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The Ten Commandments: An Investigation Into The Origin And Meaning Of The Decalogue And An Analysis Of Its Ethical And Moral Value As A Code Of Conduct In Modern Society
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
676 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2007
About the author
Joseph Lewis
5 books11 followersThere is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name
Joseph Lewis has been in education for forty-one years and counting as a teacher, coach, counselor and now as an administrator. He uses his psychology and counseling background and his knowledge and fondness for kids in crafting his characters and dialogue. He has taken creative writing and screen writing courses at UCLA and USC.
Lewis has published four books, all available on Amazon and each to excellent reviews: Taking Lives (August 2014) the prequel to the Lives Trilogy; Stolen Lives (November 2014) Book One of the Lives Trilogy; Shattered Lives (March 2015) Book Two of the Trilogy; and Splintered Lives (November 2015) Book Three of the Trilogy. His fifth novel, Caught in a Web dropped April 26, 2018 from Black Rose Writing.
Born and raised in Wisconsin, Lewis has been happily married for twenty-five years to his wife, Kim. Together they have three wonderful children: Wil (deceased July 2014), Hannah and Emily and they now reside in Virginia.
Joseph Lewis has been in education for forty-one years and counting as a teacher, coach, counselor and now as an administrator. He uses his psychology and counseling background and his knowledge and fondness for kids in crafting his characters and dialogue. He has taken creative writing and screen writing courses at UCLA and USC.
Lewis has published four books, all available on Amazon and each to excellent reviews: Taking Lives (August 2014) the prequel to the Lives Trilogy; Stolen Lives (November 2014) Book One of the Lives Trilogy; Shattered Lives (March 2015) Book Two of the Trilogy; and Splintered Lives (November 2015) Book Three of the Trilogy. His fifth novel, Caught in a Web dropped April 26, 2018 from Black Rose Writing.
Born and raised in Wisconsin, Lewis has been happily married for twenty-five years to his wife, Kim. Together they have three wonderful children: Wil (deceased July 2014), Hannah and Emily and they now reside in Virginia.
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May 26, 2024
A MASSIVE CONDEMNATION OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
Joseph L. Lewis (1889-1968) was an American freethinker and atheist activist, publisher, and litigator. He wrote other books such as 'The Bible Unmasked,' 'An Atheist Manifesto,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface of this 1946 book, “There are some … who tell us… that no one need make an effort to seek such [moral/ethical] knowledge; they tell us that it is already here in a special revelation from the ‘God of the Universe’ in what is known as the Ten Commandments… We are told by some that the Ten Commandments were written by ‘God’ himself---that they are divine, infallible, and imperishable… rarely has anything equaled the absolute faith accorded the Ten Commandments.” (Pg. xii-xiii) He continues, “I am led to ask: Do the people want the truth about the Ten Commandments? Do they want them analyzed?... I, for one, do not believe that the Ten Commandments are too sacred to be investigated and analyzed… Neither do I believe that the Ten Commandments should be blindly accepted… I do not accept these premises of the sacredness of the Decalogue… A picture of an angry God pointing his menacing finger and shouting ‘Thou Shalt Not’ has been man’s greatest stumbling block in his heroic endeavor to emancipate himself from the fear, ignorance, superstition and savagery of his primitive past.” (Pg. xxv-xxvi)
He points out, “In the Fourth Commandment as recorded in Exodus, ninety-four words were used to express this [4th] Commandment, but in Deuteronomy one hundred and thirty-three words were necessary to express it. However, the difference between the number of words is not so important as the difference in what they say. The reason given for observing the Sabbath as recorded in Exodus is ‘For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth… and rested the seventh day’; the reason given in Deuteronomy is ‘… the Lord thy God brought thee out thence … therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.’ … [This] is a matter far more serious than a mere ‘variant’… One or the other must be condemned as false…” (Pg. 18-19)
He quotes Exodus 12:12-14, then comments, “What an event to celebrate as the national holiday of a people: the murdering of the first-born of an entire country as an act of their God deliberately perpetrated to show his power! This brutal ‘God’ tells them that it must be a feast forever, so that the memory of the anguish from the loss of the most precious thing in the world---the first-born---may never be forgotten! It is not easy to express in words that detestation such a God deserves.” (Pg. 95)
He asserts, “The New Testament narrative of the nailing of Jesus to the cross has no more basis in fact than the exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt… There is serious doubt as to whether Jesus ever lived, as there is not a single authentic piece of historical evidence to substantiate his existence. It is most probably one of the many monstrous tales that were fabricated … solely for the purpose of further arousing the antagonism already manifested against them.” (Pg. 171-172)
He states, “The belief that man is the special creation of a God, and that the world was created for his benefit, is responsible for those fantastic views of life and the universe which have so plagued the human race. Man will never discover the causes of disease if he believes that they are sent by a God as punishment for sin. Man will not solve the problems of existence, or of his general welfare, until he abandons this false and delusive belief, looks upon himself as only an insignificant part of the universe, and understands his true relation to the other forms of life and existence.” (Pg. 204)
He says, “It is impossible for me to believe in the Bible God. My mind rebels against it. I cannot help but look upon this God as ‘an inhuman wretch, incapable of pity, void and empty from any dram of mercy,’ an ignorant force that has stupefied the brain of man and paralyzed the intellect with fear. I denounce this God with al the energy I possess, and if this be blasphemy, then make the most of it.” (Pg. 224)
He argues, “Now that women are no longer forced to observe this savage custom of ‘purification,’ nor condemned to suffer for the ‘sin’ of uncleanness, circumcising the male children … cannot be characterized as anything but a cruel mutilation. The number of deaths resulting from circumcising a male child before it is physically able to stand such an ordeal might well be called the slaughter of the innocents.” (Pg. 304)
He quotes Exodus 2:12 and comments, “For deliberate, unmitigated murder this act of Moses is difficult to parallel. First, he made sure that no one saw him; secondly, he summarily killed the man, and, thirdly, to cover the evidence of his deed, he buried him in the sand so as to avoid detection and punishment. All this only because he saw this man striking a fellow Hebrew. There was no other provocation. Even according to the laws that Moses himself promulgated, he should have been judged guilty and punished.” (Pg. 363)
He says, “Do we need a better illustration … than Darwin’s magnificent achievement in discovering the laws of evolution? When first announced, it seemed incredible that man and ape could have had a common ancestry, but when examined in the light of Darwin’s findings concerning dormant physical characteristics… none but the indisputably blind could refuse to accept the conclusions of the indisputable evidence amassed by this profound thinker.” (Pg. 514)
He argues, “we are confronted with the alternative of either accepting the Constitution of the United States or the Ten Commandments. The Decalogue is a code of theocracy. The Constitution is an instrument of democracy. The Ten Commandments are based on a divine right with dogmatic edicts. This government is s Republic based on equal representation of the people with the right to change and alter its laws.” (Pg. 570-571)
This book is one of the “classics” of freethought literature, and will be of great interest to modern Atheists, skeptics, and other freethinkers.
Joseph L. Lewis (1889-1968) was an American freethinker and atheist activist, publisher, and litigator. He wrote other books such as 'The Bible Unmasked,' 'An Atheist Manifesto,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface of this 1946 book, “There are some … who tell us… that no one need make an effort to seek such [moral/ethical] knowledge; they tell us that it is already here in a special revelation from the ‘God of the Universe’ in what is known as the Ten Commandments… We are told by some that the Ten Commandments were written by ‘God’ himself---that they are divine, infallible, and imperishable… rarely has anything equaled the absolute faith accorded the Ten Commandments.” (Pg. xii-xiii) He continues, “I am led to ask: Do the people want the truth about the Ten Commandments? Do they want them analyzed?... I, for one, do not believe that the Ten Commandments are too sacred to be investigated and analyzed… Neither do I believe that the Ten Commandments should be blindly accepted… I do not accept these premises of the sacredness of the Decalogue… A picture of an angry God pointing his menacing finger and shouting ‘Thou Shalt Not’ has been man’s greatest stumbling block in his heroic endeavor to emancipate himself from the fear, ignorance, superstition and savagery of his primitive past.” (Pg. xxv-xxvi)
He points out, “In the Fourth Commandment as recorded in Exodus, ninety-four words were used to express this [4th] Commandment, but in Deuteronomy one hundred and thirty-three words were necessary to express it. However, the difference between the number of words is not so important as the difference in what they say. The reason given for observing the Sabbath as recorded in Exodus is ‘For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth… and rested the seventh day’; the reason given in Deuteronomy is ‘… the Lord thy God brought thee out thence … therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.’ … [This] is a matter far more serious than a mere ‘variant’… One or the other must be condemned as false…” (Pg. 18-19)
He quotes Exodus 12:12-14, then comments, “What an event to celebrate as the national holiday of a people: the murdering of the first-born of an entire country as an act of their God deliberately perpetrated to show his power! This brutal ‘God’ tells them that it must be a feast forever, so that the memory of the anguish from the loss of the most precious thing in the world---the first-born---may never be forgotten! It is not easy to express in words that detestation such a God deserves.” (Pg. 95)
He asserts, “The New Testament narrative of the nailing of Jesus to the cross has no more basis in fact than the exodus of the Children of Israel from Egypt… There is serious doubt as to whether Jesus ever lived, as there is not a single authentic piece of historical evidence to substantiate his existence. It is most probably one of the many monstrous tales that were fabricated … solely for the purpose of further arousing the antagonism already manifested against them.” (Pg. 171-172)
He states, “The belief that man is the special creation of a God, and that the world was created for his benefit, is responsible for those fantastic views of life and the universe which have so plagued the human race. Man will never discover the causes of disease if he believes that they are sent by a God as punishment for sin. Man will not solve the problems of existence, or of his general welfare, until he abandons this false and delusive belief, looks upon himself as only an insignificant part of the universe, and understands his true relation to the other forms of life and existence.” (Pg. 204)
He says, “It is impossible for me to believe in the Bible God. My mind rebels against it. I cannot help but look upon this God as ‘an inhuman wretch, incapable of pity, void and empty from any dram of mercy,’ an ignorant force that has stupefied the brain of man and paralyzed the intellect with fear. I denounce this God with al the energy I possess, and if this be blasphemy, then make the most of it.” (Pg. 224)
He argues, “Now that women are no longer forced to observe this savage custom of ‘purification,’ nor condemned to suffer for the ‘sin’ of uncleanness, circumcising the male children … cannot be characterized as anything but a cruel mutilation. The number of deaths resulting from circumcising a male child before it is physically able to stand such an ordeal might well be called the slaughter of the innocents.” (Pg. 304)
He quotes Exodus 2:12 and comments, “For deliberate, unmitigated murder this act of Moses is difficult to parallel. First, he made sure that no one saw him; secondly, he summarily killed the man, and, thirdly, to cover the evidence of his deed, he buried him in the sand so as to avoid detection and punishment. All this only because he saw this man striking a fellow Hebrew. There was no other provocation. Even according to the laws that Moses himself promulgated, he should have been judged guilty and punished.” (Pg. 363)
He says, “Do we need a better illustration … than Darwin’s magnificent achievement in discovering the laws of evolution? When first announced, it seemed incredible that man and ape could have had a common ancestry, but when examined in the light of Darwin’s findings concerning dormant physical characteristics… none but the indisputably blind could refuse to accept the conclusions of the indisputable evidence amassed by this profound thinker.” (Pg. 514)
He argues, “we are confronted with the alternative of either accepting the Constitution of the United States or the Ten Commandments. The Decalogue is a code of theocracy. The Constitution is an instrument of democracy. The Ten Commandments are based on a divine right with dogmatic edicts. This government is s Republic based on equal representation of the people with the right to change and alter its laws.” (Pg. 570-571)
This book is one of the “classics” of freethought literature, and will be of great interest to modern Atheists, skeptics, and other freethinkers.
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