Whatever Happened To The Ten Commandments?

It occurred to me that society today could hardly do a better job of doing a complete turnaround on the Ten Commandments.

1) Have no god before / but Yahweh.

People seem today to be prepared to have any god BUT Yahweh. Whether their god is science, atheism,  materialism, nihilistic philosophy, the earth-mother / paganism, new-age metaphysics, oriental energetics or whatever...

2) Make no idols.

People have all kinds of idols in our celebrity-obsessed culture and most of them are not even good role models. Aside from that, people are drawn to new age mix 'n' match oriental icons, idols and Buddhas (in spite of the fact that there were no gods in traditional Chinese Daoist philosophy and Buddha said no one should make idols of him.)

3) Do not misuse the Lord's name.

How often do we hear people shouting "Oh... My... God!" and "Jesus Christ!" often interspersed with a barrage of sexual profanities?

4) Honour the Sabbath day and keep it Holy.

In our 24/7 shopping culture, the Sabbath no longer means anything to most people, except that it is seen as a great day to go shopping. Working on a Sunday can even be seen as virtuous. 

5) Honour your father and mother.

In our post-Freud culture, how often do you hear the phrase "I blame the parents" ? And how many people wrongly blame their parents for their own failings? How many adolescents tell their parents that they hate them?

(Please note - I'm not talking about people who may have good reason to feel some bitterness towards their parents here, perhaps because of genuine abuse, but about all the people who don't have good reason - people who just feel angry because they don't want to be bound by their parent's advice or ground-rules. 

It should be remembered too that this rule is part of a blueprint that everyone should be obeying. In such a society, your parents should be behaving more honourably too and if for any reason they weren't - if their actions were in contradiction to the other 9 commandments - you would be able to over-rule them on the basis that obedience to God's Law gets priority.) 

6) Do not murder.

I suppose no society has ever even come close to achieving this one. But now we do have a particularly ruthless form of murder taking place in the case of abortion, human embryo experimentation and the creation of hybrid human-animal embryos - all fully forms of life that are considered disposable if they are inconvenient (to recreational sex culture) or if they have outlived their usefulness.

Jesus told us that we should not even get angry or hold grudges - we shouldn't even think of killing or harming others. But a vast "entertainment" industry exists to peddle us an endless sea of ultra-violent (and sexual) computer games and a constant diet of ultra violent (and sexual) films and TV programmes.

7) Do not commit adultery.

It goes without saying that marriage, monogamy and fidelity are given little credence these days. Commitment has largely been replaced with pre-nuptial agreements, serial relationships and broken families.

8) Do not steal.

Aside from the fact that everything we own is stolen (under capitalism), people freely pirate films, music and software (on the grounds that everybody does it!). People also avoid paying taxes by buying smuggled and counterfeit goods.

Insurance companies also make huge profits from the material insecurity and paranoia that results from our high-crime culture.

9) Do not lie.

This is another idea that has largely been cast into the wind. Today people say "you've got to tell lies sometimes"; "everyone lies", and the moral relativist biggy "well who's to say what's true anyway?" As many people no longer recognise that there is even such a thing as truth, the concept of being truthful is quite endangered.

10) Do not covet.

This is probably the creme de la creme of reversed commandments. We live in a consumer-based culture that RUNS on coveting (though it is usually called "aspiration"). We are encouraged to covet everybody else's everything and strive to have them for ourselves. This could not be a more direct reversal of "you shall not set your heart on your neighbours house. You shall not set your heart on your neighbour's spouse, or servant, man or woman, or ox, or donkey, or any of your neighbour's possessions." The whole society revolves around our not being satisfied with our lot and encouraging us to yearn for the stuff other people have.

As society is competitive as well, we can even have stuff at each others' expense - again, consumer-capitalism depends on it. And because we live in a secular democracy, we are free to change whatever laws we like in order to better serve our temporal desires.

As Father Mitch Pacwa pointed out recently in an EWTN homily - by failing to observe the Ten Commandments, we give up our free will, perpetrators included. We are not free to walk down the street without fear of being robbed, killed or accosted. 

If we all simply observed the Ten Commandments, we'd have no need to be afraid any more and we would then truly be free.

The Rise Of Gnosis

Are we in danger of repeating the original sin?

There is a buzz word today circulating on internet forums, in books and magazines and on sensationalist TV channels. That word is "Gnosis" - the Greek word for knowledge - and its followers profess to be interested in "Gnostic" ideas or "Gnosticism." Films such as "The DaVinci Code" along with endless articles or programmes on satellite TV channels offer startling and exciting new views of Christianity that will expose the truth about "the real Jesus."

Though Gnosticism began as a heretical alternative to orthodox Christianity, the problem has begun to permeate much wider and many people are now falling again for its charms - the promise of forbidden knowledge. Sound familiar? In the Garden of Eden, God commanded that Adam and Eve may eat from every plant except one - the tree of knowledge. The tree that the serpent promised Eve would grant power that could elevate one's status to that of equality with God.

In reality, this problem is not isolated to religion, spirituality or mysticism. A concerted effort is taking place to discredit, dismantle, destroy, re-design or replace Christianity (or the other Abrahamic faiths) in modern culture, and / or to overthrow accepted scientific rationales. Those taking part include secular academics, teachers, scientists, humanists, atheists and martial artists. The promised "Gnosis" or secret knowledge takes a number of forms:

1) The hidden, occult, esoteric, secret or forbidden spells, incantations, rites, chants, meditation techniques, methods, charms, amulets, power crystals etc. that promise to bring you special health, healing, wealth, wisdom, romantic or sexual benefits, or divinatory powers. All of these things are a lie.

2) The fabled magical qi (chi / ch'i) or ki power of the martial artist - literally considered to be the power of life and death - the power to heal or kill with a single touch or possibly even without touching by projection of energy. This too is a lie.

3) The knowledge of how to master genetic manipulation in order to eradicate all genetic "imperfections" or "undesirable" human traits or characteristics. The knowledge of how to master genetic manipulation in order to make disposable human-animal chimeras for vivisection, experimentation or possibly to live and act as slaves or worker "drones". These things are an abomination that completely disregard the sanctity of life.

4) The secret so-called knowledge about what the scriptures allegedly "REALLY" meant and who Jesus "REALLY" was, what God is "REALLY" like, the so-called hidden "facts" that "the Church" censored or allegedly manipulated, about how we've all "REALLY" been worshipping the wrong God all along and even how the God we know and love is really evil. The propagators of this forbidden knowledge may also spread terrible anti-semitic, anti-Catholic or anti-Christian propaganda.

What do all of these things have in common? Secret knowledge that will give you the edge over your competitors. Hidden truths that will enable you to liberate yourself from the clutches of organised religions and enable you to realise yourself in your full glory - a fully enlightened individual with the ability to make up his or her own mind about right and wrong. Ammunition to destroy the arguments of those allegedly "evil" Catholics, Evangelical Christians, Jews or Muslims once and for all. Tell them straight about how all the world's evils are REALLY caused by adherence to religion. Again this is all lies. Adherence to religion does not make monsters, but straying from the path of righteousness might.

So there it is - the story of the Garden of Eden all over again - history threatening to repeat itself, with potentially deadly consequences. Rebellion is never in itself a good thing. Sometimes the temptation to consort with the forbidden does not make you "daring", "dangerous", "brave" or "pioneering", it can just lead you into foolishness. So watch out for snakes* in human clothing - don't fall for their lies again.

* please note that no attempt is being made to discredit real snakes here - it's just a metaphor.

On Being Fallen

Why is it said that people are "fallen"?

Well my take on it is that as humans we got too clever for ourselves and now we think we can do anything we like - hence the "original sin" story of eating from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden.

Being good is about not just doing whatever we like - sure, we can curb our excesses for pragmatic motives - so that we don't destroy the planet we live on - we can do it all for ourselves, or even for future generations - for our own offspring, but that isn't as good as doing it for the sake of the animals themselves or the plants themselves or the planet itself, irrespective of whether or not we, our families or humanity continues. Now that would be genuine altruism and that would be genuine goodness - being others-orientated instead of self-orientated. That's how we make the best of that extra knowledge we acquired. If we fail to do that, we are being sinful in a way that other creatures are not.

If we know and understand the negative impact of our actions and overindulge our desires anyway, just because we are powerful enough to do so, then that's sin. If we consciously choose not to learn what the consequences of our actions are, then that's sin, too.

Responsible use of your free will.

Weigh up the pros and cons of a situation. Measure the benefit against the cost. If the pros outweigh the cons, then it's OK, right? Sound easy?

Now you have to ask yourself - what are the pros and cons for whom? Not just for yourself, that's for sure.

The reason many religions have specific rules - the reason they don't make it that easy - the reason they don't just leave it all down to us as individuals - is because they recognise that we are incapable of judging any situation from all possible angles. That would take an omniscient mind, and only God has one of those. 

We should always do our best, but we are really going to need some guidance too - some rules. Not killing, lying, coveting or stealing for example. Loving your neighbour as you love yourself. Doing for others the things you'd like them to do for you, and not doing to others what you'd rather they didn't do to you. Knowing what we do and don't like to happen to us can give us insights into what to do and what not to do to others - it can give us the gift of empathy. We do also need to bear in mind though that we were not all created identically, so just because you'd rather someone told you the cold, hard truth for your own good doesn't mean someone else is going to appreciate it. Bear in mind when your advice might fall on stubborn ears and thereby prove counter-productive. Sure you could argue that the choices that other person makes is down to them, and that's true, but if you sincerely want them to take your advice for their own sake, you might have to approach the subject with awareness of and sensitivity to the likely outcomes of your various possible approaches. We need to endeavour to develop a fairly reliable intelligent, adaptable, compassionate conscience for eventualities such as these, knowing that we'll still get it wrong sometimes.

Rewards?

We should aim to be as benevolent as possible, causing no unnecessary death, harm or suffering. We should ideally be benevolent without being motivated by the idea of any kind of reward in this world or any other, but simply because benevolence makes the world a better place. If we seek to make our actions benevolent for the sake of rewards, we will always stop short. We'll always decide that we've already done enough when the going gets tough.

Don't just compare the potential gains and losses of a situation with regard to your own life, consider the benefits or losses for your whole family. Better still, for your country. Better still, for your species. Better still for life in general. Better still, for your planet. Better still, for the entire universe. Only then are you asking, "what are the benefits and losses for God?"

Cause and effect.

Consider something that many would think of as fairly harmless - placing a small bet. Now if you win, that may seem fine, but how many people had to lose so that you could win? For you to come away with more than you started, that is at the expense of all the gamblers who lost (not to mention all the trees that had to die to make the tickets). As gambling is an industry that makes vast profits, it is easy to calculate that the number of people who gain is small when compared to the large number of people who lose, even in the case of semi-charitable institutions like the National Lottery.

And before you say "well the same criticism could be made of the stock exchange or almost any form of free enterprise", I am quite happy to say that the same rule should apply there too. (It could be argued though that gambling is even worse because here in the UK, since 2001, winnings are tax free.) People may wish to have double standards, but I think we should aim to be morally consistent and I certainly do consider a society based on consumer choice, big business and free enterprise to be immoral. Freedom to indulge desire should not be the arbiter of right and wrong in any society. If it is, then that is a sinful society.

The Addicted Mind

This post is dedicated to a serious problem within wealthy industrialized nations today - the problem of addiction or dependency. 

Most of us now live in consumer-led societies. A person is thought to have the freedom to do pretty much anything they like, providing it is both within the law and does not directly hurt others. This second proviso is actually rather tenuous. Firstly there is the fact that your legal habits may impact on someone else - if you smoke, there are secondary smokers - if you get drunk, your anti-social, inappropriate or immoral behaviour could affect someone else too - if you gamble, there will always be scores of losers for anyone who wins. Secondly, within capitalism, for you to have something, it is invariably at the expense of someone lower down the social scale within your own country; a displaced working class of slave labourers in a less wealthy nation; or the animals or environment that so often provide the resources for your indulgences. 

But I'm not really here to talk politics - I'm here to talk about the illusion of free will within our  consumer culture.

In my time I have been dependent, to varying degrees, on various substances and sensory pleasure-seeking behaviours. I have also watched others die from and / or cause great misery through their addictions. Right now I am watching two people die because they are unable to free themselves from their tobacco addictions. They are quite prepared to die rather than give up their "little pleasure." This is not the kind of decision that anyone who is thinking straight would make.  Their addiction has robbed them of their free will.

There may be people reading this who are tempted to say "well who are you to lecture people on addictions when you've been dependent on various substances yourself? You must have an addictive personality. I don't - I could give up anything I like, whenever I like. I just don't want to."

But I'm not just talking about deep down chronic addiction here. I'm talking about being anywhere on what I call "The Dependency Scale". Most of us are on it somewhere.

The Dependency Scale

To "want" can quickly escalate to "need" which can quickly become "having a right to." That's the dependency scale. We convince ourselves that we have a right to expect our desires for pleasure to be satisfied. 

Do we really have a right to expect anything? Isn't the truth that most of us actually take for granted what we have and constantly want more or possibly different things on top? And isn't it also true to say that whenever we put our own selfish desires, cravings, wants or perceived needs before the needs of others, we are, in truth, acting immorally? The grave problem in consumer culture is that DESIRE is enshrined as a RIGHT.

Maybe you could ask yourself a question right now. How often have you heard yourself say "oh - I couldn't do without my [insert as applicable]" ? You might be talking to a vegan and find yourself saying "ooh - I could never give up milk" (or cheese, or meat, or whatever). You might be talking to someone who has boycotted palm oil because of the effect that its production has on the habitat of the endangered orang outang, and you might say "I don't know how you manage without ever eating biscuits" (or cakes, or margarine or chocolate...) You might be talking with someone who has no tea or coffee because they are ethically opposed to cash crops, or to taking stimulants. You might be talking to a teetotaler and you might see your own drinking as very moderate, but really, if you wouldn't go out into a public place without drinking alcohol (or even if you only drink at Christmas, but don't think Christmas would be Christmas without a glass of wine,) then you are somewhere on the alcohol dependency scale.

Back to those people who have died as a direct result of their dependencies - three people I know immediately spring to mind who lost their lives to heroin and its substitutes. There have been others that died from alcohol related illnesses. I know three people who were murdered because they gave in to lust while under the influence of substances, slept with someone they shouldn't have, and were then killed by outraged or jealous parties - themselves acting under the desensitizing influence of drink and drugs. Substances they would "never have dreamt of having a night out" without indulging in.

Selling Yourself Short

The Hebrew word for addiction literally means "to sell yourself." and that is precisely what most people do at some time in their lives. In the process, the free will is surrendered, the conscience is silenced and the ability to act in a moral way is sacrificed. 

Give something up today - not your conscience or free will, but something that threatens them. Examine your life for any little pleasure that you know "you couldn't do without." Heed that warning sign and give it up. 

Eradicate your habits.  Regain your free will.

 

The Truth

The truth is that which exists outside of relativism.

There are, in truth, cold, hard facts, as well as some warm, fuzzy ones. You could call these facts "truths". Truths are not subject to (subjective) opinion, or desire, or will.

For example, the fact is that smoking cigarettes is very bad for you and may well kill you. It will almost certainly shorten your life. Smoking is a hazardous habit - the facts are indisputable - a phenomenal amount of evidence exists to prove this reality.

Now the problem comes when people allow things to get PERSONAL. A well-meaning aunty might advise you to stop smoking, but you may decide that she is wrong because you don't want her to be right. Instead, you want all your friends who smoke to be right when they tell you that there's nothing to worry about. Your aunty may also be a Catholic and this might make you want her to be wrong even more. There may be some people and institutions that you don't want to be right at any cost. 

I think almost all of us exercise some kind of bias like this from time to time - judging words by who says them, rather than taking statements at face value. But by doing so - by choosing to ignore the facts, we make ourselves willfully ignorant.* The next step on from believing our own, self-deceived view of the world, in spite of the facts, is to become stubbornly adherent to outright lies.

You might enjoy riding your motorcycle at high speeds - speeds that break the legal speed limits. Concerned people might ask you not to, because they are concerned for your life and maybe the lives of others who could also be injured if you were to crash. You might decide, because you LIKE riding at high speeds, that they are worrying unnecessarily. In reality, they are quite right to worry, but you won't listen if you don't WANT them to be right.

Left to our own devices, we are willful, egotistical little creatures who like to have our own way, whether it is ill-advised or not.

But the truth is out there, and it is real, whether we want this to be the case or not. Even this issue is one that people have a biased, emotional perspective on - they do not WANT there to be such a thing as irrefutable truth. "Everything is relative" they will protest, because that notion allows them to make their own decisions, based not on what IS true, but on what they WANT to be true. Opinions that are formed from passions and desires, rather than from the truth, are a dangerous thing.

So the truth is not relative. The truth is everything that is non-relative. It's true.

* credit to Evangelical preacher Eli Brayley for that great insight.