The Carnival of the Godless is full of new commandments I’m supposed to follow, but that seem to be getting broken at a frenetic pace. We don’t need any more; I have a suggestion for the Christians. Pick one of the good ones in the original 10. Not an easy one, like “Thou shalt loaf about on Sunday,” but one that might actually make a difference in the world. I suggest “Don’t kill.”
You’d think they would have gotten the message by now that they’re doing something wrong.
In the original I think that only applies to other members of the tribe….
I shall not covet my neighbor’s ass.
bill:
Much as the word translated “Earth” in “the meek shall inherit the Earth” actually means “land,” as in “the land of Israel.” Our part of the dirt is sacred; yours is irrelevant.
I suddenly feel the need for confession as I volated the XXXIst Commandment. What happens next, do I get to get stoned? (At this stage in my life I would prefer the Comfy Chair.)
I had that debate with my cousin (who is fairly devout) the other day. After kicking around the concept that the 10 commandments really aren’t very good I managed to convince her that, in fact, the two of us sitting on her porch drinking a couple beers while playing with a puppy could do a better job than God apparently did. I think it was rather enlightening for her.
My proposed commandment:
Thou Shalt Be Kind to Puppies and Kittens
I’ve always been a fan of the Wiccan one myself, simple and to the point: An harm it none, do as ye will.
I think Christian fundamentalists and extremists must have a different bible than the one with which we are familiar. Instead of saying “thou shall not kill,” theirs says something about how anything can be killed excepted fetuses.
George Carlin has the best take on this, that the list was artificially inflated to make it ten commandments–you don’t need ten.
Has the anti-jealously commmandment “Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s ass” been repurposed to be the the anti-homosexuality commandment?
How about:
“If you kill it, you eat it.”
?
Thou shalt give equal worth to tragedies that occur in non-English speaking countries as to those that occur in English speaking countries. Thou shalt remember that guns, bitches and bling were never part of the four elements and never will be.
Just a suggestion.
Well I have been told by more than one creationist that “Thou shalt not kill” in fact should be “Thou shalt not commit murder”. The original of course is what the KJV says. I have also had some of that same creationists tell me that bible is inerrant, one saying the KJV version was the inerrant version the others being non-specific.
If these people did hold the views they did on matters religious but rather on aliens visiting earth (or other such lunacy) they surely would be subject to treatment by mental health professionals!
In other words, “Thou shalt not kill except for a good reason. To find out what good reasons are, look somewhere else.”
How helpful!
Blake,
Thanks. I didn’t know about that one.
Well, strictly speaking what does, “Do not kill”, mean? Not other people, even if they are trying to kill you? Don’t kill fuzzy animals, don’t kill any animals, don’t kill bugs either? *Murder* is at least an attempt to provide a specific criteria to what is meant. The problem of course being, God, or rather his followers, gets to arbitrarily declare anything he/they like as “not” murder, for the purposes of excusing their actions, and declare anything he/they want *as* murder, for the same arbitrary reasons.
Kagehi,
You are right of course. “Thou shalt not kill” does leave at lot of questions pending. Liberal theist of course have no problem with that, they already know that the bible is not inerrant and takes work for them to undertand.
The problems come with the literalists. “Thou shalt not kill” taken literally does kind of rule out the death penalty which the christian right (who, lets face it, are mostly literalists) are all in favour of. At least Catholics are internally consistant, opposing both the death penalty and abortion and well as being fairly anti-war.
An issue seldom addressed by the christian right (a largely American, English speaking group!) is that the bible they read is a translation. The vast majority do read any of the languagues the original bible texts are written in, so quite what they consider to be inerrant escapes me. Most seem to settle on the KJV, apart from the 10 commandments and the “Thou shalt not kill”. Then they seem to prefer other translations.
Yeah. Carlin’s 2+1 commandments are great.
Thou shall always be honest.
Thou shall try very hard not to kill.
Oh and Thou shall always keep your religion to thy self.
Is anyone going to credit me for having made this particular joke well over a year ago? :(
Sure sounds like it. In which case it’s completely impossible to carry out, unless you can photosynthesize and deactivate your immune system at will, but at least it actually means something.
“Do not kill other people” would be equally well-defined and somewhat more feasible for a human to follow. It would make it inconvenient when you needed to defend yourself, but then you’re supposed to turn the other cheek anyway, right?
How so? Unless a very legalistic definition is used (in which case God’s fine with voluntary manslaughter), “murder” just means “killing when you shouldn’t do it.”
In the original I think that only applies to other members of the tribe….
Thou shalt not TK!!!1!
The Ten Commandments, revised 2007 edition:
1. Thou shalt not make, or advocate for, the first use of nuclear weapons unless thine sovereign existence is at grave risk.
2. Thou shalt not make, or advocate for, war against thou who pose no credible threat to thee or to defenseless allies.
3. Thou shalt not cause harm in the name of God, for He can Himself smite those who truly offendeth Him.
4. Thou shalt not conduct business under pretext of granting salvation.
5. Thou shalt not raise funds through deceit.
6. Thou shalt not covet gross inequality of income or opportunity.
7. Thou shalt not ignore evidence from the natural world when it opposes thine interpretation of the spiritual world.
8. Thou shalt not molest those under the age of consent.
9. Thou shalt not procreate to excess.
10. Thou shalt not engage in acts of hypocrisy.
Wasn’t there a commandment about not wearing white shoes before Easter? And there was another one, I swear, about always eating everything on your plate or you got no dessert. I’m not sure about the translation of “dessert” though.
Anton Mates: An orthodox Jew I knew once (and took an ethics class with) informs me that the “do not steal” commandment is taken the same way – “do not take things without justification”. So, for example, one can take bread from a baker if one is starving. But there’s nothing to the commandment (“mitzvot”) then, as you correctly noted in the kill / murder case.