Commandments ~vs~ Tenets

While building the site out, I've been watching a lot of content from TST.tv, YouTube, and even rewatched "Hail Satan?" for the first time since joining.

As I listened to the ridiculous claims from the Christians in that film, trying to argue how the 10 Commandments were the backbone of our legal system, it occured to me just how different those Commandments are from TST's tenets.



Ten Commandments

  1. You shall have no other gods before Me.
  2. You shall not make for yourself a carved image
  3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain
  4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy
  5. Honor your father and your mother
  6. You shall not murder
  7. You shall not commit adultery
  8. You shall not steal
  9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
  10. You shall not covet...anything that is your neighbor’s

Seven Tenets

  1. One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
  2. The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
  3. One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
  4. The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
  5. Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
  6. People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
  7. Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.


To me, the first 4 commandments sound like an insecure, egotistical child. Other than making sure you rest at least one day a week (which unions managed to one-up by giving us 2 day weekends), there's nothing of real moral or ethical value there.

I also think honoring one's parents without any context is a recipe for disaster. Did one of your parents bail on you? Were they abusive? Are they around but psychologically pieces of shit? Then why would you have to honor them for the gift of not being aborted? If you're onboard, that's half of the commandments we can get rid of without any impact on it's moral standing. So, smash the first tablet and let's check out the second.

We're finally getting to the meat of the ten five commandments: don't murder, don't commit adultry, don't steal, don't bear false witness, and don't covet anything that's your neighbors. Not a bad list of "do not's."

However, if you're willing to use your brainpower, all five could easily fall under TST's first tenet! After all, if you are acting "with compassion and emptathy towards all creatures in accordance with reason" then all five are off the table. Sure, it's not as easy to tell a child, but teaching them to think for themselves is arguably more important than demanding they shouldn't fuck someone else's partner.

That leaves 6 tenets untouched by the commandments! God basically said "worship me & don't do the worst shit imaginable."

So, excuse me for wondering how these rightwing fascist Christian's think it's the basis for our complex legal system where, until recently, we broke one of those commandments on a fairly regular basis by sentencing people to death for their crimes.

They really had just five things listed on the "do not do" column, and not only have they in favor of murder via the state, but they're bearing false witness right to our faces.

For shame.



Metztli // hailing satan all sunday