Stealing, murder, and swearing falsely under oath in court proceedings were illegal in ancient Greece, the Roman Republic, and throughout the Roman Empire. 2,000 years later, Europe and North America still use systems of law and legal principles that evolved from ancient Greek and Roman society. The French actually still call their law "Roman Law."

So, you know, when these crazy Christians (the kind who believe Noah's flood actually happened) claim that our laws descended from and owe existence to the Ten Commandments, they're just spreading more of their ahistorical nonsense.

I think it comes from a Christian worldview that history is a continuous arc from the days of the Old Testament until now. Forgetting, you know, almost the rest of the entire world, not to mention the actual history of our society.

But they're simply is no truth to their notion. The Ten Commandments are not an important historical legal document. The Ten Commandments are not of foundational importance to anything in our legal system, including how it evolved.

The Ten Commandments are about enforcing a monotheistic theocracy on a tribal society. That's anathema to the Enlightenment-era philosophical principles the United States was founded on.

But if you repeat something often enough, people think it's true. And conservative Christians have been repeating for a very long time that the Ten Commandments are important to the history and founding of the United States.

Those conservative Christians are historically wrong.