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You can be an atheist and still follow the ten commandments as guidelines
#41
RE: You can be an atheist and still follow the ten commandments as guidelines
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.
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"
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#42
RE: You can be an atheist and still follow the ten commandments as guidelines
(January 23, 2017 at 4:14 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: 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.

As I pointed out before, those are not the real Ten Commandments from the Bible.
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#43
RE: You can be an atheist and still follow the ten commandments as guidelines
(January 22, 2017 at 8:33 pm)AceBoogie Wrote:
(January 22, 2017 at 5:39 am)ApeNotKillApe Wrote: They're open to extreme interpretation and they're contradicted by the Rules of the Earth, but sure.

If you're referring to the Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth I have absolutely no idea how you've arrived at this conclusion, but more power to you for missing the point completely, anyway.

Like I said at the end of the day, I do whatever is best for me and those I care for, regardless of any list made by anyone. However if we're going to start saying, "This set of rules may not apply to you, but they can still be good rules to live by"... why not just choose any old list and find a way to make it work for yourself?

The point being, we shouldn't be letting silly lists of rules written by other people dictate how we live.

Oh I understood your point, I was just pointing out the obvious for the sake of argument.
I am John Cena's hip-hop album.
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#44
RE: You can be an atheist and still follow the ten commandments as guidelines
(January 23, 2017 at 4:40 am)ApeNotKillApe Wrote: Oh I understood your point, I was just pointing out the obvious for the sake of argument.
clearly...
“Love is the only bow on Life’s dark cloud. It is the morning and the evening star. It shines upon the babe, and sheds its radiance on the quiet tomb. It is the mother of art, inspirer of poet, patriot and philosopher.

It is the air and light of every heart – builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody – for music is the voice of love.

Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to Joy, and makes royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods.” - Robert. G. Ingersoll


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#45
RE: You can be an atheist and still follow the ten commandments as guidelines
(January 23, 2017 at 4:59 am)AceBoogie Wrote:
(January 23, 2017 at 4:40 am)ApeNotKillApe Wrote: Oh I understood your point, I was just pointing out the obvious for the sake of argument.
clearly...

Quite.
I am John Cena's hip-hop album.
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#46
RE: You can be an atheist and still follow the ten commandments as guidelines
(January 20, 2017 at 12:47 am)pool the great Wrote: The ten commandments are in my opinion guidelines. There is no harm in following them.

Quote:You must not be envious of your neighbour's goods. You shall not be envious of his house nor his wife, nor anything that belongs to your neighbour.

The tenth one presupposes that women are the property of their husband, no different from his house or his 'goods.' It's not gender-neutral, either, which further implies that a woman cannot possess anything that another person would covet (save, perhaps, for her potential status as a wife). Also... it's thoughtcrime. It does not warn against taking action, but against wanting something. A person could use that envy to work hard and build himself a house just like his neighbor's. Or a better one.

Five through nine seem like good and proper guidelines for behavior. The other five are... meh.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."

-Stephen Jay Gould
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#47
RE: You can be an atheist and still follow the ten commandments as guidelines
Real morality comes in relativic context. Even something as seemingly absolute as thou "shall not murder" is not always the morally correct thing to do. I mean, a guy threatening to terrorist bomb a farm of cute kittens and bunnies needs to be stopped even if it means murder!
[Image: tumblr_nvrbfbDXgM1u0bifgo1_400.jpg]
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#48
RE: You can be an atheist and still follow the ten commandments as guidelines
(January 20, 2017 at 12:47 am)pool the great Wrote: The ten commandments are in my opinion guidelines. There is no harm in following them.

Quote:You shall have no other Gods but me.
You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it.
You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
You shall remember and keep the Sabbath day holy.
Respect your father and mother.
You must not commit murder.
You must not commit adultery.
You must not steal.
You must not give false evidence against your neighbour.
You must not be envious of your neighbour's goods. You shall not be envious of his house nor his wife, nor anything that belongs to your neighbour.

These are good guidelines imo. You can follow the good ones and ignore the one about God if you like but at the end of the day these are good principles to live with. Credit where credit is due.

Sorry, but I have to vehemently disagree.

There only 3 that are worth following.

You must not commit murder.
You must not steal.
You must not give false evidence against your neighbour.

These existed long before the Bible was written, in The Code of Hammurabi, for example. But more importantly, they seem to be a product of our evolutionary past.

The one about adultery depends on the marriage. Some people have open marriages, so for them, this commandment does not apply.

If it wasn't for being envious of your neighbor's goods, capitalism would collapse. Which may be a good thing, but that's a conversation for another topic.

The rest are concerning 'god's' vanity. Why would those be good guidelines for those of us that do not believe any god exists, to follow?

You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
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#49
RE: You can be an atheist and still follow the ten commandments as guidelines
The first four really don't have any relevance to an atheist.
Dying to live, living to die.
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