The Six Commandments

I just read another news article about Atheists protesting the Ten Commandments being posted on a Government building, and I wondered, "Why do they care?"

Seriously, are they worried that anyone stops to read them?  I'll bet if you did a poll of Christians in America you would find that they are abysmally bad at remembering all ten commandments.  Which isn't really that surprising, because if you did a random sampling of sermons across America, I doubt that you would hear very many of the ten commandments being preached.  If Atheists really wanted to attack Christians, they would be highlighting the commandments, not trying to take them down.  Make Christians aware of how poorly they keep all Ten, and maybe they would take the tablets down themselves.

For instance, #4 states:

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates..."

If Christians truly believed and followed that commandment, then business would stop on Sunday - half of the workforce wouldn't work, and half of the customers wouldn't conduct business that causes people to work.  I think between those two halves, people would just give up and take the day off.  Instead, the stores are packed, and even Christian book stores stay open on Sunday.

And take a look at #3:

"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain..."

The vast majority of Christians I have met pay no mind to this commandment and use God and Christ as vulgarities on a regular basis.

Jumping over to #7:

"You shall not commit adultery."

Statistics on adultery are tricky - people are notoriously bad at self reporting - so estimates on infidelity vary from 10% to 70% of people have cheated on their spouse.  However, 80% of Christians admit to fornication, which is basically the same thing.  80%!!! That is a big fat 'F' for #7.

The last of the ten is an interesting one:

"You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's."

'Covet' is not a very common word, but it means to desire wrongfully, inordinately, or without due regard for the rights of others. A modern equivalent to coveting is 'keeping up with the Joneses." I think a good case could be made that the economic collapse of 2008 was caused by covetousness - businesses took advantage of people coveting the affluence and status of their neighbor and loaned them money for cars and houses they couldn't afford.
My point here isn't to judge how well people keep commandments.  We all make mistakes, understandably.  The problem I see is that of the 10 commandments, Christians aren't even trying to keep four of them - it's like they don't care or don't think those four are important.

So Christians get an F+ for Effort.  And that might be why they are losing their fights to protect marriage, keep the ten commandments up, etc.  Maybe they should take the time to read the Old Testament and learn the lesson that the original recipients of the ten commandments took so long to learn:

"Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go...
No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life." (Joshua 1:7,5)