An atheist riffs on the Bible (New International Version): Exodus 20

Regular paragraphs are the verses as written in the Bible.
Indented italicized paragraphs feature my comments on the previous paragraph.
Note that I might appear especially nitpicky and I know that some of these verses are not taken literally by everybody; I'm just having some fun basically.
Why the New International Version or NIV? Why not? The Bible has already been translated countless times before and I can't read or speak the original languages in which it was written, which is why it is stupid in the first place to assume that a divine being would communicate with us through a book.

New International Version

Exodus 20

The Ten Commandments

¹ And God spoke all these words:

That was when he spoke. Now only people with mental illness can hear him for some strange reason.

² "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

Well, they should know by now. Not to say they aren't whiny bitches, but I think they know.

³ "You shall have no other gods before ^[a] me.

Well, seeing as you're supposedly the only God, I don't know how one could do that. Unless...

⁴ "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. ⁵ You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, ⁶ but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.

"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.": that's quite vague actually. Does that mean that patriotism is bad (you know with the flag and all)? Crosses are idols, aren't they? And why so vague seriously; because if I make myself a sculpture of a dolphin and I really like it, am I doing something bad (remember "or in the waters below")? "[...] for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me [...]": first of all, don't people hate jealousy, including Christians? What kind of a perfect God would suffer from jealousy? Why would he punish people just because he's jealous; isn't that evil? What's most evil is where he says that he will punish you for the sins of the fathers, that doesn't make any sense. All I'm saying is that people would hate people who behave like God in this matter, so why don't they hate God?

⁷ "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

Goddamn! Jesus Christ! Oh LORD! You're quite the irrational bastard man. Why punish people for taking your name in vain (the more popular form of the verse)? Who would punish someone for using their name in a bad way? (Well, a dictator would, it happened in the past, but those are considered bad people now, aren't they?)

⁸ "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁰ but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. ¹¹ For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Remember, I'm not against taking a day off (by the way, God is pretty clear here that the days of creation are the same as our days of the week, just saying), but it's not fun when it's a commandment. Now, I wonder why just because poor lordy had to rest (for he is weak) he'd force every single one of his followers to rest too (even their animals, which seems insane to me).

¹² "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

So does that mean that if my parents are abusive monsters who hate me (which of course mine aren't) I have to respect them? And if I don't, I'm disobeying the LORD himself and if I take this verse literally, it seems I'll die young.

¹³ "You shall not murder.

Now we have the first commandment which is actually used as law even in secular societies (suck it people who think their society and their laws are all following the Ten Commandments). The reason is simple, nobody needs the Bible to see that murder is wrong (and a commandment or law won't stop someone, even a Christian, from committing murder anyway; I wanted to point that out). In fact, long before this commandment was written (about 1000 to 1500 years B.C.), there was the Code of Hammurabi with its 282 laws (written about 1800 B.C.), some of which were good and others bad (and the claim was that an Egyptian God spoke to Hammurabi, not the LORD, and there were laws before that even), and while it doesn't state the punition for murder, it often points to causing death being recognized as a bad thing deserving punitions such as the death penalty. But saying a one line commandment like that is not enough, because there are situations where murder seems like the good thing to do (I'll guess that Moses had his reasons for killing an Egyptian), such as self-defense (which is not covered here).

¹⁴ "You shall not commit adultery.

Oh come on, please. Now I have a couple of things to say. First of all, there are no laws to punish that in the United States and Canada, for example, though it might be pointed in a divorce case. Secondly, the Bible also says that divorce itself is adultery. Thirdly some churches consider all sex outside of marriage adultery. Finally Jesus himself said that looking at someone else lustfully is adultery, at least in the heart. So most people break this commandment at one point or another. Once again though, I don't need the Bible to see that adultery, the one where you're with someone and cheat on them (not the other forms of looking lustfully or sex outside of marriage), can be bad. If I don't love my partner anymore, the best thing to do is to tell them. If I love my partner, committing adultery is rationally bad, because if they find out their heart will be broken and things might never be the same, not because the LORD said so, but because I betrayed my partner. If my partner is OK with it, then it's not a bad thing (I'm talking about open couples where each partner can do his thing on his own once in a while).

¹⁵ "You shall not steal.

Stealing was also prohibited in the Code of Hammurabi by the way. Once again I can find situations where stealing might be your best option (even if it's never a good thing). And once again, I can find a secular reason why stealing is bad, which is why this is actually ONE OF THE FEW commandments which is a law in secular societies. And it's not a law because of the commandment, but because people have come out with reasons for it.

¹⁶ "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

Not that it's the first commandment that God and his people break, but remember when the Hebrew women lied to Pharaoh to protect the male babies of their people? And prophets always lie about something in this book, so we're not to take that one too seriously I guess.

¹⁷ "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

Now that we're speaking about slaves, how about: "You shall not own your fellow men." That would be a good commandment, wouldn't it? As for speaking about the current commandment, well it's thought crime and not something anyone should be punished for. If I'm jealous (like God) of something that my neighbor owns, it could be bad, like I could get the thought of stealing it, but it could also be good, after all we only work towards greater goods because we have the ambitions of having more. Where would society be if no one ever wanted anything?

¹⁸ When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance ¹⁹ and said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die."

Hmm, okay? That's strange. Is Moses some kind of superhuman or something?

²⁰ Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning."

Men who fear God aren't afraid of sinning at all most of the time. They will do their crime if they're convinced of doing it, only after will they regret it (and then with Jesus it gets worse, because you can be forgiven).

²¹ The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.

Man, I'm really beginning to think more and more that this Moses guy is actually a liar. After all, he's not covering it up too well; he's always hidden while talking to God, which the people fear. So he could be making stuff up. Combine that with the fact that he apparently wrote Genesis and other books of the Old Testament and you have something powerful, written by a man who wanted to push his own personal convictions on everybody by inventing this LORD character that he knew people would fear. I'm not saying this is absolutely the case, but that's a possibility you have to take in consideration, isn't it? (After all, since we don't have to take the LORD's existence in consideration, he does not exist, let's at least find something else to think about that could explain how and why this book was written.)

Idols and Altars

²² Then the LORD said to Moses, "Tell the Israelites this: 'You have seen for yourselves that I have spoken to you from heaven: ²³ Do not make any gods to be alongside me; do not make for yourselves gods of silver or gods of gold.

Those are two of the commandments anyway.

²⁴ " 'Make an altar of earth for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, ^[b] your sheep and goats and your cattle. Wherever I cause my name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you. ²⁵ If you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it. ²⁶ And do not go up to my altar on steps, lest your nakedness be exposed on it.'

Once again demanding sacrifice and everything. I still wonder what kind of God he is.

Footnotes:

a. Exodus 20:3 Or besides
b. Exodus 20:24 Traditionally peace offerings