The Ten Commandments.

"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain."

The explanation in the Evangelium is: "God's name and all things dedicated to him should not be misused or treated lightly."

The Biblical example are the money changers in the temple (Mk 11:15-17)

The modern interpretation is and I quote: " Misusing holy names as swear words, breaking oaths, disrespect for holy places, objects or persons."

Not taking the Lord's name in vain is about respect. Respect is always a good thing to have and being humble knowing that there are things that cannot be understood, like "God".

I'm not sure about who dedicated what to "God". I am sure there are items and places to remind us of God, but dedication goes well together with worship, and I do not believe God would want that.

I shall have to look up the money changers in the temple and see how they relate to taking the name of the Lord in vain. Maybe they just swore a lot!

There is a link you could look at at the end of my blog about the golden calf! I haven't read it all and I dont want to comment about its content in this blog or I'll be here all day!

As for the modern example, it is partly about respecting something we do not understand.

But is breaking oaths (promises, pledges, or blasphemy, curses, profanities, strong language) a mortal sin?

Being one of the ten commandments, I presume it is a mortal sin, which I cannot quite believe!

According to the Evangelium, "a mortal sin kills the divine life of the soul and deprives the sinner of heaven"

The only thing I can say is, we've got no chance then!

The majority of people to the last percent, will be hanging around outside heaven waiting to confess. Only because they didn't go to confession on earth!

Disrespecting any place, whether it is a holy place or not, is not a good thing.

But who made it a holy place in the first place. God most certainly didn't.

Maybe man did, to keep control of the masses, or maybe it was the church?

Anyway, as long as people are allowed to come to their own conclusions about God, life and the Universe and not condemned for thinking outside of the box, then we can all live happily together.

http://wordincarnate.wordpress.com/2007/04/29/on-faith-and-golden-calves/

The Ten Commandments

I think that all law abiding, good people can appreciate that honouring natural law is a good thing and makes for a peaceful society.

If we take the first commandment: " I am the Lord your God; you shall not have strange gods before me."

So the explanation the Evangelium gives is that, "God, as our creator, wants us to love him above all else."

The Biblical example is that the people of Israel worshipped the golden calf (Ex 32:1:20)

So obviously what they are saying is that God wants us to "worship" him and not some golden idol. ( The word "worship" does sit quiet nicely with idol, but in my view has nothing to do with God.)

But maybe the people of Israel used a golden calf because gold was representative of the power of the sun, which gave them warmth and life and a calf was a sacred animal born from Gods creation.

It just so happened that it was all symbolic of God and because God is an unobtainable image they used what they knew, and that was the gold of the sun and a young newborn animal, the calf.

But they worshipped God all along!

Which gets me on to my next point. Who on earth dreamt up the modern example of this first commandment?

And I quote, " Using magic, occult or superstitious practices (e.g. horoscopes), syncretism, giving priority to anything other than God."

As you can imagine if you read about me and what I believe in I certainly, wholeheartedly disagree with this statement.

It has been written by people from within the church who are obviously in fear of anybody who is a good Catholic (above all else) discovering that the power of God dosen't just affect Catholics, but is something that can be seen within all aspects of human existence!

God gave us the stars and the constellations and it just so happens that there is a force outside of the confines of the Church, that has been created by God that the Catholic Church cannot understand.

Furthermore the Church is in fear of losing control of the flock, especially when the flock realize that to understand God you don't have to go to Church.

The constellations can unearth secrets held deep within the human psyche, if you know how to read them and there are a lot of good astrologers out there who have "prophesized" a lot of truth!

It seems to me that the Church have forbidden people to delve into a subject that they do not understand. They do not want their people to realize that there is a lot more to God, life and the universe outside of the control of the Catholic faith.

The other things mentioned are similar, in so much that yes, there are forces of good and evil in everything, but if we all obey natural law then we won't want to delve into the darker aspects of magic and supertitious practices. But they do exist and they can be powerful!

That dosent mean to say that we cant use the positive forces of these modern examples that God has given us for the betterment and good of all.

I've got to write about all the commandments, so until the next blog!

This section belongs to the image of the constellations at the top of the blog and it might prove interesting for a few "open minded" people.

What is the Zodiac?

Earth orbits our Sun once each year. Viewed from Earth, our Sun appears to trace a circular path. This path defines a plane called the plane of the ecliptic (or just the ecliptic). The zodiac is the group (or “belt”) of constellations that fall along the plane of the ecliptic. It is through these constellations that our Sun appears to “pass” during the year.

While there are 12 astrological constellations of the zodiac, there are 13 astronomical zodiac constellations: Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpius, Sagittarius, and Ophiuchus.

The annual cycle of the zodiac was used by ancient cultures to determine the time of year.

More can be read at:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/education/skytellers/constellations/about.shtml

If you would enter life, keep the commandments. Matthew 19:17

I have been asked to give a summary of the next session of the Evangelium and it just happens to be the ten commandments.

What the Evangelium says is that Natural law is a code or ethic for living a good, moral life which is valid for all peoples in all societies. For example, murder, theft, adultery, dishonouring any other person, deceit are recognized as not being good for the human spirit or nature.

Civil laws apply the principles of natural law to determine what is good for each society. Good legislation is required by people living in that society to obey the rules and regulations in order to uphold the law.

Sometimes there is a violation of natural law within a society. An example of this is the racial laws of Nazi Germany or the killing of the unborn child.

The Evangelium says that God revealed the ten commandments because Original sin made it hard for human beings to discern good from evil.

Jesus confirmed the necessity of the ten commandments when,
"someone came to him and said, "Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?"

And he said to him...

"If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments."......Mt 19:16-17

There will be more on what the Evangelium says on the modern interpretation of the Ten commandments later...in my next blog

God and worship!

Ps. From my last blog about 'God'.
Reading back over my writing I am not sure about the word 'worship'. Would God really want to be worshipped?

For me, God just is! An all pervading energy that fills the whole universe and I feel that 'God' wouldn't want to be worshipped or seen as something to be worshipped and made unattainable!

There's another discussion here for another day about how we view 'God'? I'll be adding my views to that question another day!

I actually don't believe anybody or anything should be worshipped! Barriers and boundaries are created and concerning 'God', there should be no hurdles to cross.

Closeness with 'God' should be available to everyone unconditionally.

Reflection

Reading back over my 'Blog', I feel sad because I have missed the experience of attending church this year over the Easter period.

Or rather the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday masses.

Reading back over my last blogs written last year, I was quite amazed at the intensity of feeling I expressed for the Easter services.

My writings have made me realise that I have missed out on the wonderful experiences that last years mass gave me. I can only say that I need to learn from the experience.

I suppose I have had 'more important things to do', and church has taken second place in the proceedings. Time has gone so quickly and a lot of things have paled into insignificance. As writing is a passion of mine I certainly will need to keep it up.

As I now have internet access I have no excuse not to write.

I am going to continue with my experiences on the Evangelium.

Evangelium

It's a long time since I last wrote anything in this 'God' blog. But recently I have started going to a group in the Catholic Church I attend.

It's all about the Evangelium, a discussion group about the meaning of life and what part 'God' plays in it all.

The next group is scheduled for three weeks time and I have been given the job of summarising the session before the group. It's all about the 10 commandments so it should be an interesting session.

Infact I think I might blog it before the session. More later!