You know what would be an interesting experiment to do in the United States?

[xiphias]

I think it would be very interesting to have a polling firm do the following poll, throughout the United States. Two questions, but the second one would be a bit long:

1. With the caveat that you might be able to see exceptions in some cases, do you, on the whole, come closer to supporting or opposing the display of the Ten Commandments in public, not-overtly-religious buildings such as courthouses, town halls, or schools, and the like?

2. Please name as many of the Ten Commandments as you can.

Question 2 would be scored from 0 to, oh, about 14 or so, with half-points given for partial credit. The reason for going over 10 would be for people who could name multiple versions of commandments, including the "keep" and "remember" distinction in the commandment of the Sabbath, and between the Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish versions. Actually, perhaps one would want to score from -1 to 14, to cover people who list things that aren't in the Ten Commandments, such as "Love thy neighbor".

I hypothesize that there would be no correlation between the "support" or "oppose" answer, and how many they could name. And that the average number would be somewhere around 2.

Comments

[theletterelle.livejournal.com]

Did you miss the part where they eliminated the fourth? I don't care how many commandments you split them into, deleting one and covering it up by splitting one into two isn't cool.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Are you sure they didn't fold the second commandment into the first? That's what the Catholics do, and they also split what you and I count as the tenth into the ninth and tenth.

My point is that you can't argue that one was deleted and another was split up -- because any way that you argue that, the same argument can be made about yours.

See, they could argue that you deleted one and split up the fourth and fifth to cover it.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Incedentally, when you say "fourth", do you mean Shabbat or parents?

[theletterelle.livejournal.com]

Shabbat, dude.

1. No other gods before Me.

2. No graven images.

3. No taking God's name in vain.

4. Shabbat/Sabbath.

5. Honor your parents.

6. Don't kill.

7. Don't commit adultery.

8. Don't steal.

9. Don't bear false witness.

10. Don't covet anyone else's wife or any of his stuff.

Those are the ones I learned. Where am I losing one?

The poster I saw had no Sabbath, but had no coveting wife/no coveting stuff as two separate ones.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

You're not; those are the ones which I know. The Catholics, by contrast, combine 1 and 2 and split 10 the way you saw.