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 I've got some questions about the ten commandments
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MUGGZ
New Member

New Zealand
3 Posts

Posted - 05/04/2006 :  03:47:07  Show Profile Send MUGGZ a Private Message
Im only going to ask a couple, just to get my point across.

number 2: "Thou shall have no other gods besides Me... Do not make a sculpted image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above..."
Is this "GOD" admitting that there are other gods and why is he so adamant about him being the only 1? It doesn't sound like something someone who is root of all that is good would say, it sounds more like something saddam would say.

number 7:"Thou shall not commit adultery."
Um so who was it that got mary pregnant again? Im pretty sure that the baby she had was the son of "GOD", and also that mary was josephs wife. Sounds like there was a blatant case of adultery there.

Also through the commandments "GOD" also calls himself "LORD", are either of these his name, or is it neither?
because number 3:"Thou shall not swear falsely by the name of the LORD..." How are you ment to follow that if you dont even know the name your not to swear falsly by?

marfknox
SFN Die Hard

USA
3739 Posts

Posted - 05/04/2006 :  04:36:33   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit marfknox's Homepage  Send marfknox an AOL message Send marfknox a Private Message
No offense, but there are many much more sophisticated criticisms of the Bible. These sound like the atheist equivalent of what people in Bible study groups do - read an English version of the Bible and then try to interpret it without knowledge or consideration of the historical context.
quote:
number 2: "Thou shall have no other gods besides Me... Do not make a sculpted image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above..."
Is this "GOD" admitting that there are other gods and why is he so adamant about him being the only 1?
Nothing in that commandment explicitly says it acknowledges that other gods exist. Only that people can worship other gods (which they can certainly pretend exist.) "what is in the heavens above" can be more than other gods, so the second line doesn't say anything about actual other gods existing either.

quote:
number 7:"Thou shall not commit adultery."
Um so who was it that got mary pregnant again? Im pretty sure that the baby she had was the son of "GOD", and also that mary was josephs wife. Sounds like there was a blatant case of adultery there.
Huh? Adultery is when a married person has sex with someone who is not their spouse. Getting pregnant is not having sex, and certainly not when it is a "miraculous conception". If a married woman gets artificially inseminated by sperm from someone other than her husband, is she committing adultery?

quote:
Also through the commandments "GOD" also calls himself "LORD", are either of these his name, or is it neither?
because number 3:"Thou shall not swear falsely by the name of the LORD..." How are you ment to follow that if you dont even know the name your not to swear falsly by?
I've heard various interpretations on this, which I'm not going to go into. If you are actually curious as to what the adherents of the Christian faith believe on that matter, go read about it or contact some theologians.

What is the point of this reading of the Bible from a position of ignorance and then attempting to interpret its meaning... unless you mean this post to be a satirization of Bible-study groups that do the same thing. If that is the case, bravo.

"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong

Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com

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Boron10
Religion Moderator

USA
1266 Posts

Posted - 05/04/2006 :  06:41:00   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Boron10 a Private Message
Welcome to SFN, MUGGZ. I reccomend perusing this website: Skeptic's Annotated Bible. Many more questions like yours are asked, and some good answers are provided.
quote:
Originally posted by MUGGZ
number 2: "Thou shall have no other gods besides Me... Do not make a sculpted image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above..."
Is this "GOD" admitting that there are other gods and why is he so adamant about him being the only 1? It doesn't sound like something someone who is root of all that is good would say, it sounds more like something saddam would say.
As marfknox said, this commandment only admits that some people worship other gods, not that any of them acutally exist. Note, also, that the graven images part of that outlaws any religious art....
quote:
number 7:"Thou shall not commit adultery."
Um so who was it that got mary pregnant again? Im pretty sure that the baby she had was the son of "GOD", and also that mary was josephs wife. Sounds like there was a blatant case of adultery there.
Again, marfknox nailed this one: since the bible claims it to be an immaculate conception, no adultery was performed, implicit or otherwise.
quote:
Also through the commandments "GOD" also calls himself "LORD", are either of these his name, or is it neither?
because number 3:"Thou shall not swear falsely by the name of the LORD..." How are you ment to follow that if you dont even know the name your not to swear falsly by?
Ask any Jew, and you will be told the Lord's name is JHVH, which is not to be pronounced. Jehovah's Witnesses and other sects added vowels to it and came up with ... you can guess that one. I suppose you could say that God's name is Jealous, but that won't really get you far.

Again, welcome to SFN!
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Stargirl
Skeptic Friend

USA
94 Posts

Posted - 05/04/2006 :  16:56:24   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Stargirl a Private Message
Just a slight nit to pick but way back in confirmation class I remember learning that as “Thou shall have no other gods before me”.

Not that it makes a big difference because it still doesn't say that there are other gods. But as Boron 10 said some people did worship other gods and in my admittedly twisted interpretation the “before” also means that it is okay to worship other gods. That is so long you realize that God big “G” is numero uno, the big cheese, the head honcho, the leader of the pack, top gun spear, Da Man er Da God.

Seriously though I wouldn't be surprised if the “before” was a holdover from the early days of monotheism when most people still worshiped the many gods. I imagine the transition to monotheism took some time. Even the bible says that the lords people would slip back into their old ways from time to time. Any and all of these lesser gods could be prayed too but they were “Lorded over” by another supreme god. Sort of like the Greek god Zeus was above Apollo, Aphrodite, etcetera though I think the actual Greek gods came later.

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him - Voltaire
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard

USA
3834 Posts

Posted - 05/05/2006 :  01:51:22   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send beskeptigal a Private Message
Welcome to SFN and I love the points you make. Great observations. I'm not sure I've seen anyone notice God has an adulterous affair there with Mary.
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dglas
Skeptic Friend

Canada
397 Posts

Posted - 05/05/2006 :  08:43:28   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send dglas a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal

Welcome to SFN and I love the points you make. Great observations. I'm not sure I've seen anyone notice God has an adulterous affair there with Mary.



We should have a speak-with-the-dead type contact Mary and ask about God's foreplay. Was it good for her?

“Thou shall have no other gods before me”

No sloppy seconds for God. God doesn't stir another god's milk.
(Joseph's on the other hand.....)

I must admit though, comparing immaculate conception with artificial insemination does sound like the basis for a great comedy skit. Maybe Jesus was the result of a mix-up at the lab. Ooops!

Immaculate conception is quite a claim and goes against everything we know about the process of baby making. Looks like an extraordinary proof moment to me. Anyone seen the video?

I think, technically "Lord" is God's middle name. His first name is "The" which, by definition, means there can be only one. Wow! Suddenly Highlander makes sense...

--------------------------------------------------
- dglas (In the hell of 1000 unresolved subplots...)
--------------------------------------------------
The Presupposition of Intrinsic Evil
+ A Self-Justificatory Framework
= The "Heart of Darkness"
--------------------------------------------------
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HalfMooner
Dingaling

Philippines
15831 Posts

Posted - 05/05/2006 :  14:21:22   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send HalfMooner a Private Message
My own theory, one that I've had since a high school senior year Western Civilization class, is that the Ten Commandments were designed by Moses as a sort of "Readers Digest" version of such other early Semitic law codes as the Code of Hammurabi (which is a real ancestor of Western law codes), all of which which were, like the Ten Commandments, literally carved in stone.

Moses had different problems from Hammurabi. Hammurabi ruled over the complex, settled civilization of Babylon, which included literate scribes and bureaucrats, merchants, artists and artisans, priests, hydraulic engineers, and permanent agriculture. On the other hand, Moses was leading the migration of a loose, and probably ethnically diverse, confederation of tribes through the desert, mainly neolithic shepherds and hunter-gatherers. Moses also had the additional goal of promoting his new monotheism. So the Ten Commandments were a combination of the most basic of social laws, plus a command to worship the one God, all engraved in stone to impress the rubes and very easy for illiterate shepherds to memorize. In other words, the Ten Commandments can be seen as a clever corruption of the Code of Hammurabi.

Hammurabi and other civilized rulers of the ancient world would have been appalled by the Ten Commandments, and seen them as the laughable effort of savages to mimic their betters. Why, then, would ten simple rules for a group of primitive tribes be of any real importance in the even more sophisticated modern world?



Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive.
Edited by - HalfMooner on 05/05/2006 15:13:55
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verlch
SFN Regular

781 Posts

Posted - 05/06/2006 :  00:50:35   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send verlch an AOL message Send verlch a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner

My own theory, one that I've had since a high school senior year Western Civilization class, is that the Ten Commandments were designed by Moses as a sort of "Readers Digest" version of such other early Semitic law codes as the Code of Hammurabi (which is a real ancestor of Western law codes), all of which which were, like the Ten Commandments, literally carved in stone.

Moses had different problems from Hammurabi. Hammurabi ruled over the complex, settled civilization of Babylon, which included literate scribes and bureaucrats, merchants, artists and artisans, priests, hydraulic engineers, and permanent agriculture. On the other hand, Moses was leading the migration of a loose, and probably ethnically diverse, confederation of tribes through the desert, mainly neolithic shepherds and hunter-gatherers. Moses also had the additional goal of promoting his new monotheism. So the Ten Commandments were a combination of the most basic of social laws, plus a command to worship the one God, all engraved in stone to impress the rubes and very easy for illiterate shepherds to memorize. In other words, the Ten Commandments can be seen as a clever corruption of the Code of Hammurabi.

Hammurabi and other civilized rulers of the ancient world would have been appalled by the Ten Commandments, and seen them as the laughable effort of savages to mimic their betters. Why, then, would ten simple rules for a group of primitive tribes be of any real importance in the even more sophisticated modern world?






In your dreams.

Ok than in evolution's good book, we must conclude that evolution happend, so fast, nobody could see it happen in the fossil record, thus, in your mind, evolution can be proven true, by the fact that complex beings are on top of the ground,while simple creatures are on the bottom.

Well, I believe in a world wide flood, thus you would expect the heavy animals on the top, because they were likely to get buried last, as they could float deap and still swim.

http://www.jesusplusnothing.com/prophecy.htm

In the New Testament you have 11 disciples. They all witnessed first hand the events surrounding Jesus. They all died like the prophets, slain for what they believe in. Hardly the image that one would expect from those that choose to make up a Christ, and profit. Jesus wasn't exalted, he hung from a cross, with a crown of thorns, with a sword thrusted through his side, now why would somebody make that up? Doesn't make sense, does it fellas? Why not decend on the earth like Ghingas Khan, and take over the world, and declare yourselfe ruler over all? Why die hung from a cross? If you can decieve 2 billion Christians today?

He didn't need to die on a cross to decieve the world, if that was the purposes.

If Moses did what he was suppose to, why should God not bless him, and write 5 books of the bible through him?

You are comparing apples to Oranges.


What came first the chicken or the egg?

How do plants exist without bugs in the soil, and bugs in the soil without plants producing oxygen?

There are no atheists in foxholes

Underlying the evolutionary theory is not just the classic "stuff" of science — conclusions arrived at through prolonged observation and experimentation. Evolution is first an atheistic, materialistic world view. In other words, the primary reason for its acceptance has little to do with the evidence for or against it. Evolution is accepted because men are atheists by faith and thus interpret the evidence to cor-respond to their naturalistic philosophy.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. II Timothy 4:3,4

II Thess. 2:11 And for this cause God shall
send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

You can not see the 'wind', but you can see its effect!!!!

Evolution was caused by genetic mistakes at each stage?

Radical Evolution has 500 million years to find fossils of fictional drawings of (hard core)missing links, yet they find none.

We have not seen such moral darkness since the dark ages, coencides with
teaching evolution in schools. (Moral darkness)

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places, EPH 6:12.

"Thus, many scientists embracing naturalism find themselves in the seeming dilemma recently articulated by biochemist Franklin Harold: "We should reject, as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity [i.e., Darwinian evolution]; but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations."
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard

USA
3834 Posts

Posted - 05/06/2006 :  01:08:44   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send beskeptigal a Private Message
Gee verlch, I was hoping for a comment on the adultery question.
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HalfMooner
Dingaling

Philippines
15831 Posts

Posted - 05/06/2006 :  04:57:34   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send HalfMooner a Private Message
verlch began his gibbering, incoherent rant with:
quote:
In your dreams.
Hello, verlch. At first, I thought you'd accidentally posted a reply to an entirely different topic here. It took me a minute to see you are simply nuts, demented, wacko. What a creepy, irrelevant, bizarre, kooky posting! Whatever your prescribed meds are, you need to start taking them again, quickly. I normally don't go all ad hominem on people I don't know well, but I'll gladly make an exception with you. After all, there is a time for every purpose under heaven.


Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive.
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist

USA
4955 Posts

Posted - 05/06/2006 :  06:17:13   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Cuneiformist a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by verlch
In your dreams.

Ok than in evolution's good book, we must conclude that evolution happend, so fast, nobody could see it happen in the fossil record, thus, in your mind, evolution can be proven true, by the fact that complex beings are on top of the ground,while simple creatures are on the bottom.

Well, I believe in a world wide flood, thus you would expect the heavy animals on the top, because they were likely to get buried last, as they could float deap and still swim.

http://www.jesusplusnothing.com/prophecy.htm

In the New Testament you have 11 disciples. They all witnessed first hand the events surrounding Jesus. They all died like the prophets, slain for what they believe in. Hardly the image that one would expect from those that choose to make up a Christ, and profit. Jesus wasn't exalted, he hung from a cross, with a crown of thorns, with a sword thrusted through his side, now why would somebody make that up? Doesn't make sense, does it fellas? Why not decend on the earth like Ghingas Khan, and take over the world, and declare yourselfe ruler over all? Why die hung from a cross? If you can decieve 2 billion Christians today?

He didn't need to die on a cross to decieve the world, if that was the purposes.

If Moses did what he was suppose to, why should God not bless him, and write 5 books of the bible through him?

You are comparing apples to Oranges.


Verlch!! You're back! And still not taking your meds! That's great. Except, of course, I can't figure out what your point is. If you were trying to disagee with HalfMooner, that's cool. 'Mooner makes some interesting observations, but the the story is really a lot more complex than that.

But if that's your beef, V, why the rant about evolution, Christ, and whatever else? Or are you so wedded to your standard talking points that you can't help but throw (very weak) jabs at evolution? (And then, why not say something about sexually promiscuous feminists and the Mason-conspiracy?)
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Siberia
SFN Addict

Brazil
2322 Posts

Posted - 05/06/2006 :  07:00:45   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Siberia's Homepage  Send Siberia an AOL message  Send Siberia a Yahoo! Message Send Siberia a Private Message
Verlch! I missed you, man! The lunacy still kickin', I see. Welcome back, dearest.

"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa

"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard

3192 Posts

Posted - 05/08/2006 :  12:04:27   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send BigPapaSmurf a Private Message
No one derails a thread like the woman hater.


"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History

"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini
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Compassion
New Member

8 Posts

Posted - 05/09/2006 :  22:29:54   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Compassion a Private Message
The Bible is very clear and has no contradicting points towards itself. If you had read further on, you would see that Mary is a virgin, thus never had commited the sin of adultery.

The word 'gods' is imcomparible to 'God'. There is a difference. God refers to THE Creator, whereas gods, with a lowercase letter at the front, would represent the false idols, icons, or images that people may be worshipping.

God's name is interpreted as Jealous, God, Lord, Jehovah, and several others. But when you swear, which you shouldn't be doing from the start, you should not include God in ANYTHING. That commandment is often translated as 'Do not use the name of the LORD your God in vain.' Clearly, this states not to swear by any of God's many names.

The Bible is 100% scientifically and historically accurate. The Bible is a trusted source of information that has been proven by science. Different countries also have historical logs. These historical logs match up exactly to the dates on the Bible, and everything fits in place like a key in the matching keyhole. Archaeologists have discovered all necessary proofs and evidences that the cities, towns, and places in the Bible have existed, at the time the Bible describes it at.

Are YOU going to heaven? Read the Bible, God's Word, to find out the truth. God is filled with compassion for you, His creation, and will reach out to bring you salvation. He sent his son, Christ Jesus, as a substitute for your sins. Accept Christ into your heart once and for all to be saved. God's deliverance from death for you is here!
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard

USA
4574 Posts

Posted - 05/09/2006 :  22:56:27   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send H. Humbert a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Compassion
The Bible is 100% scientifically and historically accurate.


"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman

"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie
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Ghost_Skeptic
SFN Regular

Canada
510 Posts

Posted - 05/09/2006 :  23:38:04   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Ghost_Skeptic a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Compassion

Archaeologists have discovered all necessary proofs and evidences that the cities, towns, and places in the Bible have existed, at the time the Bible describes it at.



I once came across a passing reference to archeological evidence that Nazereth was not inhabited until after the first century AD. Does anyone here know anything about this?

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. / You can send a kid to college but you can't make him think." - B.B. King

History is made by stupid people - The Arrogant Worms

"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." - William Osler

"Religion is the natural home of the psychopath" - Pat Condell

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" - Thomas Jefferson
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