(NOTE: Boy, will I be glad when this day is over and all the mindless Xmas zombies snap out of their annoying annual trance. In the meantime, I'd like to share with you George Carlin's bit on the ten commandments that pretty much echoes my thoughts on the subject.)

GEORGE CARLIN ON THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
(excerpted from the book "When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?")

I have a problem with the ten commandments. Here it is:

Why are there ten? You don't need ten. I think the list of commandments was deliberately and artificially inflated to get it up to ten. It's clearly a padded list. Here's how it happened:

About five thousand years ago, a bunch of religious and political hustlers got together to figure out how they could control people, and keep them in line. They knew people were basically stupid and would believe anything they were told, so these guys announced that God -- God personally -- had given one of them a list of ten commandments that he wanted everyone to follow. They claimed the whole thing took place on a mountaintop, when no one else was around.

Well let me ask you something...when these guys were sitting around the tent making all this stuff up, why did they pick ten? Why ten? Why not nine, or eleven? I'll tell you why: because ten sounds important. Ten sounds official! They knew if they tried eleven, people wouldn't take them seriously. People'd say, "What, are you kidding me? The eleven commandments? Get the fuck outta here!" But ten...ten sounds important. Ten is the basis for the decimal system. It's a decade. It's a psychologically satisfying number: the top ten, the ten most wanted, the ten best dressed. So deciding on ten commandments was clearly a marketing decision! And it's obviously a bullshit list. It's a political document, artificially inflated to sell better. I'm gonna show you how you can reduce the number of commandments, and come up with a list that's a little more logical and realistic.

We'll start with the first three (and I'll use the Roman Catholic version because those were the ones I was fed as a little boy):

I AM THE LORD THY GOD THOU SHALT NOT HAVE STRANGE GODS BEFORE ME
THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD THY GOD IN VAIN
THOU SHALT KEEP HOLY THE SABBATH

Okay, right off the bat, the first three commandments: pure bullshit. Sabbath day, Lord's name, strange gods...spooky language. Spooky language designed to scare and control primitive people. In no way does superstitious mumbo-jumbo like this apply to the lives of intelligent, civilized humans in the 21st century. So you throw out the first three commandments, and you're down to seven.

HONOR THY FATHER AND MOTHER

This commandment is about obedience, and respect for authority. In other words, it's simply a device for controlling people. The truth is, obedience and respect should not be granted automatically. They should be earned. They should be based on the parent's (or the authority figure's) performance. Some parents deserve respect; most of them don't. Period. We're down to six.

Now, in the interest of logic, something religion has a REALLY hard time with, I'm gonna skip around the list a little bit...

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL
THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS

Stealing and lying. Actually, when you think about it, these two commandments cover the same sort of behavior: dishonesty -- stealing, and lying. So we don't need two of them! Instead we combine these two and call it "THOU SHALT NOT BE DISHONEST." And suddenly we're down to five.

And as long as we're combining commandments, I have two others that belong together:

THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY
THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR'S WIFE

Once again, these two prohibit the same sort of behavior. In this case, marital infidelity. The difference between them is that coveting takes place in the mind, and I don't think you should outlaw fantasizing about someone else's wife. Otherwise what's a guy gonna think about when he's waxing his carrot? But marital fidelity is a good idea. So I suggest we keep the idea and call this commandment "THOU SHALT NOT BE UNFAITHFUL." And suddenly, we're down to four.

And when you think about it further, honesty and fidelity are actually part of the same overall value. So in truth we could combine the two honesty commandments with the two fidelity commandments, and, using positive language instead of negative, call the whole thing "THOU SHALT ALWAYS BE HONEST AND FAITHFUL." And now we're down to three.

THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR"S GOODS

This one is just plain stupid. Coveting your neighbor's goods is what keeps the economy going! Your neighbor gets a vibrator that plays "O Come All Ye Faithful"...you wanna get one too. Coveting creates jobs. Leave it alone. You throw out coveting, and you're down to two now: the big combined honesty/fidelity commandment, and the one we haven't mentioned yet:

THOU SHALT NOT KILL
Murder. The fifth commandment. But if you give it a little thought, you realize that religion has never really had a problem with murder. Not really. More people have been killed in the name of God than for any other reason. To cite a few examples, think about Irish history, the Middle East, the Crusades, the Inquisition, our own abortion doctor killings, and the World Trade Center, and you'll see how seriously religious people take "THOU SHALT NOT KILL." Apparently, to religious folks, especially the truly devout, murder is...negotiable. It just depends on who's doing the killing, and who's getting killed.

And so, with all this in mind folks, I offer you my revised list of the two commandments. First:

THOU SHALT ALWAYS BE HONEST AND FAITHFUL, ESPECIALLY TO THE PROVIDER OF THY NOOKIE

And second:

THOU SHALT TRY REAL HARD NOT TO KILL ANYONE, UNLESS OF COURSE THEY PRAY TO A DIFFERENT INVISIBLE AVENGER THAN THE ONE YOU PRAY TO

Two is all you need, folks. Moses could have carried them down the hill in his fuckin' pocket. And if we had a list like that, I wouldn't mind that brilliant judge in Alabama displaying it prominently in his courthouse lobby, as long as he included one additional commandment:

THOU SHALT KEEP THY RELIGION TO THYSELF!