First, the list of the 10 commandments:
So, you can do the follwing things (though not on the Sabbath) and still keep the commandments:
Ban books.
Burn books.
Run a sweatshop.
Kick people.
Work your child in the mines from dusk to dawn.
Torture animals and people, as long as they are not your parents and do not die.
What else?
I notice that fornication and masturbation aren’t specifically forbidden… Nor homosexuality.
Just don’t be thinking of thy neighbor’s ox while doing any of the above.
I could make an argument that all of the above are stealing in some form or fashion.
I guess you missed Mel Brooks’s “History of the World (Part I?)”. There were fifteen originally.
The third tablet falling and breaking was just movie BS, AG.
The real story has Moses coming back after several trips up and down the mountain.
“OK, there’s good and bad news. I’ve got him down to ten, but adultery’s still in.”
I remember that scene, “I bring you God’s 15, crash/smash…10, 10 commandments.”
There are really 613, but most of you should only worry about the seven given to Noah.
And yet in another movie, he came down from the mountain with 10 commandments, and a six pack of a miraculous elixer.
Yeah, I was going to say this. In case you’re thinking “Wow, god sure left a lot of leeway with only ten commandments,” the rabbis have gone through the Torah and decided that there are actually 613 commandments. I’m pretty sure none of the things listed by the OP would be okay (according to Judaism, anyway).
“You shall have no other gods before me.”
I’ve always wondered about this one. Does it mean I’m OK with making small offerings to the small, leather-winged mini-demon that lives in my sock drawer in order to maintain my current level of foot apparel as long as I keep Yahweh #1?
You can rape all you want, apparently. And you can sexually molest your underage children. Interestingly, the extraordinarily detailed list of sexual prohibitions later in the Torah does not, among its many prohbitions of incest, include a father sleeping with his daughter (though the Talmud says that this prohibition is implied by all the others)
How is banning books theft?
Theft of knowledge from the world.
By that logic I’m guilty of theft of oxygen by breathing, as my doing it reduces the amount of oxygen in the world.
Theft implies personal ownership of property.
Feed the poor.
Give water to the thirsty.
Building housing for the homeless.
Give clothing to the naked.
Provide free medical care.
Protect the environment.
Post underhanded insults on message boards.
Or backrubs.
You can keep and sell slaves.
brownie55, what are the 7 given to Noah?
Well, instead of donkey, some might translate the tenth as “… thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s ass…”
Not if you do it on the Sabbath. Or if you steal from someone else to do so. Or if you’re doing it because you covet your neighbor’s wife* and you’re trying to score points with her.
*apparently coveting your neighbor’s husband is fine-and-dandy.