When you mention the word "propaganda", the first thing most people think of is Dr. Josef Goebels and the Nazi party. Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt were pretty good at it too, although these WW2 period are fast getting some serious competition from the main players in the Iraq debacle. All of them pale into insignificance, however, beside the Church of St. Peter. Dont feel like I'm singling out the Catholics literally though. Remember that the Church of Rome was the Christian church for centuries. The Christians have had a good run at being a monopoly. For 2000 years they have exploited, slaughtered, terrorised, and manipulated the masses into following the party line, and all "in the name of God". Yet the whole time they have promoted the image of themselves as meek and forgiving, and their entire religion as one of peace, tolerance and love... This is probably the most successful example of propaganda in history.

Illustrative of this is the very basis of christianity (in spite of it's acknowleged origins as a code of moral conduct for Hebrew society)... the ten commandments. Allegedly the literal word of God himself, the application of this set of orders is very different to the implied statements:

Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. All the rabid Christians who insist that there is only one god would do well to pay close attention to this one. On anything other than the most superficial glance it implies that Moses was well aware that there ARE other Gods. If not, how could you have other gods before "Him"? Why mention Set by name in the same book?

Thou shalt not worship any graven image. Why not? Why are catholic churches full of "graven images" of various alleged saints? What else is the reverence shown to images of the crucifixion?

Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain. Why does the Church delight in calling people heretics, heathens, pagans etc., if Man is "created in God's image"? Dont question. It could be misconstrued as blasphemy. Just accept the church's teachings without dissent and you'll go to Heaven.

Thou shalt remember the Sabbath. If you want to be industrious, why shouldn't you work seven days a week? At its most extreme people put lights on timers to avoid "work". What if your child needs a doctor? You cant drive them, and ringing a taxi would ensure you would burn in hell. How ridiculous!

Honour thy Father and thy Mother. What of incest victims? Those abandoned at birth? The children battered or virtually tortured by one or both parents? Are people such as this worthy of honour or repect? Honour and respect your parents by all means... IF they have earned it.

Thou shalt not kill. Crap! Every one of us are killers. It is unspecified exactly what we shant kill, so unless we all eat lab synthesised powders, we've killed animals, plants, etc, just to survive. We've killed hopes, dreams, feelings...We are animals, and like any other, competative by nature. We kill to survive.

Thou shalt not commit adultery. Of course not. None of us have ever been cheated on, or dumped for someone else. It seems these days that the commandment is actually "thou shalt not get caught!" As stated above, we are animals, and the reproductive urge is as dominant in us as the survival instinct. When we have the opportunity, we mate... end of story. The best we can hope for is that if monogamy is better for us as individuals in the scheme of our life, we have the strength of will to enforce it upon ourselves.

Thou shalt not steal. What hypocrisy! The Church has pillaged and plundered every country on earth for it's own gain. The Incas would be happy to know that it is a christian belief not to steal. If they have the right to steal, I have the right to kill after they try it. The very group who teach this stole the rites and rituals they use to teach it to us.

Thou shalt not bear false witness. As the rest of this site shows, their entire religion points to bearing false witness, from their very origins, all the way to their doctrine. The only thing worse than a liar is a hypocritical one.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife. In it's entirety, this commandment also includes posessions. Once again, the Incas make a great example. Or the crusades.... Nice country. Nice gold. Nice resources. God wants them, so we're going to take them. For the good of your eternal soul of course! How about "thou shalt not covet the number of followers a neighbouring religion has"? The bible itself is full of stories about how the great figures of Judaism were taking other peoples wives whenever they felt like it. The revered kings Solomon and David virtually made careers out of it!

 

Before the barrage of hate mail starts asking me "what's wrong with giving the major part of the world a framework of decency & moral ethics to live by", let me state from the beginning that I believe the 10 commandments, in the spirit that they were originally formulated, to be probably the most morally correct and reasonable foundation that any social group with pretensions towards civilisation could have. If their spirit had been obeyed, we'd have a history of peace, harmony, and enlightenment, rather than the wars, hatred, & turmoil that have become the defining standards of the human condition. This enlightened moral framework has been highjacked, abused, & manipulated by everyone who has accepted it as doctrine, including it's original authors, ever since it was first codified. If you wish to enslave me, abuse my right to be an individual, & destroy my right to think for myself, have the courage of your convictions & declare your aims outright, instead of publically espousing a standard of moral behaviour that shows your actions for the hypocrisy that they actually are.

Plagiarism