GEORGE CARLIN - The Ten Commandments

thank you folks here's something else i got a problem with the ten commandments here's my problem why are there ten you don't need ten i think the list of commandments was deliberately and artificially inflated to get it up to ten it's a padded list here's what they did about five thousand years ago a bunch of religious and political hustlers got together to try to figure out how to control people how to keep them in line they knew people were basically stupid and would believe anything they were told so they announced that god had given them

some commandments upon a mountain when no one was around god had given them the ten commandments but let me ask you this when they were sitting around making this [ __ ] up why did they pick ten why ten why not nine or eleven i'll tell you why cause ten sounds official 10 sounds important they knew if it was 11 people wouldn't take it seriously say what are you kidding me the 11 commandments get the [ __ ] out of here but 10 10 sounds important 10 is the basis for the decimal system it's a

decade it's a psychologically satisfying number the top 10 the 10 most wanted the 10 best dressed so having 10 commandments was really a marketing decision and to me it's clearly a [ __ ] list it's a political document artificially inflated to sell better i'm going to show you how you could reduce the number of commandments and come up with a list that's a little more workable and logical we're going to start with the first three and i'll use the roman catholic version because those are the ones i was taught as a little boy i am

the lord thy god thou shalt not have strange gods before me thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy god in vain thou shalt keep holy the sabbath right off the bat the first three pure [ __ ] sabbath sabbath day lord's name strange gods spooky language language designed to scare and control primitive people in no way does superstitious nonsense like this apply to the lives of intelligent civilized humans in the 21st century you throw out the first three commandments you're down to seven next honor thy father and mother obedience respect for authority

just another name for controlling people the truth is obedience and respect should not be automatic they should be earned they should be based on the parents performance parents performance right some some parents deserve respect most of them don't period you're down to six now in the interest of logic something religion is very uncomfortable with we're going to jump around the list a little bit thou shalt not steal thou shalt not bear false witness stealing and lying well actually these two both prohibit the same kind of behavior dishonesty stealing and lying so you don't need two

of them instead you combine them and you call it thou shalt not be dishonest and suddenly you're down to five and as long as we're combining i have two others that belong together thou shalt not commit adultery thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife once again these two prohibit the same kind of behavior in this case marital infidelity the difference is coveting takes place in the mind and i don't think you should outlaw fantasizing about someone else's wife otherwise what's a guy going to think about when he's waxing his carrot but but marital fidelity is

a good idea so we're going to keep the idea and call this one thou shalt not be unfaithful and suddenly we're down to four but when you think about it honesty and fidelity are really part of the same overall value so in truth you could combine the two honesty commandments with the two fidelity commandments and give them simpler language positive language instead of negative and call the whole thing thou shalt always be honest and faithful and we're down to three thou shalt thou shalt they're going away they're going away fast thou shalt not covet thy

neighbor's goods this one is just plain [ __ ] stupid coveting your neighbor's goods is what keeps the economy going all right your neighbor gets a vibrator that plays oh come all ye faithful you want to get one too coveting creates jobs leave it alone you throw out coveting you're down to two now the big honesty and fidelity commandment and the one we haven't talked about yet thou shalt not kill murder the fifth commandment but when you think about it when you think about it religion has never really had a big problem with murder not

really more people have been killed in the name of god than for any other reason all you have to do all you have to do is look at northern ireland the middle east kashmir the inquisition the crusades and the world trade center to see how seriously the religious folks take thou shalt not kill the more devout they are the more they see murder as being negotiable it's negotiable you know it depends it depends it depends on who's doing the kill and then who's getting killed so with all of this in mind i leave you with

my revised list of the two commandments thou shalt always be honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie and thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone unless of course they pray to a different invisible man from the one you pray to two is all you need moses could have carried him down the hill in his [ __ ] pocket and if they had a list like that i wouldn't mind those folks in alabama putting it up on the courthouse wall as long as they included one additional commandment thou shalt keep thy religion

to thyself