Saturday, April 23, 2005

Thou Shalt Not Have Values

Dear Internet Diary,

The Tenth Commandment:
Thou Shalt Not Seethe a Kid in its Mother's Milk.

For some reason, Orthodox Jews (and Christians too), have seen fit to interpret this to mean "do not mix any meat of any kind with any milk of any kind." The word "mother" has been completely ignored in this interpretation; but why not? Mothers are supposed to be ignored. Except for in the Ten Commandments, anyway. But why not boil a young goat in the milk of a different goat, a yak, or a cow?

It's a good thing that these laws are so specific and clear, so that nobody would accidentally break them. After all, the penalty is hell.

The preferred commandment, since bacon-double cheeseburgers are so damned good, is
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's.

Leave it to the scriptures to try and regulate emotions. "Do not want stuff." The bible doesn't even propose a path to the subjugation of desire, like Buddhism. It just says "don't." Considering the fact that Christianity tells us that we are all evil no matter what, we're fucked anyway.

So is coveting immoral? Even coveting something someone else has? It can't be about stealing, since there's already a commandment for that. It's just the process of liking something and desiring to have it. What is coveting if not having values? Values are things that we work to attain or keep. There is no value that we can have that is not material, as there is no value that exists outside our universe--unless that value is imaginary, therefore not worth valuing. The very values that many people judge to be values held by "good" people are values that Jesus tells us we cannot have: family and personal growth. Essentially, the bible, Exodus to the Gospels, outlaws all values but one imaginary one. Are these really the true Ten guidelines to living the Good Life? Is this the kind of religion you want to follow?

Anyway, thanks for listening to my rants about the Ten COmmandments, diary.

2 comments:

breakerslion said...

There are certain nasty bacteria that just love the combination of milk and blood as a growth medium. If your serving platters and plates are porous, this can be a problem. If you want even more gross examples of hygiene, try reading about the trenchers of the middle ages. Of course it's just a typical leap of ill-logic to say that God must hate that stuff if it makes you sick. Same reason that shellfish and bacon are right out. What did early civilizations know of microorganisms like the ones that cause red tide and trychinosis?

As for coveting, we humans do it all the time, so I guess we are guilty of a mortal sin and are going to hell. Oh well. Keeping up with the Joneses is right up there with killing them? Ok, The byebull sayes that the deity is all powerful, jealous, all-knowing, etc., but where does it say the deity is sane?

Hellbound Alleee said...

Well, it says that the deity is omnibenevolent. This all-powerful, all-knowing, is-everywhere and jealous of other gods god.