Ah, but it’s based on a book that claims to be true.
Brown’s novel compares unfavorably to these books
and a host of others that tread the same path.
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As another challenge to the constitutionality of this law, could someone whose particular branch of Christianity uses a different translation of the Bible, one whose version of the Ten Commandments differ from the ones quoted in the law, claim that the governor is establishing the branches that use the translation of the Bible from which they were drawn as somehow official in clear violation of the law? Claim that the government of Louisiana essentially declared war against one branch of Christianity while supporting another?
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IANAL but probably yes.
The text used in the bill was specifically written to be interdenominational and even interfaith, insofar as the Ten Commandments represent Judaism as well as Christianity.
Since Jews, Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, and other traditions all number the Ten Commandments differently, Ruegemer’s poster tries to avoid alienating any of those groups by simply not numbering them. And because different traditions favor different translations, he paraphrases slightly from the King James Version he used as a starting point. That’s why the language of the poster is KJV-ish, but not always actually KJV.
However, that inclusivessness falls apart when one particular text is enshrined in law.
Ruegemer’s clumsy compromise never worked as well as he imagined it did, but his idea was that Catholics and Jews and various different Protestants would be able to find room for their particular religious tradition within the fuzzy outlines of his civil religious rendition of the Commandments. This doesn’t work at all in Horton’s scheme, which establishes a single, official, mandatory state version of the Commandments and literally forbids any expression of the Catholic or Jewish or Protestant variations.
Schools must teach the Eagles/DeMille commandments. Schools may not provide the Catholic or Jewish or Lutheran or Calvinist Commandments. Schools may not post the full biblical text of the Commandments.
Here, as ever, as a logical and legal necessity, the opposite of secular government is and must always be sectarian government. And the official, state-mandated sect established in Louisiana does not allow the religious views of any practicing Christian or Jew in Louisiana to be expressed or acknowledged. Those views must be supplanted by the new, weird, 1950s Hollywood imitation of them.
Quotations from Slacktivist. Everyone in this thread should read the whole post.
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That’s often how the gullible and credulous stumble past the Anti-Semitic Point of No Return* that in some form lies at the end of every conspiracist’s trail of stale breadcrumbs.
This one** is yet another spin on “not the real Jews” (for other examples see the Black Hebrew Israelite or the Khazar conspiracy theories.). Jews – simultaneously all-powerful and weak – must not be given credit for anything the audience to whom you’re appealing might see as a positive.
In this case, evidence is cherry-picked and twisted to make the case that Christianity does not have its roots in Judaism but rather was a black op cooked up by heroic and ultra-competent classical Roman (read: white) Jack Ryan types fighting against (as the authors frame it) dangerous religious terrorists from the Middle East (want some anti-Muslim bigotry thrown in with that anti-Semitism?).
That it was co-written by an Objectivist who starts out by saying “now keep an open mind, folks” before launching into his pitch only seals the deal that this is BS with a nasty agenda. “Compelling and plausible”? Nah.
[* h/t to @navarro, who alerted me to this chart]
[** ETA: the theory promoted in Valiant and Fahy’s “Creating Christ: How Roman Emperors Invented Christianity”]
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Oh that’s too bad. My Methodist confirmation class very much did do that, as well as explaining how it was different from other, non-Christian faiths. And it did so in a very factual way, not in a “see how we’re better than them” kind of way. It was almost a comparative religion class. It was pretty cool. Of course, I also credit that class with putting me on the road to atheism, so maybe that’s why that was uncommon, come to think of it…
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It all makes sense through a tribalist lens.
Back in the day most Americans lived in a culture that was like 95% Christian of one kind or another. So tribal identity was within Christianity, and the big meaningful distinctions were internal Christian theological ones.
Now most Americans live in a culture that is “only” 70% Christian, and politicized media has solidified a sense among many of those Christians that they are somehow one tribe under attack by atheists/muslims/“liberals”/some other unspecified boogiemen. This has made people identify much more with the broader tribal affiliation of Christianity (well, maybe a broad conservative/evangelical Christianity, to distinguish from those awful liberal Christians) and less with their particular theological flavor.
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It’s a family group! Isis is part of it, right? It’s not all male! Even as a family group it makes more sense than the “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” business.
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