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Originally Posted by RuhiWarrior19
Jewscout, don't take this as intended as an insult, but what about stoning adulterers and the like?
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Ah, Divine Commands! But it seems to me that if you think morality comes from God's commands, then it is really, really important to know what God commanded, isn't it? So of course, one must find out where those commands are. For most people, the commandments are stored in their religious writings, in the case of Jews, the Torah etc., for Christians the Bible (OT and NT), for Muslims the Qur'an, etc.
But let's look. Most people will tell you the 10 Commandments are the basis (or at least one strong central feature) of morality. But most of those same people can't tell you what they are!. The two slightly different versions (Ex. 20:2-17, Deut 5:6-11) take a bit of work to reconcile, or even to get to 10. That's why there are Jewish, Catholic and Protestant versions, and they are different.
Americans think of the Protestant ones, which includes not making any graven images (the Jews and Catholics don't have that one). Yet Protestants grave images all over the place, while the Jews are less keen to do so (somewhat like Muslims).
And of course, both Torah sources of the Big Ten make sure to tell us that God punishes children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren for the sins of the first generation. We don't believe that so much anymore, but it's what the Book says. It's like working on the seventh day -- lots of people do nowadays, and we don't particularly think we're all going to Hell for it.
One of the two Torah sources implies that wives are chattels, and both say slaves are certainly just another kind of property.
We're told not to kill, but who worries about the military dropping bombs on the innocent civilians of other nations? Oh, maybe it really does mean "murder" (unlawful killing), but we are so very adept at finding ways to make whatever killing we (as nations) want to do "lawful" that it's pretty easy to get around that little quibble.
But wait, the books are filled with other commandments, like "don't boil a kid in its mother's milk," or "don't eat shrimp." Now, rabbis have taken the first to mean don't serve dairy and meat together, but one can't help but notice that Araham once fed God himself a meal of curds, milk and veal. God seems to have enjoyed it. (Gen. 18:8)
You see, neither of the two usual sources for the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-11) actually calls themselves the Ten Commandments. The only place in the Bible that does use that very term, specifically for commandments written upon tablets of stone, is Exodus 34:28
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And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
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And I'm afraid that this chapter, Exodus 34:1-28, has a radically different list of commandments, numbering (in spite of what verse 28 says) many more than 10. (This is where you get the bit about seething kids in mom's milk.)
See, it gets difficult to sort out what we're being guided to do, if the Bible is a "Manual for Life." Maybe the New Testament is clearer? Jesus sayid the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love one's neighbour, but strikingly, neither one of these is in the Ten Commandments.
And that, friends, is why there are 38,000 Christian sects, all trying to find ways to make a puzzlement of ancient and often unconnected writings into a Manual for Life.
It can't be done.