Louisiana governor, Jeff Landry, sat down with Rolling Stone journalist, Lorena O’Neil, to discuss Louisiana’s law that mandates posting the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms:
“The Ten Commandments are the fabric of civilization, and you’re telling me we can’t hang them in school?” he [Governor Jeff Landry] asked me.
When I [Lorena O’Neil] brought up people who don’t believe in God, Landry got impassioned. “They don’t have to look at the poster! They don’t believe in what? Do not kill?”
Landry, a Roman Catholic, thinks the Ten Commandments (the Exodus 20 version) are the fabric of civilization. Either Landry is ignorant about human history or he’s deliberately misleading his constituents. I suspect it’s the latter. It is also possible that Landry is using the word “civilization” in a narrow sense of the world, but regardless, human civilizations predate the Bible story that records God giving Moses the Ten Commandments on two tablets of stone. It is unlikely Moses was an actual person, and the Ten Commandments were written down over three millennia after the establishment of human civilization. Historians debate the dating of the Ten Commandments and the start of human civilization, but whatever dates you go with, human civilization predates the Ten Commandments. This means Landry’s claim that. the Ten Commandments are the fabric of civilization is false.
THIS [Posting the Ten Commandments in Schools] MAY BE, IN FACT, THE FIRST MAJOR STEP IN THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION, WHICH IS DESPERATELY NEEDED, IN OUR COUNTRY.
Donald Trump on Truth Social
Landry seems to think that Louisiana public schools are religious institutions that grudgingly allow non-Christians to enroll with the understanding that they will be exposed to the trappings of Christianity. “Don’t like the Ten Commandments posters?” Landry asks. “Don’t look at them.” Landry wrongly thinks that those who oppose the posting of the Ten Commandments lack moral grounding or a basis for morality. He doesn’t seem to understand that moral foundations can be built from various sources, including the Ten Commandments. And let’s be clear, the Ten Commandments are insufficient for building a broad, comprehensive moral foundation.
The first four commands are explicitly religious in nature. They have no relevance to non-Christians. Landry brings up the sixth command. He must think that this command is self-explanatory, but it’s not. What this command means is debated both within and without the Christian church. The same can be said of all ten commandments. Who, exactly, is going to interpret the commandments for students? What’s next, bringing in priests and preachers to provide the proper interpretation for students?
I support teaching the Ten Commandments in a high school World Religions class. Surely, one class session on the history of the Ten Commandments should suffice, right? Why must the Ten Commandments be posted on the walls of every classroom? Students will soon get used to seeing the poster and, before long, not pay attention to it. Posting the Ten Commandments will not make a bit of difference for public school students. All Landry has done is win a paper victory in the latest culture war.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
Here’s Christopher Hitchen’s take on the 10 Commandments from YouTube. He does a good job. https://youtu.be/v-63cTYJDCA?si=Ja29Ye4ugLnV6lJm
‘…Who, exactly, is going to interpret the commandments for students?’
They presumably mean the KJV version? As I’ve said before as a teacher of literacy, it seems ludicrous to me that many kids who can barely read ‘The cat sat on the mat,’ could read that Shakespearean language. Small g/son, of x-tian parents, non-KJV-users, got hold of a KJV bible and asked me, ‘Granny, what does the word ‘thou’ mean, it’s everywhere in here?’ I don’t think he’ll be the only child to snigger at ‘Thou shalt not covet they neighbour’s ass.’ As another commenter said, ‘So I’m OK coveting anything else of theirs, then, just the ass is forbidden!’
And here’s George Carlin’s: https://youtu.be/CE8ooMBIyC8?si=zs7oCt3Fa6BWpYCe
I shall be forever grateful for Mel Brooks’ interpretation
https://youtu.be/w556vrpsy4w?si=zzfCCp32534bJ3Jj
Couldn’t be better than his version since it’s all fiction anyway.
The YouTube links demonstrate that at least in parts the silly fool nonsense that is the Ten Commandments is best dealt with via ridicule, though Hitchens isn’t really ridicule, just cold reason. The problem for me with the Ten Commandments is in their concept. First of all no single set of behavioural constraints can ever hope to encompass all of human morality and ethics. Secondly, and following on from this, to give children the idea that they can learn their morality from a poster on a wall is just plain stupid. In reality these people who support placement in schools, and other public buildings, are doing nothing more than virtue signal their beliefs. Which is why it’s right that these incursions be resisted.
The amazing thing is the duplicitous approach and situational ethics that Christian’s always (yes I said always) use in situations like this.They want to rip out and ban any references to LGBTQIA+ people and topics in schools. They go to school boards and elect biased people to make sure teachers can’t have rainbow pins, or provide safe space for LGBTQIA+ kids. They chase gay teachers from schools. If a poster is put up that has any reference, or is even believed to reference, LGBTQIA+ topics Christian’s always (yes always) demand they be removed and go to any length to make it happen. The attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community is schools is constant and nonstop. And some states like Florida have the government and law used as a bludgeon to eliminate all LGBTQIA+ people, books, and topics from school. In some places gay teachers can’t even safely reference their partner. Or have a picture of their partner, in fear I’d what may happen. And god forbid anyone wants to change their name or dares to refer to pronouns or need to a bathroom.
But an endless parade Christian bigots and their cronies defend a teacher who has a Bible, or a religious symbol, or references some version of god (Christian only, Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish gods do not count), or religious texts and bibles in school libraries, or preachers on campus as counselor, and always say some form of “no one is forcing you to participate, just look the other way”. And it’s always about helping the students.
So much for sound morality and strong ethics. Apparently rules apply differently when applied to Christian things.
Rainbow pins..BAD!! Cross pins..yes, fine.
LGBTQIA+ counselors supporting kids.. BAD!! Indoctrination! Christian ministers in school supporting kids…yes, fine, it’s loving the kids
Library Books educating kids on LGBTQIA+ topics..BAD BAD! Bible and religious books in the same library..good! It supports kids needing answers
Poster that says Love is love… BAD!! 10 commandments…good!
Openly LGBTQIA+ teachers BAD!! Chase them out! Openly Christian teachers..good! Pray for them and support them
Clubs for LGBTQIA+ kids…BAD!! Indoctrination and peer pressure making kids turn trans! Clubs for Christian kids…GOOD! Indoctrination and peer pressure making kids Christian….err..I mean the good word making kids Christian
It’s endless with Christians. It’s a constant stream anything (yes anything) they do to support god is ok but if a group they hate does the same thing to support other groups, it’s the most evil thing in world.