RE: You can be an atheist and still follow the ten commandments as guidelines
January 23, 2017 at 4:14 am
(This post was last modified: January 23, 2017 at 4:15 am by Fake Messiah.)
OK, let's look at 10th commandment:
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's."
This one is actually in violation of the most basic of all American principles, you could also argue that coveting thy neighbor’s goods is the primary motivation behind capitalist economy.
Or what about the 5th
"Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee."
This is part of the Old Testament that encourages parents to murder disobedient children, and it even permits them to be beaten, molested, or sold as slaves. Not just that but God or YHWEH (what ever you call it) commands people to kill their first born sons to him like in Exodus 22:29 "You must give me the firstborn of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day." Ezekiel 20:26 confirms that this horrific injustice was repeatedly carried out.
You must remember that this was serious command that with time people did take less seriously, which made Jesus mad and he was actually criticizing Pharisees that they were not enforcing this law and killing bad children. So in Matthew 15 he says: "Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death."
Of course in countries like US federal government has a number of protections for abused or neglected children. And even goes much more to contradict the commandment from the Bible and puts children in higher position where it is even possible for kids to sue their parents.
For this and many other reasons anyone attempting to use God’s commandments as a moral guide would be a criminal in every nation on this planet.
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's."
This one is actually in violation of the most basic of all American principles, you could also argue that coveting thy neighbor’s goods is the primary motivation behind capitalist economy.
Or what about the 5th
"Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee."
This is part of the Old Testament that encourages parents to murder disobedient children, and it even permits them to be beaten, molested, or sold as slaves. Not just that but God or YHWEH (what ever you call it) commands people to kill their first born sons to him like in Exodus 22:29 "You must give me the firstborn of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day." Ezekiel 20:26 confirms that this horrific injustice was repeatedly carried out.
You must remember that this was serious command that with time people did take less seriously, which made Jesus mad and he was actually criticizing Pharisees that they were not enforcing this law and killing bad children. So in Matthew 15 he says: "Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death."
Of course in countries like US federal government has a number of protections for abused or neglected children. And even goes much more to contradict the commandment from the Bible and puts children in higher position where it is even possible for kids to sue their parents.
For this and many other reasons anyone attempting to use God’s commandments as a moral guide would be a criminal in every nation on this planet.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
