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Supreme Court lies rerun by Internet watchdogs
'Ten Commandments' pastor points out Snopes, TruthOrFiction errors


The California pastor whose research revealed a strategy by the U.S. Supreme Court to eliminate references to the Ten Commandments in its own artwork now is asking Internet watchdogs Snopes.com and TruthOrFiction.com to fix their mistakes on the issue.

Todd DuBord's work was profiled by WND in an article about the Supreme Court and a second story about the Monticello and Jamestown historic sites.

There also was a followup showing how one state Supreme Court was following suit, and in a photograph of its team of justices, blurred part of the photograph because it would have shown the Ten Commandments on the wall behind them.

DuBord, whose work resulted in his formal requests to those national treasures that they correct the information being distributed, now is asking the two accuracy-focused websites to correct similar mistakes in their materials.

"Millions of people go to snopes.com and truthorfiction.com to get the straight scoop on Internet and other legends," DuBord, pastor of Lake Almanor Community Church, said.

"However, in the case of describing the depictions of Moses and the Ten Commandments on the Supreme Court, they are perpetuating their own forms of cultural and revisionist myth."

"While much in your articles about the Ten Commandment depictions on or in the U.S. Supreme Court Building is correct, I respectfully need to point out a couple of errors in your investigations, and trust you will make the appropriate changes," he wrote to the sites.

The Snopes article is: "Religious symbols and references abound in U.S. capital buildings and the words of America's founders" while the TruthOrFiction item is "Evidences of Faith in the Buildings, Memorials, and Forefathers of the United States-Truth!, Fiction! & Unproven!?"

DuBord notes that Snopes references "two representations of Moses" on the building, but there actually are four – on the South Wall Frieze in the court, on the East Pediment, on the Exterior Portrait Medallions and on the frieze in the Great Hall.

Regarding the Eastern Pediment representation, Snopes says, "And although many viewers might assume Moses is holding a copy of the Ten Commandments in this depiction, the two tablets in his arms are actually blank."

TruthOrFiction concludes similarly: "the two tablets in his arms are actually blank."

"Your comments infer that, by holding two tablets that are blank, they are plausibly not the Ten Commandments. Is there another alternative to the identity of these 'blank' tablets? Are there any other tablets he carried down from Mt. Sinai?" DuBord asked.

"In the South Wall Frieze in the Courtroom, Moses is clearly holding a tablet, with the last five commandments written in Hebrew. Should we merely assume the inside frieze tablet represents five of the Ten Commandments and the outside Eastern pediment tablets do not represent the Ten Commandments in whole because they are blank? Again, what else would Moses be holding? The Ten Amendments?"

DuBord said the sentence reveals a bias, and the larger question is "why the unnecessary conclusion to neuter the identity of the tablets that are so clearly the Ten Commandments?"

He also pointed out the references to the oak doors, which display tablets carrying Roman numerals I-V and VI-X.

Those "can represent something other than the Ten Commandments," according to Snopes, and are "symbolic representations," according to TruthOrFiction.

The Supreme Court's own documentation from the 1970s show those to be the Ten Commandments, although that language "evolved" over the next 20 years to become "symbolic representations," DuBord noted.

The Supreme Court has edited history, he said, so that those now are described officially as representing the ten amendments or Bill of Rights, but that explanation leaves facts out.

The Bill of Rights didn't arrive on tablets, and the Library of Congress shows those images to be consistent with those depicting the Ten Commandments during the period the building was constructed, he said.

"Why not accept the most obvious meaning of these tablets on the U.S. Supreme Court?" he asked.

He also says the representation in the courtroom itself is not the "amendments" as many report, but actually the Ten Commandments, because the artist himself said so in describing another almost identical depiction at The Oscar Solomon Memorial, also in Washington.

"Most important here, will the 'fact sites' of Snopes.com and TruthOrFiction.com perpetuate their 'urban legend' or state what is the truth about the architecture of the highest court in the land?" DuBord asked.

"I hope, indeed I pray, you make the above correction or at least present the wider body of evidence against the neutering of the Ten Commandments on the U.S. Supreme Court building," he said.

WND requests to both Snopes.com and TruthOrFiction.com about the corrections suggested were not answered.

His entire research compilation is available online.

DuBord's message from July 23, 2006, on this issue also can be heard immediately, and for free, on the church website at www.lacconline.org.

DuBord grew up without religion, but during seven years of academic study at Bethany University and Fuller Theological Seminary accepted that the claims of Christianity are true.

He's served in various prison, drug and alcohol rehab ministries and worked as a youth pastor and associate pastor before assuming his duties in Lake Almanor.

Brothers and Sisters,

I was just thinking about something that would be very disturbing - GOD is being purged from our history in a most dishonest and diabolical way. I was just thinking that the Library of Congress might not be safe either. There are literally millions of documents, drawings, and photographs there that are proof of real history. It now appears that real history is embarrassing to some, does not fit their agenda, and shows them to be liars.

As of right now, the general public has Internet access to huge amounts of materials from the Library of Congress. "We The People" might need to start making our own copies of materials while they are still available. The powers of darkness have already done many things over the last 60 years that many thought would be impossible. The removal of GOD from textbooks used in our public schools is just one example. Things as simple as Thanksgiving and prayer are intolerable to the powers of darkness. The greatest lie that has been forced on the people is the non-existent distortions of "Separation of Church and State." Their stated hero of this non-existent doctrine is Thomas Jefferson, but Thomas Jefferson placed the Holy Bible and Isaac Watt's Hymnal in Washington schools as primary teaching texts. Thomas Jefferson also took the time and effort to write what is now known as the "Jeffersonian Bible". The "Jeffersonian Bible" is nothing more than a Bible with just the quoted words of JESUS CHRIST. So, any person of common sense would easily be able to see the magnitude of the lies that have been used to turn this into a GODLESS society.

The powers of darkness have left a lot of loose ends and tons of evidence that provide overwhelming proof of their lies. There are also millions of Christians who refuse to sit down and be quiet. I'm proud to be one of those Christians, and I pray that GOD will give all of us the strength and determination to keep standing. In Bible Prophecy, the HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD is called the GREAT RESTRAINER. The devil can't rule and reign over the earth in the last half of the Tribulation Period until the GREAT RESTRAINER is removed. The reason should be obvious:  the devil doesn't have any power over the HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD. Another fact to consider is that THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD lives in the hearts of Christians. In fact, our hearts are sealed with THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD as a pledge of the Promises of GOD for Eternal Life and our inheritance as Born Again Children of GOD. Christians are a mighty force to be dealt with, not because we are mighty human beings, rather because we are possessions of JESUS CHRIST, and the HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD lives in our hearts. Our Might, Power, and Goodness is ONLY in JESUS CHRIST!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Romans 5:3-5 NASB  And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Psalms 28:7 NASB  The LORD is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart exults, And with my song I shall thank Him.

Galatians 6:9-10 NASB  Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.

Romans 11:33 NASB  Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!

Philippians 3:14 NASB  I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6 NASB  Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Romans 8:26-27 NASB  In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Amen brother.

That is something that I hadn't thought of but you are completely right. With circumstances being as they are I am sure that the Library of Congress will be one area that will be sure to be attacked. I already have a lot of material from there in my personal storage. I think that perhaps I will see if I can get some more before it is too late.

Those who would have God removed from the public consistently overlook such statements by our founders as:

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
–Thomas Jefferson

George Washington

“ It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible.”

John Dickinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independance said, "To my Creator, I resign myself, humbly confiding in His goodness and in His mercy through Jesus Christ for the events of eternity."



Gabriel Duvall, also a signer of the Declaration of Independance, later a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and an appointee to the Supreme Court said, "I resign my soul into the hands of the Almighty who gave it in humble hopes of his mercy through our Savior Jesus Christ."


John Witherspoon, another signer of the Declaration of Independance, pastor and President of New Jersey College (Princeton University today) said, "I shall entreat ... you in the most earnest manner to believe in Jesus Christ, for there is no salvation in any other" [Acts 4:12] ... if you are not clothed with the spotless robe of His righteousness, you must forever perish."

It is such words as this that they want removed from our history.

Pastor Roger,

Brother, I also have considerable material from the Library of Congress, and I consider it to be a National Treasure. It is rich in the writings of early preachers, many who were also our "Founders", both before and after 1776.

I couldn't imagine how much storage space it would take just to preserve a tiny portion of it. It would be massive. Most of what I have is text copies, especially considering my slow dial-up connection. I do have a fairly large hard drive for a home computer, but it wouldn't be enough just for text copies of religious documents. I look back now and wish that I had made copies of selected documents in photograph form and put them on CD/DVD. Single pictures on many of the ones I'm thinking about would be in the MEG range and would take a lot of time even with a fast connection.

The extension for Firefox called ScrapBook would be great for something like this if a person had a fast Internet Connection. One can even set ScrapBook to "drill down" a specified number of levels in the file structure of an Internet Site and capture just about every common media used today (i.e. audio and graphic formats of many types, flash, Java, PDF, etc.). If I remember correctly, ScrapBook also has a user defined area that will capture anything that has a link. ScrapBook also captures things in many usable formats that can be easily converted to other formats. Indexing and organizing the captured material can be excellent, all depending on the user settings and input from the user during captures. Brother, if you decide to do this, please consider trying ScrapBook, and you'll see what a great tool it is. It can duplicate an entire site, but one should be careful even on the smaller sites. The "drill down" settings could cause ScrapBook to follow links to other sites on a web page and copy them also.

Brother, this is just an idea for you, and I hope it's a good one. I've been using ScrapBook for Bible studies for a long time. It even makes a database-like structure of the captured material as you go for full-text search functions. There is a manual command to make it update the indexes it keeps. Some might consider this to be the only known weakness of ScrapBook, but I don't consider it to be a weakness. Many people have no desire to do full-text searches of what they capture, so they really don't need the stronger database functions of ScrapBook. It's simply pushing one radio button is a very easy user interface, and technical skills really aren't needed to use ScrapBook. I highly recommend it as an excellent and trouble-free extension for Firefox.

Love In Christ,
Tom

2 Corinthians 9:8 NASB  And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed;

Thanks brother, I'll look into that Scrapbook as it sounds like it would much simpler. I do have a lot of space on my hard drive and I have a spare drive available that I could install in my computer if need be. I would like to put a lot of it on paper files for storage also but that will take a lot of time and quite a bit more money.