10 Commandment monuments in Idaho no big deal | Spokane Spokesman-Review

[Ediacara]

10 Commandment monuments in Idaho no big deal


Erica Curless
Staff writer


COEUR d'ALENE-- They lurk on the lawns, usually near a tree or the corner of a building.


But nobody seems to notice the Ten Commandments chiseled into granite monoliths at many county courthouses, city halls and public parks in Idaho.


And residents aren't demanding that Kootenai County, Post Falls or Hayden remove Western civilization's oldest rules for life from public property.

More at the Spokane Spokesman-Review

Uh..... Western Civ's oldest rules? Aren't the 10 C's co-opted from other local religions, and aren't the "oldest rules" Hamurabai's Code, which predate the 10 C's?

[lazarus]

1. Not to mention

That most of them are bullshit, anyway. I'd go so far as to say there is not a single human alive who hasn't violated at least one of the Commandments.

[Not a robought]

2. Perhaps the residents aren't demanding them taken down

because it hasn't led to one 10 C religion suing another 10 C religion over the issue like what had happened in Alabama.

This final paragraph should also draw the contrast:

Most of the monuments aren't prominently displayed: Federal courts have used that as a key criteria in determining the constitutionality of such monuments.

This bird is cooked, get it out of the oven already.

[laconicsax]

3. The 10 commandments aren't the real 10 commandments

I typed up a long thing here, but it didn't post, so I'll sum it up.

The 10 commandments that everyone refers to are actually just the first 10 laws in a long list that God told to Moses in Exodus 20-23. The ark of the covenant is built in chapters 24-30, and the golden calf thing is chapter 32. In chapter 34, God gives 10 commandments in verses 17-26, and verse 28 reads, "...and he wrote down on the tablets the terms of the covenant, the Ten Commandments."

The Ten Commandments that were written on the final two tablets aren't the same as the 10 that are always used as the 10 commandments.

The real 10 are: (the gist of them)
1: Do not make molten gods for yourselves
2: Observe the Feast of Unleavened bread (Passover)
3: Sacrifice the firstborn of your livestock
4: Do not appear before God empty-handed
5: Observe the Sabbath
6: Observe the Feast of Weeks and Feast of Ingathering
7: All men must appear before God 3 times a year
8: Don't offer sacrificial blood with anything leavened
9: "The choice first fruits of your soil you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God"
10: Don't boil a kid in its mother's milk (a goat, not a child)

[NekoChris]

4. Greedy

isn't he? He wants the first pick of everything. Your animals, your harvest.

Get a job and get your own stuff God.

[kainah]

5. and apparently many of these monuments were erected

as a publicity stunt to promote Cecil B. DeMille's movie, The Ten Commandments. Isn't that just too American?

(Hey, DinoBoy, 2 weeks from tomorrow, I'll be sleeping at the Grand Union in Fort Benton.... Can't wait!)