h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK, so we're through the gate and hot on the trail of the six hundred. Today we'll address two

commandments (though written in four verses, which just goes to show that lawyers were alive in

Biblical times too).

Our first contender is the basis for our present British blasphemy laws:

20:7 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him

guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

I remember watching a debate led by two elderly theologians on this one and was fascinated at how

thirteen words could mean so many different things to so many different people.

For instance does this mean:
1. You shouldn't say 'Jehovah' (or 'Yahweh' or Jesus etc.) at all? Well at least in hearing

distance of a mob of hebrews armed with stones (which led to one of the funniest scenes in The Life

of Brian).
2. You shouldn't say 'Jehovah' when you stub your toe or in exasperation or anger?
3. You shouldn't say them as a curse?
4. You shouldn't use them too often or when not making a direct and heartfelt prayer for their

assistance?
5. You shouldn't use them in a radio comedy sketch?

Do you get the idea? Anyhoo, once you've decided which interpretation (or several) then there's the

problem of policing it. Do you stone a man for saying it in extremis or perhaps when he says to his

wife "that piece of fish was good enough for Jehovah", or only when he's using it to upset you?

The nonsense is this - if God is omnipotent and omnisecent and omnipresent, why isn't he big enough

to take a little blasphemy. Sticks and stones etc. This seems like a very petty law by a very

petty deity. There again give his liking for lots of barbecued offerings it would seem it's a good

way to get some more. Say Jehovah and you gotta feed him another oxen or pair of doves or first

born son - sheesh! oops, I'm for it now.

So now we come to the lawyers version of 'you must have a day off a week and praise me for it':

20:8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
20:9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
20:10 But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work,

thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy

stranger that is within thy gates:
20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested

the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Later in the six hundred we'll come across the punishment for doing overtime on the Sabbath, and yes it involves stones...

I'm all for having a day off but this God's intention is not that you rest. No, you're supposed to keep it holy, which is god-lawyer speak for spending the day praising guess who?

What makes me laugh is while all these pious abrahamics are having their day off they still expect us to light and heat their homes, deliver their shopping, respond to their calls for an ambulance, fight their wars, treat their sick etc., etc.

Perhaps it would be fairer in God's eyes if all the atheists, agnostics pagans and other heretics let them have their day off and did absolutely nothing for them whatsoever. Then they wouldn't be tempted to join us in continuing to make their world turn.

There again most pious christians of my acquaintance seem to forget this commandment altogether. Their Sabbath consists of going to church in the morning and then returning home to make sunday dinner, go out shopping, wash the car, mow the lawn, play with the kids etc., just like the rest of us. Ooh dear, are they for it on Judgement day...

Don't you just love it when your formatting all goes to poo! Sorry all, I'll do better next time...

I'm afraid I have it in for the orthodo weasels of any faith.
Reality seems a fantasy to them.
Of course, inbreeding seems to bring out the best in exclusionary faiths.

"Blasphemy? No, it is not blasphemy. If God is as vast as that, he is above blasphemy; if He is as little as that, He is beneath it."

Mark Twain




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