A friend of mine posted on a private Facebook group and about the Ten Commandments and their relevance today. He found it interesting that the list illuminates some interesting priorities of its author. (For example, coveting and graven images make the naughty list while slavery and rape do not.)
My friend also wonder about the original objective of the Ten Commandments. What goal is it supposed to help us, god’s children, to reach? Could it be:
A. MORALITY – to help us choose the right
B. HAPPINESS – to help us find joy
C. CIVILITY – a social contract to help us get along with each other and perpetuate the species
Let’s pretend you are now God, and you’ve decided to update the Ten Commandments for your billions of children living in the 21st Century. How many of the original commandments would you keep? Which would you change? Do the first few seem outdated today? Are the ones at the end still relevant?
Here they are for easy reference:
1. No gods before me
2. No graven images
3. No taking the Lord’s name in vain
4. Remember the sabbath
5. Honor thy parents
6. Don’t kill
7. No adultery
8. Don’t steal
9. No false witness
10. Don’t covet
So have at it. What would your list look like?
Wheat & Tares 
Jesus did an update in the 1st Century, and I like that version: Love God, love your neighbors.
#3 – I feel like while we are learning to invite his presence, God doesn’t mind occasionally being “damned”. What I do feel he takes exception to is his name being “used” by men who are accomplishing their own purposes and telling us that they know what God wants for us; and if we are on God’s side, we had better cooperate! Guilted into submission by inserting God’s name.
The original 10 were a great start for a society starting at square one. Look how far we have come.
Leaning to love (love is an action-and difficult) ourselves so we can treat our neighbors with those same actions goes along way to paving or learning to love God with those actions that are, hopefully, heartfelt
1. No gods before me – reasonable
2. No graven images – obsolete (my BMW?)
3. No taking the Lord’s name in vain – good manners
4. Remember the sabbath – incredibly boring but OK Lord
5. Honor thy parents – difficult if your parents are nuts but I’ll try (see EDUCATED by Westover)
6. Don’t kill – unless the government tells you to?
7. No adultery – exactly
8. Don’t steal – exactly
9. No false witness – exactly
10. Don’t covet – the root of much evil
11. Don’t destroy the earth
12: Don’t vote for self-absorbed sociopaths masquerading as saviors
13. Don’t get addicted to anything (including religion)
14. Be mindful & love life
I like P’s. With a couple of exceptions/additions.
On his #3, I think not taking the lord’s name in vain is more about using God for your own purposes. Such as using God to enrich yourself or for political purposes. I think hypocritically using God’s name is a bigger sin than being impolite.
And I really like his #12, I would however expand to include, *following* self absorbed sociopaths masquerading as saviors, (SASMS) because those who do it politically are not the only Jim Joneses we have around. I might even expand to “pay attention to who owns the television news station you listen to and make sure they are not selling you a SASMS. And while I am on that topic of who owns the TV station, I would like to add #15 believe scientists over anyone hired by those trying to sell you coal and oil.
And I wondered quickly why rape wasn’t on the original 10 but then I remembered that rapists were forced to marry their victim and being married to a wife who hates you and cooks your food could be hazardous to your health.
Seems like a pretty relevant list to me. I think most any additions one would want to add could easily fit under that umbrella, given other existing scriptural clarification.
I’d have to disagree with p that the graven image one has become obsolete. I hear a lot of talks that count worshipping your corvette or ferrari (or BMW) as evidence of this, but I think it goes much deeper than that, and in a few short years, I think it could become more relevant than ever. There’s already a new religious group in silicon valley prepared to worship a complex artifical intelligence and/or potential outcomes of the Singularity. While the majority of people may not actually worship a complex processor of neural networks the way others would, I could see many relying on it in ways that should be more reserved for our Heavenly Father. I guess this could border on the first commandment as well.
Do your duty to the physical and social environment around you. Be engaged in a worthy cause. Attend to your family and close friends.
As for the actual 10 commandments. I would argue that the first three, no other gods, no graven images, and don’t take god’s name in vain, pertain mostly to iron age thinking. No other gods really means no other Canaanite, Babylonian, or Egyptian gods of the different deity pantheons in place of Yahweh. There is lots of evidence that early Hebrews believed that other gods existed, but they were to pledge their allegiance only to Yahweh. No graven images means that Hebrews shouldn’t craft Yahweh in any image form such as a sculpture. As for not not taking Yahweh’s name in vain, well, that is Iron Age superstition. As for keeping the Sabbath day holy, that, again is based on Iron Age superstition. A day of forced leisure was certainly nice back in that day, but no longer necessary in the modern developed world. Honoring one’s parents can be important, but we should enjoy individuals freedoms from their will if needs be. Not killing, stealing, and cheating on a spouse are relevant and important. On false witness, some take this to extremes. No, this didn’t mean saying what you really think (as in you must tell your wife that she looks fat in that dress). Coveting is also similarly taken to extremes. In many Middle Eastern cultures, belief in the evil eye is on a level of extreme superstition. In the Muslim world, you are never to express any admiration for anyone’s possessions lest you invite the evil eye into a relationship. To say, “that’s cool” to any possession or “how cute” to any child you must say mashallah, meaning, “what God wants.” Not coveting is important for one’s own mental health and for relationships to flourish. Still, this evil eye nonsense is over the top.
Things may have gotten more specific over the years but I’m not sure anyone has really come up with a better guide than the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.
Apparently Jesus thought as much because his Great Commandments sound very similar: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
As for blaspheming, I’m totally in Anna’s camp. I lot of wasted energy has gone into worrying about how other people express themselves while using Hf’s or Jesus’ authority to influence people to be hateful to others. How can that be right?
I think the Sabbath concept is relevant on more than just a personal level. It seems to me that it is rest for the earth and its resources, as well. I can see this having a positive effect on the environment.
Because the names of God and Jesus are precious to me, I do take offense at their use as expletives. I get tired of hearing “Oh My God” over and over from people who are not speaking to or about God.
Carol, if the purpose of Sabbath observance is to improve the environment, it seems like a very circuitous path. Why not just focus on limiting consumption and being conscious about the environment then? Besides I can’t see how Sabbath keeping in Mormon culture is doing anything to improve the environment. People travel to get to church. They buy more food in advance to prepare for the Sunday meal.
On saying God and Jesus, it seems like it is really only in a few cultures in the English-speaking world (Mormon culture being one of them) where these are considered offensive. In ancient Hebrew culture, Hebrews were forbidden from actually saying Yahweh and were told to refer to Yahweh by a different name.
John W,
If cars impact the environment as much as the media says they do, and you compare Utah roads and highways on Sundays to how they are the rest of the week, I find it difficult to believe Sabbath observance wouldn’t have at least some impact on the environment if the entire world did a similar observance.
Does God need to specifically call out protecting the environment? I believe he’s at least hinted at it with early latter-day prophets, but it seems to me that in seeking a society of Zion, environmental protection would be a natural and eventual byproduct. Jacob 4:6 speaks of commanding the mountains, trees, and the very waves of the sea. Might be neat to be able to do that without the excessive use of engines and explosives. I’ve seen it on a personal level as well. The more Christlike I become, the more aware and concerned I am for all of my surroundings.
Environment aside, there is something that feels inherently right about doing my best to keep the Sabbath. I’m sure the Spirit is a part of it, but there are a few other things I can never quite put my finger on. Depending on how the rest of the week is going, Sabbath observance more often feels like a privilege, rather than a commandment.
Eli, my point was that if the purpose of keeping the Sabbath is to protect the environment (and I don’t really see that it does all that much) then why shouldn’t the focus be on protecting the environment rather than a bunch of Sabbath-related rules. But alas, by Orthodox Jewish standards, Mormons don’t keep the Sabbath nor do they even come close.
As for Mormons being naturally prone to protecting the environment, I would so say no. Given how much right-wing anti-environmentalist (and just plain anti-environment and anti-science) rhetoric has sway among Mormons, they don’t appear to be greatly concerned about the environment. And your fatter flippant quip about the “media” saying that cars have a negative impact on the environment suggests that you also are not terribly concerned about environmental issues.
John W,
I got your point.
And you’re right. Most LDS have different priorities. I’ll put jobs and innovation over restriction any day. I think innovation is a key to protecting the environment more than legislation. I still value common sense (the corporation I work for goes above and beyond the law when it comes to the environment despite money being one of their highest priorities).
I never said Mormons were naturally more prone to protecting the environment (except for maybe Sundays). I implied they would be as they become more Zion-like. As a people, we still have a long, long way to go down that path.
Yes, I have some disillusion with the media and certain ways science is performed, framed, and presented. There is a lot of information to sort through and I don’t know that the media does it any better than I do. I read of studies that point to greater sources of pollution than cars that no one seems to be paying any mind to and may actually be somewhat easier to address. Again, I loathe restriction, but I think many environmentalists need to reassess their own priorities before presenting them to the rest of us. I’ll listen, but I’ll likely differ in my way to address it.
Anyway hows about them Chiefs!!! (we live on the outskirts of KC). Super Bowl ads, as usual, were the real indicators of social movement: a major brewery spending millions of dollars to highlight their new organic beer. Electric cars galore. Multi-racial social groupings. Gay couples. Heros saving people in trouble – IOW Love thy neighbor & Save the earth front & center.
“I loathe restriction”
And you’re a believing Mormon who loves Sabbath-day observance? Sounds like you don’t mind restriction at all as long it is restrictions that you prefer. I gather what you mean here is government restriction. But that is the thing I don’t get about right-wingers and libertarian types. The worse environmental hazards become the more justification governments will have to intervene and the more the people affected by environmental hazards will call on governments to intervene. That being the case it would seem that right-wingers and libertarians would be on the front lines in promoting environmental awareness and private measures of combating environmental hazards. But they aren’t. Which leads me to believe that this isn’t just an anti-government thing, it is actually an anti-environment thing. Too much concern over radicalism and environmental nitpicking and not enough attention to the actual causes that environmentalists are telling us to be worried about. Too much concern about the freedom of polluters to pollute rather than how that pollution ends up impinging on millions of other people’s freedoms.
p: I’m trying to imagine a general conference with the same themes as these super bowl ads—love thy neighbor and save the earth. It’s quite a challenge.
John W.
At its core, I think every commandment is essentially designed to improve agency, which is why I live them. The ten plus a few more.
I’m a libertarian-leaning conservative, but I’d concede some laws have to remain in order to feel freedom’s full effect. I don’t think all environmental laws meet that criteria. I would rather live on my feet with the worldwide temperature up a couple of degrees than on my knees with the air as clear as it was before the industrial revolution. Ideally, I don’t think I should have to choose one or the other. I sympathize with those who are suspicious. Like it or not, many preaching environmentalism are the same who were preaching communism decades ago. They lost the economic arguement, but by acheiving the environmental one, they’re more or less acheiving the same goal. There has got to be a better way.
You are correct. Many simply don’t care at all. Although we may disagree on methods, let’s hope more people care in the future.
P, I see those Rhodes Rolls commercials most conferences. As happy as I feel eating those, if everyone felt the same way, maybe world peace would bump up a notch 😉
I meant to address that last line to Dot, not P.. I’ll have to check out some of those commericals.
Over the years I’ve occasionally heard the “don’t worship graven images” commandment interpreted as referring to the love of money, as in “thou shalt not get caught up in the pursuit of material wealth.” Interpreted that way, I’m inclined to agree with it. The “don’t covet” commandment can also be interpreted this way (“thou shalt not try to keep up with the Joneses”).
The Hindus have their own scripturally mandated code of basic ethics called the Yamas and Niyamas, which are surprisingly similar to the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments. One particular Yama (Asteya) forbids stealing, but many Hindus interpret this commandment not only to prohibit property theft, but also against “stealing” time. When you are late for an appointment, or keep someone waiting unnecessarily, or hold an unnecessary meeting, or go over your allotted time as a teacher/leader/public speaker, you are stealing time and thus in a state of sin. I personally love this interpretation and I wish we could apply it in LDS culture. When a Relief Society or Priesthood meeting goes just 5 minutes over time, think of all the people it inconveniences–the overworked primary/nursery leaders who are waiting for you to come pick up your kids when they are at their crankiest, the kids themselves, the spouses, etc. When multiplied by the number of people in that meeting and the family members each person has, just 5 minutes over time can result in cumulative person-hours lost, or rather, stolen.
Eli,
“There has got to be a better way.”
Ok. So lay out an environmental vision. I always hear lots of complaints from the right about environmentalists, but no vision or plan about how to address the many environmental problems there are.
“I think every commandment is essentially designed to improve agency,”
Within the Old Testament context, these commandments actually seem to be austere laws designed to rule and regulate Hebrew society. In the Book of Numbers, one unlucky fellow was smitten by God for picking up sticks on the Sabbath. Jesus’s higher law seemed to challenge the relevance of the commandments. Yet because of tradition these teen commandments remained a thing. Orthodox Jews actually note 613 commandments to be observed in the Torah. Yet Christian oddly seem only to case about the 10.
John W,
“lay out an environmental vision.”
Didn’t I already impIy a zion like society could eventually get there?
I realize we’re drifting from the original topic, but to really answer your question, for starters, some things I’d like to see help the environment might be the following.
1. Remove any logging restrictions. Loggers may be greedy, but they’re not stupid. They know that to stay in business, they need to plant more trees, so they do it. I heard from one homeland official that there are more trees in North America today than when the pilgrims arrived. Most media outlets tell us only **% of our forests remain when what they should really be saying is **% of our original forests remain. Rather than let logging companies thin out forests, the government often lets fire do it by default, thus polluting the environment with smoke, allowing animals to die, and removing any potential use of wood. Fires will always exist, but a lot of this damage is clearly avoidable. Let mankind “tend this garden.”
2. Give more freedom to ranchers. Government wants to keep ranchers from ruining the land, not knowing that ranchers can do quite a bit for the environment. The bird refuge in Oregon that was so controversial in recent years wasn’t actually all that attractive to birds until ranchers in the area made it that way decades ago. Government didn’t really realize this, but now ranchers have to pay the price for it at the expense of tax payers. I doubt the birds mind the cows nor vice versa. Ranchers have to keep the land stustainable for years to come or they’re not going to able to sustain their business.
3. Simply encourage people to really consider their priorities and needs. I’ll admit I sometimes roll my eyes at singles guys with an SUV. I drive a chevy cavalier myself, and plan to until I run it into the ground. On snow days I often find myself reevaluating that decision with gritted teeth, but I’m generally at peace with it.
These would be great starts.
Yes, Jesus taught a higher law worth striving for. I think the ten are still worth viewing often.
Eli, thanks for stating some ideas. I won’t engage these too much, since it is off topic. Honestly, I would support all of these ideas, although recognizing that environmental maintenance is a complex process that requires both government and private initiative. As for loggers helping to reduce forest fires, it would be a good idea, but the problem of forest fires is going to require more than just more loggers chopping down trees and clearing up brush. There are 60,000 loggers in the US and 4.5 billion trees, including 149 million dead trees, in California according to 2019 stats. Loggers are only interested in certain types of trees (clearing out dead trees costs them time and money, and there would need to be a series of enforced regulations anyways to have them clean up whatever messes of dead trees they left behind). So solving the problem of forest fires would require a lot more than just relaxing logging regulations.
John W,
Yeah, I realize that logistically it’s a little more complex than simply relaxing some regulations, but I’m glad there are some things there we both could get behind.
“Over the years I’ve occasionally heard the ‘don’t worship graven images’ commandment interpreted as referring to the love of money, as in ‘thou shalt not get caught up in the pursuit of material wealth.’ Interpreted that way, I’m inclined to agree with it. The ‘don’t covet’ commandment can also be interpreted this way (‘thou shalt not try to keep up with the Joneses’).”
How shall we interpret the “thou shalt not get caught up in the pursuit of material wealth” thing with respect to the church?
“How shall we interpret the ‘thou shalt not get caught up in the pursuit of material wealth’ thing with respect to the church?”
Most of of my comments on this blog aren’t all that popular, and I’ve avoided commenting on this subject when there were more prevalent posts in recent past, but I’ll take a stab at it. I don’t necessarily expect to change anyone’s mind.
My young family recently became debt free, including the mortgage. We have one source of income, and it’s just barely over the median for the county we live in. We did this by pinching every penny and even going without a few things. Now that we’re debt free, we’ve raised both our retirement and our charitable contributions (and allowed just a few extra bucks in the date budget).
From most experts I’ve looked at, retirement savings should be between ten and twenty times your income. Although organizations don’t necessarily “retire,” I think it would be very wise to save enough to survive through some extremely hard times with a similar rule of thumb. If I recall, the Church is estimated to take in about 7 billion a year. 100 billion puts it well on track for twenty times its income, though not yet all the way there.
As we’ve started feeling some exhilaration from seeing where our increased charitable donations are going and making a difference, I can’t help but wonder what we could do with even more. Although we plan on making monthly contributions, with increased income, I could easily see us saving more in preparation for something bigger, more enduring, more needful, and perhaps even game changing. I wouldn’t necessarily know what that is until the opportunity presented itself, but I’d want to be ready. I wouldn’t necessarily want to accumulate wealth for wealth’s sake, but as a tool to do something better.
I’m willing to ascribe similar motivations to the Church and give it the benefit of the doubt. Who knows what the long-term plan is? I had one Institute Teacher who was also an area authority, and managed to share some pretty interesting things with us. The Church is constantly inviting experts to SLC and becoming informed on any variety of subjects. It would not necessarily take a prophet for them to know something on the horizon we don’t. The Church was also the last formal organization to remain around the rim of the Indian Ocean, long after the 2004 tsunami disaster. What else, where else, and how much might they be planning on remaining for the long haul?
Even or especially in light of the ten commandments and the higher admonitions of Jesus, my gut says that in the end, we’ll be glad the Church has this much money. I realize many will not agree, and on a number of levels, I can understand why.
Eli, read Sam Brunson on the topic of the $100 billion on By Common Consent: https://bycommonconsent.com/2019/12/29/so-you-have-100-billion/. He is a tax law professor and has great insight on the matter. According to Sam, if the church has $100 billion it actually can survive on the returns (provided the returns are a stable 7% annually) without any need for more charitable contributions. According to a mass email sent out by the church to members, it noted that it had spent $2.2 billion on charity since 1985. That’s an average of $64 million a year, or $4 per member (if you count 16 million members, and active membership is well below that) per year. That is nothing. The church’s humanitarian wing is very good. But they need to expand it. It is disgraceful for the church to spending only 1% of its revenue (64 million divided by 7 billion) on charity. Other churches spend so much more. On top of that, the church puts high pressure on its members to pay tithing. Members are to go to tithing settlement every year and declare if they are a full payer in order to obtain a temple recommend. I say with its $100 billion, it is high time it put an end to tithing settlement and no longer make it a requirement for temple recommends. Why not just make tithing an honor system? Tell the members to pay 10% of their increase/surplus and have them mail a check to the COB, or pay online. The church doesn’t need to engage in shakedowns and high pressure tactics.
1) thou shalt love god and love one another
2) thou shalt esteem each other equally. All mankind were created equally. Every person shall be regarded no greater and no less than his neighbor, regardless of sex, gender identification, race, ethnicity, age, nationality, etc,
3) thou shalt follow the golden rule and the platinum rule
4) thou shalt respect and carefully steward the environment
5) thou shalt regard animals as God’s creation and property and every creature shall be treated with kindness, awe and respect. Thou shalt not eat meat. (Ok- this is harsh step beyond the 89th section’s admonition to eat meat sparingly in times of famine and winter, but we can globally eradicate famine and negate the effects of winter. Furthermore, meat production requires violence and exponential resources in comparison to vegetable production, reducing acreage, water, and plants to feed our fellow man.
6) thou shalt not withhold food, shelter, or healthcare from another, neither should these things be sold, exchanged or held ransom as they are human rights. Remember that thy God has given the all, even the breath in thy body, therefore how can one withhold life from another when it is in your power to restore it?
7) Materialism is ungodly. Man shall be judged not on how much he acquires, but by how much he can uplift and enrich the lives of his fellow man.
8) thou shalt govern thyselves by electing leaders in fair and careful processes. Kings, and familial dynasties, dictatorships, and other monopolizing structures are dangerous to the wellbeing of a people.
9) thou shalt organize to educate one another throughout life. Information and knowledge shall be shared freely and openly without censorship or restriction. Let every person pursue light and knowledge and share his/her light with others.