I don’t need no stinkin’ halo
I am still too discombobulated to write anything about yesterday’s supreme court bombshell. Except that it really wasn’t a bombshell, was it?
Let’s see if I can make any sense talking about posting the 10 commandments in classrooms. Without writing a “book”, that is.
Putting aside the notion that it seems to be an egregious violation of separation of church and state for a moment… What are the powers that be looking to accomplish with this? Besides possibly shoving Christianity (more on that in a minute) down young students’ throats. Do they expect the students to READ the 10 commandments and suddenly grow halos? When is the last time you’ve been inside an elementary school classroom?
About Christianity, I will first reiterate my usual disclaimers that 1) I grew up attending a mainstream protestant church but 2) I have never believed in a religion. I’ll add a third one here: I am not a religious scholar. Driving up to the yooperland the other day after I *finally* (after three years) figured out how to switch radio channels on Cygnus without taking my eyes off the road, I stumbled across a very interesting segment on an NPR program.
On this 20-minute program segment, a number of actual religious scholars were consulted and quoted. I’m not talking about fire and brimstone preachers or medicine show snake oil “healers” or pedophile priests. I’m talking about people with PhDs who have spent years of their academic careers studying religion(s) in depth and are better equipped to analyze religious texts than your average politician. And YES, people who study religion to such a high degree are very important to our understanding of global culture. Don’t argue with me, MAGA. I am right about this.
The gist was that many versions of the 10 commandments exist. Not all of them are the ones us “Christians” were taught. Like just about everything else in life, there is a lot of room for interpretation. Different words are used in different versions. “Thou shalt not kill” vs. “Thou shalt not murder” was one example. To (sorta) paraphrase one guest, “There’s no point in posting a document like the 10 commandments in a classroom if you aren’t going to teach it to the students within some kind of meaningful context.” I’m not sure what Louisiana has in mind but I doubt that’s it.
That’s the GG in the pic and NO he has DEFINITELY NOT sprouted a halo🐽 It was warm enough to eat on the moomindeck last evening and that’s what we are doing. With Mr. Golden Sun behind us.
P.S. I am not going to list all of the commandments Trump has violated. Plenty of other people have already done that. It doesn’t seem to make a damn difference.
July 2nd, 2024 at 8:35 pm
Nothing seems to make a difference. The Evil One seems to pull out the core of what is worst in people: fear, distrust, racism, authoritarianism, Christian nationalism, etc. Then he makes them proud of them and says that they represent the True U.S.A. Not in my eyes.
July 2nd, 2024 at 9:05 pm
I’m OK with posting the 10 commandments in classrooms, so long as everyone that Trump has already broken has an asterisk.