This is the second part of my observations of this article on HuffPo.
Ok, I was cooling off, but this bit got me going again:
"The morals and values given to us at Mount Sinai entered our consciousness a mere 3500 years ago."What values and morals? The ten commandments? Hmm, let's see here. The first three contain nothing but the commands of an unstable and nervous dictator. Oh yeah, and sit on your butt on Sundays or it's off to hell with you. Children are commanded to honor their parents, but not the reverse.
Don't kill anybody, an admirable sentiment that has been explicitly followed by Christians in the centuries following the event, especially during the Renaissance and Reformation (Can you hear my eyes rolling?). I tentatively submit that Pope Alexander VI, Tomás de Torquemada, and John Calvin of Geneva (to name but three) must have considered this one optional.
Next, no adultery, no stealing, no false witness. I'll admit, these three are good, but three out of ten is not even an "F". Finally, don't covet your neighbor's stuff. That's cool and all, but let's not forget that said neighbor's wife and slaves are among the "stuff" one is not supposed to covet. Meh.
I can hear folks accusing me of cherry-picking verses and grumbling about the "same authority." That's fine, but let me deflect that criticism to the author of the article. There are no references to specific verses or... any specifics really.
"It is a rich, multi-layered, multi-faceted, deeply profound work of art."All well and good, but it is also full of violence, misogyny, and terrifying visions of eternal punishment. Written and edited by men (not women) with a vested interest in using its message to remain in power, the bible is an interesting look back into times when the world was far simpler, less understood, and profoundly terrifying to its inhabitants, not a handbook for democracy (or even polite society).
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