Quick - without looking, what are the 10 commandments?

According to a 2007 Kelton Research study, 35% of American's can recall all six Brady kids from the Brady Bunch, but only 14% can accurately name all 10 Commandments. Amazingly though, the Family Research Council asserts that the 10 commandments are the foundation of American civilization.

People seem to want to believe the Family Research Council is correct and "God" is an American. However it seems the only way to rectify all of the terrible problems with the 10 commandments is to ignore them as much as possible. That, at least would account for the fact that so few people are familiar with them.

The only way the 10 commandments have any significance is if a person accepts the idea that they come directly from God and perfectly represent Gods will. If that is true, that they represent the will of a perfect being, then why are the commandments listed twice in the Bible (Exodus and Deuteronomy), but the content of the two lists are different from each other? Which is the more perfect expression of Gods will? Why would he express them differently when he could have so easily rendered them perfectly both times? There is no reasonable Christian response to these questions.

Apologists dishonestly dismiss the error as irrelevant and then move to express Gods perfection in the same breath. They fail to understand the impact of this simple undeniable logic - imperfect records cannot reflect perfection by definition. If this were the greatest problem with the 10 commandments it would be enough for any honest person; unfortunately the problems get far worse.

As it turns out, there are not even 10 commandments. It is difficult to enumerate the commandments because of their vague and poorly written nature, but there are at least 14. However, let us not chastise God for his inability to communicate effectively, lets concentrate on the commandments themselves.

Because the Bible says there are 10 commandments and then it produces at least 14, it is not surprising that each denomination tries to fix the error differently. The result is that denominations have different sets of commandments. Roman Catholics, for example, fuse the "no other Gods before me" commandment and the "do not make idols" commandment and claim the resulting fusion is the 1st commandment. Anglicans and Orthodox consider these 2 separate commandments, but fuse others to get the magic number 10. It is probably the most obvious example of cognitive dissonance in human history - the mass pretense that the 14 commandments are really only 10.

It is clear that this incoherent mess is far from perfect. Rather than the word or will of God, it is simply a poor extract of the Code of Hammurabi. It is neither divine or inspired and it barely intersects morality. A full 50% of the commandments are threats to warn people to follow the clergy and abandon reason when commanded to do so.

This all seems very esoteric and not very practical in the real world. Even though the commandments are a pitiful farce perpetrated by imperfect humans pretending to be the voice of God, can't they still be used for "good"? No - they can not. They are so flawed and mixed with lies - referring to them in any fashion is an error.

Take the case of Josef Fritzl. He was a perfectly good Christian who locked his daughter in his basement for 24 years and raped at her his leisure. Fritzl's behavior is about as horrid and amoral as any humans behavior in history. Yet, he did not murder anyone and he did not steal anything. In short, as poor as his behavior is, it does not violate the law or will of the Christian God or the Bible. In fact, his daughter is commanded to honor her vile father. If anything, she is the sinner, by the "moral code" presented in the Bible. Personally, I am glad that the morals of the USA are not those of "The Good Book".

.RR.