I believe that you should listen to and follow the wishes of your parents. Each time I ignored them as a child, I suffered a consequence that had nothing to do with punishment at their hands. These people in charge of your life tend to want the best for you. They've made the mistakes long before you were born. They can see beyond the moment thanks to the wisdom of age. Sure, they are still just humans but they are trying to help you.
I believe that murder is wrong. To end a life is simply not in my job description. Wife, mother, business woman, nope, murderer just doesn't seem to fit in there anywhere. People murder one another on purpose for some perceived or actual wrong. People murder one another by accident when they become enraged or distracted. Those reasons, those excuses, diminish the worth of human life to nothing. Frankly, if that person's life is worthless, what makes you think yours isn't. Just remember, that murdered person didn't consider his life worthless.
I believe that marriage vows are vows. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary vow means a solemn promise or assertion; specifically one by which a person is bound to an act, service, or condition. Bound is stressed by me. This isn't a "I promise to try to be nice" kind of thing you get from your kids about five minutes before the yelling starts again. This is a binding contractual kind of "there's no way you are going to NOT do this" sort of thing. The couple vows to love, honor, and respect one another until they die. I don't think adultery, lying, or any other kind of abuse hold true to that vow.
I believe theft is wrong. All kinds of theft. The theft of money or toys from a business or a person is wrong. Theft of an idea by claiming it as your own is wrong. Theft of time by disregarding others' needs or schedule is wrong. Theft of thought by forcing someone to do what you want, when you want, how you want, is wrong. Theft of childhood by taking away a child's innocence of thought, play, or life is wrong. If it is not yours, it is NOT yours. Leave it alone!
It is wrong to lie about someone. It's wrong to tell a story about another person that is not true. It is assassination of character, murder, theft, of that person's reputation. All it takes is to repeat one little piece of gossip and you have lied about a person. It may seem innocent to you, not even a bad story, but who knows how far that little story will go or how big it could grow. Lying is not just making something up out of thin air. If you take the truth and stretch it, reduce it, leave something out, you have still told a lie about that person. Like the pledge in court says, "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
I believe jealousy is wrong. Lusting after another person's house, car, job, spouse, only leads to unhappiness. Jealousy is the excuse for stealing. Jealousy is the excuse for lying. Jealousy is the excuse for adultery. Jealousy is the excuse for murder. Even if you never do anything except be jealous, how happy can your life possibly be? You can't be happy with your home if the house next door is all you can think about. You can't be happy with your car if you sit around wishing for a different one. You can't be happy with your job if all you can do is complain that you want his job. You can not be happily married or happily single if you are constantly having fantasies about someone who is with someone else.
What is wrong with believing these things? According to some people the problem is that these are commandments 5 through 10 that God declares in the book of Exodus to Moses. Our national and local laws are based on these commandments. Can anyone really tell me that there is something wrong with taking other people into consideration before you act? Can anyone really argue that it is okay to do any of these things?
Let me play devil's advocate for a moment.
Just lusting after person's spouse is okay, right? Well, until you continue that line of thought to it's logical conclusion. After all those thoughts you end up alone, maybe a little drunk, with the person you lust after and you break a commandment. You didn't mean to and you feel guilty but it happened anyway. How many murders occur because of enraged significant others once they have learned of the betrayal? How many rapists admit to having had fantasies prior to committing the crime?
You accidentally walk out of the store with a bauble. It's just a dollar or so. You have already gotten to your car, it's raining, it's cold, whatever, and you don't want to have to go all the way back in. So it's okay to steal if you would be inconvenienced by NOT committing a crime? What if your daughter is with you? What would she learn from seeing you do that? How could you later scold her when she steals a lipstick from the store?
You hear a funny story about a friend of a friend. She made a rude comment that struck someone as hilarious enough to pass along. The exact circumstances surrounding the comment were a little fuzzy, so someone else sharpens the focus. Eventually it gets around to the original person or her significant other. Unfortunately now it has become so much more than it was. She has been humiliated.
So, breaking the "little" commandments is no big deal? Just wait until you are at the receiving end of one of those broken laws.
The fact is that if you trace back any crime, you eventually arrive at a little commandment. Murder starts as coveting. Theft is jealousy. The teen busted for drugs had long since ignored curfew. Consider the recent teen suicides based on mean gossip and cruelty. Do you really think the bullies are honoring their parents? That they aren't jealous of their victim? That if they had been raised to believe in the 10 Commandments that they might not have committed their crimes? I stress believe because an unfortunate effect of decades of ignoring God has been the spoken belief of the Bible without the heart, mind, and soul belief to support it. Going to church a couple times on Sunday while living like there is no God the rest of the week does not equal Christianity. Not by a long stretch of the imagination. But that is a post for another day.
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