YHWH’s Impossible Carrot

Exodus 20:1-6

This is the Ten Commandments.  The ironic thing is that these commandments were not just for the people of Israel, but fort the community as well.  Here in the US, we have a large contingent of people who believe that the Commandments should be on display and that our government should pay for the creation and placement of these religious “art works”.  The truly ironic thing about the commandments is that the US itself and all the US population have broken everyone of these commandments.  Let me show you.

Number 1 and 2: No other gods…these are inseparable.  Americans worship sports superstars, actors and actresses, and even the Almighty Dollar (which ain’t so mighty these days).  We, as a nation, allow those of other faiths and religions to continue to worship as is their constitutional rights. 

More about commandment number two is that of YHWH punishment and “love”.  I have always had difficulty understanding how justice can be applied to the concept of this verse:

Exodus 20:5-6 You shall not bow down to them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

The problems with this “justice” are numerous.  The first thing that should strike you is that YHWH bends his own commandment #10!  The definition of “covet” is to envy someone else.  But the difference between envy and jealousy are complex.  On Dictionary.com under thesaurus heading “jealousy pertains to emotional rivalry while envy is resentment of a more fortunate person”. 

So it is only wrong to want what others have.  It is perfectly fine, since YHWH does it to have emotionally rivalry!

But this is not the only problem.  Notice that YHWH punishes 3 – 4 generations after the sinful father.  So even one act accomplished by one person, who “deserves” punishment, leads to an exponential group being punished.  If you consider even two children per generation that lead to YHWH punishing 16 innocent people.  If on the other hand you recognize that most Biblical mating had more offspring than that…at three children per generation: 81 innocent people would be punished.  How is punishing innocent people just or loving?

But it gets worse.  YHWH claims to “show love to a thousand generations…”.  Do you know how many years a thousand generations are?  Bare minimum it is 2000 years.  YHWH as of yet has not shown this love!  What nation has been blessed by YHWH in history for 2000 years?  Not a single one.  Now the rationalization is that humans are sinful and as a result, deserve YHWH punishment.  As a result, YHWH has not had the opportunity to bless 1000 generations.  He would, if only humanity would obey his commands.  But this is a catch-22.  YHWH never has to hold up his side of the bargain, because he created us to be sinful!  I have proven, over and over again, that we do not have freewill.  As a result, humanity will sin and YHWH will get to skirt his own promise.  Exodus 20:6 is a worse than a lie.  It is a carrot, tied to a stick, hung on a harness in front of the horse.  We can never reach it, but only if we could…YHWH would bless us.  Do you see how ridiculous this concept is?  The whole situation guarantees that YHWH does not ever, under any circumstance, have to protect his followers.  One slip and the promise, from verse 6, is void.  It is a dirty trip played with contractual obligations.  A game that a truly loving supernatural being would not use.

This entry was posted on July 9, 2009, 8:12 am at 08:12 and is filed under Ten Commandments, Exodus, Freewill, Readings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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