---
title: "We Need To Talk About What Happened In Louisiana"
source: "https://medium.com/deconstructing-christianity/we-need-to-talk-about-what-happened-in-louisiana-feb747e255f4"
author:
  - "[[Lilith Helstrom]]"
published: 2024-06-22
created: 2024-10-29
description: "When I’m being generous, I can kind of see why some Christians might want the Ten Commandments displayed outside court rooms. Christians hear the Ten Commandments in church, their pastor reads “thou…"
tags:
  - "clippings"
---
## And how dangerous it is

[

![Lilith Helstrom](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fill:88:88/1*YyY95-dMd1BZpr-a-_ltYQ@2x.jpeg)

](https://medium.com/@lilith.helstrom?source=post_page---byline--feb747e255f4--------------------------------)

[

![Deconstructing Christianity](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fill:48:48/1*nmmzmEdbaDIYg9hcrY_b2w.png)

](https://medium.com/deconstructing-christianity?source=post_page---byline--feb747e255f4--------------------------------)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/0*1SmXAoz2BPpTbtVQ)

Photo by [Taylor Flowe](https://unsplash.com/@taypaigey?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral)

When I’m being generous, I can kind of see why some Christians might want the Ten Commandments displayed outside court rooms. Christians hear the Ten Commandments in church, their pastor reads “thou shalt not kill” and “thou shalt not steal” and they know that America has laws against murder and theft, so they think American law must be based on the Bible.

“Might as well have the Ten Commandments displayed outside court rooms,” they say to themselves. “Since American laws are based off of them.”

Even though American laws *aren’t* based on them and shouldn’t be.

But that twisted logic doesn’t explain why [Louisiana just passed a law](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/06/19/politics/louisiana-classrooms-ten-commandments) saying that all public school classrooms are required to have the Ten Commandments displayed somewhere inside of them. Not that teachers are just allowed to display them, but they’re required to, whether they’re Christian or not.

Classrooms don’t have court rooms. Children aren’t lawyers and judges. Classrooms have nothing to do with laws.

Christians can’t claim ignorance in this ruling. They can’t claim that they just decided on this law because historically our laws are supposedly based on the Ten Commandments. They can’t claim that because these are *schools.*

They know that the only reason to pass a law like this is to force religion onto children. Anyone who supports it, supports forced indoctrination. Christians want to groom children, groom them into becoming devoted Christians whether they’re taught Christianity at home or not.

They won’t admit it out loud, but they don’t believe in religious freedom. They just assume their religion is right and want to force it on the rest of us for supposedly our own good.

They don’t believe that Jesus or God are loving entities that can change people or they wouldn’t be trying to force religion on everyone using the power of the government. They think might makes right.

This is especially frightening because the Ten Commandments might be fine when presented in a biblical context, but are tools of oppression when presented as secular laws. The first three commandments are about worshipping and revering God. The next one is basically about going to church and setting aside a day for church.

Of course a religion is going to demand that you only follow it and no other religions. That’s why religions exist, to teach you the way they think you should live. But when a government demands you only worship that one God, that’s when oppression starts.

And those make up half the commandments. They don’t belong anywhere near our government laws or school systems.

Other than the commandments about not stealing and not killing, the other commandments suck as well when forced into secular law.

“Honor your father and mother,” when it becomes a law takes all abused children’s rights away. You’re being hit, you’re being insulted, you’re being sexually assaulted by your parent? Doesn’t matter because now, by law, you need to honor your father and mother, so you can’t speak out when they hurt you and the government can’t save you.

The commandment about not bearing false witness is okay in court only. Purjury is a law that already exists.

But this commandment is about *all* rumors, not just legal testimonies. And who does the church say is the gossipers? Women. So pass laws about not gossiping and you’re now in an extremely sexist society that jails women for speaking.

Because you can claim anything is a rumor and send a woman to jail when you don’t like her.

This also applies to the commandment about not having affairs. Historically, and even in the Bible itself, honor killings have always targeted women. They get accused of cheating whether they are or not and murdered over it just because a man wants to.

And the last commandment about not wanting what others have is the worst one of all potentially when you add it to the government. It’s the thought police. People can’t help their feelings, sometimes you just get jealous of people. Feelings shouldn’t be illegal.

It would put our country on the level of North Korea dictatorship. Kim Jong-Un and his father told their citizens that they could read their minds as well. They are not to even think bad things about them. When alone in their mind, the one place that should be safe for everyone, they’ve been taught to fear. And we would be taught the same if the Ten Commandments became a legal document.

I hate the Ten Commandments. As rules among a religion, I think they are unhelpful and harmful. But as a law of land and not of just heaven, they’d be literal tyranny.

==Christians want to make this country into a violent theocracy and they’re not even being subtle about it anymore.==

Keep religion out of public schools.

[Click here to support my writing](https://ko-fi.com/lilithhelstrom)

![Lilith Helstrom](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fill:40:40/1*YyY95-dMd1BZpr-a-_ltYQ@2x.jpeg)

## Lilith's Thoughts On Religion And Atheism