THOU SHALT NOT 7

This is right to the point. Don’t do adultery, right?

Simple, no?

Yes. As you know, and I don’t need to tell you, and you knew I was going to say that anyway… What, specifically do you mean by adultery?

Why don’t you look up that book of yours and stop bothering me with your silliness!

Dic says: Adultery [uh–duhl-tuh-ree]   –noun, plural -ter·ies. voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and someone other than his or her lawful spouse. Does that about sum it up for you?

I have no qualms with that.

Good. So, I’m wondering… if the sex is voluntary, then why do you call it a sin and command us never to do it?

Because the married person would be cheating on his wife.

Cheating, eh? And what’s that when it’s at home for the evening?

Cheating is being untrue, unfaithful, breaking your word, your promise! That’s not allowed!

Well, don’t raise your voice at me, Mr God! – how in your name was I supposed to know that being untrue, unfaithful, breaking your word, your promise was not allowed? You haven’t said a word about any of those in your commandments so far!

Have I not? Well, even so – you should know that anyway.

Why? Your followers tend to think that we get our morals from you and nowhere else.

That’s true. You get everything from me. I am the Beginning and the End. I am the Giver and the Taketh awayer!

Okay, so you give us everything – including the desire to want to jump some hot chick even when we’re married…

Mmmm Latina hot?

Sure. Whatever you like. And while you’re thinking about that one, Mr God, perhaps you’d say whether it would still be a sin to break this commandment if the man’s wife was, let’s say, a voyeur and got her rocks off acting like a peeping Tom and actually instructed her husband to commit adultery… then, I mean, he wouldn’t be cheating then, right?

As my son said –

Which one?

Oh, yes, quite. My number one son – Jesus of Nazareth.

He’s your favourite then is he, dad? That’s not the nicest thing to hear you know, if you put yourself in my position. It kinda sucks really, if you wanna know the truth.

Come on, son. He was special because he… well, he was actually me!

That’s right. And the Holy Ghost – was he part of it too, part of the long, drawn out torture scene?

It’s hard to tell with the Ghost, but yes, I felt his presence. Anyway, as I said once, or maybe twice, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That should clear this up. Just get into the vibe of that, son, and you’ll gain wisdom.

I don’t think so. It’s more like you’ve just thrown a Spaniard in the works!

Mmmm Spanish hot!

I mean, what if the man’s wife, as well as being a voyeur, is also into S&M, bondage, and all that whips and chains, leather and rubber stuff, you know?

Yes. Go on…

What if she were to take your last instruction to heart? She likes being whipped and beaten, spanked and fisted, so what you’re saying is, and correct me if I’m wrong, that she should do (those things) unto others because that is what she’d have them do unto her?

Ah Jesus, come on now, you’re twisting my words!

Thomas, actually! And I’m not – I’m simply testing the meaning and validity of the words by putting them into a context. In this context, they don’t really hold up, do they? I mean, you of all supreme beings – not that there are any others, but if there were – you of all should be able to see how us stupid humans who can never understand you anyway often find your utterances to be ambiguous and absurd.

I put it the best way I could at the time I thought it up. It sounded really good then… but, yes, if I could change it, I would, but to what?

Try this on for size: Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.

Interesting. Let me digest that momentarily. Okay, I think I get it… but how would one human know how another human wanted to be done unto? As you rightly point out, you are all basically stupid.

That’s the cool part. They’d have to find out instead of assume. They’d have to get to know each other for who they really are and not through the blood-tinted glasses with the broken frames of bigoted religious beliefs that by their very nature are exclusive and divisive. Instead of wishing and praying, we could be learning and enjoying, accepting and exploring, getting a deeper understanding.

Like I said, stupid. You presuppose that humans know what’s good for them and can choose accordingly. They cannot. That’s why they need a Big Baddy to lay down the law wearing a glove of steel and velvet. They need my intervention from time to time.

What happened to free-will, daddy-o?!

(God shuffled his feet.)

© 2010 Wordwurst

THOU SHALT NOT 2

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images.

Yeah, I hear what you mean. You’re simply saying that I shouldn’t have any graven images in front of me. It does sound straightforward and unambiguous. At a surface listen. First, I think we need to understand the meaning of graven, I mean, it’s not a word you hear a lot thesedays. On earth, as you know, most humans agree what words mean, you know, so they can communicate effectively with each other. We can look up words and their meanings in the dictionary. The Dic say: grav·en –verb 1.a pp. of grave3 . –adjective 2. deeply impressed; firmly fixed. 3. carved; sculptured: a graven idol. Now, Mr God, is that what you mean when you say graven?

Can you give it to me in a sentence?

Certainly. They went up to the great graven tomb of the historic warrior, and stood for a few minutes staring at it.

Yes, I think that’s it.

So, we know what graven is – but images of what? What can we not have graven images of?

Oh, I thought that was self-explanatory. I meant before me, not before you. Did it come across that I meant you? Sorry about that. I see what you mean now that you point it out. I’m glad we cleared that up.

And what might these images be?

Well, you know. Look – if you’d understood the first Commandment, you’d know exactly what I mean? Come on now, son, didn’t you do your homework?

Thomas.

No. I’m God! I thought we’d just cleared that up! Aren’t you paying attention?!

As long as one of us is… So, to sum up, you don’t want me to imagine anyone in my head, or make a graven image of anyone that may take some of the love and worship and thanks and praise that you feel is your due, and that you need to get a certain amount of each day or else you’d just burst into dust? Is that it?

Wrong! I do not need it. I cannot turn into dust. I am immortal, like your soul, and I and only I make the final judgement as to where your soul is going to go for eternity. So, you’d better show some respect, son.

Okay, dad. But seriously, I just really want to know. How can I get your meaning if I don’t understand what you’re saying? That’s fair enough, isn’t it?

Go on.

Just tell me who cannot appear in the graven images of my mind or the graven images on paper or cloth or TV or my computer screen. Surely you don’t mean all images, period? That would be impossible. So, to be specific, which ones do you mean? Or shouldn’t I know?

Of course you should know. I just thought it was obvious. No other images of gods.

But there are no gods, you said, just you.

I did. That’s right. But, as you said, people have imaginations and might get images of what they imagine to be other gods and that image may get in between them and Me. They might get confused along the line and think that the graven image they have created and worshiped is god.

Well, since you are god, they’d be mistaken then. So what?

So, a lot! They’d stop believing in me.

I hear you. But why’s that a problem? You say you won’t burst into dust like a ‘take-all-the-credit’ vampire, so what –

No, no, no. You’ve got it backwards. It’ll be their problem, not mine.

And why is that?

Because they’ll be cast upon the lake of fire for eternity – you know, writhing in agony, gnashing of teeth – and that’ll be a big problem for them. And that’s why they need to obey this commandment. They can obey it or not, their choice. Free will, you know. I’m fair about it. I believe in choices and all that individuality stuff and all. Up with people and all that jazz.

I see. Okay, then. Before we move onto number 3, can I just clarify? You say that there isn’t a problem for you when a person doesn’t believe in you, correct?

Correctomundo!

Since it’s not a problem for you, why do you make it a problem for them? If I knew that the joke I just told was funny, as a matter of plain fact, and the person I’d told it to didn’t get it and laugh, like you, I wouldn’t have a problem with that. But, unlike you, I wouldn’t want them to be tortured for eternity. Even if it was only for a limited period, I could kind of get my head around it. I mean, we all make mistakes and feel we should have the right to learn from them. If you just sent them to hell for, I don’t know, lets say a trillion years, then, when they get out on parole, you’d keep a watch on them and see if they had been truly rehabilitated and worthy of your forgiveness, no?

You speak and do not hear that you only sound off your ignorance. You say you’ve read the bible three times, but I doubt you’ve read it even once listening to the nonsense you come out with. You’re supposed to be a language and communication expert! Ha! You know what the definition of expert is, don’t you?

No. Go ahead, tell me.

An ex-spurt is a has-been-drip!

Who said you didn’t have a sense of humor?

I don’t know. Who? Tell me. I’ll –

Come on, dude, you’re freaking me out with your eyes bulging out and your skin turning purple – chillax! Take a chill-pill. Breathe! Remember: You want me to bring these commandments into the world, to share them amongst my fellow human-beings, with, I might add, no credible proof that you are who you say you are, and no evidence of these commandments being good ideas to live by… I’m just trying to get clarification… understanding. I’m going to have to answer their questions, and I need to know what you’d say. You can see that, can’t you, Mr God?

I see everything. What are you asking? I invented vision. I made your eyeballs – and aren’t they just amazing and mind-boggling?

Yes, I like to see. If it took you six days to create the whole world, how long did it take you to create the eye?

What does it matter?

It probably doesn’t. You’re right. I was just wondering if you were omnific. I thought you were everywhere, all the time, with unlimited powers of creation.

Congratulations, son. That’s the first thing you’ve got right so far!

Well, then why did it take you six whole days to create the whole wide world… and then, why did you have to take a day to rest and relax?

I’m not sure I follow –

If you are all powerful everywhere all the time, why would you need to, like us human beings, recharge your batteries, so to speak? And if so, where’s that power coming from? And is it not a greater power than you?

How so?

Well, you need it, it doesn’t need you. A bit like the way you’re describing your relationship with me to me.

What is this? I thought you were going to question me about my Top 10 Favorite Commandments?

That’s what I’m doing…

Well, get on with it, then! Ready or not, here’s Number 3…

(Next blog: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord they God in vain.)

© 2010 ORPS6