The ten commandments – A personal view.

The ten commandments form the cornerstone of “western” ethics. Abide by these and all will go well. I will attempt to give a personal analysis of each commandment.
1) Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.
And so ipso facto there are other Gods? I find no moral imperative here. If God is good and God is great then he will, and must tolerate those who have other approaches than Christians, Muslims and Jews. I respect religious beliefs and I cannot give in to a law that forbids me from respecting Hindus and Buddhists.
2) Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image … etc.
Art is good and art is graet. No, leave art to be art and religion to be religion.
3) Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain.
Language must be free. There can be no restrictions on freedom of speech. There is, however, nothing good in insulting the deities of others, but me cursing my God (if I have any) does no harm to anybody.
4) Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Yes. Yes. And further more yes. There is no moral imperative here, but without rest man is an animal. One day of rest per week is a necessity.
5) Honour thy father and thy mother.
If they deserve respect, then yes. But this cannot be a moral imperative raised above questioning. It cannot be right to honour thy father if he beats thee.
6) Thou shalt not kill.
This perhaps is the only commandment with an absolute moral validity. Murder must in all cases be deemed wrong. Would you kill Hitler if you had the chance? This question is stupid as it demands as a prerequisite that you know the future. At the given moment at which killing Hitler could be said to have been good he had not yet committed the crimes he was to commit later, and since one at that point had no way of knowing, and since one must accept mankind’s free will, then there is no saying that it would have ended that way. Life imprisonment for treason yes, but death, no. Murder is the only absolute evil.
7) Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Is this a moral imperative? Is it better to live together forever in misery after love is gone, or for life to move on. Is promiscuity wrong in itself? Circumstance baby, circumstance.
8) Thou shalt not steal?
What is theft? Is it theft for a state to take back its natural resources when a foreign company or foreign country has abused it? Is it theft to confiscate unused earth so as to redistribute it to the poor? If the economic situation is so unbalanced as it is today it cannot be wrong to reform for the sake of equality.
9) Thou shalt not bear false witness.
And what if you live in a regime where “correct” witness leads to the accused being killed. Shall bondage to this law make you an accomplice in murder? I see this commandment as a moral guideline in a functioning society, but it is not necessarily a moral imperative.
10) Though shalt not covet they neighbours house, wife, etc.
Desire is not action. Jealousy is not murder. So my neighbour has a nicer house than me, yet I do not steal from it, destroy it or murder him/her. Am I a bad person? Morals must be based on reality and not fantasy. Ethical norms cannot be thought police.

It seams to me that only two of the ten commandments are imperative. Murder is always a no-no. Rest is always a yes-yes. All the rest are circumstantial, must be contextualized and reflected over.

Poetry

Why not. The purest art form. Beauty in few words. They say a picture says more than a thousand words, but a poem can say more than a novel. I do not aspire to write a novel in my poems, I am not Darwish, Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas, but I try to say something. Not much perhaps, not art maybe, but something...

Haiku Flowers

Haiku flowers - restricted finesse,
floating beauty, rootless.

Chaos and serenity

In the chaos
of sound and sight
that was the city.

I found peace and serenity.

A bench in a park,
miles away from civilization,
a minute from the metro station.

Charlie Parker

Salt peanuts, salt peanuts

To the sounds of Charlie Parker
I drift
to the sounds of Charlie Parker.

Salt peanuts, salt peanuts