2013-12-01

Ten Commandments King James Version: Exodus 20:1-17 (deconstructed as a work of literature)

FIRST COMMANDMENT: I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

This commandment either formally acknowledges that there are multiple gods or must be considered as propaganda designed to manipulate followers (who are still allowed to believe in whatever other gods they choose) to accept these commandments as primary law. In modern terms, this would be considered as a grounding statement intended to provide an “authority premise”. Examining this commandment as an authority premise, reveals that it is only weakly supported requiring the follower to accept Moses’ testimony (as subsequently transcribed into the book of Exodus – via an unsecured (hard to validate) chain of custody – by individuals with debatable motives).

SECOND COMMANDMENT:  Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

This is a compound commandment that breaks down into don’t worship any other (presumably spiritual) entity and follow these rules. Personally, I would have lead with a “follow these rules statement” right after providing an authority basis because placing the focus upon graven images is of lower relevance because these are merely tools of worship as opposed to being worship. Clearly the act of misdirected worship must be the paramount concern because it is important to keep the peoples’ attention focused by staying on message.

An interesting aspect of the graven image portion of this commandment is that it validates the concept of sympathetic magic, in that worshiping through an object (graven image) can have or produce a reality changing consequence is induced by the worshiper.

This commandment also offers a bit of a temper tantrum, in that God is jealous and presently focused upon about a pattern of generational hatred. The tantrum is reinforced via an expression of conditional love by offering mercy to those who love God. Let’s call all of these clauses a threat on the order of “follow the rules or else”, with the “or else” part left undefined for the moment. The attitude expressed in this commandment violates the “loving god” image that many have historically preached and represents an extremely humanistic emotional attitude. If anything, I would have preferred a more “clinical” or “matter of fact” tone here – more along the lines of behave properly or you’ll be discarded as easily as I discard the bones of a fish after the flesh has been consumed.

I really dislike the “present situation” approach within a set of laws that are intended to guide behavior for the rest of history; “fathers upon the children unto third and fourth generation of them that hate me”. Living in the time that this was given it certainly has emotional impact, but with millennia between the authorship and now, the emotional impact is no more than a distraction or confirmation that people having been “wrong thinking” for a very long time. To speak to a person’s heart shouldn’t timeless principles be espoused and the intellect be engaged – as opposed to taking the “you kids have been driving me crazy for the past four generations!!!”

THIRD COMMANDMENT: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

I’m going to assume that everything after the semicolon is poetry – because unless one does not understand what a commandment is, breaking the rules is breaking the rules and the rule breaker is therefore guilty of rule breaking.

I partially chalk this commandment up to something along the lines of “Only call me when you really want my attention. It’s very distracting when everyone is yelling my name just to emphasize or express an elevated emotional state.” But even given this possible explanation; isn’t God able to readily discern what a person is feeling and why they are yelling… It would seem that ignoring pejorative or mindlessly ecstatic shouts of one’s name would be a trivial matter to the point of not even being a consideration.

The other logical reason for this commandment would be to prevent the “cheapening” of the name of God, in that using it for random or inappropriate purposes tends to devalue the concepts behind the name… The premise of this commandment has a valid psychological basis in that people can be desensitized, contributing to the emergence of reduced gratitude and reverence.

FOURTH COMMANDMENT: Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:  For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Hallowed days? Or is it Holy days? Or is it Holidays? Set aside time to worship in a measure of 1 to 6. The assumption being that worship and work are somehow distinct. Or perhaps the point is to substitute work for God in place of work for oneself or ones family. Unfortunately as written I would argue that this is a practically impossible commandment to keep, in that work is insufficiently defined. And even using the most convoluted definition of work one could never achieve satisfactory adherence, short of sleeping 24 hours every Sunday (as a form of worship).

The 1 to 6 ratio represents a bare minimum time for a person to decompress and provides a rhythm to life… so from a practical point of view there is utility in this rule that fails to meet the criteria of a divine edict. Most certainly people are variable, being either more or less durable, and requiring more or less time to retire from toil. So setting a hard and fast rule such as this is probably too extreme. At most, this commandment should be taken as a guideline.

And while we’re at it, why don’t these commandments layout some specifics about the proper way to worship. Modern psychology indicates that people who practice regular exercises of appreciation and community service are generally happier and more able to support each other. These are also modern tenants of many religions… It would seem that within the Ten Commandments this would be the most logical place to provide rules around how to exhibit these types of healthy behaviors.

FIFTH COMMANDMENT: Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

The word honor is the tricky bit here… most interpretations tend to suggest that this means “obey” or at a bare minimum support your parents. This is a nice idea, but why is it so specific, focusing solely upon parents? What about grandparents, siblings, and children. It clearly would have been better to direct believers to focus upon supporting a strong family unit while guiding those with less experience and knowledge to trust those with greater experience.

SIXTH COMMANDMENT: Thou shalt not kill.

OK – I don’t want to be in a situation where my life is at risk, so this commandment makes sense. But since it isn’t explicitly stated, could this be interpreted as a call for universal vegetarianism? Or taking it even further, we can’t even eat living vegetables – instead we must only consume carrion produced through non-human causes or dead vegetable matter… but wait, what about bacteria??? There’s no way to avoid consuming and killing these…

Perhaps I’m being lazy in my analysis, but given the lack of further guidance we’re going to have to assume that this just applies to people. So rewriting it; Thou shall not kill humans. Therefore no war, no death sentence, and no murder… What about self defense, or what about cases where non-life threatening but severely oppressive circumstances are inflicted by a ruling power? Passivism… at all costs… As long as we all adhere to this it works, otherwise we’re probably going to require a lot of forgiveness individually or collectively at some point…

SEVENTH COMMANDMENT:  Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Because adultery is the act of having sexual relations with a person other than your spouse, there is a psychological basis for the value of this law. The limbic system indiscriminately rewards sexual activity creating a physiological emotional bond between sex partners. Disallowing adultery is disallowing the creation of inappropriate anti-family emotional bonds.

It is interesting that God is concerned about the family again. The commandments would have flowed better with #5 and #7 immediately adjacent to each other… I would also characterize this as a specific form of “thou shall honor thy responsibilities”, in this case the responsibility having been created via commitments made at during a wedding ceremony. It’s also a type of theft (see commandment 8)…

EIGHTH COMMANDMENT: Thou shalt not steal.

Another “thou shall honor thy responsibilities” commandment - because no one wants to be stolen from, especially in situations of personal scarcity where taking from me is a threat to my family and a risk to my ability to satisfy my obligations. In reality there are a huge number of these types of rules that could be individually enumerated… apparently stealing was a significant problem at the time this commandment was authored.

NINTH COMMANDMENT: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

I would argue that this is also a kind of theft (see commandment 8)… where the lie is an attempt to deceive thus stealing trust between individuals, having the long term effect of making lies acceptable, because everyone does it… don’t they?

TENTH COMMANDMENT: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

If you managed to avoid coveting a neighbor’s wife, you’ve gone a long way toward preventing the adultery option… Additionally, I would argue that coveting is a prerequisite to theft (see commandment 8)… because you’re very unlikely to steal if you’re not coveting that which is “owned” by another.

This commandment only mentions that coveting of a neighbor’s wife (e.g. is silent on coveting a neighbor’s husband)… this commandment implicitly sanctions the ownership of wives by husbands, thus placing women in the category of property. Additionally, the mention of coveting servants, tells us that servants are also property either through indenture or slavery. Broadly western society abhors the concept of a person owning a person, but many espouse the divine validity of these commandments.

How can the selective (variable, pragmatic, and personally convenient) application of the laws of God by the so called “devout” be reconciled within a religious order? The reconciliation is either never done or is only done when other egregious transgressions are uncovered.

Commandments reformulated:

While not perfect, in my opinion these commandments hang together significantly better that those of Exodus because these reflect a nobler modern sense of equality and mutual respect while providing a timeless set of principles that avoid an enumeration approach to sinfulness.

FIRST COMMANDMENT: I am God your creator; above all else worship me by living in accordance with these commandments.

SECOND COMMANDMENT: Value life and treasure its capacity for love and its ability to produce vital change in the world. Only take life with clear purpose, meaning, and great reverence and humility in the recognition that all shall pass through the transformations of eternity.

THIRD COMMANDMENT: Learn and respect the diversity of human experience so that in knowing and accepting each other, all are empowered to achieve their greatest potential in service to the destiny of mankind.

FOURTH COMMANDMENT: Faithfully and transparently honor your responsibilities both explicit and implied; in service to your family, the community, and the whole of mankind for all time.

FIFTH COMMANDMENT: Practice habits of personal and interpersonal discipline that refresh the spirit through frequent honest reflection, sharing, listening, continual study, generous service, and frequent overt acts of contrition, forgiveness, bonding, gratitude, and love.

2013-07-13

Who is the Neoheurist?

Philosopher
Visionary / Futurist / Sociologist / Political Scientist
Humanist / Libertarian / Neoheurist
System Engineer / Technologist / Biologist / Scientist
Maven / Leader / Healer / Teacher
Citizen of the World
Social Entrepreneur / Social Engineer / Architect
Arbiter / Inclusive / Balanced / Flexible / Stable / Honest / Brave
Widely Respected / Broadly Venerated / Inspirational / Archetype
Business
Problem Solver / Inventor / Inspirational / Potent
Transparent / Conscientious / Brave / Humble
Maven / Consultant / Adviser
Artist
Storyteller / Novelist / Screenwriter / Filmmaker
Essayist / Lecturer
Poet / Lyricist / Songwriter
Drawing / Cartooning / Painting
Humorist / Irreverent / Playful
Quirky / Niche / Unique / Alternative / Prized
Personal
Husband / Patriarch / Father
Friend / Confidant
Seeker / Student
Counselor / Teacher / Collaborator