Well, I mean… Besides the first two those are not the worst rules to live by. As an agnostic I’m obviously against pushing your religion onto others but I think I’ll reserve my outrage for something more important.
They are, in fact, the worst rules to live by. Ignoring the fact that there are multiple version of them and they’re not even the ones the Bible actually calls the ten commandments, here’s a brief rundown:
You shall have no other gods before Me. - How is this a good rule to live by? Why does everyone have to worship Yaweh?
You shall make no idols. - Why does this matter?
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. - Or this?
Keep the Sabbath day holy. - Or this?
Honor your father and your mother. - What if your mother beats you? What if your father rapes you?
You shall not murder. - Okay, sure, based on your definition of murder I guess one good rule in there.
You shall not commit adultery. - What if your partner is okay with it? Is it still wrong?
You shall not steal. - Not even food to feed your starving children?
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. - Okay, sure, lying is usually a bad thing. Not always, but usually.
You shall not covet. - Good luck with that one. Even Elon Musk wants things he can’t have.
So other than ‘don’t murder’ and ‘don’t lie,’ which both can arguably have circumstances in which they are necessary, they don’t seem like good rules to live by to me.
As someone who is not religious in any form besides childhood indoctrination, all I can say is jesus fucking christ. Our country needs a purge of religious extremists. Do your fucking thing. Let me do mine. Don’t push your beliefs on me. Freedom of religion also means freedom FROM religion.
In Louisiana, we have a super majority republican congress, bought republican judges, and a republican governor for the first time in 8 years. We are in a phase of revenge passing whatever right wing bills they can get away with because we no longer have a Democrat governor to turn away the ridiculous crap.
Our legislature absolutely will write in Christianity as the “correct” religion, and our governor is in the process of rewriting our constitution for a few reasons, one of which could very well be naming Christianity.
It’s going to take more than a challenge from tst to fix this one… We are deteriorating faster than Texas because Republicans are passing bills out of spite.
One of the things that I don’t see shouted out enough is when someone says the conservatives in this country attack education to keep the voting public stupid so they’ll keep supporting shit that’s against their interests, it’s objectively true, but it misses that Christians want the exact same thing to prevent more people from critically thinking about their faith and realizing it’s bullshit lies. And I’m not just talking about church leadership, plenty of run of the mill average Americans want to destroy public education because it threatens their burning desire and belief that they will exist forever
these people don’t realize that combining church and state is a two-way street – you want a conservative theocracy? but which denomination becomes the official state religion? Baptists and Methodists and Catholics can’t even get along with each other …
they don’t care. Their intent is to use the power of the state to suppress everyone else. They already have an answer for your concern and it’s an awful one.
Yeah, I want to see the TST’s tenets up there next to the commandments. That ought to stimulate some interesting discussions.
For those not familiar,
One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.
Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.
People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
This Supreme Court might decide to play favorites, maybe the next precedent is “only religions existing during the founding of the US can display texts in schools.” Just because previous courts protected the separation of church and state doesn’t mean this court has to abide by that precedent.
Just wait for an Islamic group to sue then. Or wait for Scientology to decide they don’t want to be a second tier religion and start suing.
Or an atheist group maybe. Idk there’s enough competition in religious zealots to make picking a favorite hard to do unless they just throw out the 1st ammendment prohibitions.
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