In light of the recent Supreme Court rulings on the Ten Commandments, I thought it might be useful to look at them more closely. One of the arguments for putting the Ten Commandments in court houses is that they form a historical foundation for our laws. Let's look at that too...

Well, the first confusion is that there are many versions of the Ten Commandments. I'll use the two distinct ones, starting with Exodus 34:

1. Thou shalt worship no other god (For the Lord is a jealous god).
2. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
3. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep in the month when the ear is on the corn.
4. All the first-born are mine.
5. Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh thou shalt rest.
6. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
7. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread.
8. The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning.
9. The first of the first fruits of thy ground thou shalt bring unto the house of the Lord thy God.
10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.

Hah, bet you didn't see that coming! While these laws are important in Judaism, most Christians don't seem to care about them at all, since like 100 A.D. or so. And what does All the first-born are mine mean? That's just creepy. Notably, none of these are reflected in even the slightest way in our laws. The Bible has two sets of commandments, though, the ones "which Moses didst break" and "the words that were on the first" that Moses did break. That he broke right before he killed three thousand people in the Lord's name. Exodus is so fucked up; the God presented in Exodus is simply an evil god.

Anyway, I digress. The Commandments I gave up there are "the words that were on the first". Here's the ones Moses didst break (Exodus 20), and you'll have to to figure out for yourself how God could be so infallible as to think these two sets match:

1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for yourself a graven image. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
6. You shall not kill.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet.

Let's talk about US law now:

1. This law is Unconstitutional, by way of the First Ammendment (no established religion).
2. Also Unconstitutional, both because of the established religion and freedom of speach (both in the First Ammendment).
3. And again.
4. Well, there are laws to this effect ("Blue Laws"). They are rather uncommon now. And frankly they seem rather Unconstitutional as well, especially seeing as we can't all agree on which day is the Sabbath. Though it always surprised me that we nearly all agree on seven days in the week. Except for those wacky Bahai (I think they worship on a 12 day cycle or something).
5. I don't know what a law like this would be like. It's not Unconstitutional, but it's pretty unreasonable to enforce.
6. This is a law! Wow, I bet when God gave this to Moses it was a pretty novel interpretation of morality! Especially since he followed it up with a lot of killing.
7. Has been illegal. Probably still is some places, but not many. Its importance is still reflected in law (e.g., it's a justification for divorce).
8. This is also a law! Again, a real shocker, without this one we'd all be stealing everything to this day.
9. Well... not really a law. Under oath it's illegal. In some other cases its illegal (e.g., slander). But mostly not illegal.
10. Wow... so legal as to be practically privileged. Even if it was, like 5 I can't see how it'd be enforced.

So, there's your legal foundation.