On shaky foundation

Well, it seems that state senator and Holy Ghost Ministries founder Jason Rapert has gotten a second chance to erect a Ten Commandments monument on state Capitol grounds. Moses, like Rapert, had his first set destroyed too. After coming down from Mount Sinai and seeing all the Israelites partying around Aaron’s golden calf, he hurled his God-hewn tablets at the pagan idol and destroyed it. Where and how Moses got the other set of sacred tablets, like Reverent Rapert’s, is hotly debated.

Wading through Exodus looking for just 10 “commandments” is exhausting, especially when they are upstaged by other thou shalts, lightning, thunder, trumpet blasts, and smoking mountains. And they are neither presented in a well-explained, definitive list nor complete at a 10th law. Give or take a few dozen, there are more than 150 commandments or laws in Exodus alone.

Our constitutional scholar senator assures us, however, that the Ten Commandments are the canonical foundation of American jurisprudence and will guide the youth of Arkansas to not kill.

So … here is how the commandments read on face value to most of us secular humanists. The first four deal exclusively with God and our relationship with him, letting us know that he is the main God and that we must not have any other gods on the side vying for our attention; that we must not make “graven” images; that cussing, using his name in vain is serious sinning; and the fourth: “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” That means no work on Sunday or your neighbors can kill you.

We really don’t have to go any further than the first four to easily prove Rapert embarrassingly wrong.

Just read the First Amendment … the Bill of Rights … the most important legacy of anti-federalists who demanded them for final approval of the entire Constitution. It goes something like this: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion …” RUSSELL E. BEARDEN

Sherwood