#religion

People talk about the "Ten Commandments" (which they are generally unable to enumerate) as if it were a universal set of ethical principles. But it's not even close to that. It's a prologue to a very specific religious body of law, and it is exclusive to people who are worshippers of Yahweh*, or a god equated the same.

(*A conventional representation of the name represented in Hebrew by יהוה, which has replaced "Jehovah" without necessarily being more accurate.)
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The Ten Commandments starts out by affirming that Yahweh is "your god," thus excluding everyone who believes in any god (even a monotheistic god) who is not identified with Yahweh.

It continues by demanding that people have no other gods, thus excluding both non-believers in Yahweh and polytheistic believers who may or may not include Yahweh among their gods.

It demands that people not make "graven images" which excludes everyone who includes imagery in their form of worship.
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The Ten Commandments tell people not to take the name of Yahweh "in vain," which is rather ambiguous and probably widely violated, but is in any case irrelevant to people who do not call upon Yahweh.

It demands that people observe the Sabbath, which again is a very particular and exclusive practice (and one that is probably not honored by going to church on Sunday). That excludes all the people who honor other days or don't abide by a seven-day week at all.
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The remainder of the commandments are arguably ethical, though they are liable to a rather bizarrely tendentious interpretation (e.g., "not killing" taken as excluding executions, killing in warfare, self-defense, and various other excuses) and are in some cases rather hard to interpret.

The tenth commandment in particular seems to treat wives as property, and to endorse slavery, which hardly seem like things we would want to teach in school.
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