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A modern guide to the Ten Commandments
As you might expect from a set of rules written a billion years ago up a mountain by a drug-crazed lunatic who claims they were beamed down to him by a big man in the sky, the Ten Commandments haven’t really stood the test of time. Ron Beverage explains why there’s no need to fear eternal damnation…
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me”
When you don’t have any gods in the first place,this one becomes kind of irrelevant. And these days,the only religious people left are the mad, the oldand the Americans. Mankind God 0.
“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image”
Most people don’t understand this one so they’re exempt.For the rest of us, it simply means that we shouldn’t repeatedlyworship an image that isn’t actually God, such as a papiermache penis. Seems obvious, unnecessary even , but obviouslyit meant something at the time. Not one to lose sleep about.
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain”
I may here be treading on thin ice with what I’ve written so far,but then it’s not like I’ve masturbated myself with a cross orsaid something like “Christ on a motherfucking bicycle”. I mean,everyone blasphemes these days, and surely He can’t destroyus all? Old swearing fact: Blimey is actually an abbreviationof ‘blind me!’ Find the origin of any words
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy”
This one goes without saying. The only praying most peopledo early on a Sunday morning is at the alter of Armitage Shanksto purge their ungodly behaviour a few hours earlier (unless ofcourse you’re Jewish, in which case it’s Saturday). An academicmight argue that taking ecstasy is the Holy Communion ofthe st Century. If he was pilled up. The truth is that Churchattendance figures have plummeted over the centuries, andless than % of the population attend church on a weekly basis.
“Honor thy father and thy mother”
You can’t really rely on parents these days to be shining examplesof virtue and piety. He should have included one about divorce ifHe wanted this one in. Even way, way back many centuries ago,dads like Jacob made huge fuck ups, like trying to sacrifice hisown son on a rock. This tradition of parental mismanagementhas continued through the ages. It makes you wish you’dnever been born.
“Thou shalt not kill”
Hmm, commendable in theory, but it’s just not practical.Sometimes you’ve got to pull the trigger. If we’d listened to thisone in the UK 0 years ago, we’d all be living in a Nazi Europeright now if we’d had to refrain from killing Fritz when he triedhopping over the Channel. And what about all those murderers,rapists, and board members of large corporations?
“Thou shalt not commit adultery”
This is a grey area, as surely you have to be married to commitadultery. Besides which, it’s not cool to get married anymore.Anyway everyone’s at it now: and no one cares about adulteryany more. Religious leaders prefer to spend most of their timegetting their vestibules twisted about gay marriage. And someof them are even gay themselves! What would God have madeof that, I wonder?
“Thou shalt not steal”
Even an atheist like me is with him on this one. It’s not cool.I’ve had my records nicked twice, once with a bag full of someof the most wonderfully pedestrian deep house tunes ever madein it, and I wanted to kill someone, which would be breakinganother commandment. Ironically some men of the cloth thinkstealing is ok, just look at John Papworth, the shoplifting
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour”
Modern God-botherers have twisted this one to mean ‘don’t lie’but I prefer to take God at His word. So it only applies to yourneighbour, which if you live in London won’t really be a problem,since we don’t speak to each other. Besides, no one ever ‘sees’anything. Someone broke into my house and cleared everythingout, including the cooker, and no-one saw shit!
0“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house…nor anything that is thy neighbour’s”
My neighbour is in fact a crack addict, and her house looks likea Turkish prison. No envy there whatsoever.