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Originally posted by j8ear
I fail to see how a judge of any demonination forcing someone to wear ANYTHING is in anyway shape or form relates to the discussion at hand.
Ten Commandments in the court house vs a judge forcing women to wear a veil? What's the connection.
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Both are imposing religion-based practices in a government setting. The presence of the ten commandments suggests to me that the judge condones a Christian view of the law, rather than an impartial secular view of the law. As an agnostic citizen, I don't want to be held to Christian standards that have nothing to do with the law per se. I think the point about the veil was, how would you feel if someone in a position of legal authority over you
who did not share your religious views imposed their own religious practices and opinions on you as a citizen?
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Nor do I see a relevance to what sect of religion it stems or what our countries form of government is based on.
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It's highly relevant because many people who support religious epxressions of Christianity in civil settings would shit a brick if another religion insisted on the same privilege, and would feel persecuted if a (hypothetical) Muslim majority insisted on imposing their religious views on the rest of the populace. It's an analogy, bear: if you would object to Muslim religious practices being imposed on you, why do you defend Christian religious practices being imposed on us? The point is that our government was founded by a bunch of people who escaped state-based religious persecution and didn't want to have to go through the same thing again. Our republic was founded on religious freedom, and yes, freedom FROM religion.
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To discount as irrevlevant civil law because it's "fucked up" as you claimed is rediculous, K...it's us...here and now, and it, as was criminal law, directly influenced by the ten commandments.
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Fine, if the 10 commandments influenced law, but so did a lot of other documents. They're a bunch of vague proscriptions that aren't really significant legally. Why post them if they are contentious, unless you deeply believe in their RELIGIOUS significance?
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"the government" simply wanting to ensure that public servants server the public, and not just their vision if God, is laudible. Yet how is it possible. Must you then discriminated against those who believe in God? Otherwise their vision will interfere or even influence or even worse INSPIRE their work? I think using your arguements that indeed you must. ONLY declared athiests should be allowed to work for the government...ever. Is this what you believe? Do you really believe that religion has no place in the lives of those who serve the public? Is it even possible?
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It's one thing to have a Christian on the bench, another thing to have a Christian on the bench who wants to impose their RELIGIOUS views on others, rather than interpret the civil law. I don't mind having a Christian/Buddhist/Muslim/Zoroastrian/Scientologist on the bench, so long as I am confident in their ability to differentiate between their own personal views and the rule of law. It's as impossible for them to COMPLETELY divorce their interpretation of law from their personal beliefs as it would be for me to divorce my interpretation of law from mine. Nobody can be TOTALLY objective. But to post the 10 commandments is a statement that you're not interested in being objective, that you recognize your own interpretation of scripture as a higher good/higher authority than the objective (or as objective as possible) interpretation of civil law. Nobody's discriminating against those who believe in God; only those who cannot accept that their views are not privileged above the rule of law.
When one of the commandments is "thou shalt have no other gods before me" and they're talking about a Christian god, that's a little frightening to me as a non-believer. Would I be judged more harshly because I'm a heathen?
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You never answered my questions about the Seven Deadly Sins...or the Golden Rule. What's your take on them?
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Can't speak for the original poster but I think the 7 deadly sins have no place in law (gluttony? sloth? please!). The golden rule didn't come from the Bible - it's a folk saying that's based on philosophy as much as religion and is found in a number of cultures. I think the golden rule would be a fine addition to many public institutions. Problem is, what makes you think it'd make any difference? What makes people think that posting the 10 commandments is anything more than preaching to the choir?