Well, there are actually a few different issues there. Actually asking someone to get the Ten Commandments in order is ridiculous because, for one thing, different religious traditions count and group the Bible verses differently; the Jewish, Catholic and Protestant Ten Commandments are different.
But the Ten Commandments Gotcha usually has an element of exposing hypocrisy to it, because the Bible-thumping politicians in question tend to be the same people who go on about how everyone should constantly be reminded of the Ten Commandments and that they're the basis of all law and morality.
The other useful point of that exercise is the reminder that, contrary to the strangely common belief that the Ten Commandments are universal moral precepts reflected in all civilized law and appropriate for a secular courthouse wall, approximately the first four or five of them (depending on your count) are all explicitly religious and even sectarian; the sensible moral precepts don't start until after that. Jews don't even believe that the Ten Commandments apply to non-Jews; only the earlier, less detailed Noachide commandments are for the gentiles.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-08-19 01:17 pm (UTC)But the Ten Commandments Gotcha usually has an element of exposing hypocrisy to it, because the Bible-thumping politicians in question tend to be the same people who go on about how everyone should constantly be reminded of the Ten Commandments and that they're the basis of all law and morality.
The other useful point of that exercise is the reminder that, contrary to the strangely common belief that the Ten Commandments are universal moral precepts reflected in all civilized law and appropriate for a secular courthouse wall, approximately the first four or five of them (depending on your count) are all explicitly religious and even sectarian; the sensible moral precepts don't start until after that. Jews don't even believe that the Ten Commandments apply to non-Jews; only the earlier, less detailed Noachide commandments are for the gentiles.