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OK, that’s funny.
However, I’ll guess that, in the minds of those people, they are bowing to God, not the tablets.
However, as a Christian, I am greatly bothered by people’s desire to put up the 10 Commandments as a talisman.
I still want to know. Where in the Bible are the ten commandments? Why do the Roman Catholic ten commandments differ from the Baptist ten commandments?
I guess it meant to say not to bow to false idols…
Priceless!
Exodus Chapter 20.
No idea if the Catholics have a different one from the Baptists. It’s the same section of the bible. But I’m not Catholic.
#3 РIf those tablets are made of paper mach̬, would that make them false?
#6 And if you go to church and bow before a breadcrumb, is that false? As I understand, their religion is heavily based on symbolism. It’s not feasible for them to bow in front of the “real” god… (unless you have a pretty fast rocket ship 😉
The ten commands come from Exodus chapter 24 (and other places too)
See it here:
Technically, the ten commandments are for Jews and Christianity, as an off-shoot of Judaism, also follows the ten commands. Muslim’s also follow the ten commandments. Jesus, however, said that the greatest of all laws wasn’t the ten commandments, but that you love God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and that you love your neighbour as yourself.
The fun parts is when you start interpreting the ten commandments and deciding such things as whether a crucifix or stone tablet or an icon is an ‘idol’ or whether ‘killing’ includes wars, executing murders etc, or whether you should honor your parents even if they are satan worshipping supporters of Man U and the like…
If you are ever board and fed up with fundamentalism, its interesting to research exactly how often ‘lending money at interest’ is refered to as a sin in the bible and why its so rare to hear fundamentalists discussing this particularly forgotten ‘sin’…..
#1: I agree whole heartedly – the second commandment itself is the prohibition against idols and this very thing. Of course its people that are the problem, not God.
The Ten Commandments, while well known, are merely a summary of the most important points of all the commandments that were handed down. See – God invented PowerPoint.
Are these Rushdoony’s folks?
They forgot to pull down their pants, mooning the object of their protest.
“Jesus, however, said that the greatest of all laws wasn’t the ten commandments, but that you love God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and that you love your neighbour as yourself.”
Matthew 22: 36-40 for those that want to look it up. I love that verse; I have it tattooed on me.
These guys make us normal Christians looks bad. We’re not all crazy guys!
What can you expect from a group that believes their imaginary friend is better than someone elses’ imaginary friend?
Hypocrisy at its finest.
Its also funny that most ‘Christians’ don’t remember that JC’s final words were “Father why hast thou foresaken me” ….
Speaking of idols, I’ve always considered that the notion of “holy sites” or “holy land” in various religions treads dangerously close to a form idolatry as well. And has anyone noticed that there never seem to be any disinterested third party witnesses to God’s land deeding process? With no official proclamation, it has always been up to the land grantee to inform others that God gave a specific piece of real estate to them.
I bet these holy land transfers would go a lot smoother if God had an good escrow agent. Clearing up all this bickering would free the people to give proper reverence to certain dirt just as God intended.
14.
Does having scripture tatooed on you make you more normal than normal? Or less normal than normal?
Just curious, in case I wanted to be a Christian again.
Comment by Ben Waymark
Technically, the ten commandments are for Jews and Christianity, as an off-shoot of Judaism, also follows the ten commands. Muslim’s also follow the ten commandments. Jesus, however, said that the greatest of all laws wasn’t the ten commandments, but that you love God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and that you love your neighbour as yourself.
Actually, you are wrong on both of your statements here.
The Ten Commandments were ONLY for the Jews. and……your statement about Jesus commanding the young rich ruler to obey those laws was because Jesus hadn’t died yet. He too was still under the Old Law. ALL people today are to obey the New Law, The New Testament. Once Jesus died on the cross, the Old Law was done away with and we now are ALL under the rule of Jesus. He rules over us from the right hand of God. Obedience to the New Testament is how one gains salvation.
Higghawker
Traditionally there are 613 commandments in the Torah.
To those who think that Christianity is a monolith, comments #8 and #18 should dispel that mistake. Some follow the old ways, some follow Christ alone. Some pass judgement and make fools of themselves, some realize what fools they are and do not seek to punish others. Do not cast them all down in your discernment, any more than you should cast down all Hindus or Moslems or Buddhists for the sins of some in their fold. Pointing fingers at too many is a sure way to increase division and strife.
Higghawker, what a shame that God’s law was only given to the Jews. With no law to guide the Gentiles, including those on other continents, this would seem to have excluded any pre-Jesus Gentiles from attaining a place in heaven. I guess God’s love has definite boundaries. Those foolish people should have had the good sense to be born Jewish instead.
I bet I could invent a much more loving god, with a much more reliable form of communications.
Gary, the purpose of the old law was specific. The Cannanites were becoming too powerful, and threatened to spread their death cult across the ancient world, and the heavens needed some way to destroy them. So, the heavens saved a slave race and raised them up as an unexpected and highly trained fighting force, out of the desert. However, because it was a horrible thing to force them to do, even though their foes would have caused chaos on a large scale if they had continued to expand, they were given an oath of protection. It is perhaps unfortunate that the old law is still known, because it continues to do what it was designed to do; breed up a large population and keep them disciplined enough for fighting. This agreement, as I read it in the Bible, does not preclude other people from being good and receiving a just reward, but it does call out protection on the Jews for the fact they were used in that fashion.
Besides, I rather like a quiet God. If your father never let you do anything without telling you exactly what to do, you would never grow up, and if God was always telling us what to do, how would we advance?
There are over 600 commandments in the Torah. In case you were unaware, the Torah is the basis of the Old Testament. And BTW, just because there is a big difference between the two has more to do with the politics of King James I of England then being Christian.
See http://www.positiveatheism.org/crt/whichcom.htm for a side by side comparison of Catholic, King James, and Jewish versions.
And of course there’s the Noahide Laws.
Li — It’s interesting to see a new theory like yours, where pre-Jesus Gentiles actually may have been judged based on the goodness of their deeds, and not on their failure to accept and follow God’s law.
It does seem that every version of the God story seems to somehow try to imbue the supreme being with one quality — justice. Yet that’s the very quality that quickly falls by the wayside when factual details of religion are discussed. Time and again, the God of great justice imposes judgments based on group guilt and mass punishment, rather than individual responsibility and penalties.
When whole tribes or civilizations can be justifiably annihilated based on group guilt, it almost seems like either God or his inventors have a political agenda instead. Warriors are never so motivated as when they believe they’re doing the Lord’s work. Many times and in many cultures, victorious slaughter of the enemy proved that God was on your side, and the enemy was truly evil.
This is a ‘tech’ site. Stop it. Stop talking about this stuff as if it’s real. It’s just made up. Magic isn’t real folks. There are only “storeis”. Grow up for crying out loud. Stop giving silly superstitions debate as if we need to discuss if leprechauns are more powerful than unicorns. Stop it!
There is no Santa Clause, unicorns aren’t real and no one has seen Thor for over 1400 years. Matter of fact, as soon as we developed the telescope, what do you know, we didn’t see Apollo pulling the sun with his magic goats. Hey, since the video camera has been around, Vishnu hasn’t made an appearance, no sea has parted, Jesus hasn’t come back, Isis hasn’t been spotted, and I can’t find Zeus no matter how hard I look. NO ONES magic beasts, gods, goddesses, or demi-gods have been found since ‘science’ required hard evidence, not just a story told around a camp fire.
Zeus supposedly REALLY physically came here and actually impregnated women. Hercules wasn’t some ‘spirit’ but a physical being who fought and lived on Earth. Funny, haven’t seen a demi-god in quite a while now. Probably as soon as Jesus comes back…it’s been 2000 years, but I’m sure he’s on his way.
This is NOT a “tech site.” It has tech but the motto is, “We mix technology with religion and politics — so YOU won’t have to.”
#28,
There is no Santa Clause,
You lying bastard you !!!There is too !!!
I dress up every December in a suit and pretend I am for all the little kids. So I lie through my teeth. The kids are gullible enough to swallow most of the crap about the reindeer or Mrs Claus.
#15, might take a look at http://leanderharding.classicalanglican.net/?p=78. Just a site a quick Google search pulled up on the subject. I found the end of the second paragraph particularly helpful in explaining the sentence you quoted. Also, if you take that sentence in a Christian context, then Jesus died and rose from the dead. So his last words (at least incarnate) were his words before he ascended to heaven, not before he died on the cross.
LOL! #29, who am I to argue…being you and all. You are of course totally correct…I was typing faster than my brain was thinking, didn’t mean to say THIS blog is a tech “only” site. I just assume a certain critical thinking with any site ‘associated’ with technology. After all, we don’t build airplanes or computers based on shamanistic spells, we use math and physics.
This nonsense just gets me red in the face. I try to be tolerant and smile as someone tells me about their magic beliefs, and that’s FINE. If you truly believe in the power of the ancient Druids, go nuts. I love America because we have Las Vegas AND the Amish. Believe and live however you want! My ONLY concern at all is when these people with magical beliefs want to FORCE me to live by them.
I don’t want to be forced to live with the Amish, or to drink and gamble 24/7 in Vegas. Most folks I believe are somewhere in between. But we should always have the choice. It’s like gay marriage. It’s a self solving problem. Don’t like it? Don’t do it. Problem solved. But telling others THEY can’t do it because YOU don’t agree with it, unless you can show literal harm, is going too far. Telling me gays can’t get married because the magical white man living in the clouds will burn my invisible ‘spirit’…and THAT’s the basis of your wanting it to be illegal? Ugh