I don't deny that following the 10 Commandments will make one a better person. A lot of the Bible does serve a good basis for a moral code to live by, I believe (we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater). Yes, there are attrocities and absurdities, but also a great deal of wisdom within its pages.
I just think one has to remember that the Bible also contains a bloodier dark side and one should use their God-given brains in discerning the context in which these things were written before using them as either a checklist of facts or an example of how to lead his/her life.
It seems to me that the USA has been getting along quite well for more than 200 years without having any 10 Commandments or 538 Commandments in the Old Testament. It seems to me that that the USA has succeeded quite well before we had politicians wrapping themselves around god. And without hypocritical displays of piety and religiosity.
It is useful to remember that Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson never recited any pledge. Certainly not with one "under God". They never said any pledge.
Some ritual recantation of words is a poor substitute for meaningful patriotic and civic values.
This religous rite-ism. If we carry out the rite, then we are saved. Egyptians, Greeks, and others believed this; Judaics, Vaticanists. Anyone can go through with carrying out the rites. It leads to hypocrisy, go through the rituals without a true belief.
Social religious communities often reject evolution. Not on the basis of evidence or understanding, but on the basis that those who accept evolution as a description of what we know are "of the other".