Religious Displays and Status Competition. -Reply

[Harold Hallikainen]

On Fri, 7 Mar 1997 07:32:40 -0600 "@marie a. failinger"
<mfailing at SEQ.HAMLINE.EDU> writes:

>By contrast, someone's post asked about listing the last part of the
>Commandments.  (I can't find it, so if he/she asked these questions
>already, sorry.) If the list read:
>     Don't sass your parents
>     Don't kill
>     Don't steal
>     Don't commit adultery
>     Don't bear false witness
>     Don't covet your neighbor's wife, Mercedes, fax machine, or
>anything
>       that is your neighbor's
>neither the object, the action, nor the source would refer to God.
>But
>    1)could a religious person object to this list on the basis that
>it
>desecrated the relationship between God and human beings (which is the
>point of the Commandments in some religious views?)
>    2)would the last rule violate the Free Exercise Clause anyway, as
>a
>violation of conscience/the right to think?


        I dunno...  I guess I'm just part of the "question authority"
generation, but I have a problem with "commandments" from ANYONE.  If
instead in school we said,  "What rules would you set up for an ideal
society?" and looked at various rules that have been suggested, including
the commandments, we would "follow the rules" because they make sense!
Sure, anyone can win Monopoly by not following the rules, but let's see
how we do FOLLOWING the rules, and we agree to these rules, because the
MAKE SENSE!

Harold