How many commandments do you know?

Colbert's interview with Westmoreland is positively hysterical. This guy is just not with it...

Now, clearly Westmoreland doesn't know the ten commandments. Do you? Seriously? Exodus actually has a godzillion commandments, one of the most important (repeated several times) is that you can't work on sunday, on penalty of death. Don't see too many religious Americans asking Walmart to close on sundays.

Anyway, just for your handy reference, here they are:

1. Exodus 20.3 "you shall have no other gods before me". A corrolary to this one is explained a bit later: you shall not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the (promised) land. Which means, to keep the religion pure, you have to kick all non-believers out of Israel, you can't marry them, trade with them or even be at peace with them. If you wonder why the Jewish-Palestinian conflict just keeps going on, remember that one side is religiously obliged to keep fighting.

2. Exodus 20.4 No false idols. Reason given: "for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents,to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me."

3. Exodus 20.7. Don't take the name of the Lord in vain. Remember, you can cuss as much as you like, as long as you don't drag God into it. "Dog-shit Taco" is a perfectly acceptable turn of speech. Religiously speaking.

4. Exodus 20.8. "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy". Even the slaves aren't allowed to work (hear that, Walmart?), and alien residents can't work either. Next time you see a Christian shop on sunday, ask him why he is angering God. If he says he's not Christian, say that you are and repeat the question. Pick people that don't look like they're armed.

5. Exodus 20.12. "Honor your parents."

6. Exodus 20.13. "You shall not murder."

7. Exodus 20.14. "You shall not commit adultery." Polygamy was allowed though. For future research: when was polygamy no longer acceptable. Was polyandry really ruled out?

8. Exodus 20.15. "You shall not steal." See .here for complications with that one.

9. Exodus 20.16. "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour". This is NOT the same as "don't lie". It only pertains to judiciary proceedings. You can lie your ass off unless you're under oath.

10. Exodus 20.17. "You shall not covet your neighbor's house, wife, male or female slave, ox, donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor". What? Can't even covet the slaves?

Now, the only thing that is special about these 10 commandments is that they were written in stone. But Exodus is positively piled with commandments, all straight from God. I don't see why we would forget the others? Some of them are quite amusing, such as Exodus 22.2. Some are positively scary (Exodus 22.28). But there are some really great ideas too. My favourites: Exodus 22.21 ("You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt") and Exodus 22.25 ("If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor; you shall not enact interest from them").

All in all, Exodus shows that modern interpretation of the Bible is highly selective. It shows that religious people do feel that they can pick and chose what they believe, at least if they lend any credence to the Torah. Religion is very malleable.