuller description than I have previously seen
>
> A Catholic version is now:
> 1.. I, the Lord, am your God. You shall not have other gods besides me.
> 2.. You shall not take the name of the Lord God in vain
> 3.. Remember to keep holy the Lord's Day
> 4.. Honor your father and your mother
> 5.. You shall not kill
> 6.. You shall not commit adultery
> 7.. You shall not steal
> 8.. You shall not bear false witness
> 9.. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife
> 10.. You shall not covet your neighbor's goods
> Note the absence of
> "2. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in
> heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth." as in
> The New American Standard Bible.
> It was a version of this which led to much of the destruction of great works
> of art during and after the Reformation.
The Roman Catholics want their images so lost a commandment. The Orthodox do
not have such representational art, only icons. The iconoclastic argument goes
something like this, if Christ be truly man, then he may be represented in art.
OTH if he be God, no representation is allowed.
Personally, I am an iconoclast, though I find orthodox icons less objectionable
than the RC stuff. I believe both are used idolatrously. I think a lot of the
fuss about protestant iconoclasts is mistaken. If most present day RC art is
at all like the stuff destroyed, then we have suffered no great loss. I find
the present stuff bad theology and very bad art. God save us from bleeding
hearts.
And, by the way we may see hence the vanity as well as the idolatry of them who
would represent Christ in glory as the object of our adoration in pictures and
images. They fashion wood or stone into the likeness of a man. They adorn it
with colours and flourishes of art, to set it forth unto the senses and fancies
of superstitious persons as having a resemblance of glory. And when they have
done, "they lavish gold out of the bag," as the prophet speaks, in various
sorts of supposed ornaments, - such as are so only to the vainest sort of
mankind, - and so propose it as an image or resemblance of Christ in glory.
But what is there in it that hath the least respect there unto, - the least
likeness of it? Nay, is it not the most effectual means that can be devised to
divert the minds of men from true and real apprehensions of it? Doth it teach
anything of the subsistence of the human nature of Christ in the person of the
Son of God? nay, doth it not obliterate all thoughts of it! What is represented
thereby of the union of it unto God, and the immediate communications of God
unto it? Doth it declare the manifestation of all the glorious properties of
the divine nature in him?
One thing, indeed, they ascribe unto it that is proper unto Christ, - namely,
that it is to be adored and worshipped; whereby they add idolatry unto their
folly. Persons who know not what it is to live by faith - whose minds design in
religion but to gratify their inward superstition by their outward senses - may
be pleased for a time, and ruined for ever, by these delusions. Those who have
real faith in Christ, and love unto him, have a more glorious object for their
exercise.
John Owen, Works , (vol. 1 pg. 244)
--
Graham J Weeks M.R.Pharm.S.
http://www.weeks-g.dircon.co.uk/ Graham's Homepage
10201 quotes 654 topics 2452 authors indexed 903 links
http://www.donkeyworks.com/ipc/ Our church
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William C Waterhouse
Here are some excerpts from an orthodox Jewish view of the
"Ten Commandments":
...
In the Torah, these words are never referred to as the Ten Commandments.
In the Torah, they are called Aseret ha-D'vareem (Ex. 34:28, Deut. 4:13 and
Deut. 10:4). In rabbinical texts, they are referred to as Aseret ha-Dibrot.
The words d'vareem and dibrot come from the Hebrew root Dalet-Bet-Resh,
meaning word, speak or thing; thus, the phrase is accurately translated
as the Ten Sayings, the Ten Statements, the Ten Declarations, the Ten Words
or even the Ten Things, but not as the Ten Commandments, which would be
Aseret ha-Mitzvot.
...
According to Jewish tradition, G-d gave the Jewish people 613 mitzvot
(commandments). All 613 of those mitzvot are equally sacred, equally binding
and equally the word of G-d. All of these mitzvot are treated as equally
important, because human beings, with our limited understanding of the universe,
have no way of knowing which mitzvot are more important in the eyes of G-d.
Pirkei Avot, a book of the Mishnah, teaches "Be as meticulous in performing
a 'minor' mitzvah as you are with a 'major' one, because you don't know what
kind of reward you'll get for various mitzvot." It also says, "Run after the
most 'minor' mitzvah as you would after the most 'important' and flee from
transgression, because doing one mitzvah draws you into doing another, and
doing one transgression draws you into doing another, and because the reward
for a mitzvah is a mitzvah and the punishment for a transgression is a
transgression." In other words, every mitzvah is important, because even
the most seemingly trivial mitzvot draw you into a pattern of leading your
life in accordance with G-d's wishes, rather than in accordance with your own.
...
In Talmudic times, the rabbis consciously made a decision to exclude
daily recitation of the Aseret ha-Dibrot from the liturgy because excessive
emphasis on these statements might lead people to mistakenly believe that
these were the only mitzvot or the most important mitzvot, and neglect the
other 603. By posting these words prominently and referring to them as
"The Ten Commandments," (as if there weren't any others, which is what
many people think) schools and public buildings may be teaching a message
that Judaism specifically and consciously rejected.
<http://www.jewfaq.org/10.htm>
William C. Waterhouse
Penn State
John Bonanno
"Graham Weeks" wrote
Commandment Number 10 is the most ignored requirement of Jehovah in modern
Capitalist Societies. In fact, it is a requirement that it be broken. The
rampant consumerism of modern life would be impossible without the average
citizen forming in his mind an intense desire for his neighbor's goods and
to this end, an industry (advertising) exists which is solely devoted to
encouraging this indispensible covetousness. And before you ask me how a
resident of Beijing could be my neighbor, a careful reading of the New
Testament will reveal that Jesus intended that all the world be considered
one's neighbor.
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, for there are plenty of others."
Otto Rank
Exodus 20 and Exodus 34 present two different versions of the commandment.
Was Jehovah just having a little fun with the Israelites? Or did Moses just
forget what the broken tablets actually said?
Which are the Real Commandments!
Version One: Exodus 20
20:1
And God spake all these words, saying,
20:2
I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out
of the house of bondage.
20:3
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
20:4
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing
that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the
water under the earth.
20:5
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy
God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children
unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
20:6
And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my
commandments.
20:7
Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will
not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
20:8
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
20:9
Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
20:10
But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not
do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy
maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
20:11
For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in
them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath
day, and hallowed it.
20:12
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land
which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
20:13
Thou shalt not kill.
20:14
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
20:15
Thou shalt not steal.
20:16
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
20:17
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy
neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor
his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
Version Two: Exodus 34
34:14
For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is
a jealous God:
34:15
Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a
whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call
thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;
34:16
And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a
whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.
34:17
Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
34:18
The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat
unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in
the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt.
34:19
All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle,
whether ox or sheep, that is male.
34:20
But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou
redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy
sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.
34:21
Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing
time and in harvest thou shalt rest.
34:22
And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat
harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
34:23
Thrice in the year shall all your menchildren appear before the LORD God,
the God of Israel.
34:24
For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders:
neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear
before the LORD thy God thrice in the year.
34:25
Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall
the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.
34:26
The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of
the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk
Sr. Eveline
> God save us from bleeding hearts.
Not even ones in tasteful plastic frames with a nice flashing light
embedded in the heart?
You have NO artistic appreciation! :-(
OBQ
Do you think when Jesus comes back he wants to see a cross? It's like
going up to Jackie Onassis with a rifle pendant on.
~ Bill Hicks
--
Sr. Eveline
________________
Kevin G. Barkes
> objectionable
> than the RC stuff.
Personally, I prefer the Curt Swan "Superman" to the Wayne Boring
"Superman."
Amazing Grace
Letters from readers
June 29, 2005
Startribune, Minneapolis, MN
Display, and obey
So, lots of people want to display the Ten Commandments in public.
Instead, I'd like to see people obey the Ten Commandments.
Let's start with No. 3, proscribing the taking of God's name in vain.
We'll ban "Oh, my god!" from general speech. We'll also ban TV preachers
and politicians who use God's name in search of power and riches.
On to No. 4, remembering the Sabbath day and keeping it holy. That shuts
down Sunday businesses and guarantees everyone will spend the day
worshiping in church and resting with their families.
How about No. 6, "You shall not kill." Wonderful! No more capital
punishment, no more guns, no more war.
No. 9's proscription against bearing false witness against your neighbor
would quiet the Swift Boat Veterans and their ilk.
Finally, if we observe No. 10's ban on covetousness, we'll have to stop
all advertising which by its very nature is designed to make people
covet things they don't have. Our entire economy is based on coveting!
Let's get to the real issues here, not just the shibboleths!
Craig M. Wiester, Minneapolis.
John Bonanno wrote:
> "Graham Weeks" wrote
>
>>
>>Robert M. Wilson wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Thank you Amazing One.
>>>A fuller description than I have previously seen
>>>snip
Sr. Eveline
>>Behold! All pay heed! From the Most High I bring
>>you these fifteen comm--Oops! <smash> Err--Ten!
>>These ten commandments!
>> --"Moses" (Mel Brooks)
>> (ln the film _History of the World, Part I_ [1981],
>> screenplay by Mel Brooks)
> Moses was brave, coming down from that mountain and saying to the
> Israelites, 'I've got him down to ten!
> ~Tom O'Connor
________________________
God gave Moses the Ten Commandments: rules of behavior that were
supposed to make people moral. Ten was too much to remember. Jesus knew
this. He brought them down to two: Love God and Love Thy Neighbor As
Thyself. Still too much to remember, if the last 2000 years is an
indicator. So let's bring it down to a simple four words: Don't be a
bastard.
~Steven Grant Scars, #6 Afterword (June 2003)
--
Sr. Eveline
_______________________
Clothaire
Such candor. ("Don't be a bastard.")
Clothaire
"Without cultural sanction, most or all our religious beliefs and
rituals would fall into the domain of mental disturbance." ~John
Schumaker