Hey, this is Beymer and this is my eighth article on religion. But you may say, well, why do you call it Article 10. So glad you asked! Well, I began this article thinking I would write about murder sanctioned by religion, but then, like a bolt of lightning from the sky, it hit me. Write about the Ten Commandments! Now, I couldn’t (it just wouldn’t be right!) title such an article as Article 8, could I? In this Part 1, I will write about the first 4 commandments of the ten.
Below are the first four of the Ten Commandments directly from the King James Version (KJV):
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, not serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou work. But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.
Note that all four of these involve God. The first and second are really strange commandments. Are these commandments acknowledging the existence of other gods? If not this, then they seem to be putting on an equal footing image worship with the worship of God. How could an all-powerful and all-knowing God be concerned with such a thing. Afterall, these commandments were delivered to Moses to present to His chosen people, the Jews. Must God state something that should be obvious? Apparently, God’s approval rating was at an all-time low. He calls Moses up to the mountain and writes some “new” rules with lightning on some stone tablets in an effort to scare his Chosen Ones into submission. How can anyone believe such a crazy desperate response by an all-powerful and all-knowing God? It’s ridiculous! I think the real story here was that Moses was losing control of his flock and had to do some quick thinking to regain control. Like all Snake-Oil Flimflam Salesman (SOFS) before him and all that followed, he needed to scare the flock into submission. He climbed the mountain during a storm: He whipped out his Sear’s Chisel and chipped away new laws from God on a nearby stone tablet that would hopefully bring them back to the path. In the second commandment, Moses goes so far as to threaten not only those who disobey the first commandment, but to also threaten up to the third and fourth generations of such people. Fear for one’s children is a powerful deterrent!
The third commandment establishes a power or magic associated with the name of God that the Chosen should not use for evil or frivolous purposes. Severe punishment is promised for those who invoke God in an evil manner or even those that use His name in a frivolous or meaningless manner (e.g., Oh my God! or For God’s Sake!). This is really pushing the credibility of the laws too far. Not only must you worship me alone, but you can only use my name (who knows what it really is, but you can call me God) in a holy manner. This is clearly Moses overreacting to his flock’s behavior.
The fourth commandment goes even further by establishing a special holy day of the week, which should be free of any labor, even for your slaves. Interesting how the KJV uses the terms “manservant” and “maidservant” instead of slaves! Of course, the writers of the New Testament had to do some clarification (back-tracking) here: It’s ok to rescue your son who has fallen into a well on the sabbath. Again, Moses is overreacting to his flock’s behavior.
As I implied before, these four commandments are an insult to a True God and to mankind. They are the result of a SOFS, Moses, who lost control of his flock and needed some new laws, passed off as being directly from God, to whip his followers back unto his control. A True God would never issue such silly commandments. Hey, you worthless turds! I, your God, want you to worship me and not all those other gods! I don’t want you to use my name in your frivolous conversations! From now on, I’m declaring a special day of the week, the sabbath, and on that day I want you to think about how bad you’ve been! This is all nonsense! It’s clearly smells of a SOFS! No True God would behave in such a manner … Jealously is an emotion of humans not a True God!
So, what am I saying about these first four commandments of the ten? Well, it’s pretty obvious, I think. No True God would issue such silly commands! This is obviously the work of Moses, a fine example of a Snake-Oil Flimflam Salesman (SOFS).
A True God neither needs nor desires (Oops! There I go again bestowing human emotions upon GOD! It’s so easy to fall into this trap!) us to worship Him. He would not be involved in such trivial actions. What’s important is what we do with our Lifes and how we interact with others. If you want to worship Him, to pray to Him or whatever, then that’s fine! But seek Him on your own terms … don’t fall prey to the SOFS and their agendas, which never are in your best interest! Use your brain, that’s why we have it. If you must use the word sin, then I know of no worst sin than not using your brain to follow your path in life, a path of reason and love for mankind.