They always say that if people act as the Ten Commandments tell, the world would be a perfect place. Not only this is not true, but actually Ten Commandments direct this world into a really ugly place. Here is my extensive critique.
Basics for morality? Oh no!
Christians consider the Ten Commandments a basis for our moral code. However, these simple steps – if abided – lead to a really awful world, full of suffering, injustice and basically letting our animalistic selfish genes thrive.
A morality for animals? Give me a break
Homo sapiens are nothing but animals, they are enormously smart animals, but grossly immoral by a system such as utilitarianism, but even to – if we can simplify it – our current Western moral system.
Lying, cheating, infidelity, stealing, neglecting duties, parental neglect, racial hate, gossip, defamation, scamming, medical negligence, reckless driving, murders, domestic violence, backstabbing, bullying, debauchery, animal abuse, fake news spreading, infinite number of patron-client relationships, frauds, neglecting the most vulnerable, worldwide prison torture problem, no medical care for a huge portion of our planet’s inhabitants, worldwide poverty.
The greatest injustice: Who will be born
The average ejaculation contains around 100 million sperm cells. Women are born with approximately 1-2 million eggs, but only a fraction of these eggs will ever mature and be released during ovulation over the course of a woman’s reproductive years.
To calculate the number of potential genetic combinations, you would multiply the number of sperm by the number of eggs. For example, if there are 100 million sperm and 1 million eggs available for fertilization, the total number of potential genetic combinations would be 100 million multiplied by 1 million. It would result in 100 trillion possible combinations.
Of course, God will choose who will be born! No physically proven theory, no evidence, just an interdeterministic system where such “small” things as this are left to be as random as they can.
Extensive critique? Thou shall allocate resources to make infinite good
Actually, God was so omniscient and gave us information we couldn’t have known. He made remarks about quantum mechanics, the Theory of relativity, chemical elements, computational science, and nuclear engineering in the Bible. But our Lord omitted the very knowledge our capitalism and its negative consequences. One Czech economist claims capitalism gets the worst of the worst out of people.
In 2020, global GDP amounted to about 84.96 trillion U.S. dollars. And my critique goes to its distribution.
Out of this number, good causes such as cancer cure research ($6.9 billion), mental illness eradication ($2.21 billion), more people being born by extensive monetary support of natality, eradication of extreme poverty, health care for everyone on this planet, affordable housing, made basically laughing amount of money.
How good life will an individual live?
My extensive critique aims at the Gaussian curve on how someone had been living the most ecstatic life meanwhile someone had been living in hell on the earth.
Even if we have free will (and we don’t), there are thousands of decisions just in normal human daily life which extend to more and more decisions affecting how good life all individuals on this planet will live. Guess what? No mention in the Ten Commandments.
We have free will. But wait a minute!
I am always telling people believing in free will that they are living and are actively experiencing fairy-tale-like delusions.
We DO NOT POSSESS free will. Our brains completely succumb to an interdeterministic world where every neuron action is derived from the state of the previous one.
Physics is clear. Your mate choices, food tastes, and even the more complex decisions – it is the work of your subconscious mind.
And I don’t really care that philosophy is a dishonest discipline. When there was little evidence we have no free will, they told you it is freedom of choice. When massive evidence was presented, they just changed the definition.
Another critique: thou shall not be selfish and compete
If you tell this to any professional evolutionary biologist, he or she won’t likely be able to stop his or her laughter as those are traits evolution programmed us to, and are the basic ones. The critique is where the criticism is due.
People are programmed by selfish genes that are passed on to their offspring. And competing? It is a part of it!
Stocks, jobs, mating partners, job promotion, admission to school, reputation, influence, recognition, sports achievements, real estate, market expansion, and so on.
People don’t care if anyone is being tortured, suffers from extreme hunger, have no basic medical care. Just Ten Commandments.
Thou shall not torture! Who could possibly know it better than Christians?
Let’s get back to the time of the New Testament! The Roman judicial system often used torture as a method to extract confessions, especially from slaves. Roman law permitted the use of torture (quaestio) during interrogations, and it was considered a legitimate way to obtain information or confessions from those accused of serious crimes.
Crucifixion was one of the most brutal forms of execution and torture employed by the Romans. It was used for slaves, revolutionaries, and the worst criminals. The process involved severe flogging followed by nailing or binding the person to a cross, where they would suffer a prolonged and agonizing death. Jesus Christ’s crucifixion is the most well-known example from the New Testament.
Flogging, or scourging, was a common form of punishment and torture. It involved whipping the person with a flagrum, a whip with multiple thongs, often embedded with metal or bone pieces. This practice was not only used as a prelude to crucifixion but also as a standalone punishment.
Imprisonment often included harsh conditions and physical abuse. The Acts of the Apostles describe several instances where early Christians, such as Paul and Silas, were beaten and imprisoned. Acts 16:23 mentions that Paul and Silas were “severely flogged” and then thrown into prison.
This missing commandment would make sense even nowadays. Because the majority of the world population lives in countries where massive prison torture is prevalent.
Do we sin? Everyone is going to hell
People are sinful to the degree that everyone has sinned. And God seems to be really arbitrary in this question. Taking his words literally, we should all end up in hell. There is no sharp distinction. Purgatory makes only a little sense in this dichotomy.
God is a bully and is influencing us. How can we keep the Ten Commandments?
Yes, the main bully is the God of the Old Testament. The New Testament God is omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent. What a paradox. He is influencing this world, but he is also an absentee God.
So if he is so powerful and we use our free will (we actually don’t have), he may change it for the better. He won’t. So the Ten Commandments are a laughing stock.
What about slavery, rape, or economic justice? Nowhere to be found
Keep slaves, rape someone, and practice such economic steps that may lead to out of any thinkable proportion of nowadays inequality.
And guess what? It is now where the better Ten Commandments would be useful because there hadn’t been such a huge number of slaves in history. And it serves the super-rich, therefore is no protest to any inequality.
And what about raping? Since it is a huge world problem, the slight mention would make the world better.
Women’s rights? It is like demanding empathy from Middle Ages people
Of course, the Bible was written in the era when women were something degraded. So it is like demanding empathy from people during public execution in the Middle Ages. They just didn’t have it.
Honor Thy Parents
The commandment to honor one’s parents does not account for situations where parents may be abusive or neglectful. This can be problematic in cases where honoring parents might perpetuate harm.
Intoleration of other religions
In order to survive, the particular religion must destroy its competitors. Christianity is no exception.
I don’t actually think we should be tolerant of religions, but what about people who do? Kind of tricky.
Religious LGBTQ? Therefore Ten Commandments critique is something that should matter
The New Testament includes passages that have been interpreted as condemning same-sex sexual activity. Key texts include Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, and 1 Timothy 1:10, where Paul lists behaviors considered sinful, including same-sex relations.
Early Christian communities often adopted Jewish moral and ethical codes, which included prohibitions against same-sex sexual activity. The emphasis was on sexual purity, monogamous heterosexual marriage, and procreation.
Early Christianity’s broader ethical teachings emphasized love, compassion, and community. However, these communities also often reinforced traditional gender roles and norms regarding sexuality.
The Ten Commandments go against the Bible
In the book of Joshua, God commands the Israelites to destroy the inhabitants of Canaan completely (e.g., Joshua 6:21). This includes the massacre of men, women, and children, which can be seen as contradictory to the commandment against murder.
In 1 Samuel 15, God commands Saul to attack the Amalekites and to “totally destroy all that belongs to them” (1 Samuel 15:3), including killing men, women, children, and animals.
Many Old Testament figures, including Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon, had multiple wives and concubines. While polygamy was culturally accepted at the time, it raises questions about the consistency of biblical teachings on marital fidelity and sexual ethics.
In various accounts, God commands the Israelites to take spoils from their defeated enemies. For instance, in Numbers 31, the Israelites are instructed to take plunder from the Midianites, including livestock and goods.
In Matthew 10:37, Jesus states, “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” This statement emphasizes the primacy of allegiance to Jesus over familial ties, which can be seen as challenging the commandment to honor parents.
In Exodus 32, the Israelites create and worship a golden calf while Moses is on Mount Sinai. This act of idolatry directly violates the First Commandment and results in severe punishment.
Primitive superstitions
The Ten Commandments stem from primitive superstitions, such as God’s existence, because, well, it is a primitive superstition.
No God-made rules, just rules that are laughable at our age.
No stimulus to scientific inquiry
You may think I am joking with you. But no! The rules should be open-minded to understanding the reality.
The issue is that people in that age were not only illiterate or semi-literate, but had actually no clue (and it is proven how the Bible is written) that we could understand this world and get to know how it works.
Nobody has had a clue about the Big Bang, astrodynamics, applied mechanics, biochemistry, solid-state physics, and so on.
They had no clue that there would be universities, peer-reviewed articles, an infinite amount of knowledge, and professional knowledge-makers.
Thus, they didn’t know that reality would be unveiled and allow recognition of why religions are just made-man phenomena.
Nothing to bring for a modern good moral system
In the days of naturalized morality (morality that is brought by nature), we know this current moral system (or past moral systems in various cultures) is not the only one.
The Ten Commandments bring nothing to any good moral system with their ancient and weird laws. This is the main point of the critique.
Moral system such as utilitarianism is deeply opposed to the Ten Commandments. Every single moral decision should lead to infinite ecstatic moments that can ever be experienced.
Deontology, virtue ethics, contractarianism, ethical intuitionism, care ethics, and moral realism are prominent philosophical ways in analytic philosophy contrary to superstitious worthless myths.
Our current system is closer to moral nihilism than perfect morality. You may think it doesn’t depend on what moral rules are there, it is just God’s way of testing. But it is pointless when we don’t have free will.
Final critique: They are not suitable for prehistory, the Middle Ages, actually for no age
The final critique lies in the fact that these obscure and weird laws weren’t good for prehistory, the Middle Ages, and even less for the modern era.
They are highly immoral, omit extremely important points, and are nothing but a product of religious lies.
Leave a Reply