Yesterday, after having reached the halfway point in my consideration of the Ten Commandmants, I asked how any reasonable person could find issue with the application of the Ten as a perfect way to live one's life.

After I'd logged off I realized my question has a tragic answer-the objection is that the Ten Commandments come from God.

"You're not the boss of me!"

Yeah, OK, fine. So how come you sent Moses up the hill to bag some rules from someone in charge because you kept getting yourselves into trouble and then tried to buy yourselves an out saying you didn't know any better...? Ya know, maybe it is time to scream about the dumbing down-if you read the Bible, you would know the people really did send Moses up the Sinai-after begging God for centuries for help, BTW-not the other way around.

God wasn't walking by, saw a struggling people, and said, "Hey look at those ignorant savages. They need me to set them straight. Think I'll be their boss."

Which you would know if you troubled to read the Bible and use your noodle to think about it before your knee jerk reactions to the truth pissed you off and you turned away because really, how can you claim ignorance if you know..."They had Moses and the prophets..."

YOU ASKED HIM TO. And then, after He gave this rather elegantly simple set of rules with which to govern yourselves, and He tried to get out of your way, YOU INSISTED HE SET HUMAN JUDGES OVER YOU; THEN YOU INSISTED ON KINGS! And every time He tried to point out to you that you really didn't need kings, because the Law is so simple, you acted deliberately to prove Him wrong.

If you, dear reader, have kept up, you know that I am around 5k-I believe in re-incarnation and can show you where, even in the much tampered with texts that constitute the commonly accepted Bible, not only does Jesus espouse this belief as true, but going much further back into the less tampered with texts of the Old Testament, where the belief is commonly accepted as well as a viable alternative to "life ends at death."

I was taught that the books of the Bible that Christians call "The Old Testament" are really the Torah-the setting down of the oral tradition of the Jewish people.

I was taught the men entrusted with this task were carefully vetted so as to ensure the recounters would be utterly responsible to the sacred mission-and therefore able to withstand the temptation to 'spin'. And I was taught by the best teacher of all-experience-that for the most part, these men have been scrupulous and deeply committed to their responsibilities.

Since I really was there, I promise you that the cats who took down the "New Testament" were almost as careful, but the jackals who decided they need to be in charge were not, are not, and sometimes I give up hope they ever will be.

Oh Constantine-what a delusional! Little hint here-you and yer ma got a lot to answer for. The road to hell is paved with delusions, especially the one that tells you it is ok to 'tweak' things to protect the grubby masses from themselves...

Meanwhile you are living in the lap of gobsmacking lux while your people are starving and being raped. Not good. Not good.

You asked Him to be in charge. He told you the terms of the 'deal' and you accepted them. By reneging now, and worse, trying to legislate everyone else into reneging, you are not coming up with anything new.

Which you would know if you were not so uncomfortable with the truth that by your current attempts to wipe faith based behaviour out of your lives so as to avoid the responsibilities of it that you won't read the Bible.

Because the next truth is that a whole hell of a lot of people, men, women, and children, have died to protect your right to read a reasonably unvarnished history of what happened.

By effectively behaving like dogs-lifting your legs and urinating on the work that has gone into giving you what you asked for in the first place-you demonstrate your commitment to prolonged immaturity, not your 'power' to render their lives a vanity.

Lord, how do You stand us?

"This people will not recognize evil..." Well hell no, then they would have to behave better, and that's no fun!

VII-We will not commit adultery nor cause another so to do.

Another no brainer, but then you would not be able to get away with feeling ok about porn, sleeping around, divorce so you can marry someone else because hey, the grass looks a lot more sexy over there, right?

Who does that outdated control freak God think he is anyway, telling me what I can and can't do. What a prude! Sex is great, the human body is beautiful...blah, blah, bah.

If it is all ok, how come sexually transmitted disease infection is on the rise and never more than in the under 25 set?

"Occasions to stumble will come but woe to the one who sets a stumbling block before these; the faces of these children's angels are always before the Lord..."

Well who wants to hear that? Takes all the innocent fun out of being turned on by Catholic school girl uniforms, and girls in cheerleader outfits, huh? Not to mention the bitches on MTV...

"Get over it, those rules are for olden days, not now!"

he whispers because he deludes himself that you will shout for him and thus cover him-love covers a multitude of sin, right?

How come a domestically abused woman is in the most danger when she LEAVES her abusive husband-who has usually infected her at least twice with an STD?

How come men and women are increasingly KILLING the cheater with escalating means of violence-you try being run over three times by the Mercedes you bought your wife the last time you were busted for sleeping with your nurse, and then tell me that wasn't messy and rather painful.

How come it is OK for you to flirt with your co-workers and maybe even go for coffee, but you A-wouldn't tell your partner because he/she wouldn't understand, and B-you would be thoroughly pissed if you found out your partner was doing the same thing including using the same justifications you are?

How come it is OK for you to watch strippers, use porn, fantasize about your neighbours wife/daughter/sister/mother, but you are angry if someone asks you why you wouldn't want someone doing the same about yours?

One last question.

Why do you react with such vehemence when it is pointed out that you asked God for these rules, you promised to abide by them; when someone who still abides by them tries to point out the very least benefit of the commandment (to not sleep around or rape someone and then pull a jailhouse lawyer and claim your victim was there too and so equally as guilty-I despise sophistry) is that by following it you are safe from STD's (another BTW, do you fools really think AIDS is the first incurable STD?) badly timed pregnancy, death by pissed off partner?

To me, though, I think God felt the following most important-

If you manage to remain unjaded, the day will come that you are really and truly in love with someone.

Word to the wise-no sex, NONE, compares to the kind you have with the person you really and truly loves who loves you back-it is beyond sublime and transcendent and makes Guatma's little nirvana look stupid-I'll pass forever on that merging into a meaningless blob if it means I lose the wonder of real marital bliss.

And sadly, there are few pains that compare to the pain engendered by regretting you are not the first, and only.