A Fantastic Rebuttal to Dennis Pragers Tribute to the Ten Commandments

[NeoGreen]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/06/25/a-fantastic-rebuttal-to-dennis-pragers-tribute-to-the-ten-commandments-2/

A Fantastic Rebuttal to Dennis Prager’s Tribute to the Ten Commandments
June 25, 2017 by Hemant Mehta

Conservative commentator Dennis Prager once made a video promoting the Ten Commandments. It was a silly video, in part because the list is indefensible. (Praying to false idols? Blasphemy! Slavery? Didn’t make the cut.)

YouTuber Alex J. O’Connor (a.k.a. CosmicSkeptic) just published an excellent response to that piece, going through the video a few lines at a time. Because it’s never too late to promote rational thinking in the face of nonsense.

It’s always frustrating when a video like Prager’s gets more than a million views while the rebuttals get a mere fraction of that. But considering how often politicians refer to the Ten Commandments as a form of guidance for everyone, to the point that they want to erect monuments of it, there’s no reason to keep quiet about how awful a list it is. So keep those rebuttals coming.

[NeoGreen]

1. Audio of Christopher Hitchens' Analysis of the 10 Commandments...

...mentioned in the above video:

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. When people say they want to post the ten commandments

in public places, my first question is, Which version?

I was raised Catholic and I know that I learned a slightly different version from that of my Protestant friends.

Same with prayer in school. Which prayers? If you can't say a good Hail Mary or two, then never mind.

[Warpy]

3. That was the final insult that touched off the Nativist Riots

in Philadelphia in the 1840s. It was decreed that the ten should be posted in the local schools, all well and good and the Christian majority approved. Then the Irish insisted on the Douay version in the schools in their neighborhoods instead of the KJV, and the non Irish "natives" lost their shit. The riots lasted several days, resulted in a few deaths and a lot of injuries, and of course nothing was particularly settled. It's one reason Catholic religious grammar schools became popular, they kept the kiddies away from Protestant heresy on the classroom wall.

Today, fewer people actually know there are different versions and the waters are far more muddied with newer translations done mostly from bad older translations. If the same idiots pass the same law, we will hear sectarian grumbling, but most people haven't read the ten since they were children and can't quote them to save their lives so they won't come to blows.

[uriel1972]

4. there are three lists of ten (numerically) commandments in the Old Testament...

Only one is labelled the Ten Commandments and it is unlike the other two which are the ones most commonly seen.
Go figure.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. That would be a strong clue that

the Old Testament started life as an oral work. Repetition is crucial to maintaining an oral work, and over time discrepancies can creep in.

Back when I was taking a world literature course at a community college, we did "The Iliad", originally an oral epic, and then "The Aeneid" a written epic. The differences between the two forms, one oral and one written, is striking.