The Ten Commandments need a rewrite!

It occurs to me that, although the title of teh last post is actually a play on the sitcom title, “8 Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter”, it sounds a little like the Ten Commandments. Now, I’m not knocking those, but NLP teaches that the unconscious mind doesn’t understand the word ‘not’ (try not to think of a purple elephant), so eight of those commandments, on the unconscious level, are really telling people to behave badly. That is, to the unconscious mind, they read like this:

1. Thou shalt not Have other gods before me. (Materialism, anyone?)
2. Thou shalt not Make graven images. (All those religious icons, perhaps?)
3. Thou shalt not Take the name of the Lord in vain. (We sure all swear a lot.)
4. Keep the Sabbath holy. (One of the two positive ones, though it isn’t honored much in our culture.)
5. Honor thy father and mother. (Most of us do try.)
6. Thou shalt not Kill. (Hmmm... War?)
7. Thou shalt not Commit adultery. (Certainly lots of that going on.)
8. Thou shalt not Steal (Yup, that, too.)
9. Thou shalt not Lie. (And that.)
10. Thou shalt not Be jealous. (And that, too, I suppose, though it’s less obvious.)

Maybe that’s why the world is such a mess!

How about a rewrite?

1. God is more vast than can be comprehended by the human mind.
2. So stop with the pictures, okay?
3. Respect God.
4. Keep the Sabbath holy.
5. Honor thy father and mother.
6. Respect life.
7. Respect other people and their relationships.
8. Respect other people’s property rights.
9. Tell the truth.
10. Be grateful for what you have.