The Ten Commandments in Every Classroom

The Ten Commandments in Every Classroom

How Louisiana’s new law could set a dangerous or stupid precedent

If asked whether the Ten Commandments should be included in all classrooms around the United States most conservative Christians around the country would belt out a resounding “Amen Brother!”.

They would see this as a way to help reinforce (force) their perceived righteous religious beliefs on young developing minds and stick all of us with another generation of folk displaying their brand of loudly ignorant self-righteousness.

What sort of moral lessons can we really glean from The Ten Commandments? Let’s take a look at them if we can agree on which version is going to be posted that is. I’ll assume we’re not talking about the set that God actually called the Ten Commandments in Exodus 34:1–28-KJV, since those included a whole lot of blood sacrifices in case you didn’t want to off your new donkey or your own offspring to that god to “redeem” them.

So we’ll just stick with the ones that people who call themselves Christians but haven’t ever actually read this book consider the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20:1–17-KJV and are essentially repeated in Deuteronomy.

Exodus 20:1–17-KJV

20

2 I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

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5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

6 And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

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9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

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Now having been born in New Orleans and growing up in the Southern U.S. I have stuck with the KJV for this article because I know it’s their favorite, even though it’s one of the most flawed versions out there.

Let’s break down the lessons from these great commandments that these folk believe we should use as our singular moral compass for our entire lives.