flamingjimmy Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 I am Adonai thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. You shall not take the Name of Adonai thy God in vain. Remember to keep the Sabbath day holy. These commandments are completely worthless. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Honor your father and mother. These ones sound good in principle but in practise are an intolerable curtail of our freedoms. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. these ones are good, but they were already around in the code of hammurabi, we don't need god or moses in order to have them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donkey Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Wasn't it an ass (and stop coveting mine) Coveting asses is a sin? It just doesn't seem fair! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karis Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Coveting asses is a sin? It just doesn't seem fair! Oh I saw your kind on Scarborough beach this morning eyeing up the donkeys with an unhealthy fascination... Or (like me), is that not what you meant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harleyman Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 No one has to read the bible and no one has to follow the ten commandments. Why do atheists concern themselves so much about these matters. If bibles and commandments are irrelevent to their existence then just dont bother about it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karis Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Yes, they are a crap set of rules. Do we really need a series of "laws" to tell us what not to do? We all, most of us, know right from wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamingjimmy Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 Murder and stealing are on the orginal You mean on the code of Hammurabi? Yes, they were. We don't need god to tell us them. May be you need to retry and say , just some of them may need re-writing ?Half of them are completely worthless. And there is no condemnation of rape or slavery. The 10 commandments are an awful set of rules. How does your list comPare to the guide stone list ?I think its better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vague_Boy Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 George Carlin boiled it down to 2 Commandments (with an optional third): 1. Thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie. 2. Thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than you. 3. Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself His reasoning is below (censored for swearing): Here is my problem with the ten commandments -- why exactly are there 10? You simply do not need ten. The list of ten commandments was artificially and deliberately inflated to get it up to ten. Here's what happened: About 5,000 years ago a bunch of religious and political hustlers got together to try to figure out how to control people and keep them in line. They knew people were basically stupid and would believe anything they were told, so they announced that God had given them some commandments, up on a mountain, when no one was around. Well let me ask you this -- when they were making this s**t up, why did they pick 10? Why not 9 or 11? I'll tell you why -- because 10 sound official. Ten sounds important! Ten is the basis for the decimal system, it's a decade, it's a psychologically satisfying number (the top ten, the ten most wanted, the ten best dressed). So having ten commandments was really a marketing decision! It is clearly a bulls**t list. It's a political document artificially inflated to sell better. I will now show you how you can reduce the number of commandments and come up with a list that's a little more workable and logical. I am going to use the Roman Catholic version because those were the ones I was taught as a little boy. Let's start with the first three: THOU SHALT NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN THOU SHALT KEEP HOLY THE SABBATH Right off the bat the first three are pure bulls**t. Sabbath day? Lord's name? Strange gods? Spooky language! Designed to scare and control primitive people. In no way does superstitious nonsense like this apply to the lives of intelligent civilized humans in the 21st century. So now we're down to 7. Next: HONOR THY FATHER AND MOTHER Obedience, respect for authority. Just another name for controlling people. The truth is that obedience and respect shouldn't be automatic. They should be earned and based on the parent's performance. Some parents deserve respect, but most of them don't, period. You're down to six. Now in the interest of logic, something religion is very uncomfortable with, we're going to jump around the list a little bit. THOU SHALT NOT STEAL THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS Stealing and lying. Well actually, these two both prohibit the same kind of behavior -- dishonesty. So you don't really need two you combine them and call the commandment "thou shalt not be dishonest". And suddenly you're down to 5. And as long as we're combining I have two others that belong together: THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTRY THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR'S WIFE Once again, these two prohibit the same type of behavior. In this case it is marital infidelity. The difference is -- coveting takes place in the mind. But I don't think you should outlaw fantasizing about someone else's wife because what is a guy gonna think about when he's waxing his carrot? But, marital fidelity is a good idea so we're gonna keep this one and call it "thou shalt not be unfaithful". And suddenly we're down to four. But when you think about it, honesty and fidelity are really part of the same overall value so, in truth, you could combine the two honesty commandments with the two fidelity commandments and give them simpler language, positive language instead of negative language and call the whole thing "thou shalt always be honest and faithful" and we're down to 3. THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR"S GOODS This one is just plain f**kin' stupid. Coveting your neighbor's goods is what keeps the economy going! Your neighbor gets a vibrator that plays "o come o ye faithful", and you want one too! Coveting creates jobs, so leave it alone. You throw out coveting and you're down to 2 now -- the big honesty and fidelity commandment and the one we haven't talked about yet: THOU SHALT NOT KILL Murder. But when you think about it, religion has never really had a big problem with murder. More people have been killed in the name of god than for any other reason. All you have to do is look at Northern Ireland, Kashmir, the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the World Trade Center to see how seriously the religious folks take thou shalt not kill. The more devout they are, the more they see murder as being negotiable. It depends on who's doin the killin' and who's gettin' killed. So, with all of this in mind, I give you my revised list of the two commandments: Thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie. & Thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than you. Two is all you need; Moses could have carried them down the hill in his f**kin' pocket. I wouldn't mind those folks in Alabama posting them on the courthouse wall, as long as they provided one additional commandment: Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzEs2nj7iZM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulgarian Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 these ones are good, but they were already around in the code of hammurabi, we don't need god or moses in order to have them. I think they have been around since people started living together in any kind of society. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamingjimmy Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 No one has to read the bible and no one has to follow the ten commandments. Why do atheists concern themselves so much about these matters. If bibles and commandments are irrelevent to their existence then just dont bother about it This thread was started by a theist who clearly thinks that we humans don't have a right to change the commandments in the the bible. If people like him did not exist then there would be no need for us to concern ourselves with the 10 commandments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discodown Posted April 25, 2011 Share Posted April 25, 2011 George Carlin boiled it down to 2 Commandments (with an optional third): 1. Thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie. 2. Thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless of course they pray to a different invisible man than you. 3. Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself His reasoning is below (censored for swearing): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzEs2nj7iZM How we miss Mr Carlin. So often the jester brings us truth “I hate a good many things, but I suffer them all the same.” Stannis Baratheon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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