The Ten Commandments are Moral Fossils
by Dr. Charlie Webb
Nobody really believes in the Ten Commandments of
Moses. Most of us can't even remember them, let alone name the punishments
for breaking them. If we did know, we would all turn away in disgust
and look for a more civilized guide for morality. |
For example, if your loved one comes to the hospital
on a "Sabbath" day, all the nurses and doctors who work
to save a life are breaking the fourth commandment. What is their
punishment as prescribed by the Old Testament God? Death. (Exod. 31:15
or Num.16:32-36). And since Islam, Judaism, and Christianity are all
derived from ancient Mosaic law, the Sabbaths now include Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday! |
If you go to church and pray to an image of Jesus or
to a cross, your reward for breaking rule #2 is death. If Dad is frustrated
and takes the Lord's name in vain (whatever that means), his punishment
for breaking rule #3 is death. If a teenager is stubborn and rebellious
or if she curses her parents, her punishment for breaking rule #5
is death. ( Exod. 20:9 or Exod 21:17). In the words of philosopher
Michael Earl, "How's that for family values?" |
So why do we cling to such fossilized traditions as
the Bible and its Ten Commandments? I think it's because of our need
for symbols. We spend the first decade or two of our lives just learning
our cultural symbols (words, numbers, and pictures). We are really
the symbol species, Homo symbolicus. This is our great strength and
our great weakness. We have the capacity to communicate countless
ideas, yet we confuse symbols with reality. We think we understand
something simply because we can name it. |
We are most easily fooled by symbols that fill our emotional
needs. We all have a need for symbols that proclaim our goodness,
but in our laziness we often forego integrity for the convenience
of tradition. Hence the common but superficial belief in a symbolic
"good book" and in the" Ten Commandments." Most
of us have been taught that the Bible is both loving and good before
we are old enough even to read or examine it for ourselves. But the
Bible is not really loving or good: commandment #1 demands that anyone
worshipping any religion different from that of Moses must be killed.
Have any words in the history of mankind done as much damage as this?
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Most of us would agree with the last five commandments
of Moses (do not kill, commit adultery, steal, lie, or covet your
neighbor's home and wife). Yet who remembers the greatest criminal
of all in the Old Testament, the one who boasts in Numbers 31 of killing
32,000 innocent men, women, and children, of stealing the booty of
an entire city, and of coveting and raping every female virgin? Of
course it was Moses, the lawgiver himself...Some things never change.
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We do not need to proclaim our goodness by professing
faith in the Bible any more than we need to wear suits and yellow
ties to show that we mean to do business. We can find more wisdom
in William Shakespeare and Robert Ingersoll and more love in Mahatma
Gandhi and Martin Luther King than in any books of religion.
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