What if there were no 10 Commandments?

What if Moses disobeyed God and never brought the 10 commandments to the Isrealites? What is God never gave the commandments to Moses at all? The 10 commandments are rules that seem to be connected to almost every civilised law and rule we have in this day and time. Aside from worshiping only one god and not taking his name in vain, the rest are pretty much templates to the way we live today (or at least the way we are enforced to live by the modern day law).

So, again, my question is, what would life be like now if we never had a record of these laws from God? Now of course this question will have no meaning to anyone who disbeleives that God neither exists or the bible is innacurate in the accounts of the 10 commandments. But for those of us who take the story as truth, then I'd like to hear what you think our lives and governments and laws and rules would be like today? Would humanity have come up with this template if God had never given it to us? Would we just have gone on to be a race of people who do what is basic in human nature. With no set guidline for everyday living we would have nothing to tell us that stealing, murder, lying, etc. is wrong. The only thing that would keep you from doing such things is your own self discipline. With no set rules there would be no punishments either. This would mean that there would be no consequences for ones actions. You would be forced to govern yourself.

I can go on forever about what life would be like if we never had the initial set rules and regulations given to the Isrealites, but I'd like to hear what others have to say.

[edit on 18-9-2004 by mpeake]

what would life be like if the ten comandments wernt gotton? humm let me see.
People whould probly comit murdder and not feal bad rob banks drive drunk have wars cause polution and kill off most animals.
O wate you were asking what would the world be like not what IS the world like.

Originally posted by Simcity4Rushour
what would life be like if the ten comandments wernt gotton? humm let me see.
People whould probly comit murdder and not feal bad rob banks drive drunk have wars cause polution and kill off most animals.
O wate you were asking what would the world be like not what IS the world like.

Ha Good answer! But, my point wasn't that those things don;t exist already. We know that they do and they are disapproved on by scociety as a whole. Why? because we have set rules againts them. Where did those set rules come from? I beleive they originated from the 10 commandments. Sooooo....again, if there were no 10 comm's, would we still dissaprove of such atrocities today?

Look at the Code of Hammurabi, and other ancient laws... they prohibited many things that are in the ten commandments. I myself believe that many of these laws are already hardwired into the brain, a way of humans to organize for the benefit of one another. Even cut-throat, disorganized people will eventually become an ordered society... whether through peaceful intentions or force. Many of these things we hold as right and wrong probably stem from the days when we were hunters and gatherers; when society needed to be ordered in order(no pun intended) for it to survive.

In essence modern society just upholds two of the ten commandments by law.

Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not steal.

The others are really up for grabs... people lie, commit adultery, treat their parents with disdain, have as many Gods as they want or none at all, graven images is the order of the day,oh and coveting thy neighbors goods is the American (fill in the countries name) dream, we all know the sabbath( be it Saturday or Sunday) is a day for recovering from a hard night of partying and who doesn't use the lord's name in vain - we even have euphemisms for it Oh Gosh, etc etc

What was your question again?

Ok realy now think of this Why is it bad to steal ? Answer would you want someone to steal from you?
Why is it bad to kill ? again answer would you want someone to kill you?
all basic laws are self evedent in so much as its more about commin sence then about any writen words.
Even if the comandments were never writen and there WERE NO laws against killing or stealing the world would still be purtty close to what we already have . As a natrial balance is aloways struck sooner or later.
Look at other animals wolf fight at times but seldom kill one another once each wolf knows his place .
Chimps will steal from one another as well but only untill the chimp there stealing from sees them and stops them .
Papers writen never stoped anyone from doing things they want .
A honest man will stay honest to within reasion .
But a crok will steal no matter whats writen down.

Originally posted by Mynaeris
In essence modern society just upholds two of the ten commandments by law.

Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not steal.

The others are really up for grabs... people lie, commit adultery, treat their parents with disdain, have as many Gods as they want or none at all, graven images is the order of the day,oh and coveting thy neighbors goods is the American (fill in the countries name) dream, we all know the sabbath( be it Saturday or Sunday) is a day for recovering from a hard night of partying and who doesn't use the lord's name in vain - we even have euphemisms for it Oh Gosh, etc etc

What was your question again?

Well, sorta...See, the rest of the commandments still infiltrate the rest of the rules. You can't cheat on a physics exam in college or you're expelled. You can't lie in a court of law or you could be put in jail. You can't cheat on you're wife unless you want to pay her alimony. These may not be rules enforced my police officers, but they are still rules enforced by scociety in general.

I seriously doubt humans wouldn't have defined similar rules to live by if they had not been condensed into a neat story in the Bible. They contain some basic laws that I think any society would adopt as law and did so even before they were laid out in the Bible. Let's look at them in order:

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

Strictly pertains to the destruction of Paganism. The biggest battle early monotheic faiths were fighting was the prevelance of Pagan religions. It was in there belief structure that there was only one god so this commandment seems common sensed based for them to come up with. This rule wouldn't pertain to any culture outside of those that practiced Jewish, Christian or later, Muslim faiths.

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments."

Again, another stab at Paganism that was rampant at the time. Idoltry was common and this rule sought to destroy that practice and demonize it in many ways. It reaks of human thought processes, not a godly one. If it is from the mouth of a god then that god wasn't very sophisticated. 'For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God...'? I can't even begin to describe how immature and unevolved that statement sounds. For a god that was supposed to rise above the Pagan gods of the past it seems to have adopted some of the same petty traits.

"Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."

Again, probably would have been excluded by a culture not steeped in religious fervor. Why would the creator of a universe and everything in it care one hoot about saying goddam or something else of the same nature. I have a feeling people used terms similar to this during the time its was written and it even seems to reflect the Jewish beliefs the authors belonged to regarding god not being mentioned in any way by name, much less in a 'Jesus H. Christ!!' sort of way.

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."

Another silly statement influenced more by culture than by any real god imo. The Earth is relatively new on the cosmic stage so how in the world would any god take our cycle of days into account or even care. And, did a god have maidservants up in heaven or something? Yet another statement that gives these commandments away as strictly human inventions.

"Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee."

Whoa! We never could have come up with this one on our own!

"Thou shalt not kill."

Yet again, seems more common sense based rather than devinely charged.

"Thou shalt not commit adultery."

Well, since marraige didn't really become a legal institution until about 7,000 years ago in many cultures I guess this one reeks of human thought processes as well. Seems like the Bible came along a bit late to help the millions of humans that lived before 10,000 BCE.

"Thou shalt not steal."

Duh. Any civilized culture would have adopted this on their own as well. I'm sure even primitive human populations got pissed when their stuff was stolen by someone else. That speaks to basic human nature.

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."

This very telling of the times as well. There were many cultures that lived under larger powers and a lot of times if you ratted out a neighbor regarding bad deeds you became entitled to their property as a reward. It was used many times over by jealous people to gain more wealth and was a very bad problem during the times of the Bible and even up to Chrit's time during the Roman occupation.

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's."

Apparently god had some serious issues with people not losing their Oxen! It was going so well until that bit was added in and yet again it speaks more to the culture that wrote it rather than proof that a god actually wrote these rules. Isn't this god supposed to know all that came before and all that is to be? Why would this same god write a rule containing such a specific reference?

I'm not saying that these are generally good rules to live by, especially if you own Oxen or maidservants, but to tell me they are the actual word of some god is so silly I can't even fathom it.

As for the common sense rules contained within, I am positive, absolutely positive that we had some form of them before and would have come up with it in the future. The Eqyptians, Greeks, Romans, etc. all had rules concerning theft, murder, etc. and they cetainly didn't refer to Jewish texts to come up with them.

I highly recommend the book below. It does a good job of showing how the gods we worshipped/worship evolved right along with us in the written form and provides excellent arguments in an unintentional way, to me at least, why we have no freakin' clue what the true higher power really is or even what it thinks...

www.amazon.com...

Originally posted by mpeake
What if Moses disobeyed God and never brought the 10 commandments

Things would probably be pretty much the same as they are now. THe 10 commandments weren't universaland the israelites certainly didn't strictly obey them. Contrary to popular though, the 10 commandments aren't the source of all law and morality in the world. People were moral before the 10 commandments, without them, and will be if they're ever lost.

All I know is it's a good thing that Moses wasn't a lawyer. Some of that wording seems a little bit vague doesn't it? I mean I heard thou shalt not steal but in Church I heard a priest once say that taking money from the parents or siblings wasn't really stealing but just a form of borrowing. I disagree. Hmmm, maybe Moses dropped the small print and we are just left with these vague general rules such as Thou shalt not kill. Did I just break a commandment if I stepped on an ant?

I was just thinking. The ten commandents do not have a Thou shalt not drive drunk commandment. Does that mean all the religious folks can now ignore this law because it's not written in stone from long ago? I believe the 10 commandments brought order to a society without that much order. Without some degree of order I believe societies would digress into chaotic disorder and it would be a struggle to survive and be survival of the fittest or luckiest. Our governments and millions or billions of people would die without the order necessary to maintain trade and infrastructure along with food supplies and their transportation.

Real Human beings know right from wrong, ten commandments or not. If there were no ten commandments there would still be rules. Good/Evil , Ying/Yang its all the same. Theres a universel understanding of whats good and what bad.

Originally posted by et is dead

Theres a universel understanding of whats good and what bad.

Wrong. Do you think eating people from the neighboring tribe, killing anyone who aggrieves you in the slightest, and taking what you want, when you want, is right?

Would you feel any embarrasment right now if you were to put on (assuming you're male) a pretty skirt and some makeup and go out in public? How about if you're seen kissing a male?

Do you feel it's nice to have manners?

The reason you know 'wrong' from 'right' is not some genetic programming inherent in your brain, it's learned from the social construct in which you are born and grew up in.

Through much trial and error, tribes of Jewish sheep herders were able to make a record of their laws. Since most people back then didn't have the education, experience or wisdom to see the logic behind these laws, yet the elders who proposed them knew they would have to be accepted to be any good, they simply said they came from God.

Some people argue that 'man can sense right from wrong.' I can't express how ridiculous this notion is. Right and Wrong are entirely learned behaviors.

There are always sick weird sticko exceptions to the rules.

Originally posted by mpeake
What if Moses disobeyed God and never brought the 10 commandments to the Isrealites? What is God never gave the commandments to Moses at all?

Things wouldn't have changed much -- beyond, perhaps, decreasing a certain smugness about "I have the One Right Deity And Book and YOU (you scumbag!) don't have it! Nyaah nyaah."

So... knock out the ones about God being the only one and keeping the Sabbath.

All groups have kinship systems, and honoring/venerating/worshipping ancestors is a very strong primitive tradition. All human groups seem to have laws against stealing as well, and killing within the group (killing other people is fine.)

Aside from worshiping only one god and not taking his name in vain, the rest are pretty much templates to the way we live today (or at least the way we are enforced to live by the modern day law).

Not really.

We have a lot of laws about property and work and divorces and so forth (and laws about NOT beating your spouse, which weren't in the original 10). Most of the laws that help us deal with our complicated lives (necessary laws, like obeying stop signs) have nothing to do with religioin.

Now of course this question will have no meaning to anyone who disbeleives that God neither exists or the bible is innacurate in the accounts of the 10 commandments.

Beg to differ here, but you'll get contrary answers (answers much the same as mine) from anyone (Christian or no) who has studied sociology, history, pyschology, or anthropology.

We have a lot of material from many different cultures (cultures that had no contact with the Jews and did not believe in a supreme being) that show this... including the Babylonian material and legal documents from Egypt that predate the writing of the various books of the Old Testament.

I think Moses would have had an easier climb up the hill. As to what he would then do up there, the plot thickens.

Jesus said love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbour as yourself and in doing these two things you will fulfill the whole law.

If you love people as you love yourself you wont steal, committ adultery, kill, or covet from them. And if you love God with all your heart you will do the things that please Him. Which is loving people as you love yourself.

golden rule...........

The point about these 10 commandments is that they are the result of loving God and your neighbor as yourself, not that they are artificially "followed." If people would do all things without going outside those words, it is more a signal that they are living in the law of love than walking on eggshells.

The point should be abundantly clear to anyone who has studied theology deeply, although it is within the capability of the innocent child to perceive it.

Is our Father, solely a supreme accountant and attorney of everything? I think there is much more to our God than only that.

If there were no 10 commandments, people would follow them anyway, "seeing without seeing, and hearing without hearing."

Originally posted by SkipShipman
If there were no 10 commandments, people would follow them anyway, "seeing without seeing, and hearing without hearing."

If there were no 10 commandments, other ethical laws provided by religion or culture would be better known.

There's no magic pouring out of God that inherently tells people right from wrong.

It's not like people and society even follow the 10 commandments anyway.

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

What do you spend more time thinking about, God or money?

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments."

Obey God and follow no one but God, with no exceptions, or you and your descendents will suffer.

"Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."

This does not mean you can't say "God Damn!" It means that if you say you worship God but do it in words only, you're damned.

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it."

The week starts on a Sunday. You do not exert yourself in any way on this day. Who follows this?

"Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee."

Sorry, Mom's senile and really cramping my style. Off to the death home, er, cough cough 'retirement home.'

"Thou shalt not kill."

Wow. Pretty clear. Can you get any clearer, God? I mean, can I kill if I do it for my country, or my leader? Oh wait, I can't do that because of rules 1, 2, and 3. I obey your word, I listen to no one but you, and I do not pretend to obey your word.

"Thou shalt not commit adultery."

Pretty clear. We all know why this causes problems. Followed? Sometimes by some people.

"Thou shalt not steal."

Also, pretty clear. Followed? Not by many, and certainly not by the government.

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."

Again, this should be perfectly clear.

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's."

This means you can admire someone else and their posessions, but don't be jealous of them. Get off your ass, get work done, and earn things. Pretty good rule to live by.

Now, we have all these rules, but as you can see in our society and government they're more like guidelines.

It really cracked me up when they wanted to post these in government offices. How about we do that, but put one right in the Oval Office behind the president?

Originally posted by orionthehunter
All I know is it's a good thing that Moses wasn't a lawyer. Some of that wording seems a little bit vague doesn't it?

"thou shalt not covet another man's wife'. Seems to say married women can have extramarital affairs. And forget about 'tho shalt not kill' thats something disobeyed numerous times in the bible, sometimes at the direct command of god.

taibunsuu
Right and Wrong are entirely learned behaviors.

Agreed, however, the 10 commandments were just how the jews at that time learned right from wrong. The rest of the world figured it out without the 10 commandments. Also, would you say that the jews didn't know right from wrong and were an immoral people before they were given the 10 commanments?