Satanic Temple Unveils Baphomet Statue at Arkansas Capitol

[loomer]

I get irritated, myself, when people try and act as though the Ten Commandments is so relevant to the modern legal culture of the West that it needs special status and commemoration. We aren't erecting monuments to to Justinian or Locke or Austin in the same spaces.

[LaCroix]

Out of the ten, only like 3 are legal statements - You shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness. (I do not deem adultery a crime, but a family issue, so it's not in this list).

All 3 of them are "no shit, Sherlock" legal concepts that the bible really can't claim as their invention.
At least 4 of them are distinct instructions how to worship Jehova.
The other 3 are moral guidelines that aren't unique to christianity, either. And one of them invokes God, as well (honor thy parents, bla bla god bla bla...)

So even on that level the majority of them is either directly religious or mentions God. Even one mention of him would mean they have no place in a government sponsored setting wihout allowing everyone else to play, as well.

[Lord Revan]

I would say that modern US law and legal princibles owe more to pre-christianity germanic law (thru the english "common law") then to anything in the bible.

the whole jury system for example can be traced back to old germanic laws.

[loomer]

Well, it's not quite that simple. The evolution of the Common Law isn't a straight line from Germanic customary law, and there is a strong element of Christian philosophy and thought infusing it's development for centuries - partly through the Christian leanings of major jurists and partly through the introduction of ideas from the Roman laws promulgated by Justinian. It's just nowhere near as major a factor in the reshaping of the Western legal tradition over the last three and a half centuries as advocates for 10 Commandments monuments like to make out.

[Lord Revan]

Well, it's not quite that simple. The evolution of the Common Law isn't a straight line from Germanic customary law, and there is a strong element of Christian philosophy and thought infusing it's development for centuries - partly through the Christian leanings of major jurists and partly through the introduction of ideas from the Roman laws promulgated by Justinian. It's just nowhere near as major a factor in the reshaping of the Western legal tradition over the last three and a half centuries as advocates for 10 Commandments monuments like to make out.

Obviously it's not a straight line but what I was reffering to was that there's a lot more obvious and clear influence from the old germanic laws then anything from the bible itself since christian philosophy and traditions were influence by pre-christian traditions so its harder to say what is directly from the bible and what is from christianizied pagan traditions.

In essense what I wanted to point out that is that saying that a ten commandments is due to their influence in modern legal princeble is giving the bible too much credit as there's other much more obvious influences for modern legal princibles that have nothing to do with christianity or the bible.