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Secular law is designed to protect the interests of individuals and society. Its goal is to prevent harm from being inflicted on individuals by other individuals or society as a whole without due process of law. It therefore tends to emphasize individual rights.
Religious law, on the other hand, is much more comprehensive. It is designed to improve individuals and society. Its goal is to make individuals holy and societies righteous. In the past centuries, many nations have switched from religious law to secular law, especially civil law and aspects of international law. However, many of these nations have also reserved a continuing role for religious law in certain aspects, such as family law, for the internal use of religious organizations and sometimes for contract law.
Many religions spell out that there are duties that an adherent is prescribed to perform encoded in the laws, often put forth by a particular deity or deities. In Christianity, it is believed that divine law limits rights, and God commands people to act according to his universal order. In the belief system of Judaism and Christianity, the Ten Commandments, or the Decalogue, were given to Moses on Mount Sinai in present-day Egypt.
After Abraham, the first Hebrew patriarch Moses was given the law to carry and lead the chosen people out of captivity and into the promised land. This was a promise given to all descendants of Abraham. The receipt of the Decalogue is considered to be the second direct and personal revelation from a single creator, God, to a human being.
IN CONTEXT
There are parallels between the Decalogue and Islamic law. Some examples of what the Ten Commandments contain are commands to worship only God and keep the Sabbath and prohibitions against idolatry, blasphemy, murder, theft, and adultery.
In the Qur’an, where Allah speaks through the angel Gabriel to Muhammad, there are similar laws: Do not associate another deity with God. Know therefore that there is no God but God. You shall not commit adultery. Surely it is a shameful deed and an evil way. Do not covet the bounties that God has bestowed more abundantly on some of you than on others.
Proscription and prescriptions are offered in other sacred texts as well. There are sacred texts in Buddhism and Hinduism that offer guidelines for personal and communal release from eternal torment and suffering based on ignorance, desire, and cravings.
The Noble Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths are taught in Buddhism. The Four Noble Truths prescribe ways out of suffering for the adherent to Buddhism. They say that life is suffering, that suffering is based on cravings, and there is a way out of this. The attainment of nirvana is possible in this life.
Source: THIS TUTORIAL WAS AUTHORED BY TED FAIRCHILD FOR SOPHIA LEARNING. Please see our Terms of Use.