Hello, Pat.

This violates the 1st Amendment of the Constitution, in an attempt to establish an official religion.

Similarly, a clear violation of the 1st Amendment right of Free Speech.

Why?

What possible benefit ethically or morally could this bring?

Also...which day does one 'keep'?

Saturday IS the Sabbath, but only jews and 7th day Adventists do this one, the rest of christiandom seems to prefer the pagan sabbath celebrating the Sun God...

Biological kinship in and of itself doesn't call for respect (honor). If mommy is a crack ho', and daddy touches you 'down there' how much 'honor' do they deserve?

Good idea...

but I'd wager that the other civilizations that preceded the Jews probably had this one also. Did we really need a god to tell us this?

Unless you are a biblical patriarch...

But seriously...with so many conflicting biblical accounts of what a marriage IS, what with all the handmaids and concubines and such it's hard to pin down what constitutes adultery...

Unless god tells you to rape and pillage the next village.

Again, an idea that was probably not original with the writer...

This would put the tabloids out of buisness, and bankrupt Fox News.

Now you are attacking capitalism itself.

If I don't covet my neighbor's goods, what incentive to I have to get my OWN stuff?

Sexual fantasy hurts no one.

Honestly, only three of the ten have any practical meaning, (don't kill, don't steal, don't lie in court). None of these are particularly earth shaking revelations, nor were they original to the writer...

I wonder why christians focus on THESE rules, but shy away from the ones that tell us to stone children, kill non-believers and those who piss against walls.

LC >;-}>

No worries,it was fun.What was your point?

there are only three of those commandments that I haven't violated---murder, bearing false witness, and making for myself a false idol. I don't even know what that last one means. I have killed lots of animals tho, and I don't know how many times I have ate hamburgers, chicken, and fish. I guess its not murder if you don't kill it yourself.

Debate, argue, hang around awhile.  PM 9347 makes one statement, for lack of a better word, and then disappears.  Please respond in defense of yourself.

Most of us here don't mind the punches. But, if you are going to post, don't be a coward and pull hit and run posts. Defend your claims or don't bother coming back.

We understand that people believe and we expect them to make posts counter to our positions. But many here, including me get highly ticked off by preaching.

Make your case, or get lost. You are welcome to stay, but do not expect us to be passive or pull punches. We won't hate you. We merely don't change our position based on " I claimed it" or "my book says so".

Your god claim IS NOT special to us. Your claims of the Christian god is no different to us than claims of Allah or Thor. If you expect to survive here show some guts and defend the claims you make. But do not make the mistake of thinking we should blindly bow to you because you quoted an ancient book.

So what, you can quote a book. I could quote Star Wars and find morality in that movie series but you don't believe in "The Force".

I violated all of them.

Good rules? Well, according to the current Swedish translation of the bible, these are merely guidelines that god "asks us nicely" to follow. The fact that it was first translated in that way in the 80's, when people had started getting a real problem with taking commandments just like that, we can just call a "convenient coincidence".

Besides, as others have pointed out, most of these are either pointless in reality or just plain stupid. The ones that do make sense are neither originated from these commandments, nor do we need a 2000 year old book to tell us to follow them. And we really shouldn't take even them black and white like your bible tells us to do. Imagine that there's a guy about to kill 10 innocent victims, amongst them children and yourself. You're the only one who can stop him, and that's by killing him first. Would it be a bad thing of you to kill him then? According to me, no. According to the law, no. According to the bible... yes. Who do you agree with - me and the law, or the bible?

i dont exactly know how to respond to everybody i hope this works ,im still learning how to use the boards . i didnt post and run it was late and had to get to sleep to put my kids on the bus in the morning, so really cool to see alot of people agree with a protion of the ten commandants , mostly the ones invloving common sense ie. no murder , no stealing , no coveting. and respect parents seems to me people get irrate when god states his dominance over rules to live by. ill be around today for debate.

There's nothing wrong with coveting - without it why would anyone work for more than subsitence? Without coveting our economy would likely collapse. There's plenty wrong with the commandments, besides the fact there's no reason to believe any god exists, let alone the Christarded one.

Whats_wrong_with_the_10_commandments.

God's track record for answering prayer isn't all that hot either...

1) Who is the Lord My god, never heard of him....i mean not directly, always from his so called believers but never from this god himself.

2) Why not? from what I see from his so called followers/worshippers he's pretty boring guy, i mean all the murder and sexual repression isn't my idea of a fun god, i rather Pan, the god of orgies and wine, if there were a god(s) that's the god I would follow

3) Idol? why would I make myself and Idol, other people would have to make me and Idol, beside american/candian idol is shitty.

4)Well since there is no god, can't take his name in vain or use it wrongfully.

5)Well the sabbath is Saturday according to the Jews (whom the christians have ripped off their religion from) and I keep it holy, I go to the bars/clubs/movies/dinner religiously with my wife/friends. It's pretty holy for me

6)As long as they make good rational decisions and don't abuse their children then sure they have earned that honor. otherwise fuck them, if their abusive morons why should children honor their parents???

7)the murder part, if your chrisitan it means don't murder other christians, jews, muslims, those of other faiths or those of non faith are game to kill, after all their are infidels. If your jewish, then everyone else is game but other jews, if your muslims same goes, can't kill another muslim....but other are fair game....unless of course if you break one of the many tenants of the commandments, if you work on the sabbath, you have to be but to death, if you steal, death, if you decide to change faith, it's death sentence. i mean there are many many reasons in the bible to kill someone. I actually rather our laws in north american....you can only kill in self defense. It makes more sense, don't kill all unless you are defending your life or someone else's life.

8)Ah adultary, however this one is really up to debate, if I am a swinger am I committing adultary?? I mean it is done with consent of all parties. plus if you committ adultary, chances are the courts are going to fuck you up when your partner divorces you, unless of course you have a really really good lawyers,and even then it might not help.

9) Stealing well that depends on the circumstances, however stealing for survival I can forgive...to a point, an apple or something I can forgive, a car no i cannot, however these idea of not stealing from others of your own society, again well before christians, jews or muslims were around, this is old school, however if you have read the bible it's ok for christians to steal from others, just not other christians, same goes for jews and muslims. Steal from others, not those of the same faith.

10)Yeah human laws have been there about that for thousands of years before the christians were around, and continue to this very day, even in lands that don't follow christianity, such as japan, china and various other buddhist/secular nations, this is a no no (oh so are the other onces regards murder, stealing, desiring your neighbors wife or stuff, lying and a few others)

11)The last 2, well, it's how society works to built itself up, especially in a capitalist nation, you are always keeping up with the jones (those jones have so much fucking money i tell ya, no one ever catches up to them). Now there is nothing wrong with desire, just depends on how you act upon it.

If you have noticed it's all old school or worthless advice.

If one prays to God one can expect one of three results...

1. You will get what you want immeadiately.

2. You will get what you want later.

3 You don't get what you want.

If I pray to my socks...

1. I will get what I want immeadiately.

2. I will get what I want later.

3. I won't get what I want.

So, a cosmic being, capable of conception and actualization of the entire universe needs our validation? It's a pretty pathetic god you have there, requiring as he does constant ego fluffing by a group of helpless captive slaves under threat of eternal punishment...

LC >;-}>

Appeal to emotion and beside that not evidence that a prayer was answered.

Did she do nothing but pray?

Did she not make noises so that her rescuers could find her? Didn't she dig even a little bit?

Did her rescuers not go look for her?

Why give God credit for people busting their humps doing their jobs (rescuers) or discount the survivor's own efforts to be found?

Why is it so much easier to believe in magic than acknowledge hard work?

Appeal to emotion and beside that not evidence that a prayer was answered.  Many people have been pulled from the wreckage the Earthquake in China wrought.  Many people were also not.  Assuming at least some of them prayed for help, why was this specific woman prayer answered?  Actually, don't answer that question, the inevitable brick wall we'll contact at the end of any discussion starting with that question will likely kill you and travelling the distance between will only waste my time.  Try again. 

Also, the I'm wholly unimpressed by the ten commandments.  They're not the first example of a set of laws supposedly from god nor are they the first example of ancient laws or of useful ancient laws.  Did the Romans not have laws?  The Greek?  The Chinese?

Here are 10:

1. Do not kill another person unless you are doing so to protect yourself or someone else.

2. Do not have sexual relations with anyone against their will or at all with anyone who is not yet an adult.

3. Do not take what isn't yours unless someone gives it to you - this includes not paying fair wages.

4. Treat others as you want to be treated

5. If you believe in a religion fine, but don't try to force it's rules on others.

6. Do not needlessly inflict pain on any living thing.

7. Don't be an asshole.

8. Honor those who deserve honor.

9. Help those that need help if you are able.

10. If something you see offends you, don't look at it.

A video on "the power of prayer":

Wow!  This god guy saved a single person out of 60-something thousand!  A record that would get any ER physician in any hospital shown the door, but yay, god!  And since it happened in a different country, we have no way to check on it.

This is Argument by Canadian Girlfriend.

Hey, since you've heard this totally reliable account about one instance of an unnamed woman who happens to live in a place no one here has the ability to go check on, do you also happen to know how many people trapped in the rubble prayed and died anyway?  No?

1.  Don't drive slow in the inside lane.

2. If you're going to use my toothpaste, put the cap back on.

3. Don't you my toothpaste, as you're obviously not capable of putting the cap back on.

4. Don't hurt people unless in self defense, even then do not hurt them more than necessary to remove the threat.

5. Don't take that which doesn't belong to you.

6. This includes my Colgate Total plus whitening gel.

7. Do require all your beliefs to be backed by evidence.

8. Pursue happiness.

9. Do not prevent others from pursuing happiness.

10. Do not do to other what you would not want done to yourself. ( Confucius "Silver Rule" )

I'm positive we don't need ten.

1) Do not increase the suffering of others to decrease your own suffering.

2) Do what you can to decrease the suffering of others, both short term and long term.

3) Do not deceive others, and do not deceive yourself.

I don't know what needs to be added to this list.  Anyone?

I am sure in that 60,000 you could find the dead bodies of children and babies and some pregnant women too. But, what do you expect from an all powerful being who allows a flood to drowned the world's population?

I also wonder how likely it is that a Chinese person would have prayed to the Christian god.

But that would be making others suffer to decrease your own (i.e., doing it because you enjoy it), and that would earn you a Cosmic Stern Talking-To.

Hmm...you raise a fair point.  I was thinking of "suffering" being roughly equal to unwanted pain/hardship, which in the case of a punishment it would most surely be.

How about we go with Bill and Ted: "Be excellent to each other"?

Why Not, eh? Ok here goes:

Click the quote button at the bottom left corner of the post. Next to the reply button.

Here, try this one...

http://skepdic.com/refuge/bunk21.html

No, we don't get irate, just amused...

I know you came in all enthused, thinking you were going to post THE stumper that would have all of us die hard atheists slapping our heads and shouting Halelujah!, I BELIEVE....!!!!!

But in all truth Pat...

the Ten Commandments?

Is that the best you could do?

The big Ten are not so bad...but they aren't all that good either, it was like the HUMAN writer of the OT was shooting for mediocracy and hit spot on...

Prayer? Saving ONE woman out of 10's of thousands... come on, did you stop to think before you posted that?

Now you offer up a compendium of lame, badly executed pseudo science and expect us to tremble in wonder at the AWESOME POW-Wah of your Gawd?

Think before you post... better yet, think from the OTHER guy's viewpoint before you post.

Thus far, you've pretty well embarrassed yourself.

LC >;-}>