Are the Ten Commandments really the basis for our laws? | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine
Phil Plait presents an excellent review of how the ten commandments mostly conflict with the constitution.
1) I am the LORD thy God… Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
OK, that’s clear enough. Obviously, God is saying He’s the only one, and all other religions that have other gods, or other versions of The One God, are wrong.
So let’s take a look at the Constitution, specifically the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
Right away, we have a problem. That’s the very first thing laid out in the Bill of Rights, and I mean the very first sentence. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
What this says to me, and is pretty clear about it, is that we cannot make laws saying this god or that god is The God. Not only that, if you want to worship a god, any god, you have the legal right to do so.
Clearly, this very First Right of all Americans is in direct contradiction to the very first Commandment sent down by God. So people saying our laws are based on the Ten Commandments must never have even gotten to the first one of the ten. I guess they got to Exodus 19 and stopped.
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