#decalogue stone

[eesirachs]

hashem fingers ten phrases into stone, passes them to moses. moses hurls these against sinai, shattering them. hashem then tells moses new phrases, similar but not the same. you shall be foreign, you shall not make votives, you shall keep festivals, you shall give to me the first of each womb entrance, you shall not appear to me empty-handed, you shall not hand me leaven yet you shall hand me ripe fruit, and, finally, you shall not boil a kid in the mother's milk. these are written on the stones that are placed in the ark, that chest, that body of hashem kept in a tent, fed brown bread and oil, through exodus. these phrases—the yahwist, ritual decalogue of exod 34:11–27—need to be held. festival, votive, womb, empty, milk, ripe, foreign

[alparlaboratories]

Some of the characters for my future Hoenn fic.

So while the fic is still a ways away (Gotta finish outlining some of the plot and also keep writing Songs) I have most if not all of the characters ready to go, so I decided to draw a few of them.

These five are the Fireflies, a new sub-division within Hoenn's Ranger guild, formed in collaboration with Devon co. and overseen by Steven Stone and Metchi Hayworth, the leader of Hoenn's south-eastern Ranger base. Their job mostly boils down to community service and investigative work. They're a specialized branch that aims to both test the prototype for the new-generation PokeNav (for Devon's benefit) and combat a certain group that's been trying to undermine the Rangers' worth as an institution for the past few years.

(Just these five for now. Still drawing Metchi, I figured she deserves a post all for herself).

(Her last name -which is also Looker's, since he gave it to her after unofficially adopting her- is because of Ronald Knox, the creator of the Decalogue of Detective Fiction during the golden age of murder-mystery novels.)

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Michael Shermer

Published: Aug 19, 2023

In my previous Skeptic column, Deconstructing the Decalogue, I offered a personal view on how to think about the Ten Commandments from the perspective of 3,000 years of moral progress since they were first presented in two books of the Old Testament (Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:4-21). Here I would like to reconstruct them from the perspective of a science- and reason-based moral system, a fuller version of which I developed in my 2015 book The Moral Arc, from which this material is partially excerpted.

Note: This is a purely intellectual exercise. I am not a preacher or teacher of moral values, nor do I hold myself up as some standard-bearer of morality. Since I do not believe in God, nor do I think that there are any rational reasons to believe that morals derive from any source outside of ourselves, I feel the necessity to offer an alternative to religious- and faith-based morality, both descriptively (where do morals come from if not God?) and prescriptively (how should we act if there is no God?), which I have done in 30 years of publishing Skeptic magazine and in a number of my books, including How We Believe (1999), The Science of Good and Evil (2004), and the aforementioned The Moral Arc. Here I am building on the work of secular philosophers and scholars from the ancient Greeks through the Enlightenment and into the modern era where a massive literature exists addressing these deep and important matters.

The problem with any religious moral code that is set in stone is just that—it is set in stone. Anything that can never be changed has within its DNA the seeds of its own extinction. A science-based morality has the virtue of having built into it a self-correcting mechanism that does not just allow redaction, correction, and improvement; it insists upon it. Science and reason can be employed to inform—and in some cases even determine—moral values.

Science thrives on change, on improvement, on updating and upgrading its methods and conclusions. So it should be for a science of morality. No one knows for sure what is right and wrong in all circumstances for all people everywhere, so the goal of a science-based morality should be to construct a set of provisional moral precepts that are true for most people in most circumstances most of the time—as assessed by empirical inquiry and rational analysis—but admit exceptions and revisions where appropriate. Indeed, as humanity’s concept of “who and what is human, and entitled to protection” has expanded over the centuries, so we have extended moral protection to categories once thought beneath our notice.

Here are some suggested commandments for our time. Feel free to add your own in the comments section below.

1. The Golden-Rule Principle: Behave toward others as you would desire that they behave toward you.

The golden rule is a derivative of the basic principle of exchange reciprocity and reciprocal altruism, and thus evolved in our Paleolithic ancestors as one of the primary moral sentiments. In this principle there are two moral agents: the moral doer and the moral receiver. A moral question arises when the moral doer is uncertain how the moral receiver will accept and respond to the action in question. In its essence this is what the golden rule is telling us to do. By asking yourself, “how would I feel if this were done unto me?” you are asking “how would others feel if I did it unto them?”

2. The Ask-First Principle: To find out whether an action is right or wrong, ask first.

The Golden Rule principle has a limitation to it: what if the moral receiver thinks differently from the moral doer? What if you would not mind having action X done unto you, but someone else would mind it? Smokers cannot ask themselves how they would feel if other people smoked in a restaurant where they were dining because they probably wouldn’t mind. It’s the nonsmokers who must be asked how they feel. That is, the moral doer should ask the moral receiver whether the behavior in question is moral or immoral. In other words, the Golden Rule is still about you. But morality is more than just about you, and the Ask-First Principle makes morality about others.

3. The Happiness Principle: It is a higher moral principle to always seek happiness with someone else’s happiness in mind, and never seek happiness when it leads to someone else’s unhappiness through force or fraud.

Humans have a host of moral and immoral passions, including being selfless and selfish, cooperative and competitive, nice and nasty. It is natural and normal to try to increase our own happiness by whatever means available, even if that means being selfish, competitive, and nasty. Fortunately, evolution created both sets of passions, such that by nature we also seek to increase our own happiness by being selfless, cooperative, and nice. Since we have within us both moral and immoral sentiments, and we have the capacity to think rationally and intuitively to override our baser instincts, and we have the freedom to choose to do so, at the core of morality is choosing to do the right thing by acting morally and applying the happiness principle. (The modifier “force or fraud” was added to clarify that there are many activities that do not involve morality, such as a sporting contest, in which the goal is not to seek happiness with your opponent’s happiness in mind, but simply to win, fairly of course.)

4. The Liberty Principle: It is a higher moral principle to always seek liberty with someone else’s liberty in mind, and never seek liberty when it leads to someone else’s loss of liberty through force or fraud.

The Liberty Principle is an extrapolation from the fundamental principle of all liberty as practiced in Western society: The freedom to think, believe, and act as we choose so long as our thoughts, beliefs, and actions do not infringe on the equal freedom of others. What makes the Liberty Principle a moral principle is that in addition to asking the moral receiver how he or she might respond to a moral action, and considering how that action might lead to your own and the moral receiver’s happiness or unhappiness, there is an even higher moral level toward which we can strive, and that is the freedom and autonomy of yourself and the moral receiver, or what we shall simply refer to here as liberty. Liberty is the freedom to pursue happiness and the autonomy to make decisions and act on them in order to achieve that happiness.

Only in the last couple of centuries have we witnessed the worldwide spread of liberty as a concept that applies to all peoples everywhere, regardless of their race, religion, rank or social and political status in the power hierarchy. Liberty has yet to achieve worldwide status, particularly among those states dominated by theocracies and autocracies that encourage intolerance, and dictate that only some people deserve liberty, but the overall trend since the Enlightenment has been to grant greater liberty, for more people, everywhere. Although there are setbacks still, and periodically violations of liberties disrupt the overall historical flow from less to more liberty for all, the general trajectory of increasing liberty for all continues, so every time you apply the liberty principle you have advanced humanity one small step forward.

5. The Fairness Principle: When contemplating a moral action imagine that you do not know if you will be the moral doer or receiver, and when in doubt err on the side of the other person.

This is based on the philosopher John Rawls’ concepts of the “veil of ignorance” and the “original position” in which moral actors are ignorant of their position in society when determining rules and laws that affect everyone, because of the self-serving bias in human decision making. Given a choice, most people who enact moral rules and legislative laws would do so based on their position in society (their gender, race, class, sexual orientation, religion, political party, etc.) in a way that would most benefit themselves and their kin and kind. Not knowing ahead of time how the moral precept or legal law will affect you pushes you to strive for greater fairness for all. A simpler version is in the example of cutting a cake fairly: if I cut the cake you choose which piece you want, and if you cut the cake then I choose which piece I want.

6. The Reason Principle: Try to find rational reasons for your moral actions that are not self-justifications or rationalizations by consulting others first.

Ever since the Enlightenment the study of morality has shifted from considering moral principles as based on God-given, Divinely-inspired, Holy book-derived, Authority-dictated precepts from the top down, to bottom-up individual-considered, reason-based, rationality-constructed, science-grounded propositions in which one is expected to have reasons for one’s moral actions, especially reasons that consider the other person affected by the moral act. This is an especially difficult moral commandment to carry out because of the all-too natural propensity to slip from rationality to rationalization, from justification to self-justification, from reason to emotion. As in the first commandment to “ask first,” whenever possible one should consult others about one’s reasons for a moral action in order to get constructive feedback and to pull oneself out of a moral bubble in which whatever you want to do happens to be the most moral thing to do.

7. The Responsibility and Forgiveness Principle: Take full responsibility for your own moral actions and be prepared to be genuinely sorry and make restitution for your own wrong doing to others; hold others fully accountable for their moral actions and be open to forgiving moral transgressors who are genuinely sorry and prepared to make restitution for their wrong doing.

This is another difficult commandment to uphold in both directions. First, there is the “moralization gap” between victims and perpetrators, in which victims almost always perceive themselves as innocent and thus any injustice committed against them must be the result of nothing more than evil on the part of the perpetrator; and in which perpetrators may perceive themselves to have been acting morally in righting a wrong, redressing an immoral act, or defending the honor of oneself or family and friends. The self-serving bias, the hindsight bias, and the confirmation bias practically ensure that we all feel we didn’t do anything wrong, and whatever we did was justified, and thus there is no need to apologize and ask for forgiveness.

As well, the sense of justice and revenge is a deeply evolved moral emotion that serves three primary purposes: (1) to right wrongs committed by transgressors, (2) as a deterrent to possible future bad behavior, (3) to serve as a social signal to others that should they commit a similar moral transgression the same fate of your moral indignation and revenge awaits them.

8. The Defend Others Principle: Stand up to evil people and moral transgressors, and defend the defenseless when they are victimized.

There are people in the world who will commit moral transgressions against us and our fellow group members. Either through the logic of violence and aggression in which perpetrators of evil always feel justified in their acts, or through such conditions as psychopathy, a non-negligible portion of a population will commit selfish or cruel acts. We must stand up against them.

9. The Expanding Moral Category Principle: Try to consider other people not of your gender, sexual orientation, class, family, tribe, race, religion, or nation as an honorary group member equal to you in moral standing.

We have a moral obligation not only to ourselves, our kin and kind, our family and friends, and our fellow in-group members; we also owe it to those people who are different from us in a variety of ways, who in the past have been discriminated against for no other reason than that they were different in some measurable way. Even though our first moral obligation is to take care of ourselves and our immediate family and friends, it is a higher moral value to consider the moral values of others, and in the long run it is better for yourself, your kin and kind, and your in-group to consider members of other groups to be honorary members of your own group, as long as they so honor you and your group (see #8 above).

10. The Biophilia Principle: Try to contribute to the survival and flourishing of other sentient beings, their ecosystems, and the biosphere as a whole.

Biophilia is the love of nature, of which we are a part. Expanding the moral sphere to include the environments that sustain sentient beings is the loftiest of moral commandments.

If by fiat I had to reduce these Ten Commandments to just one it would be this:

Try to expand the moral sphere and to push the arc of the moral universe just a bit further toward truth, justice, and freedom for more sentient beings in more places more of the time.

[nmnomad]

This is a hoax associated with Frank HIbben, a professor at UNM in the mid-20th century. Same fellow behind the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone lore.

[world-of-news]

[ilikereadingactually]

"Daughters of the Lattice"

"Daughters of the Lattice" by Stephen Case in Asimov's Science Fiction, July/August 2023

i want to add more short fiction to my reading life this year, so when i heard "Daughters of the Lattice" recommended on a podcast (i think it was the 1/15/24 ep of Hugo, Girl!) and described as nuns on a cathedral ship in space, i felt a burning need to track it down. happily @digger1649 had a copy of this issue of Asimov's i could borrow, and i have since ordered a copy for myself.

(i've also given into temptation and started digital subscriptions to a few of the big speculative short fiction magazines...the completionist in me decided January would be the ideal time to start. so expect some more short story recs from me!)

anyway, "Daughters of the Lattice" is VERY GOOD. i'm always in awe of short fiction that builds a whole world so tightly and pragmatically. this one is listed as a novelette, so Case has a little more wiggle room to work, but even so. this story has some of the most attractive catnips to me: evocative space religion, a narrator addressing a specific recipient of the story, expectation-shifting revelations, a seemingly all-female society, and a really tantalizing view of the perils of space frontier colonialism. it's like the place where my Locked Tomb obsession and my Imperial Radch obsession collide, plus a little bit of Scavengers Reign.

saying much more would give things away, but the tl;dr is that i fucking loved this story and i can't wait to reread it!

the deets

how i read it: as i said above, a borrowed physical copy. i honestly love holding a book in my hands, and that extends to magazines like this one, but my eyes aren't getting any younger and it was a little tough to read T^T

try this if you: dig a piece-by-piece reveal, are a sucker for a hero story, or think a cathedral spaceship with cloaking technology based on vines sounds wicked cool

some bits i really liked: i want to just copy the whole story in here ok

And so it was I saw the Decalogue again from space. I had not thought to see it again, not after the Long Retreat failed, our long crawl to this world ended, and I brought it to park in orbit around this planet of ice like a body laid to rest in a grave. Now here it was again, resolving itself to view, acres and acres of stained glass and stone and, between the spires and buttresses that rose in each direction, the silver-green rust of the biomechanical hull-gardens. The cloaking vines had not yet begun spreading across its surface and so, for perhaps the last time, I saw it as a faceted jewel against the darkness.

---

I will not write of our leave-taking. You will remember it and in time perhaps forgive me. I will only say that when the mother confessors give you the oath of sisterhood (should you choose to take it) and tell you that the Calm you are now privileged to take will preserve you from both old age and the ravages of emotion, I learned as I watched you as my shuttle rose away that regarding the latter they lie.

[silvestromedia]

Decoding the Decalogue: 10 Unexpected Facts You Didn't Know About The Ten Commandments

[c01n]

ALL RELIGIONS are ONE

The image depicts an old man, his hands resting on an open book. Behind him and to the left is an angel, his left hand resting on the old man's shoulder. The angel's right hand is resting on a large tablet with a double-arched top, bearing the title "ALL RELIGIONS are ONE," the words diegetically inscribed on the tablet.

Due to the double-arched top, the tablet is reminiscent of the two stone tablets of the decalogue, and as such, the old man may be an Old Testament prophet. If the tablets do represent the decalogue, it is significant that Blake's title has supplanted the text. Blake would go on to criticise the ten commandments in later work such as The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), The Book of Urizen (1794), The Book of Los (1795) and The Song of Los (1795), and that same critical inclination seems present here as he quite literally effaces the content of the original tablets, replacing it with his own doctrine. However, it is also worth noting that the angel embraces the man with his left hand and the tablets with his right, thus suggesting a spiritual union between the man of prophecy (Blake himself) and the foundational text of orthodox Christianity.

[puzzlenation]

Rock Your World With These Puzzly Mysteries!

In today's blog post, we explore some mysterious inscriptions, including a French rock that might've finally been solved!

[Image courtesy of Atlas Obscura.]

We’ve spent a lot of time over the last few months discussing treasure hunts, but those are far from the only puzzly adventures that can send solvers out into nature. If you prefer your puzzling to have a codebreaking or cryptographic angle, we’ve got you covered there as well.

There are three mysterious stones in the United States alone that bear mysterious…

[eternal-echoes]

Catechism of the Catholic Church

The Decalogue in Sacred Scripture

2056 The word "Decalogue" means literally "ten words."11 God revealed these "ten words" to his people

on the holy mountain. They were written "with the finger of God,"12 unlike the other commandments

written by Moses.13 They are pre-eminently the words of God. They are handed on to us in the books of

Exodus 14 and Deuteronomy.15 Beginning with the Old Testament, the sacred books refer to the "ten

words,"16 but it is in the New Covenant in Jesus Christ that their full meaning will be revealed.

2057 The Decalogue must first be understood in the context of the Exodus, God's great liberating event at

the center of the Old Covenant. Whether formulated as negative commandments, prohibitions, or as

positive precepts such as: "Honor your father and mother," the "ten words" point out the conditions of a life

freed from the slavery of sin. the Decalogue is a path of life:

If you love the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, then you shall live and multiply.17

This liberating power of the Decalogue appears, for example, in the commandment about the

sabbath rest, directed also to foreigners and slaves:

You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out thence with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.18

2058 The "ten words" sum up and proclaim God's law: "These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more. and he wrote them upon two tables of stone, and gave them to me."19 For this reason these two tables are called "the Testimony." In fact, they contain the terms of the covenant concluded between God and his people. These "tables of the Testimony" were to be deposited in "the ark."20

2059 The "ten words" are pronounced by God in the midst of a theophany (“The LORD spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire."21). They belong to God's revelation of himself and his glory. the gift of the Commandments is the gift of God himself and his holy will. In making his will known, God reveals himself to his people.

2060 The gift of the commandments and of the Law is part of the covenant God sealed with his own. In Exodus, the revelation of the "ten words" is granted between the proposal of the covenant 22 and its conclusion - after the people had committed themselves to "do" all that the Lord had said, and to "obey" it.23 The Decalogue is never handed on without first recalling the covenant (“The LORD our God made

a covenant with us in Horeb.").24

2061 The Commandments take on their full meaning within the covenant. According to Scripture, man's

moral life has all its meaning in and through the covenant. the first of the "ten words" recalls that God loved

his people first:

Since there was a passing from the paradise of freedom to the slavery of this world, in punishment for sin, the first phrase of the Decalogue, the first word of God's commandments, bears on freedom "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."25

2062 The Commandments properly so-called come in the second place: they express the implications of

belonging to God through the establishment of the covenant. Moral existence is a response to the Lord's

loving initiative. It is the acknowledgement and homage given to God and a worship of thanksgiving. It is

cooperation with the plan God pursues in history.

2063 The covenant and dialogue between God and man are also attested to by the fact that all the obligations

are stated in the first person (“I am the Lord.") and addressed by God to another personal subject (“you"). In

all God's commandments, the singular personal pronoun designates the recipient. God makes his will known

to each person in particular, at the same time as he makes it known to the whole people:

The Lord prescribed love towards God and taught justice towards neighbor, so that man would be neither unjust, nor unworthy of God. Thus, through the Decalogue, God prepared man to become his friend and to live in harmony with his neighbor.... the words of the Decalogue remain likewise for us Christians. Far from being abolished, they have received amplification and development from the fact of the coming of the Lord in the flesh.26

[phillipmedhurst]

Phillip Medhurst presents 144/788 James Tissot Bible c 1899 Moses destroys the tables of the Ten Commandments Exodus 32:19 Jewish Museum New York. By a follower of (James) Jacques-Joseph Tissot, French, 1836-1902. Gouache on board.

[eesirachs]

there is a room in the biblical temple that is not a room, but a womb. it is the holy of holies, a room where god resides. god and his ark and his tent and his bread. no one can enter the room except for one person, once a year. otherwise it is dark, dusty. coagulating, pulsing, maybe—who knows, the curtain is drawn. here there is auto-amniosis. god swimming in god's own stuff. the decalogue is not stone but umbilical. a tether we need to cut, and we will. we'll lose those, too. like milk teeth. like god's body. it will all be misplaced. but for now, at least, there is a safe, warm, dark room in the temple. and you have to trust me, because you can't see it or feel him kick. but god is in it

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

The Moral Government of God

by Josiah Hopkins

"Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, 'You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.'" (Exodus 20:18,19)

What is meant by the moral government of God? It is God's treating men as moral beings by giving them laws and making them the subjects of rewards and punishments. The fundamental principles of his government are revealed in those precepts that are usually called the moral law. The more we examine these principles, the more we discover that they are the foundation of a wise and holy administration. Whenever they are perfectly obeyed, they secure the most peaceful and happy state of society that we can conceive. There is no system of government formed by men that can be adapted to every case. But the principles of God's law, as exemplified by the Savior, are contained in two short and easy statements; and though short and easy to remember, they contain an infallible standard by which we can appraise every moral action that ever existed. They are, "You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind," and "your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27).

These two statements exhibit the substance of the decalogue, more commonly known as the Ten Commandments. If we look at this law as it was originally written upon the tablets of stone, we shall perceive in it a scale of moral obligation upon which the rights of all moral beings are placed according to their importance.

From the relations we sustain to God as Creator and Preserver and from the perfections of his character, it is uniformly acknowledged by all who believe in the existence of God that we are under greater obligation to him than to any other being in the universe. To promote happiness is the supreme objective of all things; and because God is infinite in all his perfections, his happiness is more important than that of all other men. In perfect accordance with this, the first commandment requires that our supreme affection should be placed on him: "You shall have no other gods before Me."

The objective in the second, third, and fourth commandments is doubtless to prevent the violation of the first. To present the great God Yahweh before our minds by any man-made representation or image is forbidden in this second commandment, because it naturally tends to produce limited and imperfect views of his character: "You shall not make for yourself a carved image--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; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them."

The habit of trifling with the name of God, or indulging in a familiar and unnecessary use of it, removes from the mind all that fear and reverence which we should always cherish towards him: "You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain."

The fourth commandment gives us an opportunity to dismiss earthly and distracting cares, which too often make us slaves to the present world. It assists us in renewing our minds with the sense of duty to God, to our fellowmen, and of the destinies that await us beyond the grave: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy."

The other six of these commands refer to the duties we owe each other. As there is no obligation existing among men so great as that which children are under to their parents, the fifth commandment represents a clear and summary view of it: "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which Yahweh your God is giving you."

Should we continue down along this scale and inquire what is the most sacred and important duty we owe to our neighbor, the answer would be "life." Accordingly, we read: "You shall not murder." As far as it is obeyed, life is rendered secure.

In the next two commands, the purity, domestic peace, and property of mankind are rendered equally safe: "You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal."

And the last two commands seem intended to give some effectual directions by which these last four commandments may be kept unsullied: "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor," and, "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."

Thus it is evident from this brief examination of the law, that if it were the objective of the great Yahweh to form a standard of moral conduct to secure a state of society that is absolutely perfect, this law is just as it should be. If this moral law were universally and perfectly obeyed, every moral being in all their operations would move together as harmoniously as the solar system.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Michael Shermer

Published: Aug 9, 2023

There is arguably no better known set of moral precepts than the Ten Commandments. As an exercise in moral casuistry, in this essay, excerpted from my chapter on religion in my 2015 book The Moral Arc, let’s consider them again in the context of how far the moral arc has bent since they were decreed over three millennia ago. (The Ten Commandments are stated in two books of the Old Testament, Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:4-21. I quote from Exodus, King James Version.) In the next essay I shall reconstruct them from the perspective of a science- and reason-based moral system.

I. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

First, this commandment reveals that polytheism was commonplace at the time and that Yahweh was, among other things, a jealous god (see God’s own clarification in Commandment 2). Second, it violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in that it restricts freedom of religious expression (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”), making the posting of the Ten Commandments in public places such as schools and courthouses unconstitutional.

II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing 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, nor 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.

This commandment is also in violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of the freedom of speech, of which artistic expression is included by precedence of many Supreme Court cases (“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech”). It also brings to mind what the Taliban did in Afghanistan when they destroyed ancient religious relics not approved by their Islamist masters. Elsewhere in the Bible, the word “idol” is synonymously used, with the Hebrew word pesel translated as an object carved or hewn out of stone, wood or metal.

What, then, are we to make of the crucifix, worn by millions of Christians as an image, an idol, a symbol of what Jesus suffered for their sins? The crucifix is a graven image of torture as it was commonly practiced by the Romans. If Jews today were suddenly to start sporting little gas chambers on gold necklaces the shocked public reaction would be as unsurprising as it would be unmistakable.

I the LORD thy God am a jealous God.

That might explain the genocides, wars, conquests, and mass exterminations commanded by the deity of the Old Testament. These humanlike emotions reveal Yahweh to be more like a Greek god, and much like an adolescent, who lacks the wisdom to control his passions.

The last part of this commandment—visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me—violates the most fundamental principle of Western jurisprudence developed over centuries of legal precedence that one can be only be guilty of one’s own sins and not the sins of one’s parents, grandparents, great grandparents, or anyone else for that matter.  

III. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

This commandment is once again an infringement on our Constitutionally-guaranteed right to free speech and religious expression, and another indication of Yahweh’s petty jealousies and un-Godlike ways.

IV. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Again, freedom of speech and religious expression means we may or may not choose to treat the Sabbath as holy, and the rest of this commandment—For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy—make it clear that its purpose is to once again pay homage to Yahweh.

Thus far, the first four commandments have nothing whatsoever to do with morality as we understand it today in terms of how we are to interact with others, resolve conflicts, or improve the survival and flourishing of other sentient beings. At this point the Decalogue is entirely concerned with the relationship of humans and god, not humans and humans.

V. Honor thy father and thy mother.

As a father myself, this commandment feels right and reasonable, since most of us parents appreciate being honored by our children, especially because we’ve invested considerable love, attention, and resources into them. But “commanding” honor—much less love—doesn’t ring true to me as a parent, since such sentiments usually come naturally anyway. Plus, commanding honor is an oxymoron, made all the worse by the hint of a reward for so doing, as in the rest of that commandment: “that thy days may be long upon the land which the lord thy God giveth thee.” Honor either happens naturally as a result of a loving and fulfilling relationship between parents and offspring, or it doesn’t. For a precept to be moral, it must involve an element of choice between doing something entirely self-serving and doing something that helps another, even at the cost of oneself.    

VI. Thou shalt not kill.

Finally, we get a genuine moral principle worth our attention and respect. Yet even here, much ink has been spilled by biblical scholars and theologians about the difference between murder and killing (such as in self-defense), not to mention all the different types of killing, from first-degree murder to manslaughter, along with mitigating circumstances and exclusions, such as self-defense, provocation, accidental killings, capital punishment, euthanasia, and of course war.

Many Hebrew scholars believe that the prohibition is against murder only. But what are we to make of the story in Exodus (32:27-28) in which Moses brought down from the mountain top the first set of tablets, which he smashed in anger, and then commanded the Levites: “Thus saith the lord God of Israel, put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.”

How can we reconcile God’s commandment not to kill anyone with his commandment to kill everyone? In light of this account, and many others like it, the sixth commandment should perhaps read thus: Thou shalt not kill—not unless the Lord thy God says so. Then shalt thou slaughter thine enemies with abandon.

VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Coming from a deity who impregnated somebody else’s fiancé, that’s a bit rich. However, the bigger issue is that this commandment, like all the others, is a blunt instrument that doesn’t take into account the wide variety of circumstances in which people find themselves. Surely grownups in intimate relationships can and should negotiate the details of their relationship for themselves, and one hopes that they’ll act honorably toward their partner out of a sense of integrity, and not because a deity told them to.     

VII. Thou shalt not steal.

Again, do we really need a deity to command this? All cultures had and have moral rules and legal codes about theft.

IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Anyone who has been lied to or gossiped about can explain why this moral commandment makes sense and is needed, so chalk one up for the Bible’s authors whose insights here were spot on.

X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.

Consider what it means to covet something—to crave or want or desire it—so this commandment is the world’s first thought crime, which goes against centuries of Western legal codes. More to the point, the very foundation of capitalism is the coveting or desire for things and, ironically, it is Bible-quoting Christian conservatives who most defend the very coveting forbidden in this final mandate.

The late Christopher Hitchens best summed up the implications of taking this commandment seriously, in an April 2010 Vanity Fair essay: “Leaving aside the many jokes about whether or not it’s okay or kosher to covet thy neighbor’s wife’s ass, you are bound to notice once again that, like the Sabbath order, it’s addressed to the servant-owning and property-owning class. Moreover, it lumps the wife in with the rest of the chattel (and in that epoch could have been rendered as ‘thy neighbor’s wives,’ to boot).”

After demolishing the Decalogue in his inimitable style, Hitchens proffered his own list of commandments:

• Do not condemn people on the basis of their ethnicity or color.  • Do not ever use people as private property. • Despise those who use violence or the threat of it in sexual relations. • Hide your face and weep if you dare to harm a child.  • Do not condemn people for their inborn nature—why would God create so many homosexuals only in order to torture and destroy them? • Be aware that you too are an animal and dependent on the web of nature, and think and act accordingly.  • Do not imagine that you can escape judgment if you rob people with a false prospectus rather than with a knife. • Turn off that fucking cell phone—you have no idea how unimportant your call is to us. • Denounce all jihadists and crusaders for what they are: psychopathic criminals with ugly delusions. • Be willing to renounce any god or any religion if any holy commandments should contradict any of the above.”

Hitchens caps his list in summary judgment: “In short: Do not swallow your moral code in tablet form.”

Now, that is a rational prescription! In my next Skeptic column here I will offer my own “Provisional Rational Decalogue.” So you don’t miss it please consider subscribing below.

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Compiled by Jim Walker

The Biblical view of women

The God of the Bible decrees that woman must submit to the dominance of man.

"The social and legal position of an Israelite wife was inferior to the position a wife occupied in the great countries round about... all the texts show that Israelites wanted mainly sons to perpetuate the family line and fortune, and to preserve the ancestral inheritance... A husband could divorce his wife; women on the other hand could not ask for divorce... the wife called her husband Ba'al or master; she also called him adon or lord; she addressed him, in fact, as a slave addressed his master or subject, his king. The Decalogue includes a man's wife among his possessions... all her life she remains a minor. The wife does not inherit from her husband, nor daughters from their father, except when there is no male heir. A vow made by a girl or married woman needs, to be valid, the consent of the father or husband and if this consent is withheld, the vow is null and void. A man had a right to sell his daughter. Women were excluded from the succession."

-Roland de Vaux, archaeologist and priest

Blue words represent Bible quotes

Burn The Daughter!

"And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire." (Leviticus 21:9)

Comment

A priest's daughter, if found to have lost her virginity without marriage, can receive the death penalty, but in the form of incineration.

How many fundamentalist priests who so easily condemn others would carry out the burning of their daughters if they found them "whoring"?

(See also Genesis 38:24)

Cut Off Her Hand!

"When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her." (Deuteronomy 25:11-12)

Comment

A wife would naturally wish to come to the aid of her husband in any way she could if he desperately struggled with an opponent, but the Hebrew law specifically forbade a wife to help her husband in distress if that support consisted of her grabbing the enemy's genitals in an effort to stifle his onslaught. The penalty? Amputation of the hand that fondled the genitals!

Only in an overly obsessive male dominated culture could men create such atrocious laws. As such, the penis ranked sacrosanct in the minds of men (as it still stands today). If a male lost his penis for any reason, he would lose the right to enter a congregation of God. (See Deuteronomy 23:1)

Female Births Get Penalty

"Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean." (Leviticus 12:2)

"But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days." (Leviticus 12:5)

Comment

A woman who gives birth to a child must undergo a purification ritual lest her "uncleanness" contaminate others. This not only entails her isolation, but also payments to priests for the ritual acts. Thus the male dominators had even made birth dirty.

Notice here that if a woman bears a female child, her isolation must last twice as long as that if she gives birth to a male child!

(See also Psalms 51:3-5)

"The Bible and the church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of woman's emancipation."

--Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Female Inferiority

"But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God." (I Corinthians 11:3)

"For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man." (I Corinthians 11:8-9)

Comment

The Bible's decree of male supremacy has kept woman inferior to men for centuries. For the religious, it comes as a sad fact that a human must have a penis to receive any respect or power within the Church.

All woman should realize that such phrases in the Bible has justified for many Christian men, not only their supremacy but a reason to sexually abuse women.

(See also I Cor. 14:34-36, I Timothy 2:8-15, I Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:22-24, Col. 3:18-19)

Jesus Will Kill Children

"Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works." (Revelation 2:22-23)

Comment

If anyone thinks Jesus represents only a peaceful loving soul, then think again. For an act of adultery, Jesus would kill innocent children for the adultery of others; hardly fair justice, love, or the concern for human beings.

Some apologists claim that "children" refers to the followers of a cult of Jezebel and not to children birthed from Jezebel. However, if this proved the case, the situation would appear even more horrific, for a cult of believers could number in the dozens, hundreds, thousands, or more. The deaths of these multitude of cult believers (which would include children within its membership) would only make the moralistic problem far more atrocious.

"It's interesting to speculate how it developed that in two of the most anti-feminist institutions, the church and the law court, the men are wearing the dresses."

--Flo Kennedy

Kill The Witches!

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Whoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death. He that sacrificeth unto any god, save to the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed." (Exodus 22:18-20)

Comment

These verses attest to the power of belief as they led to the slaughter of thousands of defenseless people throughout Europe and the rest of the world.

Understand that these verses not only authorize the executions but they explicitly command them.

Verse 18 justified the burning of women in Europe judged as witches. In early America, the Salem witch trials resulted in the deaths of women and men.

Verse 19 refers to bestiality, a sin considered worthy of death. Christians used verse 20 to justify religious wars, Crusades and the slaughter of unbelievers throughout Europe. And the condemnation of heretics still goes on.

Rape My Daughter

"Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing. But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go." (Judges 19:24-25)

Comment

Judges 19 describe a father who offers his virgin daughter to a drunken mob. When the father says "unto this man do not so vile a thing," he makes clear that sexual abuse should never befall a man (meaning him), yet a woman, even his own flesh and blood, or a concubine belonging to a perfect stranger, can receive punishment from men to do what they wish. This attitude against women still persists to this day and we have the Bible, in large part, to thank for this attitude against women.

Verse 25 describes the hours long gang rape of the poor concubine. The Bible gives not one hint of compassion or concern for the raped girl. Considering that many people believe that every word in the Bible comes from God, it should not surprise anyone why people still use these verses to justify such atrocities.

Silence The Woman!

"Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." (I Timothy 2:11-14)

Comment

Another case where the Bible makes it quite clear that women live for man and must submit to them.

"Man enjoys the great advantage of having a god endorse the code he writes; and since man exercises a sovereign authority over women it is especially fortunate that this authority has been vested in him by the Supreme Being. For the Jews, Mohammedans and Christians among others, man is master by divine right; the fear of God will therefore repress any impulse towards revolt in the downtrodden female."

--Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex 1949

(See also I Cor. 11:3-12, I Cor. 14:34-36, I Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:22-24, Col. 3:18-19.)

Stone The Woman!

"If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her;" (Deuteronomy 22:22)

"Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you." (Deuteronomy 22:24)

Comment

(Read also Deuteronomy 22:13-21)

The discovery of a bride lying with another man can yield disastrous results.

If the wife's parents can produce tokens of the damsel's virginity and spread the cloth before the elders of the city, the husband has to pay the bride's father one hundred silver shekels and he may not send his wife back to her parents as long as she lives. But if the bride's virginity does not satisfy the requirements, the husband can get rid of her by letting the men of the city stone her to death.

From a practical level, these designed laws regulating women's virginity protected economic transactions between men rather than for the sake of morality. (See Virgin's Worth below)

"Virgin" Mistranslation

"Therefore the LORD himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14)

Comment

Perhaps the most famous mistranslation of the Bible, the word virgin here comes from a mistranslated Greek word for virgin.

The original Hebrew version uses the word "almah" which means "young woman" which may or may not refer to a virgin. Of course the context of the original Hebrew Isaiah does not refer to a virgin at all, as scholars the world over agree, but only refers to a young woman.

Later, the author of Matthew 1:22-23, quoted from the mistranslated Isaiah version, and thus the error turned into a world-wide belief.

Today a few of the modern bibles such as the Revised Standard Version, have corrected this mistranslation and have replaced the word virgin with "young woman." (Isaiah 7:14, RSV)

Apparently either God makes errors or the Bible does not come from god, but rather from fallible men.

Virgin's Worth

"If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel's father fifty shekels of silvers, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days." (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)

Comment

The belief some get about the Biblical law leads them to think that it represented a great advancement in morality. However, if we look at this law in the social and economic context, it becomes evident that it did not come from any moral ground, but rather to protect men's property rights of their wives and daughters.

This law says that since an unmarried girl, a non-virgin, no longer serves as an economically valuable asset, her father must receive compensation. As for the legal requirement of the man that caused the economic problem, his marriage in that society gave him practically unlimited power over their wives. Such forced marriage can hardly serve as a concern for the poor girl's welfare.

Wives, Submit Yourselves!

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything." (Ephesians 5:22-24)

Comment

These words of Paul describe another instance for the calling of the submission of women to their husbands. Note that the all inclusive "everything" could allow husbands to submit their wives to anything, including rape, beatings, slavery, etc.

(See also I Cor. 11:3-12, I Cor. 14:34-36, I Timothy 2:8-15, I Peter 3:1-7, Col. 3:18-19.)

Women Shall Not Speak

"Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church." (I Corinthians 14:34-35)

Comment

If one ever wishes to find an explanation of woman's inferiority to men, one only has to look in the Bible. Paul makes clear and delineates the importance of woman recognizing her place, "ad nauseam."

(See also I Cor. 11:3-12, I Timothy 2:8-15, I Peter 3:1-7, Ephesians 5:22-24, Col. 3:18-19.)

"The bible teaches that women brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgment seat of Heaven, tried, condemned and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity a period suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man's bounty for all her material wants, and for all the information she might desire... Here is the Bible position of woman briefly summed up."

--Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Women's Sorrow

"Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." (Genesis 3:16)

Comment

Not only does the Woman get blamed for the Fall, but God decides to multiply her sorrow, plus, she must submit to her husband like a slave.

Religionists have used this verse as justification and "reason" for the pain and punishment (sin) of childbirth and the sin of mankind. And to this day many Christians, Jews and Islamics place women lower then men in the ranking of Godly order. If ever there existed a more cruel justification against women, it could not have done as much damage as from belief in Genesis 3:16. Because of the belief in the Fall, countless Christians have branded the entire human race as depraved.

Before the advent of male dominated religions, cultures around the world respected women and worshipped goddesses. The Old Testament records the brutal slaughter of surrounding cultures and slowly throughout the centuries, the goddess religions faded away in place of the belief-system of a jealous, scatological, male war god.

"Christianity teaches that the human race is depraved, fallen, and sinful." --D. James Kennedy (Why I Believe, World Publishing, 1980)

Rip Up Pregnant Women

"Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up." (Hosea 13:16)

Comment

Throughout the Bible, God smites those who do not believe in him or those who do not follow his commands. Here we have the grotesque description of infants dashed to pieces and pregnant women ripped up. Whatever rebellious nature an infant's father or mother may have had, it bears no justice to an innocent child or to an unborn fetus who could not possibly have rebelled against God, much less understood him.

Anyone who claims to love such a God, must accept infanticide as one of God's ugly revenges.

(See also Psalms 137:9)

The Wicked Woman

"Give me any plague, but the plague of the heart: and any wickedness, but the wickedness of a woman." (Eccles. 25:13)

"Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die." (Eccles. 25:22)

"If she go not as thou wouldest have her, cut her off from thy flesh, and give her a bill of divorce, and let her go." (Eccles. 25: 26)

"The whoredom of a woman may be known in her haughty looks and eyelids. If thy daughter be shameless, keep her in straitly, lest she abuse herself through overmuch liberty." (Eccles. 26:9-10)

"A silent and loving woman is a gift of the Lord: and there is nothing so much worth as a mind well instructed. A shamefaced and faithful woman is a double grace, and her continent mind cannot be valued." (Eccles. 26:14-15)

"A shameless woman shall be counted as a dog; but she that is shamefaced will fear the Lord." (Eccles.26:25)

"For from garments cometh a moth, and from women wickedness. Better is the churlishness of a man than a courteous woman, a woman, I say, which bringeth shame and reproach." (Eccles. 42:13-14)

Comment

Ecclesiasticus of the Apocrypha does not appear in most Bibles. However, in Catholic Bibles, the inferiority of woman still appears in the verses of Ecclesiasticus. These verses give only a sampling from this book that lowers the status of women.

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HEBRÄISCH IST HEUTE EIN GROSSES RÄTSEL DIESE SPRACHE. DAS WAS AUF DEM STEIN OBEN STEHT KANN MAN HEUTE NICHT MEHR ÜBERSETZEN WEIL WIR NICHT WIRKLICH WISSEN WIE MAN ES AUSSPRICHT.

Offenbarung 2,17 

Wer ein Ohr hat, der höre, was der Geist den Gemeinden sagt! Wer überwindet, dem werde ich von dem verborgenen Manna zu essen geben; und ich werde ihm einen weißen Stein geben und auf dem Stein geschrieben einen neuen Namen, den niemand kennt außer dem, der ihn empfängt.