DescentBB

Bill of Rights or Ten Commandments...

yes.

If I had to choose between the two, I would choose the Bill of Rights because a lot of the Ten Commandments is in the BOR in some form or fashion and because the TC doesn't provide any protections from an over zealous government.

Weren't the original Bill of Rights written by people who meant them to be a supplement to law founded in Judeo-Christian principles. Like it or not the founders assumed they were writing law for christians to govern themselves with.

So your question is kind of like 'Which would you rather have, a house with no foundation or a foundation with no house?'

I agree with Will. However, in a country where the government really played no discernable role in the lives of the average citizens (think Canaan and countries east of the Mediterranean in 300 BC, and even America in its early years) I would much rather have the Ten Commandments, because they have a much clearer and more concise way of stating the obvious. The Bill of Rights is all well and good, but it leaves out several crucial statements, as well as the reasoning behind this basic morality. Besides, the Bill of Rights was meant to guarantee specific rights for Americans; the Ten Commandments provide a law based on common sense, morality, and justice. It's comparing apples and oranges.

I'll go with the house with no foundation, shiat poor folks been living in them for years.

WoodChip you ever heard that Lucinda Williams tune, "Going Back to Baton Rouge?"

Foundation with no house sucks! When you stretch a tarp across the top and try to live in the basement the dam thing just blows off and you're sitting in a puddle in the middle of the night. Which is a good metaphor for what the ten commandments do for ya when a religous fanatic breaks one (a commandment not wind) in your general direction.

sheepdog wrote:WoodChip you ever heard that Lucinda Williams tune, "Going Back to Baton Rouge?"

Uh Sheepdog, Chippy hasn't posted in this thread yet. Are you hearing voices again?

Dedman wrote:

sheepdog wrote:WoodChip you ever heard that Lucinda Williams tune, "Going Back to Baton Rouge?"

Uh Sheepdog, Chippy hasn't posted in this thread yet. Are you hearing voices again?

All us conservatives look alike to them lib's

Seriously Sheepdog, your analogy assumes you are stagnant and stuck with whichever situation you choose. That's wrong. With a good foundation you can build a house upon it, whereas a house with no foundation is destined to crumble.
Why would anyone stop with a tarp? All that Lucinda Williams is robbing you of optimism. Try some Kevin Gordon.

Uh Dedman I may very well be hearing voices but they aren't WoodChips. I know darn well he's reading it whether he's posting or not. He my bud ya see, and we both like good Alt Country.

Will if you had really listened to "Going Back to Baton Rouge" you would know why I refer to it with regard to a sorta sharecropper shack up on bricks.

BBIAB with the line.

BTW me no heard of Kevin Gordon, is he good?
edit
... had to go back to that house one more time
To see if the camellias were in bloom
For so many reasons its been on my mind
The house on Belmont Avenue

Built up on cinderblocks off the ground
What with the rain and the soft swampy land
By the sweet honeysuckle that grew all around
Were switches when we were bad...

From Bus to Baton Rouge (Wrong title, my bad)

You'll love him. He had Lucinda sing a duet on the title track of his last record too
PS: I've heard that track a number of times.

Okay, sorry I was snotty, but smile when you call me a liberal, brother.

I know darn well it's intended as an insult.

shouldn't the Tao Te Ching be considered in this as an option?

Both of them are bloated if you ask me....now where are my George Carlin links...

aha!

George Carlin - The Ten Commandments

Note: If you don't find this funny, you probably shouldn't be posting on the DBB It's just a joke people!

LOL! Thanks Tyr. Carlin forgot the commandment that he himself exemplifies:

Thou shalt get a sense of humor fer crissakes!

Id have to got with the TC, cus the BOR is influenced in one way or another by the TC, wether you like it or not.

Neither is effective without the interpretations made by the court system over the past 200+ years.

The Courts are God. Bow to them.

No seriously, the courts wouldn't have anything to rule ABOUT if there were no laws. Our court system is supposed to INTERPRET the laws. One judge (or even 7 judges) shouldn't have the power to override a law passed by congress and the president by simply declaring it unconstitutional. That was never the way it was intended. The courts are so seriously screwed up in this country it isn't even funny.

Jesus, Stryker. Either you are kidding virtually every time you post or you are one of the most undereducated people ever to use a computer.

You do realize that the role of the Supreme Court is to interpret the constitution and rule on the constitutionality of our laws right? You do realize that Congress, the President, you, me, or anyone canâ??t expect a law to stand if it is unconstitutional no matter how bad Congress or the President wants it right? Please tell me you learned at least that much in whatever school you went to.

I'd rather have the bill of rights, but lately it seems even that wont do any good.

sheepdog wrote:I'll go with the house with no foundation, shiat poor folks been living in them for years.

WoodChip you ever heard that Lucinda Williams tune, "Going Back to Baton Rouge?"

Girl, that be "Bus to Baton Rouge"

"Built up on cinderblocks off the ground
What with the rain and the soft swampy land
By the sweet honeysuckle that grew all around
Were switches when we were bad"

Foundation analogy is not good cause we have lots 'o houses built on no foundation. Trailers in trailer parks, Gypsies live in motor homes, Mongols live in yurts and Eskimo's live in igloos. So...sorry to put the kebob on that concept.

As to Zuruck's question, I'd take the Bill of rights. Most of whats in the ten commandments was already part of a societies moral structure. The bill of rights, along with the magna carta, are more important because they put into mans law limitations of Kings and govt. If all we had was the ten commandments, I'm afraid the world would be a very different place.

woodchip wrote:...As to Zuruck's question, I'd take the Bill of rights. Most of whats in the ten commandments was already part of a societies moral structure....

That moral structure didn't come from eating the indigenous food supply or an arbitrary sprinkling of fairy dust filtering down from high upon the jet stream. Judeo-Christian principles are intertwined with the backbone of America just as much or more than the Bill of Rights.

Maybe it's not so important where it came from...maybe. If they had taught those same principles without using god as a reference they *might* have achieved similar results but if you just abandon the process simply because there is religion involved you create a vacuum... a sinkhole in your foundation.

Religion is a powerful glue that has held the masses together, dogmatically adhering to those principles. If those principles were just the words of man I'm not so sure they would have stood up to the test of time.
If not for those Judeo-Christian principles we might all be owners of african slaves today!

The question is flawed and I think it is offered more as flame bait than a starting point of discussion.
edit: I take that back, it's actually a very interesting topic and I can't be so sure of why Zuruck asked the question. Sorry Zuruck.

I agree with WC pretty much exactly, although I would point out that you can have a moral foundation without the Ten Commandments.

Dedman wrote:[profanity deleted], Stryker. Either you are kidding virtually every time you post or you are one of the most undereducated people ever to use a computer.

You do realize that the role of the Supreme Court is to interpret the constitution and rule on the constitutionality of our laws right? You do realize that Congress, the President, you, me, or anyone canâ??t expect a law to stand if it is unconstitutional no matter how bad Congress or the President wants it right? Please tell me you learned at least that much in whatever school you went to.

I learned that there are well over 100 legislators who are supposed to be making laws. That's their job. These judges are making up their own law--which isn't what's supposed to happen.

Stryker wrote:These judges are making up their own law--which isn't what's supposed to happen.

What new laws have the courts "made" and which courts have "made" them?

Roe V. Wade. Courts constitutionalized abortion. It had been previously prevented under the part of morality, common sense, and laws saying "DON'T KILL PEOPLE!"

First of all Roe v. Wade wasnâ??t a new law. In fact it isnâ??t a law at all. It is a case brought before the Supreme Court in 1972.

Secondly, morality and common sense while laudable goals are not laws and should not be mistaken as such.

Thirdly, the courts didnâ??t â??constitutionalizeâ?

What I know is: before that case, abortion was deemed illegal. After that case, abortion clinics dedicated to doing nothing but killing children (or future children, depending on your point of view) were opened. If that's not making a law, I don't know what is.

Well, at least we agree on something. You have no idea what "making a law" is.

Tetrad wrote:I agree with WC pretty much exactly, although I would point out that you can have a moral foundation without the Ten Commandments.

True, but can you think of a moral foundation shared by a whole nation or culture that isn't founded in religious belief?
I can only think of those that failed as soon as the gun wielding tyrants were overturned and the people reverted back to their religious roots.

If religion is not the following/worship of a devine being then it is a manifistation of a peoples desire to regulate their collective morality in a non violent way.

Throw it out because political correctness is en vogue right now? No thanks! We need a better reason than the equivalent of a fashion trend like bellbottoms and disco music!

Will Robinson wrote:True, but can you think of a moral foundation shared by a whole nation or culture that isn't founded in religious belief?

No, but does it matter, and how is it relevant to the conversation at hand?

Tetrad wrote:

Will Robinson wrote:True, but can you think of a moral foundation shared by a whole nation or culture that isn't founded in religious belief?

No, but does it matter, and how is it relevant to the conversation at hand?

Just that it seems Zurucks question, and also alot of pop-culture postulating seem to infer that the removal of religion and all it's vestiges from our laws and culture would be an improvement. I'm trying to point out that there is a very real positive effect from the religious aspect of the foundation of our culture...regardless of whether or not there actually is a god.

Your comment is true that morality isn't exclusive to those that practice religion...however how would you impliment it without religion?

The way you're putting things, what is religion other than a following of a particular set of moral rules? And on that extension, how would following the writings of your philiosophio of choice be any different than following the writings in the Bible?

Of course for a government to work it helps if people have a commonly-accepted foundation to base off of. Being areligious of course I have to say that it may not be as efficient to try to design a system of government when the ever-lingering "your philosophy is valid but different than mine" in the back of my mind, but to insinuate that we "owe it" to religion for proving us with our government just seems silly to me.

Tetrad wrote:...but to insinuate that we "owe it" to religion for proving us with our government just seems silly to me.

You can't be indebted to religion. However, for better or worse, our government *is* based on the Christian religion in many ways. To suggest, as the question did, that we could choose to remove it is what i find to be silly. It's like trying to remove the flour from a batch of brownies after they are baked and if you could remove it you certainly better replace it with something!

Will, "removal of the Ten Commandments" would mean that the Biblical teaching fell out of favor. There is no possible way to remove them from history, and consequently alter the foundation of this country. To use the foundation analogy, the Ten Commandments aren't the foundation, they're the plywood that's used to frame the cement of the Constitution poured in to make the foundation of the house built out of Legislation and Supreme Court Decisions with a roof tiled by the Presidential administration that needs to get redone every 4 to 8 years so that We the People inside don't get totally soaked. Once the concrete of the foundation has cured the wood can be removed; if the wood wasn't square the foundation will reflect the defect. The imprint will last, though the plywood will not.

Will Robinson wrote:if you could remove it you certainly better replace it with something!

I'll agree with that.

please feel free to correct me (what's new?).

i understand the founding fathers were christians for the most part. i also understand that the question included the ten commandments as one of the things you were allowed to choose from...

it seems obvious that i would choose the BOR. all religions tend to say the same things and argue about an omnipresent. "thou shall not kill" isn't like a new concept, it's just one that is constantly ignored and then rationalized by many followers of the great world religions.

it's not like christians developed, and therefore own the basis of morality.

TheCops wrote:...it's not like christians developed, and therefore own the basis of morality.

No, but to suggest removing the basis of morality that does exist (in this case based on christianity) isn't a good idea.
We've seen the removal of many christian values from our society without replacing them and it hasn't turned out too well.
All that 'Honor thy Father and Mother' stuff sort of brainwashes the little ones until they're old enough to develop their own reasons to value relationships and community. Without it you have little ones learning how to hold their Glock sideways when they cap someone instead of learning how to be obedient, respectful of their elders and taking pride in personal responsibility.

It's not that the Constitution or Bill of Rights will become meaningless overnight but that the reasons why those documents are so important become clouded and lost without a common bond to rally people to them.

The reason I didn't kill the men, steal their gold and rape their women as a young man wasn't because of some edict handed down in a government document. After all that's how they got their gold and every nation before them got theirs...

No, the reason I didn't take over the world is because I had a nagging feeling that their was something even more important and powerful than me.

Now, years later I know that may not be true but my barbarous spirt has been tamed, I've been corupted by the comforts of working the system and so all of you are safe....thank god

DCrazy wrote:Will, "removal of the Ten Commandments" would mean that the Biblical teaching fell out of favor. There is no possible way to remove them from history, and consequently alter the foundation of this country. To use the foundation analogy, the Ten Commandments aren't the foundation, they're the plywood that's used to frame the cement of the Constitution poured in to make the foundation of the house built out of Legislation and Supreme Court Decisions with a roof tiled by the Presidential administration that needs to get redone every 4 to 8 years so that We the People inside don't get totally soaked. Once the concrete of the foundation has cured the wood can be removed; if the wood wasn't square the foundation will reflect the defect. The imprint will last, though the plywood will not.

That was good DCrazy. Makes you think and laugh

*edit* for will

so you are saying that morality developed solely out of a belief in fill in the blank and its' solemn word? and not the desire for masses of humans living together (civilization) to figure out a basic set of rules (morals) to live together in a relatively peaceful way?

interestingâ?¦ because i blame the interpretation of fill in the blanks words as justification for poor behavior.

i thank the development of morals for my very survival... i'm like a skinny freak that would have been killed for my air jordans long ago.