I generally consider the (non-theist) Commandments to generally be generally good rules to live by.
I have to say the non-theist rules because several of them are about God and religion… Like, having no other gods before [him], not taking the Lord’s name in vain, the whole idols thing…
If you take all that theist stuff out, you basically get: don’t lie, steal, cheat, or kill, don’t covet others stuff, and respect your mother and father.
Pretty decent rules overall. At the very least, a good starting point.
It’s not just control over your actions at that point, it’s control over thoughts, and you can’t really police thoughts.
Plus there’s intrusive thoughts that we can’t really control. Things that just pop into our heads. Stuff we wouldn’t actually ever do, but the thought occurs to you anyways.
At the height of my depression from burnout, my brain was concocting inventive ways to take myself out. These were undesirable and unwanted thoughts. It usually happened when I was driving around, looking for a tree large enough that if I hit it head on fast enough, I’d be certain to perish. I could not stop thinking these things.
I got help and I’ve been in a much better place since then. The ideations have stopped. I recognized something needed to change because I didn’t want to think those things.
However, this is a pretty good example of the intrusive thoughts we cannot control that we probably shouldn’t encourage. My environment caused me to get so stressed and burned out, which led to such a profound depression that I couldn’t stop such things from going through my mind. We all have those intrusive thoughts and policing them is basically impossible. Having any rules to that effect is nonsense, in the same way that we don’t have rules to stop people from being offended.
Utter nonsense.
This is why I assert that the commandments are a good starting point. Not the end goal. There’s some good guidelines in there, but they’re hardly the final ruleset that you should adhere to.
I generally consider the (non-theist) Commandments to generally be generally good rules to live by.
I have to say the non-theist rules because several of them are about God and religion… Like, having no other gods before [him], not taking the Lord’s name in vain, the whole idols thing…
If you take all that theist stuff out, you basically get: don’t lie, steal, cheat, or kill, don’t covet others stuff, and respect your mother and father.
Pretty decent rules overall. At the very least, a good starting point.
Except it will depend on interpretation, and the “thou shall not desire” parts will be used to justify anti-communist paranoia.
Yeah, those are always on shaky ground with me.
It’s not just control over your actions at that point, it’s control over thoughts, and you can’t really police thoughts.
Plus there’s intrusive thoughts that we can’t really control. Things that just pop into our heads. Stuff we wouldn’t actually ever do, but the thought occurs to you anyways.
At the height of my depression from burnout, my brain was concocting inventive ways to take myself out. These were undesirable and unwanted thoughts. It usually happened when I was driving around, looking for a tree large enough that if I hit it head on fast enough, I’d be certain to perish. I could not stop thinking these things.
I got help and I’ve been in a much better place since then. The ideations have stopped. I recognized something needed to change because I didn’t want to think those things.
However, this is a pretty good example of the intrusive thoughts we cannot control that we probably shouldn’t encourage. My environment caused me to get so stressed and burned out, which led to such a profound depression that I couldn’t stop such things from going through my mind. We all have those intrusive thoughts and policing them is basically impossible. Having any rules to that effect is nonsense, in the same way that we don’t have rules to stop people from being offended.
Utter nonsense.
This is why I assert that the commandments are a good starting point. Not the end goal. There’s some good guidelines in there, but they’re hardly the final ruleset that you should adhere to.
https://face2faceafrica.com/article/42-ancient-egyptian-laws-that-might-have-inspired-the-ten-commandments
*I tried to get a piped link, but it wouldn’t play, probably because youtube is blocking API accesses by third parties now?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk81tUUhRig