10 Commandments: A Worrying Moral Code

Religion, in all its undeserved hubris, has, through some form of unconscious consensus, been deemed to provide a praiseworthy blueprint for a meaningful existence. Quite how this has happened I find fascinating and lamentable. Even those who ‘have no faith themselves’ seem quite willing to accept this. The argument that brash atheism ‘pulls the rug’ of meaning from the faithful’s feet is a poor metaphor. In reality, the confrontation is much more violent, forcing the theist to ask “what now?”

But this existential disembowelment is really a good thing. It’s more of a necessary realisation of the individual’s tainted conscience. Tainted because the ‘meaning’ provided by faith is really nothing but that of subjugation, obedience and absolute rule. In no way are the faithful free. Freedom should be regarded as one of the upmost priorities of every decent being. Ensuring freedom of movement, thought and expression for others, if not the foremost concern of a government, must soon become so if they wish to remain in power. Liberty, as Mill wisely dictated, consists largely in doing whatever you like, as long as you bring no harm to others, and though flawed, this dictum serves as a just motivation for civilised conduct.

I struggle to conclusively find that God works on such Enlightened values. That tyrant of the Old Testament supposedly granted us ten universal laws by which we can all live. (There are in fact countless commandments in Exodus, all of which are either blindingly obvious without celestial sanction, or abhorrent to all but the most omnipotent dictator.) It is too rarely that they are thoroughly examined. An exegesis should be welcomed.

The passage in question is Exodus 20, and it begins with a helpful reminder: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” I’m not sure if the Israelites needed reminding of this ‘fact’, yet the God who will later command us to be humble is entitled to a little self-promotion. Incidentally, it is important not to forget the manner in which He freed His people. As a supposedly omnipotent being, He could have, of course, merely changed the workings of the pharaohs mind. Not satisfied with a simple solution (and one that does not make good mythology), He employed His unlimited creative powers to divine ten vindictive and frankly bizarre ‘warnings’ to the pharaoh. They are (in no particular order) plagues of flies, locus and frogs, a prelude to the devisive dogma of transubstantiation whereby the waters of the country turned to blood, livestock were diseased (Yahweh, knowing of the germ theory, neglected to deem this a viral plague, presumably not to disrupt the course of history, allowing Pasteur to take his well-deserved credit), irremovable and painful boils, my personal favourite; hail mixed with fire, and lastly, mass infanticide. The final abhorrent act was moderated; only Egyptian children were massacred. The Jews painted crosses of lamb’s blood on their doors to remind the infallible creator of their devotion and unmitigated terror.

All this and we are not yet at the first of the ten commandments. Luckily, they can be grouped together. Christopher Hitchens has, on many occasions, has performed this deed for us. The first four are all the demands of an egomaniac. One who forces you to love Him. “You shall have no other Gods before me” is, notably, not a denial of polytheism, but merely a demand that good Jews may only believe in Yahweh. And once again, He reminds His followers of the upmost importance of this commandment when they gather their golden possessions so that Aaron can melt them down to form a Golden Calf. This baffling oddity of the people’s need to worship anything during Moses’ forty day exile is indeed strange. Though the entire story is likely a fabrication (no evidence has ever been found of the Israelites nomadic existence in the Sinai), the sheer fact that it must have been credulous to its illiterate bronze age audience should inform us of the circumstances under which the document was crafted. In due course, God is (for once) consistent with His teachings and punishes such sins. Those who had fashioned the idol where ignorant of the rank of this sin, but ignorance was no defence. God, initially bent on more genocide, is convinced by Moses not to resort to such extreme measures. Instead Moses’ henchmen slay 3000 men and God inflicts a further plague upon the population.

The next group of commandments is altogether more agreeable. Honour your father and your mother, do not murder, commit adultery, steal or give false testimony, are all far less controversial. Neither are they unique to the Abrahamic faiths, or ‘faith’ in general. They cannot be laid claim to by the religious. Atheists, despite popular belief, are not all murders, rapists, thieves and liars. Yahweh, hypocrite that He is, can lay claim to many of these characteristics.

The last commandment is unique, and should be singled out.

You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

A misogynistic, chauvinistic, totalitarian and petty passage. The only ‘neighbour’ worth note is male (and presumably also Jewish), since women are ranked alongside property and livestock: ‘anything that belongs to your neighbour’.

But more worryingly and importantly, this is the earliest mention I have ever found of a thought crime. George Orwell excellently identified this as a key component of any totalitarian regime. It is not the act of coveting my neighbour’s possessions that I can be condemned for, but the mere thought of it. Such a commandment is both unjust and impossible. In the supposedly ‘fallen’ world that Christianity teaches us we are living in, such a high moral demand comes from a God who is supremely sadistic. There will be many Christians who can offer sophisticated and slippery ways around this problem. Luckily for the rest of us, we are free to avoid such nonsensical fairyology and appreciate the real majesty of our moral universe – free from any religious dogma of this kind.