[irrelig]In this episode, we break from crazy Mormon stories and instead take apart the Ten Commandments: what are they, where did they come from, why do we care, and what do they mean? Do they actually form the basis for American jurisprudence? Should they be engraved on monuments everywhere? Do we even have the right ones?
We also give a shout out to fellow Irreligiosophite podcasters Joemma and the Second Law, as well as the Mormon brothers +1 and their anticipatory plagiarizin’ Church of Awesome. And we do some Skunk Dicks, too.
50 Responses to “105: The Ten Commandments”
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That’s what I am talking about!
I’m trying to find a some credible reference to Father Riccardo Seppia being appointed to oversee “the problem”, but I cant find anything. So far everything I found says he is only a parish priest in a village. not exactly the overseer of the child abuse problem references says he is the. Anyone have a link?
But can’t you just not look at the ten commandments bolted to the wall of the courtroom and embroidered on the judge’s robes? Silly atheists, always making too much of things. I mean it’s not like not looking at the judge would make you look guilty or anything. [/yesi’veheardthat]
RE Riccardo Seppia, he was a priest in the archdiocese of the Cardinal who was actually appointed to be the advisor. When I saw this on pharyngula it was almost immediately pointed out in the comments:
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2072613,00.html
‘k Thanks
I think George Carlin’s bit on the Ten Commandments was all that ever needed to be said about the subject, which is already a bit of a tired subject as it is. But I’m so jazzed for a new episode at this point, I’ll take any subject you guys wanna dish out.
And the Prophet Inchul, chained to the radiator and forgotten by his Lord, languored for forty days and forty nights without food or water, and lo, he was dead. And then the Prophetesses Chuck and Leighton took his body and wrapped it in toilet paper, for they did not want to touch the thing, and flushed it down the toilet.
Under military law (article 134) which is federal law technically, adultery is an offense that can get one dishonorably discharged and also a possible jail sentence (unlikely but it is on the books).
He wasn’t overseeing anything but he was an official advisor to the pope on paedophilia reforms. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2072613,00.html
Big week for skunk dickery. How infuriating. I’ve been hearing a few stories of cops like that, shooting people [on film] for no reason. Maybe they got cocky with their tasers and figured human hunting season was open in general. What a fucking drain on society. I feel that if you want to be a cop, you should have to sign an oath stating that you forfeit your civilian rights and preemptively agree to be EXECUTED (killed, terminated, dismembered, shot up, beheaded, poisoned, fried, fired out of a cannon at a brick wall, etc) for abusing your power, period, end of story. We’d have far fewer cops, I think, and more reasonable and committed ones, which would be absolutely fantastic for us citizens. If a cop shoots someone it’s just an ‘oopsy, time to sweep something under the rug and give paid vacation,’ but if a citizen is genuinely threatened by a cop and so kills in self defense, that’s it for that person. They’re toast. What an unfair arrangement. I don’t believe in the death penalty, but if you want to be someone with a lot of power, say a politician, cop, or soldier, you need a big fucking sword hanging over your head to keep you in line. Having the rest of the police watch some of their buddies getting ‘justiced’ from the firing squad might prove an effective deterrent for a while. Can we please start with that douchebag?
The Ten Commandments are fucking stupid. Then again, Christians are fucking stupid, so what else could be expected.
Take your goddamn time next episode. If I’m lucky maybe I’ll be dead by the time it comes out.
Over and over, actually paying attention to the Bible shows how far Christianity and fundamentalists in particular depart from understanding the Bible. This episode is a good way to get one’s head around the Documentary Hypothesis, which posits a J(ahwistic), E(lohistic), D(euteronomist), and P(riestly) source for what became the Pentateuch. D isn’t relevant in this case, but the J the E and the P definitely are: clearly Moses having to make several trips up and down the mountain to receive and deliver different versions of the commandments is not something someone would write as a single story, but only something that would be pieced together from different traditions which would be offended by not being included in the final product. No prizes for guessing which version is the Priestly source (could it be the one that says to give the season’s best crops to the priests?).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis
And here I thought the subject would be a tired one, but you guys dug up the REAL ten commandments story (which I had never even heard of) and managed to make it interesting. Once again, way to go guys. Now go off and enjoy being lazy again till you come around for a new episode.
“Honor thy father and mother… for your days be long upon this earth” – or something similiar, just means that you need your parents so don’t alienate them. You have years and years on this earth, it would be really beneficial if you had at least two people on it with you who has your best interests at heart.
I used to caution my step-daughter not to burn her bridges, for the same reason. Minor incident, long life, let some things go.
Awww, I’d never kick your ass Leighton. Partly because you could knock me out in New York with a swift kick from Utah.
Sooooo…what was going on with the sound quality? Cause that was some definite wonky shit going on that was making my ears bleed in the car. Turned on the last episode to make sure it wasn’t just me, and the last one still sounded fine.
Semi-related, but I recently expressed a desire to angrily sex the shit outta Leighton around my fiance, and now I’m forbidden from travelling to Utah. I’m sure I’m missing out on so much by not going there.
On the sound quality, or lack thereof: Leighton’s on a phone because he doesn’t have internet access where he is. Also, remember during the E4F debate when my voice got all robotic and shit? That happened twice during this episode. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell that this is happening while we’re recording. So the only choices were to leave it be and inflict the robotic echo on our listeners (tempting!) or to re-record those portions.
Apparently I need to get a non-USB headphone set for this to stop happening.
You’d think you’d figure out the sound by the 100th episode.
But I like Robo Chuck. It lets me pretend you’re a cyborg with all the world’s philosopy in your computing unit (along with state of the art humor drives) and your true nature is slipping.
Better yet Chuck, T-Pain your voice for the entire next episode
I’m sure I’ll get around to listening to this, as soon as I’m done building Phallusy Land, the former office depot that my hetero lifemate and I have decided to convert into a second-rate penis exhibit/hotdog stand.
RoboChuck hurt my ears less than RoboLeighton. I don’t normally find his voice grating (I’m a freak, I know), but the phone certainly fixed that fact. Better to get a grating episode than none at all, I guess. Well, the episode wasn’t grating, just the episode sound.
Interesting episode… thanks for taking the time.
Speaking of silly Mormon stories, have you guys commented on the 2011 Tony Winner for best musical, “The Book of Mormon”?
We haven’t commented on the musical because we haven’t seen it. I’m hoping for a DVD release.
For all you fans of RoboChuck, here’s the unedited section in all its echoey, staticky glory: http://www.irreligiosophy.com/audio/robochuck.mp3
Arallyn, did he say anything about visiting Las Vegas?
So….you’re saying phone sex with me would be a bad thing?
I don’t think I’m allowed in Las Vegas on matter of principle. Also not allowed in Maryland or Florida, though I think the Florida ban was lifted on account of the only people I know there are over 80 years old.
I mean, I’m not for anyone determining my life besides me, but the last time I ignored my guy’s advice on where I wasn’t “allowed” to go, I ended up in a car wreck and having stabbed a man in the arm after smoking something that completely altered my brain. So I tend to listen to him now.
Also: LOL yeast infections. My friend got one recently and wouldn’t shut up about it for over a month, even though it was gone after a week. It was so painful to be reminded of it every time we had something with yeast in it around her. Crazy skank. Just like me…except plus one yeast infection.
On the sound, I don’t so much care about the robot-ness or crappy-phone-line-ness, as the disparity of volume between the two. I either have to crank it up to hear Leighton, and then when Chuck talks it deafens me, or keep it low so Chuck sounds fine and I can’t hear Leighton at all. Hmmm, maybe that latter option isn’t such a bad idea…
On the Catholic kidfuckers, you’ve neglected a possibility in wondering why the Popesicle doesn’t get word from the Big Dude In The Sky as to who should lead the anti-childraping efforts: Maybe God LIKES childraping. That seems to me the most likely explanation. Occam’s razor and all that, what what?
>>Leighton’s on a phone because he doesn’t have internet access where he is.
Is he in gaol?
I didn’t know you were a Dalek, Chuck. EXTERMINATE.
Exodus 34:27 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”
So the third set was not actually fingered by God. Moses just took dictation. It’s like a hybrid of the first two stories.
So God changed his mind between Exodus 34:1 (“The LORD said to Moses, ‘Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke'”) and Exodus 34:27? What a fickle-minded, lazy-ass deity.
Hmm…
“fingered by God”
Is that anything like getting fucked by God or is it less painful?
“Show me on the dolly where God touched you.”
I don’t remember what podcast it was that Leighton got called “God” by a previously-atheist listener who was converted by his miraculous and unbelievable tales of women.
If God fucks people like empbac says, I’m SO all over that theory. Granted, his microscopic genitalia does make me question his divinity, but I assume that they’re just the doing of Satan. Do curses even work on Gods? Cause I think divinity might have something to do with the failure of the curse to make his genitals double in size and explode last year.
Great episode guys, thanks. It made me get off my lazy ass and begin reading Exodus, Leviticus, etc. to find out more about the Ten Commandments. Never got that far though; my eyes glazed over somewhere around the part where God decides to kill all the first-born Egyptians (why is infanticide such a horrible thing when Herod does it, but God doesn’t get so much as a slap on the wrist?).
Do you people realize what Chuck and Leighton go through when they have to wade through this crap? Man, those guys took a bullet for us this time!
Wow, I just got a little further into this Moses stuff. I figured out why Christians never read it: It’s the most long-winded, goofy tale ever written. As Moewicus pointed out, it’s obviously cobbled together from multiple traditions, making for an extremely convoluted and redundant read.
I never realized how minor a role the ten commandments played in all this: God spends a tremendous amount of time dictating the requirements for a lavish temple of gold and fine linens that is to be built for his worship, goes on at great length dictating his requirements for proper animal sacrifices, and in Leviticus, reminds people that “I am the Lord your God” about a hundred times. There are also a lot of silly rules about how a woman who just gave birth to a boy is unclean for a week (two for a girl), and how you’re required to stone a sorceress to death. The ten commandments themselves are almost an afterthought.
I also noticed that God runs a protection racket that puts any mob to shame. He’ll get you to the promised land safely, but he ain’t doin it for free.
Local boy makes Skunk Dick of the week!
Thanks for mentioning the Seattle shooting. The woodcarver killed was named John T. Williams, and he was a really cool, albeit troubled, local guy. The community really came out to honor him and condemn the shooting. The officer resigned from the force, so he ain’t out there doing any more gunslinging, thank god. (er… Thank not-god)
Keep cranking out the great podcasts, guys!
Unrelated, but just check out the latest E4F podcast: with the subtlety of a hammer, they talk about these “atheists [they] debated” who were sociopaths.
This episode was amazing. It incorporated everything I love in podcasting; skunk dicks, mockery, scorn, curse words, and a perfect level of dickishness/ass holeishness. No body does podcasting like you two douches. Irreligiosophy is the one true podcast! All other podcasts (specifically The Church of Awesome) are whores of babylon and/or mothers of all abominations.
you have no idea how much I regret doing the “natural abomination childbirth”. That hurt like a bitch.
But seriously, thank you guys for giving the show a listen. I would love to hear your comments (on here or on churchofawesome.com). Don’t worry, you don’t have be gentle, we are all irreligiosophy fans here. I know what to expect.
As always, the more specific criticisms, the more useful they are.
ArchMike: the traditionl way of dealing with criticisms is to go into a hissyfit over all the mean people and cancel your podcast.
Then start it up again.
Correct.
Michael – I think the Church of Awesome podcasts are great. The intros are a little over the top but once you get into the subject matter it’s really good.
Niceandblue: loved the dalek comment
Dfens: cool, thanks. What do you think about the length of the intro theme?
Thanks for advertising the Church of Awesome. At least I am getting a fairly regular podcast. I had one of those around January of 2009.
Thanks for the Church of Awesome shoutout!
Michael – I think the last episode the intro was about 40 seconds which is typically longer than most podcasts (the general rule of thumb is 15 seconds). On the other hand, you should do what you think is best (and whatever makes producing the show fun) and it’s good to hear a unique show.
I mean, if we only did things in accordance with others, we’d all be spending time going to the local temple, church or cult den than listening to these blasphemous podcasts.
Thanks again Michael and Chris for putting together another entertaining podcast!
You guys are the greatest HOTPODDERs of all time. Your sick sense of humor brings me to tears and I enjoy picturing Chuck in a leather hood. Is your Thai boy ‘doing things’ while you tape or is his world limited to the basement? But seriously,if I so dare, thank you for this episode. Is great to have something airtight (besides my ass) to throw at the thumpers.
is your website compatible with iphone.because when i tried to read your blog from my iphone the sidebar got messed up.