KAGIN’S COLUMN

 

Edwin F. Kagin is a lawyer‑poet.  He believes that, through grace and faith,

this will be a regular column and, if events are predestined, that whatever

he believes makes no difference whatsoever. He can be reached in care of

this publication, or through e‑mail at: [email protected]

Permission for non-profit reproduction is given, so long as credit is given,

so the villagers will not go after the wrong person with pitchforks & torches.

ON DISPLAYING THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN

PUBLIC PLACES AS ANOTHER SATANIC STRATEGY

FOR DESTROYING AMERICAN DEMOCRATIC FREEDOMS

It is as I have said:  every statute in the Bible and in the law books is an attempt to defeat a law of God–in other words an unalterable and indestructible law of nature. These peoples’s God has shown them by a million acts that he respects none of the Bible’s statutes. He breaks every one of them himself, adultery and all.  Mark Twain, Letters From the Earth.

As everyone knows, the United States of America was perfect until the 1950’s. Things started falling apart in the 1960’s, just after “In God We Trust” was stuck on our money, and “under God” was added to our Pledge of Allegiance.

We had gone through a Revolutionary War, a Civil War, two World Wars, the Great Depression, and various other dramatic, but easily solved, national problems, like slavery and women wanting to vote, without any need for a statement of reliance on a deity being placed on the cash or an unnamed god being added to our secular expression of loyalty to flag and country.

And Satan rejoiced. He saw the insecurity and the fear. He knew that people’s need for public religiosity and for revealed rules meant private personal ethics had been replaced by public show and by dictated declarations of forced faith of the sort condemned in the Sermon on the Mount. The U.S. of A. had fallen into Satan’s hands, and he has been pretty much in control ever since. The worse things have gotten, the more his maniacal merciless minions, wrapped in reeking robes of hypocritical righteousness, have caused the unsuspecting faithful to fall into the waiting clutches of that fallen angel.

Lucifer, that Great Serpent, deceiver of Eve, author of evil, nightmare enemy of all that is right and good, remains tirelessly at work in other ways, deceiving even the faithful, verily as he deceived our first parents. He has, for example, in his attempt to destroy our democratic freedoms and bring about our ruin as a free nation, laid it falsely upon the hearts of some, who are weak of faith and easily misled, that abortion is a sin prohibited by Holy Writ. It is not, of course. Satan knows full well that little souls not yet tempted to sin go straight unto their Heavenly Father, who in his greater wisdom and for his own purpose and pleasure, hath predestined them from all eternity to come early home and be in communion with him forever (it should be here noted that the Roman Catholic Church, a self-styled infallible only true church, had for centuries said that these wee souls went to Limbo–but now they have announced that there is no such place). Satan can’t stand it, for he wants to create chaos and destroy our hard won liberties and take away the personal choices that are only available to free people. He wants these children to be born unto sin, and to commit crimes, and to grow unto profane vice, and to fall from their innocent state of grace, so they can be his, so they can be denied the beatific vision and the heaven of the sinless that was planned for them. Satan has raised up “pro life” a.k.a. “right to life” groups, composed of persons misled and misguided, so innocent souls can be profaned by sin and required, under the very laws of god that are flaunted, to burn in hell for all eternity (for a more complete analysis of this particular line of blasphemy, please consult Kagin’s Column On the Mythology of Abortion, possibly available from this publication, or available for sure at www.edwinkagin.com on the Internet, if you can secure the assistance of an eight year old to help you work a computer–a device negligently not mentioned in the bible).

Satan has also successfully inspired support for forbidden-by-god public prayer in public places. This has helped the Prince of Darkness to hasten the establishment of an unholy profane theocracy and to further damage and diminish personal freedoms so that democracy can be more easily eliminated. Misguided demonically influenced school officials and elected law makers have actually wanted people to risk their immortal souls by engaging in public praying–when the son of god has specifically forbidden such activity (Matthew 6: 6, Holy Bible), and said that those who disobeyed would be as imperiled as fools who build their houses upon sand. (See Kagin’s Column On Public Prayer–obtained same way as above). What are children to think or do when they read in their school required bible readings that their school required public prayers are in direct violation of the word of god?  Fortunately, this particular slippery slide to perdition has not been implemented in all that many places. In those venues where public prayer is actually regularly and heretically practiced, like in the Congress of the United States, the deleterious consequences are so obvious that reasonable persons cannot dispute the dire truth of the Savior’s warnings.

Then there is the Satanist plot called “creation science.”  This movement oxymoronically trys to replace scientific fact and proof with the pre-scientific biblical mythology of origins. If he can get us to accept this stuff and repudiate evidence, Satan will have made much progress in destroying what our society has achieved with science and democracy.

But that ancient terror is even more clever than previously understood. We note with horror that there is emerging a far greater Satanic threat–an attempted direct fatal blow aimed at the very heart of democracy.  He wants the gullible faithful, those who should know better but don’t, to make laws requiring that the so called Ten Commandments  be posted in public places–places like public schools, courtrooms, and government buildings.  Imagine!  Satan has gotten public servants to actually give official endorsement to a set of primitive rules written in Hebrew for a bronze age community of nomadic Jews.  He knows that the fighting and the bloodletting certain to result over the meaning, the enforcement, and even the correct translation, of these Hebrew rules will put democracy on the ropes for sure.

He has laid it upon certain of our elected elect the fanciful fear that without these dictated declarations of forced fealty, the faint of faith must needs wallow in sin. He has persuaded some uncertain souls that we all need certainty and a fixed moral law that should be interpreted for us by those in power over us.  And since the rules are unclear and impossible, like not coveting (there goes capitalism, the stock market, achievement awards, financial rewards, aspirations to succeed and acquire–in short, the American Dream that we had until god got put on the mammon), citizens are expected to constantly reaffirm their belief in the deity and his rules.  Like quoting the Nicene Creed for example.  This is not required if something is clearly so.  We do not chant together, “I believe in gravity; I believe if I drop a thing it will fall down; it will not fall up as the unbelievers say.”  A ritual for facts is so unnecessary it seems foolish.  Religious ritual is so foolish it seems necessary.  Try believing in the Holy Trinity without faith.  If a thing can be shown to be so, one does not need a religion in order to believe in that thing, and believing in a thing does not make it so.

Now it would indeed be nice if there existed on our earth  ten rules, precepts, laws, or anything for that matter, that everyone agreed were absolute rules of law and life that were so clear and so correct in their expression, application, and understanding that all people at all times would unanimously agree those rules should be followed as presented. Then we could post them in public places. And not a person would object, because everyone would agree with them and follow them as a matter of course. Sort of like the rule requiring breathing. Everyone follows it, and no one objects to the requirement that they breathe. Of course, in such circumstances, posting the ten commandments would be quite superfluous. We don’t really need publicly posted signs commanding unto breathing people, “Thou shalt breathe” (some religious types command “Thou shalt breed,” but that’s a different type of thing, and is another generally unnecessary directive).

Most people who think there is nothing wrong with displaying the Big 10 in public forums really don’t know just what they are.  So here are the ten commandments–in unnumbered Edwinian paraphrase:

I am the same god who brought you out of bondage in Egypt. There are many other gods, but you are not to prefer any of them over me, for I am a jealous god. You are not to make images of anything, worship any images, nor take my name in vain or I will punish your descendents unto the fourth generation. Because I created everything in six days, and rested on the seventh day, you are not to work on Saturday, nor is anyone in your house to work on Saturday, not even your slaves. If you want to live long in the land I have given you, you must honor your father and mother. You are not to steal, kill, commit adultery, lie about your neighbor,  nor covet anything your neighbor owns, like his wife, his livestock, or his slaves.

As a public service, and in the interests of promoting greater biblical literacy, especially among those satanically inspired to, and treasonably intent on, imposing the bible into all aspects of public life, your narrator additionally and thoughtfully now provides our readers with the actual words (King James Version, of course) of the so called Ten Commandments.  The sacred text says:

EX 20:1 And God spake all these words, saying, [2] I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. [3] Thou shalt have no other gods before me. [4] Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: [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 showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. [7] Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. [8] Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. [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.

     EX 20:12 Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. [13] Thou shalt not kill. [14] Thou shalt not commit adultery. [15] Thou shalt not steal. [16] Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. [17] Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

That’s them. The rules the pro posters say underpin our civilization and laws. Note there is nothing in them about democracy, due process of law, compassion, or being kind to your children so they just might honor you without a direct order from god.

God seems kinda insecure too.  Why need a god command worship if he is so clearly the better god?  Why should he care?  Does it bother you if an ant doesn’t believe in you?

Despite current claims that they have nothing to do with religion, the first four commandments are religious rules (the secular basis for our culture indeed!), and the remaining six prohibit behavior that most societies address in laws that are usually much clearer about informing citizens of just what is in fact prohibited. Those who say the commandments they want to publicly post are not religious should note that the first four have over twice as many words as the six that follow.

The commandments are subject to all kinds of interpretations and exceptions that can lead, and have led, to unpleasantness and even bloodshed.  This is why Satan wants us to do away with the notion of keeping church and state separate.  Forcing religion into public life is the very best way to destroy democracy.  What priesthood shall prevail?

Who is to say what the law of god means?  For example, “Thou shalt not kill” sounds reasonably clear. One might naively think this law of god prohibits killing. Not so. It is okay to kill animals, and okay to kill humans in war, in self defense, and in capital punishment. God endorses these (depending on who you ask), and other killings, but one learns this in Sunday School, not from the simple statement of the commandment itself.

People don’t agree on how, or whether, to follow the ten commandments with anything like the unanimity with which they agree on the not needed law requiring breathing. Roman Catholics, for example, don’t have the second commandment as listed by the Jews and Protestants. That’s the one about not making any graven images or worshipping any images.  That’s what it says, and it still says it even if one don’t like it. The Catholics don’t like it, so they leave it out, and get their version of the ten commandments by making two commandments out of the last one. The practice of accepting as holy only those rules of god one likes and ignoring the rest is so common among different religious groups that they may be understood collectively as cafeteria christians.  That’s why various christians have public prayer, while others handle snakes, have women preachers, let kids die by withholding medical attention, think god really created the world in six days, believe the earth is flat, and so forth.

The fourth commandment (all references hereinafter are to the Jewish / Protestant Decalogue–that’s the one the public posting promoters are talking about–certainly not the other set of ten commandments in the Old Testament that prohibits, inter alia, the boiling of a kid in its mother’s milk) says to worship on the seventh day of the week, Saturday, as the Jews, Seventh Day Adventists and others do.  It doesn’t say to worship on the first day of the week, Sunday–as most Christians do, with no biblical authority whatsoever for so doing.

There is not a single commandment that is not subject to wildly different interpretations.  And therein lies the problem. In matters of faith, whose understanding should control? How do we know they are right?  Shall we, as in the past, have religious wars to decide?

But these matters are minor.  Satan’s true evil genius in selecting this issue to destroy democracy is seen when those who are both Theists and Satanists (if you believe there is a god, you are a Theist; if you believe there is a Satan, you are a Satanist) cannot even agree on which translation of the bible to use, much less on the meaning of the disputed text. Catholics use a different bible than do those Protestants they denounce as heretics.  Jews read it in Hebrew, and they read it backwards.

If we really want to destroy American democracy by declaring that the ten commandments are really secular, and that the rules contained therein regarding which god to believe in, and how to worship this god, and when to go to church, and so on, are not religious, then we should take care that we use the right translation of the Bible when posting these non religious principles to use for controlling the lives of others, for those who want them posted in public tend not to read Hebrew, and those who do read Hebrew tend to understand all too well how religious doctrines can be called something else when employed to harm others.

Since it’s translation into English in 1611, the King James Version has been the bible of choice of Protestants.  It was the bible brought to our shores by our Puritan forefathers.  It is the bible people know and quote.  It is the bible that, for well over three hundred years, has been to many the only divinely inspired true translation. It is the bible most quoted when the ten commandments are posted.  It is the bible quoted above.

Yet other fundamentalists have recently condemned it, and denounced it as unfit for Christians to read.  This is because they have finally discovered that King James I of England, who authorized the translation, was a homosexual–a fact historian have known for all those years the King James Bible has been the inerrant word of God.  This fundamentalist attack on the fundamentalist’s bible has been led, say the reports, by the Christian Coalition, the Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, and the Family Research Council (FRC). Gary Bauer, of the FRC, is said (falsely, by the way—the quote was satire—but it does seem the right tune) to have said “Anything that has been commissioned by a homosexual has been tainted in some way.” And Christian Coalition leader, Pat Robertson is quoted as saying, “It’s very important that we stand up to the homosexual wherever and whenever he appears” (for an analysis of homophobic thought, see Kagin’s Column On Homosexuality). Satan must be happy indeed.

How can this possibly be resolved to satisfy everyone?   Maybe we should just keep church and state separate and keep our democracy.  Maybe we should make public display of our American Bill of Rights.  There are ten of them after all, and they were written in English.

Unless, of course, we don’t really believe in them.

 

Edwin Kagin.