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Poll
How boring is this?
Less boring than other Inden screeds. 20%
About as boring. 60%
Boringer. 20%

Votes: 5

 First Commandment: Revisit As Often As Necessary

 Author:  Topic:  Posted:
Nov 23, 2001
 Comments:
Killing people doesn't kill their ideas - it might even make them stronger by some odd metaphysical feng sui or taoist ying yang balance we can't measure scientifically. The first part is the more important part - it is more demonstrable historically. Killing the holders of hatred doesn't kill the hate.
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Metaphorically and non-Metaphorically
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You can't kill an idea by killing people.

Please read that sentence one more time for emphasis. You can NOT kill an idea by killing people.

Hatred that leads to violence is an idea. The idea will always be with us - it will always be up to us to strive to control the urge to kill one another. Even if 99.9% of the other humans agree with you that these humans don't deserve to live and killing them would make the world a better place, Killing THEM (whoever them is this time around) doesn't fix anything.

That urge you have to strangle them - yes that one - that is the little piece of Nazi/KKKlan/al-Qaida/Biblical-zionist/Hamasnik/Chetnik/Maoist/Stalinist/Khmer Rouge/demon inside of you!

As the first commandment says:
"Don't kill each other!"

The only exception we have found is in direct self-defense while others are in the act of attempting to kill you. Physically not metaphorically.

As my sig says: "What part of 'Don't kill each other!' do you not understand?" = G-d's press release, October 15, 2001. It was reported in the Onion by the way.

       
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Congratulations! (none / 0) (#1)
by Anonymous Reader on Fri Nov 23rd, 2001 at 09:51:48 AM PST
You have posted 3 diaries in less than 16 hours, for a new Adequacy.org record!

and... (none / 0) (#11)
by otak on Sat Nov 24th, 2001 at 04:13:34 AM PST
One of them was explaining why you've been posting so many diaries.

Don't you have a job or a girlfriend or a collection of pornography or something to keep you occupied?

 
Duh, of course you can. (none / 0) (#2)
by em on Fri Nov 23rd, 2001 at 09:58:50 AM PST
Metaphorically and non-Metaphorically Metaphysically and Physically You can't kill an idea by killing people.

Duh. If you kill *everybody* who holds some idea, and nobody else gets the same idea, then you've killed an idea by killing everybody who holds it. This is nothing but elementary logic.

As the first commandment says: "Don't kill each other!" The only exception we have found is in direct self-defense while others are in the act of attempting to kill you. Physically not metaphorically.

The first commandment doesn't list exceptions. In fact, "turn the other cheek" would suggest that you should not kill in self-defense (not to mention the fact that Christ willingly allowed himself to be killed to redeem personkind's sins).

What's this obsession you have with metaphor, that you keep bringing it up?
--em
Associate Editor, Adequacy.org

Correction: The Seventh Commandment (none / 0) (#7)
by Inden on Sat Nov 24th, 2001 at 02:46:59 AM PST
Like it matter whether it is number seven or two or one really.

"Turn the other cheek" isn't one of the top 10 commandments. That comes in the sequel book.

Here is my rephrasing in my understanding.

1-There's only one G-d: me. I'm the one took you out of bondage in Egypt so worship only me.
2-Don't make any graven images of anything to worship instead of me cause I'm jealous and I'll punish you bad.
3-Don't misuse my name
4-Keep the Sabbath day of rest. Work six days, rest the seventh. Don't let any of your servants or children or guests work on the Sabbath either. I made the world in six days and rested on the seventh so follow my example.
5-Honor your mom and dad - treat them as nice as you would like your kids to treat you and you should have a long happy life.
6-Don't kill each other
7-Don't commit adultery
8-Don't steal
9-Don't bear false witness (lie) about each other.
10-Don't lust after your neighbor's wife, house, property, anything.

Also, it is really incredibly awesomely difficult to kill everyone with an idea because, for one thing, an idea is very contagious and also you can't read their minds. So do you want me to be pedantic and say "it is virtually impossible but could theoretically be achievable" dickhead murderer.




 
Correction: The Sixth Commandment (none / 0) (#8)
by Inden on Sat Nov 24th, 2001 at 02:47:53 AM PST
Like it matter whether it is number seven or two or one really.

"Turn the other cheek" isn't one of the top 10 commandments. That comes in the sequel book.

Here is my rephrasing in my understanding.

1-There's only one G-d: me. I'm the one took you out of bondage in Egypt so worship only me.
2-Don't make any graven images of anything to worship instead of me cause I'm jealous and I'll punish you bad.
3-Don't misuse my name
4-Keep the Sabbath day of rest. Work six days, rest the seventh. Don't let any of your servants or children or guests work on the Sabbath either. I made the world in six days and rested on the seventh so follow my example.
5-Honor your mom and dad - treat them as nice as you would like your kids to treat you and you should have a long happy life.
6-Don't kill each other
7-Don't commit adultery
8-Don't steal
9-Don't bear false witness (lie) about each other.
10-Don't lust after your neighbor's wife, house, property, anything.

Also, it is really incredibly awesomely difficult to kill everyone with an idea because, for one thing, an idea is very contagious and also you can't read their minds. So do you want me to be pedantic and say "it is virtually impossible but could theoretically be achievable" dickhead murderer.




god you're on drugs aren't you? (none / 0) (#9)
by em on Sat Nov 24th, 2001 at 03:03:51 AM PST
"Turn the other cheek" isn't one of the top 10 commandments. That comes in the sequel book.

"Top 10 commandments"? "Top 10" as in MTV? Woohoo!!!

Anyway, that "sequel" book is of *primary importance* to any Christian. The "sequel" *supercedes* the Old Testament. If you're trying to support pacifism from the OT, you're going to need a few more tokes from the crack pipe than what you seem to have taken already.

10-Don't lust after your neighbor's wife, house, property, anything.

Eh, you left out the funniest part of this testament-- the one that, after equating women with houses and property, equates them with donkeys (or whichever other domestic animal it is)
--em
Associate Editor, Adequacy.org

The Ten Commandments Are Exodus:20 (none / 0) (#10)
by Inden on Sat Nov 24th, 2001 at 03:53:49 AM PST
There isn't a table of the commandments in the bible. They are inferred from the address of G-d to Israel through the smoke and thunder and fire from Mt. Sinai.

I very intentionally used the words top-10 for lightness and affability. I was thinking of Letterman though. I don't think this diminishes their seriousness myself. Call it artistic license.

What makes you assume I am Christian? I am the same religion as your saviour was, in fact. We Jews and Christians in America have worked out a rough live and let live arrangement when it comes to matters of theology. We stress commonalities and not differences and that's how we get along. We are now challenged to find a way to make this happen with our brothers of Islam. It will be much harder there because the historical origins of their religion explicitly deal with Judaism and Christianity as rivals to be overcome and ruled. It's in the Koran and it's in the history of their conquest of the region. They did a better job ruling Christians and Jews than the Romans or the Christians did btw - much more tolerant. Because their book says that Jews and Christians are okay, as long as they are living under a Muslim government.

 
Still not the old Inden. (none / 0) (#3)
by RobotSlave on Fri Nov 23rd, 2001 at 11:35:25 AM PST
At a mere 200+, this is never going to make the cut at garrulous-gorillas.org, but I notice that the narcotic effect is more concentrated than ever before; I had to take a nap after merely pasting this drivel into my writing software for a word count, and reading a word or two of it by accident.


© 2002, RobotSlave. You may not reproduce this material, in whole or in part, without written permission of the owner.

 
huh? (none / 0) (#4)
by Anonymous Reader on Fri Nov 23rd, 2001 at 12:06:01 PM PST
The first commandment is: Thou shalt
have no other gods before me. 1: Exodus 20:3.


 
Just one thing (none / 0) (#5)
by Anonymous Reader on Sat Nov 24th, 2001 at 12:51:31 AM PST
Not biblical zionism..

but:

Revisionist zionism.




 
Ahhhh... what can ya do? (none / 0) (#6)
by Chocolate Milkshake on Sat Nov 24th, 2001 at 01:05:19 AM PST
The problem is that "self-defense" has a funny getting out of hand. Today we're liberating Dachau, tomorrow we're bombing Nagasaki. Oh well.

Y'see, the urge to kill is hard-coded into who we are. Children instinctively take pleasure in stomping on insects. It's a survival technique. To stay alive, we need to kill for our food (and clothing and even shelter). Animals, plants, something must die so that we may live. What is fruit but the partial-birth abortion of a tree?.

In more civilized times, we were able to channel our urges to kill toward activites like hunting and fishing, and the sort of warfare that mainly involved professional soldiers ("Napoleonic", set-piece battles). Nowdays we treat such activites as barbaric, and stifle our instinctive murderous instincts until they burst forth in gigantic orgies of destruction such as the 9/11 incident and its consequential carpet-bombing retalliatory onslaught. Only when we realize that to kill is human will we once again be able to turn our lethal energies in minimally harmful directions

 

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