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Earlier tonight, I read the following short essay, which can be found on the Secular Web homepage, and I had to admit that, if I had never been told that the Bible was a "good" book -- if I just up and read it with no knowledge of its background -- I would find a good percentage of it to be morally abhorrent and logically untenable. Here's the essay, (written by Charles W. Webb, MD), which emphasizes the Ten Commandments and the Old Testament Levitical law:
Nobody really believes in the Ten Commandments of Moses. Most of us can't even remember them, let alone name the punishments for breaking them. If we did know, we would all turn away in disgust and look for a more civilized guide for morality.
For example, if your loved one comes to the hospital on a "Sabbath" day, all the nurses and doctors who work to save a life are breaking the fourth commandment. What is their punishment as prescribed by the Old Testament God? Death. ( Exod. 31:15 or Num16:32-36). And since Islam, Judaism, and Christianity are all derived from ancient Mosaic law, the Sabbaths now include Friday, Saturday, and Sunday!
If you go to church and pray to an image of Jesus or to a cross, your reward for breaking rule #2 is death. If Dad is frustrated and takes the Lord's name in vain (whatever that means), his punishment for breaking rule #3 is death. If a teenager is stubborn and rebellious or if she curses her parents, her punishment for breaking rule #5 is death. ( Exod. 20:9 or Exod 21:17). In the words of philosopher Michael Earl, "How's that for family values?"
So why do we cling to such fossilized traditions as the Bible and its Ten Commandments? I think it's because of our need for symbols. We spend the first decade or two of our lives just learning our cultural symbols (words, numbers, and pictures). We are really the symbol species, Homo symbolicus . This is our great strength and our great weakness. We have the capacity to communicate countless ideas, yet we confuse symbols with reality. We think we understand something simply because we can name it.
We are most easily fooled by symbols that fill our emotional needs. We all have a need for symbols that proclaim our goodness, but in our laziness we often forego integrity for the convenience of tradition. Hence the common but superficial belief in a symbolic "good book" and in the "Ten Commandments". Most of us have been taught that the Bible is both loving and good before we are old enough even to read or examine it for ourselves. But the Bible is not really loving or good: commandment #1 demands that anyone worshipping any religion different from that of Moses must be killed. Have any words in the history of mankind done as much damage as this?
Most of us would agree with the last five commandments of Moses (do not kill, commit adultery, steal, lie, or covet your neighbor's home and wife). Yet who remembers the greatest criminal of all in the Old Testament, the one who boasts in Numbers 31 of killing 32,000 innocent men, women, and children, of stealing the booty of an entire city, and of coveting and raping every female virgin? Of course it was Moses; the lawgiver himself. Some things never change.
We do not need to proclaim our goodness by professing faith in the Bible any more than we need to wear suits and yellow ties to show that we mean to do business. We can find more wisdom in William Shakespeare and Robert Ingersoll and more love in Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King than in any books of religion.
Charles W. Webb, MD
So what are your thoughts? If you had been born and raised in an isolated environment somewhere, and you stumbled across the Levitical law, would you really be anything but naturally disgusted by it?
The more honestly you reply, the more I'll admire you, personally.
Some of them are what we might call instinctive, since family and social observances and conduct are found the world over and the Mosaic law just has its own take on them. The religious ones about Sabbath observance and only one god and so on do have some parallels in other religions and in reverence for human rulers, but the point about the Mosaic Laws seems to be based (retrospectively) on the way the Hebrew religion developed along insular lines designed to remove themselves from the polytheistic idol - worshipping tribes and nations around them.
That was necessary since, while Rome managed to keep its identity while absorbing the religious and cultural influences around it. The Hebrews couldn't. Of course Rome had the advantage that it could deal with the nations around it without having to find a way of making itself distinct. Without their religious rejection of other religious and cultural practices, the Jews would have vanished as a separate people in Babylon. As it is, their apart-ness has enables them to maintain identity even after the ruin of Judea and dispersal of the people. So the Commandments were evidently effective.
Every culture has created something like a Ten Commandments because when 3 or more people live in community you need rules to live by. Usually there will be additional motivations made by the author.
As to the **specific** lore of how the 10 C's came into existence... that is a whole other matter.
Earlier tonight, I read the following short essay, which can be found on the Secular Web homepage, and I had to admit that, if I had never been told that the Bible was a "good" book -- if I just up and read it with no knowledge of its background -- I would find a good percentage of it to be morally abhorrent and logically untenable. Here's the essay, (written by Charles W. Webb, MD), which emphasizes the Ten Commandments and the Old Testament Levitical law:
Nobody really believes in the Ten Commandments of Moses. Most of us can't even remember them, let alone name the punishments for breaking them. If we did know, we would all turn away in disgust and look for a more civilized guide for morality.
For example, if your loved one comes to the hospital on a "Sabbath" day, all the nurses and doctors who work to save a life are breaking the fourth commandment. What is their punishment as prescribed by the Old Testament God? Death. ( Exod. 31:15 or Num16:32-36). .
thousands of years ago the rabbis asserted the concept of Pikuach nefesh - that saving a life trumps almost all other laws, including shabbos. And they believed that the that concept was implicit in the Torah. Now, you may feel that a human, rationalist, reading of the text, does not suggest that Pikuach nefesh is implicit. But then what in a rationalist reading would suggest that the biblical author was aware of medicine that could save life? I historically bound biblical author would not know about CAT scans, but only about the superstitious cures of the day.
Why should I attempt to answer someone who doesnt know such basic things about the development of Jewish law?
Allright, forgive me, but my ADD is kicking into high gear today. I didn't read your whole post, only the heading and I want to answer that question.
Would I buy the ten commandments.
Being the horrible lackidaisickle Christian that I am, I haven't even memorized them all...
That being said, some of the ones that I do know, seem pretty reasonable to me.
Thou shall not worship any other god before me (I have questions about this one)
Thou Shall not Kill -When I was a kid, I used to dwell on the question "what about roaches??"
Thou Shall not lie - Seems reasonable, but again "what about white lies"?
Covet thy neighbors wife? (did I get that one wrong?) Seems reasonable, although it seems to prove very difficult for some.
I think I've got 4...What are the other ones? I know I have them around here somewhere, but I'm off to the next thread!
Earlier tonight, I read the following short essay, which can be found on the Secular Web homepage, and I had to admit that, if I had never been told that the Bible was a "good" book -- if I just up and read it with no knowledge of its background -- I would find a good percentage of it to be morally abhorrent and logically untenable. Here's the essay, (written by Charles W. Webb, MD), which emphasizes the Ten Commandments and the Old Testament Levitical law:
Nobody really believes in the Ten Commandments of Moses. Most of us can't even remember them, let alone name the punishments for breaking them. If we did know, we would all turn away in disgust and look for a more civilized guide for morality.
For example, if your loved one comes to the hospital on a "Sabbath" day, all the nurses and doctors who work to save a life are breaking the fourth commandment. What is their punishment as prescribed by the Old Testament God? Death. ( Exod. 31:15 or Num16:32-36). And since Islam, Judaism, and Christianity are all derived from ancient Mosaic law, the Sabbaths now include Friday, Saturday, and Sunday!
If you go to church and pray to an image of Jesus or to a cross, your reward for breaking rule #2 is death. If Dad is frustrated and takes the Lord's name in vain (whatever that means), his punishment for breaking rule #3 is death. If a teenager is stubborn and rebellious or if she curses her parents, her punishment for breaking rule #5 is death. ( Exod. 20:9 or Exod 21:17). In the words of philosopher Michael Earl, "How's that for family values?"
So why do we cling to such fossilized traditions as the Bible and its Ten Commandments? I think it's because of our need for symbols. We spend the first decade or two of our lives just learning our cultural symbols (words, numbers, and pictures). We are really the symbol species, Homo symbolicus . This is our great strength and our great weakness. We have the capacity to communicate countless ideas, yet we confuse symbols with reality. We think we understand something simply because we can name it.
We are most easily fooled by symbols that fill our emotional needs. We all have a need for symbols that proclaim our goodness, but in our laziness we often forego integrity for the convenience of tradition. Hence the common but superficial belief in a symbolic "good book" and in the "Ten Commandments". Most of us have been taught that the Bible is both loving and good before we are old enough even to read or examine it for ourselves. But the Bible is not really loving or good: commandment #1 demands that anyone worshipping any religion different from that of Moses must be killed. Have any words in the history of mankind done as much damage as this?
Most of us would agree with the last five commandments of Moses (do not kill, commit adultery, steal, lie, or covet your neighbor's home and wife). Yet who remembers the greatest criminal of all in the Old Testament, the one who boasts in Numbers 31 of killing 32,000 innocent men, women, and children, of stealing the booty of an entire city, and of coveting and raping every female virgin? Of course it was Moses; the lawgiver himself. Some things never change.
We do not need to proclaim our goodness by professing faith in the Bible any more than we need to wear suits and yellow ties to show that we mean to do business. We can find more wisdom in William Shakespeare and Robert Ingersoll and more love in Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King than in any books of religion.
Charles W. Webb, MD
So what are your thoughts? If you had been born and raised in an isolated environment somewhere, and you stumbled across the Levitical law, would you really be anything but naturally disgusted by it?
The more honestly you reply, the more I'll admire you, personally.
I think if you started in Genesis and actually read it in context, you'd understand it and realize the Commandments were given for a reason, to a certain group of people, at a certain time. Your post here tells me that you don't have a clue what the actual story of the Bible is. Of course, that doesn't stop you from coming on here and trashing it...but that's another issue.
You know, I'm not sure why I follow the 10 commandments...maybe more like a foundation to what my actual beliefs are? I have a lot more "rules" that I have given to myself as far as how I act and such, but I guess there as good as any of a place to start...I mean, not having been there when they were given (assigned? instructed? created?) I can't comment on what the greatest intent or purposes are, but yeah, I guess, good foundation.
I take the one about "Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain" to mean not to use it as a swear or curse, not just avoiding saying, "Oh my G--" or "G--d----t", but also not to ask God to bring harm on someone (like cursing them).
The bible is a whole n'other issue, I do not believe in a vengeful God, nor one who rewards anyone for bringing misery and destruction on anyone, nor a God who rewards good deeds by allowing them to behave badly. Many of these things I think were taken out of context for allowable behaviors (or what was thought ok at the time, which we consider highly reprehensible or even disgusting) and considered rewards by God when really it was just how things happened. Many of these "rewarded" in such a way were later "unrewarded" just as equally, which makes me think God was not happy that they pinned their bad behaviors on acting in God's name (again, the whole "Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain."
I think God gave Moses the commandments for a reason, maybe to wisen him up personally?
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