On Jul 11, 1:32 pm, "OB...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
" <OB...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Jul 9, 3:15 am, unsurreality_2...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> ---
> God Yahweh decides who is insane and read Psalm 53.1
Since you clearly have nothing else to do with your time, you should
read some things...here's something for your amusement...
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Critics of the Christian bible occasionally can score a point or two
in discussion with the religious community by noting the many
teachings in both the Old and New Testaments that encourage the bible
believer to hate and to kill, biblical lessons that history proves
Christians have taken most seriously. Nonetheless the bible defendant
is apt to offer as an indisputable parting shot, "But don't forget the
ten commandments. They are the basic bible teaching. Study the ten
commandments."
Do study the ten commandments! They epitomize the childishness, the
vindictiveness, the ***ism, the inflexibility and the inadequacies of
the bible as a book of morals.
Actually, only six of the ten commandments deal with an individual's
moral conduct, which comes as a surprise to most Christians.
Essentially, the first four commandments say:
1.Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2.Thou shalt not make thee any graven images or bow down to them, and
if you do I'll get you and your kids and their descendants.
3.Thou shalt not take the name of the lord in vain.
4.Keep the Sabbath holy.
The exact terminology is found in chapter five of Deuteronomy. Two
other versions of the "ten commandments" can be found in the Old
Testament. One version, in Exodus 20, differs slightly from the
Deuteronomy version, while a third, in Exodus 34, is wildly different,
containing commandments about sacrifices and offerings and ending with
the teaching: "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk." This
is the only version referred to in scriptures as the "ten
commandments."
In essence, the first four commandments all scream that "the lord thy
god" has an uneasy vanity, and like most dictators, must resort to
threats, rather than intellectual persuasion, to promote a point of
view. If there were an omnipotent god, can you imagine him or her
being concerned if some poor little insignificant creature puttered
around and made a graven image? Do you think that any god, possessing
the modi*** of good will you could expect to find in any neighbor,
would want to punish children even "unto the third and fourth
generation" because their fathers could not believe? How can anyone
not perceive the pettiness, bluster, bombast and psychotic insecurity
behind the first four commandments? We are supposed to respect this!
"Honor thy father and thy mother" is the fifth commandment, and it is,
of course, an extension of the authoritarian rationale behind the
first four. Honor cannot be bestowed automatically by an honest
intellect. Intellectually honest people can honor only those who, in
their opinion, warrant their honor. The biologic fact of fatherhood
and motherhood does not in and of itself warrant honor. Until very
recently parenthood was not a matter of choice. It still is a
mandatory, not optional, happening for many of the world's people. Why
should any child be commanded to honor, without further basis, parents
who became parents by accident--who didn't even plan to have a child?
All of us know children who have been abused, beaten or neglected by
their parents. What is the basis for honor there? How does the
daughter honor a father who ***ually molests her? "Honor only those
who merit your honor" would be a more appropriate teaching, and if
that includes your parents, great! "Honor your children" would have
been a compassionate commandment.
Commandments six through nine--thou shalt not kill, commit adultery,
steal or bear false witness--obviously have merit, but even they need
extensive revision. To kill in self-defense is regrettable, but it is
certainly morally defensible, eminently sensible conduct. So is the
administration of a shot or medication that will end life for the
terminally ill patient who wishes to die.
Adultery, the subject of the seventh commandment, again raises the
question of an absolute ban. For the most part fidelity in marriage is
a sound rule, making for happiness; but some marriages may outlast
affection. Some couples may agree to live by different rules. Until
relatively recent times Christian marriages were not dissolvable
except by death, so the ban of divorce coupled with the ban of
adultery obviously created great distress. Adultery, it must be
remembered, involves an act between consenting adults. How much more
relevant and valuable it would be to have, for instance, a commandment
that forbids the violent crimes of rape and *****.
"Thou shalt not steal" raises questions regarding the usefulness of a
blanket condemnation, and may put squatter's rights ahead of public
and private welfare. Should people who are cold or ill steal to
ameliorate their situations? Should the child who is hungry steal?
Surely this commandment cries for some amending clauses. One is
reminded of the comment of Napoleon, who really had religion figured
out: "How can you have order in a state without religion? For, when
one man is dying of hunger near another who is ill of surfeit, he
cannot resign himself to this difference unless there is an authority
which declares, 'God wills it thus.' Religion is excellent stuff for
keeping people quiet."
In general, to bear false witness is construed to mean "don't lie,"
and that is a valuable moral precept, except again it is stated in
absolute terms. Lies have saved lives, they have preserved
relation****ps, and every day they save hurt feelings. The truth is not
always a reasonable or kind solution. Interestingly, in biblical times
the dictum not to bear false witness against a neighbor was a tribal
commandment and meant to apply only to persons within the tribe--it
was quite all right to bear false witness against "strangers."
Finally, the tenth commandment, which riles the feminist blood, says:
"Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbor's wife, neither shalt thou
covet thy neighbor's house, his field, or his manservant, or his
maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or anything that is thy neighbor's."
In addition to rating a wife with an ox and an ass, the bible loftily
overlooks the woman who might desire her neighbor's husband.
Covetousness somehow does not seem like such a crime. If you can't
have a comfortable house or a productive farm, what is the great harm
in wi****ng you did? Covetousness may be nonproductive and unpretty,
but to make a big, bad deal out of it is ridiculous. Bible apologists
sometimes will excuse the triviality of the tenth commandment on the
basis that to covet, in a more superstitious age, meant "to cast an
evil eye." Someone who coveted "his neighbor's house" was pur****tedly
casting an evil eye on that property with a view toward its
destruction. Whether one accepts the apologist's definition of covet
or the more popular meaning, the tenth commandment lacks real
im****tance.
Little in Christianity is original. Most of it is borrowed, just as
the celebration of Christmas was borrowed from Roman and earlier pagan
times. When the "lord" supposedly wrote his commandments on two
tablets of stone and delivered them to Moses (Deut. 5:22), he was only
aping earlier gods: Bacchus, Zoroaster and Minos.
Reflect for a moment that almost anyone reading this nontract could
write a kinder, wiser, more reasonable set of commandments than those
that Christians insist we honor. Try it!
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