Satanic precepts better than Ten Commandments?!

[floo]

He probably is but then I and other Christians don't worship Krishna or Hanuman, Shiva or Ram.

No other deity could be worse than the Biblical one, that would be impossible!

[Red Giant]

In fact, RG, the reason I find it so amusuing is the inaccuracy of so many things that the author writes about Christianity, let alone the 10 Commandments.  I suppose the other emotion it engenders is sadness at the lack of knowledge he exemplifies.

Belief in the reality of Satan has been described as one of the defining characteristics of evangelicalism.  It's still common in America, and an important factor in public support for war-mongering.

[Shaker]

Belief in the reality of Satan has been described as one of the defining characteristics of evangelicalism.  It's still common in America, and an important factor in public support for war-mongering.

Some military moron claimed to have seen the face of Satan in the billowing smoke from one of the burning Twin Towers on 9/11, didn't he?

[floo]

Some military moron claimed to have seen the face of Satan in the billowing smoke from one of the burning Twin Towers on 9/11, didn't he?

What a goon!

[OH MY WORLD!]

Interesting, a goon is somebody claiming to see something like a face in smoke or a face on a cheese burger, cookie, fireplace or on a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket. Perfect! Oh wait a minute, the one seeing a face on the KFC bucket isn't a goon.

[Humph Warden Bennett]

No other deity could be worse than the Biblical one, that would be impossible!

Look up the Aztec God Tláloc, he was not very nice.

[Humph Warden Bennett]

Hi everyone,

I came across this article today about 7 Satanic precepts that the article claims are better than the Ten Commandments.

http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/12/23/seven-satanic-precepts-beat-ten-commandments-as-moral-guide/

*****************

Why might members of the Satanic Temple find it easier than Christians to follow some teachings of Jesus? The answer lies in their sacred values and rules.

Many Christians believe that the most dangerous enemy of their religion would be a follower of Satan. But sometimes Christians are their own worst enemy—even with Satanists in the mix.

This fall, Christianity’s brand has been battered, not by Satanists but by the behavior of Christians themselves: Catholic corporations headed to the Supreme Court, trying yet again to prevent women from preventing pregnancy. U.S. Presidential Candidate Ben Carson declared on biblical authority that the Egyptian Pyramids were actually built to store grain. The Mormon hierarchy issued a formal ruling that baptism and temple initiation (including protective undergarments) would be denied to children of gay couples. Christianists in Houston defeated gender equality legislation by whipping up fear of cross-dressing men lurking in women’s bathrooms. And research went viral showing that children from secular homes are more generous, less prickly and less punitive than children raised under Christian and Muslim parents.

The Satanic Temple, which is based in Massachusetts but has approximately 20 chapters across the U.S., lists their seven fundamental tenets as the following:

One should strive to act with compassion and empathy towards all creatures in accordance with reason.

The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.

One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.

The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo your own.

Beliefs should conform to our best scientific understanding of the world. We should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit our beliefs.

People are fallible. If we make a mistake, we should do our best to rectify it and resolve any harm that may have been caused.

Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

Anyone who is familiar with the Ten Commandments will immediately recognize that these seven tenets offer an easier path to equanimity than do the famous Ten.

The first of the Ten Commandments—Thou shalt have no other gods before me–asserts the primacy of a single deity rather than the primacy of compassion and empathy.

Perhaps Christians should consider upgrading from a set of 10 Commandments that were written in the Iron Age to a better set. It might do wonders for Christianity’s public image—and for their ability to follow the teachings of Jesus himself.

*******************

Any views?

Sriram

PS: I didn't want to post this on the Christian board on Christmas day!  Not in the spirit of Christmas.

My view is that this is nothing more than cod philosophy.

[Shaker]

As a philosophy it seems pretty good to me. What's "cod" about it?

[OH MY WORLD!]

Here ya go Shakey,

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/cod+philosophy

[Shaker]

Here ya go Shakey,

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/cod+philosophy

I was talking to the organ grinder not the monkey, on or off a rock.

[Sassy]

I was talking to the organ grinder not the monkey, on or off a rock.

Which ancestor of yours would that be?
Let's face it, Shakes, No one makes a monkey out of you better than yourself..

It is you who believes we all came from apes, isn't it?

[floo]

Descending from an ape is far preferable to being created by that evil excrescence of a deity featured in the Bible!

[Shaker]

It is you who believes we all came from apes, isn't it?

It's not an issue of belief but of demonstrable fact, actually.

[ippy]

Which ancestor of yours would that be?
Let's face it, Shakes, No one makes a monkey out of you better than yourself..

It is you who believes we all came from apes, isn't it?

The evidence is there to prove we are related to the apes, and every other form of life on this planet Sass , but there's no evidence that supports your idea of, what was it now? Oh yes you think there's something about and yes you refer to it as a god, or whatever that might be? 

Where's the evidence that supports this god idea of yours Sassy?

Don't forget an assertion can't be used as evidence that in any way supports another assertion; I know you find it difficult to take that in, but you must do your best to do so.

Oh yes it doesn't matter how much text or scripture you offer up as evidence, don't forget no one has found any evidence that would support the mythical, magical or superstition base of your workshop manual, the one you insist on referring to as the bible and that means you can't use the bible as back up in any way as an evidential source of support for any of your godly ideas.

Once you manage to lift your workshop manual from it's mythical, magical, superstition base into the realms of reality, we would all be obliged to take it in, treat it with respect and learn everything we possibly could from it, but being realistic the chances of you or anyone else finding the said evidential base of your book isn't very likely Sass, is it?

This god idea of yours Sass, it's becoming more an more of a backwater of an idea on a daily basis, the realists are 49% of the UK population now, it was around about 30% realists a couple of years ago and there's no sign of the growth in realism slowing down.

I don't suppose there is much that you can say about that lot Sass only if the decline in religiosity keeps going at the present rate you'll become more and more lonely as time passes by, but I'll still write to you on the forum Sass, just so that you don't give up hope.

Kind regards,

ippy           

[Hope]

The evidence is there to prove we are related to the apes, and every other form of life on this planet Sass , but there's no evidence ...

as to exactly how we are related, ippy.  Are we related by descent?  Are we related by mutation?  Are we related more sketchily by dint of being carbon-based?  There are many different routes by which we could be related to apes, etc. but not all come down as straightforwardly as each other.

[Hope]

Descending from an ape is far preferable to being created by that evil excrescence of a deity featured in the Bible!

You become more and more disbelievable every day, Floo.  For one think, humanity could have ended up as pretty well anything under the evolutionary process (and may be related to some pretty horrendous evolutionary ancestors) - and secondly the 'evil excresence of a deity' that you refer to features in the Bible, but is certainly not the deity followed by the Jews or subsequently, Christians.

[Shaker]

as to exactly how we are related, ippy.  Are we related by descent?  Are we related by mutation?  Are we related more sketchily by dint of being carbon-based?  There are many different routes by which we could be related to apes, etc. but not all come down as straightforwardly as each other.

Bless me, what a farrago of half-heard, quarter-remembered and eighth-understand scientific ignorance.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hoppity,

as to exactly how we are related, ippy.  Are we related by descent?  Are we related by mutation?  Are we related more sketchily by dint of being carbon-based?  There are many different routes by which we could be related to apes, etc. but not all come down as straightforwardly as each other.

Not very bright. We are of course "related" by genes. We are apes (specifically we're "great apes", along with seven extant species in four genera: orang utans; Gorillas; the common chimpanzee and bonobos) that share a common ancestor.

As for the OP, take away the "satanist" nonsense and the code seems a lot better to me than the traditional ten commandments as a set of principles to live by. Certainly they seem better able to cover the glaring omissions in the "10 Cs", and to be less concerned with stupidities like worshipping graven images.

[Hope]

Not very bright. We are of course "related" by genes. We are apes (specifically we're "great apes", along with seven extant species in four genera: orang utans; Gorillas; the common chimpanzee and bonobos) that share a common ancestor.

But we are also 'related by genes' to a number of other living organisms and not all of them animal.  That was the poiint I was making - thyat genetic relationship doesn't necessarily put us in a direct line of descent.

As for the OP, take away the "satanist" nonsense and the code seems a lot better to me than the traditional ten commandments as a set of principles to live by. Certainly they seem better able to cover the glaring omissions in the "10 Cs", and to be less concerned with stupidities like worshipping graven images.

Which of the 10 Cs suggests that we should worship graven images, bhs? 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hope,

Which of the 10 Cs suggests that we should worship graven images, bhs?

The second one, and it says not to worship them. What disaster would ensue if lots of people did that is anyone's guess, as is the reason for the author's concern with this issue rather than, say, the sexual abuse of children. 

[ippy]

as to exactly how we are related, ippy.  Are we related by descent?  Are we related by mutation?  Are we related more sketchily by dint of being carbon-based?  There are many different routes by which we could be related to apes, etc. but not all come down as straightforwardly as each other.

Your ignorance of this subject has really surprised me Hope.

It has been described in so many books Radio TV YouTube all sorts of places, where have you been?

If you haven't understood yet I can't see that it would be any good for me to try to explain it to you.

ippy   

[Hope]

Hope,

The second one, and it says not to worship them. What disaster would ensue if lots of people did that is anyone's guess, as is the reason for the author's concern with this issue rather than, say, the sexual abuse of children.

That, of course, assumes that sexual abuse of children occurred amongst a fairly small tribal group as the Jews were at the time.  Perhaps it also reflected the belief that - if anthropology is to be believed - many of the cultures that did worship graven images also partook in abuse of children of this kind, often within that worship.

[Hope]

Your ignorance of this subject has really surprised me Hope.

It has been described in so many books Radio TV YouTube all sorts of places, ...

Many of which, as I'm sure you're aware, give conflicting or 'competing' scientific information and ideas.  That's 'where I've been'.

If you haven't understood yet I can't see that it would be any good for me to try to explain it to you.

I doubt whether your explanation would be any more definitive than many of these websites like to claim to be.

[Shaker]

Many of which, as I'm sure you're aware, give conflicting or 'competing' scientific information and ideas.  That's 'where I've been'.

On the essentials of evolutionary theory? Such as?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hope,

That, of course, assumes that sexual abuse of children occurred amongst a fairly small tribal group as the Jews were at the time.  Perhaps it also reflected the belief that - if anthropology is to be believed - many of the cultures that did worship graven images also partook in abuse of children of this kind, often within that worship.

It assumes no such thing. As I understand it, those who think the ten commandments to be "god given', "god inspired" or some such think them to be rules for all humanity and for all time, not just for a single tribal people in one small space and for a fairly brief period of time. Presumably this god would therefore had had the nous to frame them accordingly - unless that is you really think "Him" to have been that parochial?

Oh, and knock yourself out in finding a link between the worship of graven images and child abuse. And even if you ever could find one, why would this god of yours have assumed that all graven image worshippers were also child abusers, and why would "He" have used such a roundabout way of telling them that child abuse was a bad thing? Presumably any pederast daft enough to believe them would have thought, "OK, I'll knock off the graven image worship then but as this God seems so relaxed abut child abuse that must be fine and dandy".

If ever there were to be a Nobel prize for casuistry, you my friend would be well-advised to have your penguin suit pressed and your speech ready.