Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments are important because they are guidelines to life, they are considered sins if you happen to disobey any of them. In fact most of them are actually against the law. For example, the sixth commandment is "Thou shall not kill." In the United States and some other countries that commandment is actually against the law and depending on your case and crime you can be punished with life in prison while in some extreme cases you can be executed. Some people feel that by posting the Ten Commandments in public schools and courthouses we are crossing the line, and are involving too much church in the wrong places. We are also not respecting the other two thousand religions in our nation that don't share the same beliefs, because "we've got to be sensitive to the spiritual beliefs of all of them" (Teicher, 2000). Many people view this movement as a way for Christians to sneak their religion into public schools and courts through a back door. Even if the Christian religion is trying to force their religion, it is a worthy try because the Ten Commandments are not only laws of the Bible but they are also laws of morality and laws of the United States. It would be better to look at it as another way, possibly a more effective way, to get the message across that these are laws that should not be broken. Morals are taught as well in the document of the Ten Commandments, by stating that you shouldn't lie, covet, murder, commit adultery, or steal, and that you should honor your mother and father. Children these days do not receive the education that they need in the subject of morality. In fact they are influenced negatively more often than positively with incidents such as the scandals of President Clinton and cartoon character models, for instance, Beavis and Butthead. These role models encourage children by promoting sex, violence, and just plain foolishness. It's not possible to eliminate negative influences but it is possible to add positive influences and encourage morality through the posting of the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments may be laws that were given to the people of Israel over two thousand years ago but, they are also the founding building blocks of our republic. The Ten Commandments were guidelines for the original laws of the United States when America was first established. Therefore, the Ten Commandments are official historical documents and have the right to be posted in schools and courthouses. They should not be ignored in public schools or court houses. When a poll taken by Gallup, CNN, and USA Today in the summer of 1999, "74 percent of adults said they support letting schools display the Ten Commandments" (Teicher, 2000). That is just short of ¾ the majority of the population of the United States. By this they are acknowledging that there is meaning to the laws given to Moses and that they would like their children to know about it. In the