The Ten Commandments – Rules are made to be broken

Most of us will be familiar with The Ten Commandments, either from having them rammed down our throats at school / church, or from having watched the “epic” 50s film with that bloke from Planet of the Apes. …but have you ever thought about how easy they are to break, and how many you’ve broken? I have, and here’s the rundown – though I’ve had to shorten the titles of a few of them as they get a bit long-winded…

 

1) I am the Lord Your God…You shall have no other gods before Me.

Well, this one didn’t take long to be honest. Mainly because I don’t really believe in “God”, but even taking that aside when I used to go to church in my (misspent) youth, I still preferred booze, soft drugs, and horror films to actually praying or anything like that.

I think most people have broken this one without even thinking about it.

2) You shall not make yourself a carved image, or any likeness that is of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earh beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.

Are you fucking kidding me? If this is a sin, then carpentry teachers around the world are the emissaries of Satan and must be punished! Sorry “lord”, but I made a wooden fish when I was 8 years old, and whilst I may not have “bowed down” to it, it meant a fuck of a lot more to me than dragging my arse to a cold building once a week  did.

Again, I doubt (m)any of us can’t tick this one off the list.

3) You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

Again, seriously? Jesus Christ, let me think about this one for a minute…

Everyone three for three so far?

4) Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work.

Welcome to the modern age Jehovah! We have proper jobs now, not just fishing and making gourds. …and besides – Jesus, who was technically you, loved and hung out with the hookers of the time. Do you think they took a day off from rimming the local soldiers? Did they bollocks. Even if you never “work” on 7 days of the week, I bet you do something that old God would count as work, or labor: blogging, reviewing, driving someone somewhere, murderi…erm, maybe not the last one.

I remain quietly confident that most of you are still with me.

5) Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

Ok, this is one that I struggled with a little, as, as a rule, I was good to my folks and never caused them any “major” grief, but still – if any of you can honestly say you’ve never disobeyed your parents, you’re a damn liar. An example:

When I was a child, my mum told me not to flick cornflakes at the cat. Well, God, guess what? I fucking did it. I should also point out that my mum was pretty good to her mum, and yet you still killed her at 53 didn’t you you bastard? “that your days may be long upon the land” my arse!

So, five easy ones out of the way. Here’s where it gets a little tricky…

6) You shall not murder.

Crap. Missed one. I’m not going to get technical on this one and claim a result because I shot a rat with an air rifle when I was 14, I think we all know this means another human being. I could have done, and got away with it (there are a lot of homeless people in downtown LA, I was on holiday and leaving the next day) but I really don’t have murderous urges. This is, I feel, a good thing.

Don’t fuck with my family or my loved ones though, or I may have to revise this post.

So, first “failure”. I’m hoping you’ve also all had to circle this one as a “No”.

7) You shall not commit adultery

Hmmm….may have to call the lawyers in on this one for clarification. Does it count if she’s married but I wasn’t, and also wasn’t in a relationship, and she was sort of separated from her husband, but they still lived together and he didn’t know about it?

Technically it seems to be “sexual infidelity to one’s spouse”, so I guess not. But I’m giving myself a half mark for facilitating it. I’m guessing this one had probably split the readership down the middle…

8 ) You shall not steal

Please. I work in an office, of course I’ve nicked stuff. Nothing major (ok, a computer monitor from my last job, but it was surplus to requirements honest!)  but even that pen or those Post-Its count you know.

I’d put money on every single one of you (which admittedly will probably be around 15-20 if my blog stats are anything to go by) having nicked something, sometime, from somewhere. Unless it’s a pensioner’s life savings or something like that though, I reckon you’re still ok in my book.

Unless you steal my book.

9) You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour

It would be foolish to use “neighbour” in the sense of the person next to you, so we’ll take this as “people you know / friends”.

Example:

Teacher: “Who threw that?”

Me: “It wasn’t me, it was Pete!”

I think that covers that one.

10) You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neghbour’s

Well I can safely say that houses, male servants, female servants, oxen and donkey’s have escaped my green eyed glances, but please refer to commandment number 7 for evidence that this one is definitely in the bag.

Conclusion

So, 8 and a half points for me. Not bad, and surely puts me on one of the lower circles of hell when my time comes. How did you do? Please comment and let me know, and maybe I’ll see you there 🙂