Fixing the Ten Commandments.

Wrote this as a reply to someone on social media, decided it was worth reposting here.

So, morality is a very subjective concept, as it hinges entirely upon human psychology and is just recently becoming better understood, along with our grasp of how the human mind works.

All that being said, morality is in a constant state of evolution and improvement. Certainly people had no problem with slavery hundreds of years ago, while today most people balk at the idea. So morality changes depending on the society you happen to be in.

Thus, we need to establish what we value before we can agree on morality. I place a value on preventing the suffering of conscious, living beings, and thus I find murder, slavery, torture, etc., to be immoral.

However, someone else may place a higher priority on economic well-being, and say that it's immoral to keep people working minimum wage while the CEO makes millions per year. I might agree or disagree, but up to a point, both people can have their moral standards and exist in the same society.

Ultimately, a society is composed of people that all share very similar moral standards, and any disagreement is resolved through adjudication/court systems. If someone finds that they disagree with the moral standard of the society in which they exist, they might just decide to move to a different one, and that happens as well.

The 10 commandments? That's easy. For a start, there is zero point to a top-ten list, as morality could technically be one or two "commandments" or as complex as a hundred. People like top ten lists, so the ten commandments is easy to popularize.

However, let's fix the existing list:

1. You shall have no other gods but me. This is interesting, because it implies that other gods do exist. In any case, this has nothing at all to do with morality, it's just a petty remark about jealousy.
   
2. You shall not make for yourself any idol, nor bow down to it or worship it. Same as #1, it's about a dictatorial, jealous entity that has issues with playing second fiddle.
   
3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. More petty nonsense that seems far beneath a deity that exists throughout time and space. It sounds much more like a human making a big deal about titles and positions.
   
4. You shall remember and keep the Sabbath day holy. Why? There is NOTHING moral about a day of the week. Nobody gets hurt by working on a particular day, and most of us get at least one day off a week anyway.
   
5. Respect your father and mother. Why? Maybe your parents were deadbeats, maybe they abused their kids. Nobody should get a free pass just because they had sex and carried you to term. Again, NOT a moral statement whatsoever.
   
6. You must not commit murder. Fine. That's agreeable. A person might argue that grey areas exist with that one where murder could be justified, but overall it's a perfectly fine law.
   
7. You must not commit adultery. Why? This seems to stem from primitive times, when women depended on men for protection and support. It was important to maintain family bonds for survival. It's a grey area today, sometimes it's acceptable, sometimes not. Subjective, in other words.
   
8. You must not steal. Sure, theft should be wrong, it's harming another person economically. There should be exceptions, perhaps stealing in order to survive or a similar emergency, but overall it's acceptable.
   
9. You must not give false evidence against your neighbor. Don't lie. I think the act itself isn't really immoral, as it doesn't always result in people being harmed. If you lie about someone committing a crime, and they go to jail, that's immoral. A kid lying about eating a cookie, eh I can live with that.
   
10. You must not be envious of your neighbor's goods. Don't covet. This is thought control more than anything else. I think desiring something your friend has can be a beneficial thing, it gives you a goal to strive towards, something to save up in order to buy later. Immoral? Not by a freakin' long shot.

So, there you go, two out of the ten are actually worth keeping.