The Big Ten

 

The drunkenness of Noah, from the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493, via Wikipedia.

Donald Trump: I LOVE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PRIVATE SCHOOLS, AND MANY OTHER PLACES, FOR THAT MATTER. READ IT — HOW CAN WE, AS A NATION, GO WRONG??? 

"Has anyone read the 'Thou shalt not steal'? I mean, has anybody read this incredible stuff? It's just incredible," Trump said at the gathering of the Faith & Freedom Coalition. "They don't want it to go up. It's a crazy world.'' (via CBS News)

Well, no, there's nothing wrong with "Thou shalt not steal," and it would be great for Donald Trump to give some thought to the 8th Commandment, as well as the 7th and 9th, and not only stop stealing stuff, but also stop committing adultery and bearing false witness. It would be pretty interesting to see Trump adopting the Ten Commandments as his own personal moral code, but he clearly hasn't done that yet.

But I think people are really missing the important issue here. It's not a bad thing that the Commandments advise them not to steal stuff. Then again, every moral code tells you not to steal stuff. That's not what makes the Commandments what they are. I have this feeling the conservative Christians are not really reading the thing at all, or reading it from a standpoint of such confirmation bias that they're unable to see what it is really about. 

1. I am Yahweh your Elohim the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. If you are not somebody I brought out of the land of Egypt and the house of slavery, like an Egyptian or something yourself, you can apply for an exemption from this Commandment, using form 310B from the Exceptionalism Department, for permission to have some other gods before me, including but not limited to Ra, of course; Zeus/Iuppiter; Marduk (and sometimes Anu and Enlil); Brahman and Shiva and Vishnu/Krishna and his other avatars, whoever wins over the long run; and possibly, at some point in the next 6 or 7 centuries, the Holy Trinity of which I am considering being adopted as a board member, sharing (and oversharing!) duties with My only-begotten Son and our sometimes feminine partner the Holy Spirit. I'm already construed as plural ("I am your elohim") in both the Exodus and  Deuteronomy editions of these Commandments, so you should be prepared for this outcome; the number of God, not to mention the gender, may in the end prove to be more important than Their name. Other than that, you shall have no other gods before me.

What part of "graven image" don't they understand?

It is appalling that this monument was attacked. Those who committed this crime will be caught & held responsible pic.twitter.com/SkYiyUwO8W
— Governor Mary Fallin (@GovMaryFallin) October 24, 2014

There's some surprise running around over the case of Michael Reed, 29, of Oklahoma City, who urinated on the Ten Commandments monument outside the Federal Building (the replacement for the Murrah Building blown up by Christian Identity terrorist Timothy McVeigh) and then smashed it by running it over with his car, under instructions, he said, from Satan, who also advised him to spit on a photograph of President Obama and kill him. But he's a Christian.

According to KOCO TV (via SEK at Raw Story),

Decalogical fallacies

Via Retinart.

We the People of the United States of America, in order to have no other Gods before you-know-Who, remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy, honor our parents, not kill, not commit adultery, and all that good stuff, do ordain and establish this Constitution...

No, seriously, where does this shit come from? Where County Commissioner Tim Guffey of Scottsboro, AL, explains to the press about his desire to erect a little group of monuments to the Ten Commandments, which according to him have nothing to do with religion, and the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence: