Draft Excerpt Series No. 1

I've decided to post bits and pieces of books I'm writing as I write them. These are copyright me, now, but I probably don't need to say that since no one ever visits this site anyway.

In spite of the motto that the Ten Commandments are just that -- Commandments, as opposed to suggestions or helpful hits, like the kind you would follow to get candle wax out of shag carpet, there is a strong case to be made that the Commandments were meant to be broken. Some of the arguments that support this claim are:

1. They are widely labeled as something less than law, and seem to have a dual status, not so much that they clearly are not commandments, as something more subtle and schitzophrenic. The Ten (wink, wink, nudge nudge, don't tell Yahweh but I've got my fingers crossed) Commandments. This is true in the Bible and continues to the present day.

2. They are not enforceable; and in fact not even keepable. I mean, you can covet all you like. You can't help it and nobody's going to know. Just don't be obvious about it. Being obvious, well, that would just wreck everything.

3. They come with a judicial rule which appears designed to help hide noncompliance.

4. Their vagueness makes it possible to get around them.

5. Their punishment is too draconian to expect normal people to execute it. There is a long tradition of doctrines to aid their nonenforcement.

6. To fulfill their function of propitiating the wrath of a distant deity, they did not need to punish crime which was not exposed.

7. The entire context and subsequent story suggests that compliance was the exception and not the rule. These were people inculcated for generations to present the pretense of obedience.

Lots more to say, but gotta go.