The ten commandments of inhumanity
This page is meant to do away with the nonsense about the ten commandments in the old testament of the book called “bible”.
Fundamentalists want us to believe that these commandments are something special, and even more than that, they want us to accept that these commandments are the only morals men have ever followed. They want us to accept without any contemplating that mere humans cannot possibly come up with a single moral thought without their deity lighting our way. But how much truth is there to that, really?
First, let's play a coldly, inhumanely logical Evil AtheistTM for a moment – the very thing fundies imagine every atheist is. Let's see if there really is no way except the religious way to arrive at some sort of morals.
Fact is: I'm not alone on this world. There are literally billions of other humans with whom I share this planet.
Fact is: I can choose whether to respect my fellow humans and treat them kindly, or to take advantage of them in every way possible, up to and including cold-blooded murder et cetera.
However, if I start kicking the arse of every human around me, other people are bound to notice sooner or later. Even if I'd be the prototypical serial killer, taking great care that there's never any witness around when I finish off someone, there will come the time when people start to wonder “Hey, where's Jack? Where's Sandra? Where are (list of vanished people)?”.
Being curious, people will start to investigate. And unless I suffer from pathological hubris, I'll realize that sooner or later they'll suspect that I might have something to do with the... disappearances.
So there will come the time when they find out that I'm a killer. Once that happens, what do you think are my chances against all of them united?
(And unite themselves they will, unless they are idiots, for together they can coordinate their actions and be much stronger than I could ever be on my own!)
So, the obvious conclusion is: Even if I really care a rat's arse about the well-being of my fellow humans, it pays in the long term to treat them decently. It surely does not pay, however, to molest them.
Now how's that for a change from fundie dogma? What the believers commonly call the “golden rule” follows logically from some simple common sense, without any need to invoke higher powers!
Second, let's examine the legendary ten commandments in some detail. I won't deny that lines like “Thou shalt nor murder” do have their value. I'd be an idiot extraordinaire if I would. But what no believer I ever talked to had realized was this:
The commandments everyone knows aren't the real ones!
I admit that didn't occur to me too until I saw it mentioned at another place on the web, but anyway: If you are a christian (fundie or not), did you ever read on after the commandments (in Ex 21), and how far did you read on?
For, in Ex 34, you find the rather disturbing fact that the commandments you know are outdated! As the “good book” tells us, after Moses' fellows cared a shit for “Thou shalt not murder”, killing thousands of people because their “loving” God ordered them to do so, Moses went back up that mountain and had another chat with his God. And there he dictated him the commandments again, but this time with a completely different content!
I won't do your homework for you right here. Get out your bible and read Exodus chapter 34 for yourself. After you're done, ask yourself: Is this what a “loving” God wants his believers to do?