Ten really is a gross overestimate
Category: Religion
Posted on: December 2, 2007 11:30 PM, by PZ Myers
We all know that you don't need ten commandments.
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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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Comments
That George Carlin sermonette was definitely worth watching. Absolutely hilarious!
Posted by: Tessa | December 2, 2007 11:55 PM
Always loved this. Vintage material.
Posted by: danley | December 3, 2007 12:00 AM
only ten?
twenty two.
12 in the first set of 10 commandments, the set everyone knows but apparently can't count, and an additional set of a mostly different ten a few chapter later.
Posted by: arachnophilia | December 3, 2007 12:19 AM
There are a lot more than this. The entire book if Leviticus is nothing but several hundred commandments God gave to Moses. The only ones fundamentalists care about these days are the ones that justify their hatred of homosexuals.
Posted by: Tex | December 3, 2007 12:46 AM
Posted by: Stanton | December 3, 2007 12:59 AM
I've found that if you sit a bunch of children down, and talk about it for a while, you can get them to put together a better list of rules to live by than yahweh, the perfect maker of the universe, could cook up.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | December 3, 2007 1:08 AM
let's see:
1. Thy Shall Not Spam
2. Thy Shall Not Morph
3. Thy Shall Not Slag
4. Thy Shall Not Wank
...what am I missing?
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 3, 2007 1:27 AM
So what have you got against wanking?
(Or is this some internet useage of the term that I'm not familiar with?)
Posted by: Lee Harrison | December 3, 2007 1:33 AM
Please by Thy shalt not wank you mean thy shalt not pontificate etc and not the more general meaning of the the word which if that is what you mean I am going to hell many times over.
Posted by: Shane | December 3, 2007 1:42 AM
... and by saying "thy" you mean you which gets the rest of us off the hook anyway. So the rest you can go now and wank in peace. Now if you'd said thou...
Posted by: Shane | December 3, 2007 1:46 AM
Damn! "Thy" is possessive, of course. D'oh! My Olde Englische is Rustie,
And I was using "wank" (and the rest) in the sense of the Pharyngula Dungeon.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 3, 2007 2:16 AM
Only one commandment is needed; and that commandment be, behave yourself.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | December 3, 2007 3:42 AM
Only one commandment is needed; and that commandment be, behave yourself.
Hmm, according to one of the Oz books, The Tin Woodman of Oz, I believe but will have to look up, that is the one law of the utopian land of Oz. Of course, in my Oz book there's the rather specific "Do not pick a six-leaf clover" law. 'course if you are arrested you get to serve time playing checkers and being read bed-time stories. Then again again three books earlier there was a law don't eat live piglets that can talk, and for which the punishment is death. Hmm, could it be that my sacred Oz books are as inconsistant as the bible? Perish the thought.
Posted by: woozy | December 3, 2007 4:11 AM
only one commandment is really needed :
think !
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 3, 2007 5:51 AM
think !
Unless you are a conservative in the cultural wars. Then there are two:
1) Shut up.
2) Go away.
Posted by: woozy | December 3, 2007 6:45 AM
There are 613 Mitzvot including the 10 Commandments. The Ten Commandments, themselves, are not what they're purported to be - absolute prescriptions/proscriptions. Rather, they're both Mitzvot and a classification system to order the Mitzvot.
Five of the Commandments regulate your conduct with God and the rest of the "dealing with God" Mitzvots can be classified among these five concepts. Five of the Commandments regulate your conduct with your fellow man and the rest of your "dealing with your fellow man" Miztvots can be classified among these five concepts.
Of the 613 Commandments, about two-thirds cannot be followed because the theocratic Kingdom of Israel does not exist and the Temple is destroyed. Many of the Mitzvots only apply when you're in Israel (such as the Agricultural Mitzvots).
Even funnier is that while 613 is the agreed upon number, there are interpretation issues about the exact composition of the 613. The agreement on the 613 number comes from the belief that there is a numerological value to the Torah (Tav = 400, Vav = 6, Resh = 200, Heh = 5 plus the two Mitzvots that were in existence BEFORE the Torah).
And Carol Clouser is still a pretentious wank and there is no "special bible" that says what she claims.
Posted by: Moses | December 3, 2007 7:34 AM
"Only one commandment is needed; and that commandment be, behave yourself."
I always behave myself. Currently I'm behaving like a fool.
Posted by: Blondin | December 3, 2007 10:50 AM
I've always said you only need one sentence to guide not only morals but also legislation.
Make your actions and reactions such that their effect is to decrease suffering and increase happiness while maintaining or promoting free will.
Not surprisingly I have gotten a lot of outraged response from God Jockeys trying to formulate a way that this sentence leads to debauchery and anarchy.
Posted by: techskeptic | December 3, 2007 1:19 PM
It's all very well to make fun of the
TenHow many? Commandments as the moral laws of a primitive nomadic culture, and sure, he's right that they're repetitive and the list could easily be condensed, but what about the ones with real practical value in our daily lives?The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep in the month when the ear is on the corn.
All the first-born are mine.
Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, even of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread.
The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning.
Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.
And while we're at it, how come these are not posted on the courthouse lawn, eh?
Ten Punishments
1. Exodus 22:20: He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed.
2. Leviticus 24:16: And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death.
3. Exodus 31:15: Whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.
4. Exodus 21:15: He that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.
5. Exodus 21:17: He that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death.
6. Exodus 22:19: Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.
7. Leviticus 20:13: If a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death.
8. Leviticus 20:10: And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.
9. Mark 16:16: He that believeth not, shall be damned.
10. Malachi 2:1-4: And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. If you will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, ... behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces.
I mean, dung is a darn good incentive, am I right?
Posted by: RamblinDude | December 3, 2007 2:09 PM
I think religion is a personal thing, and should be internalised so it doesn't bother the sane.
I have my own commandments, chief among them is: I shalt not eat asparagus. And you don't hear me going on about it.
Posted by: Scrofulum | December 3, 2007 3:41 PM
tex (#4): yes, of course there are more. another comment points out that there are 613 mitzvot. i was just pointing out that if one sits down and counts the "ten commandments" there are really 22, though probably fewer if you count the duplicates. the second set can be found in exodus 34.
sort of funny, actually. moshe gets angry with the israelites, breaks the tablets, and so god says "don't worry, just come back up the mountain, i'll give you another set that'll say the same exact thing." and it doesn't.
oops.
Posted by: arachnophilia | December 3, 2007 10:35 PM
Um, no. Religion is, by definition, social.
Posted by: MAJeff | December 3, 2007 10:41 PM
I was meditating on religion the other day and had a Revelation. It was - be good to each other - and that is all the religion needed.
Posted by: Lyle G | December 4, 2007 1:50 AM
These Carlin bits are great classics. Though I think Ricky Gervais' interpretation of Genesis is even better. You have to check it out, if you already haven't The whole standup special is as hilarious, you should check it out if you can find it, it's called Animals, and it's about, um, animals.
Posted by: andyo | December 4, 2007 2:55 AM
Oops sorry for that link. If you see to the side on the youtube page, the link to the same performance, but lasts 9:57, that is one without most of the annoying cuts.
Posted by: andyo | December 4, 2007 3:06 AM