Bible Study: The Eleventh and Twelfth Commandments

Fun fact: Did you know that in the Bible, the Ten Commandments are never explicitly stated? When Yahweh talks to Moses on Sinai in the desert, he doesn't give him ten discrete commands. He actually gives him a significantly longer list of laws, and the orders we recognize as the Ten Commandments are just mixed in there, with no special prefix. Therefore, it is apparent that when the Ten Commandments list was being created, someone just went through Exodus and decided that they liked these certain laws better than the other ones, completely disregarding the fact that Yahweh presented them all in equal importance.

We call this cherry-picking, kids.

Anyway, I've decided we need to right this historical wrong. Humans shouldn't just be picking what parts of the Word of God they like and which they don't! I propose we add an additional two commandments to the Ten, taken exactly from Scripture Itself. They are:

11. Thou shalt not eat yeast.
Yahweh hates yeast. I'm keeping a running tally, and so far we have about ten instances in which he expressly forbids the use of yeast, punishable by death. Therefore, we should all keep him happy by only eating pita bread.

12. Thou shalt not boil a baby goat in it's mother's milk.
Apparently this was a real problem in its day. It may seem a little archaic, but it's not like there aren't already archaic things in the Ten Commandments. For instance, keeping holy the Sabbath, or not coveting wives (wives are not possessions!), or keeping only one god. What, are you calling Hindus archaic? Way to go. That's so xenophobic.

I now thoroughly expect these to be posted wherever the Ten (now Twelve) Commandments are listed. You know, in churches, in public schools, in courthouses, in municipal buildings... You know.
Of course, if we're going to start taking the Bible literally, we're also going to have to stone everyone to death and start sacrificing animals.

Benjamin

I've been working on writing a few songs lately. They're pretty simple, but it is much easier to compose on Norton than on the piano. With a ukulele, you really only need to use chords and strumming pattern, but on the piano, you need to do much fancier things. It's also harder to remember, and I find it difficult to write music down.
Either way, I'm fairly pleased with the results. This song is a composition I started writing two years ago, but only just finished up today. The inspiration was a character of mine in a story, who is much different now than envisioned then, but I still named the song after him because I liked the way it sounded.
The video is awful, as usual, because I have next to zero practice performing, and also my camera is  just your standard digital camera and does not have beautiful recording quality. Please forgive me, and just listen to the pretty music. (It helps to read the words while listening).

Benjamin

 A white rabbit sits at the head of the table

Sipping blood as drink

I've been lost here for so long

Where are you? I think

That the black pine grove was real in my head

Why can't you see it?

“You're mad” I know the black bird said

Why can't I believe it?

And sometimes I miss you and sometimes I don't

And sometimes I see lights

Out in the orchard, amidst all the pine trees

Burning up the night.

And I know what the blackbird said was true

But it's kind of pleasant here

I have all my rabbits, and normal habits

And never all that fear.

Sometimes I'll see you, shouting in the pine grove

But I can never hear.

Sometimes the music's just too loud

But mostly I don't care.

If I ever come home, I'll be sure to say hello

But I'm not so sure I will.

The blackbird doesn't visit much

Neither does winter's chill.

And sometimes I miss you, and sometimes I don't,

And sometimes I just think

That the black pine grove was real in my head

And at the table the glasses clink.

Bible Study: Bacon

So, lately I've been reading the Bible. I won't bore you with the details of why precisely I'm reading the Bible, but let it suffice to say it's not because I think it's fascinating literature. Well, it's certainly fascinating, sort of in the same way that Twilight is fascinating, or a horrible train wreck is fascinating, but what I'm saying is, the "Good Book" is possibly the worst misnomer since the history of nomenclature.

Anyway, I've bludgeoned my way through Genesis and Exodus, and now I'm partway through Leviticus, which is a book that mostly contains chapters and chapters of outdated laws that repeat themselves a lot. For instance, I discovered that Yahweh really hates yeast. And animals. And people. But mostly yeast. I've also learned that in ancient Mesopotamia, you can get excommunicated from the Israelite community for touching a dead animal, which makes me wonder how they sacrificed all the animals they spent 6 chapters detailing precisely how to kill in order to make Yahweh happy.
I could really go on all day about all the things I've found in Leviticus, but the reason I'm writing this today is that I have specifically one very exciting thing I wanted to share with you. One very special law that was repeated 3 times as of chapter 7, is that you are not allowed to eat the fat of an animal. If you do, you will be excommunicated from the community. (You can get excommunicated for a lot of things, by the way). This means, as I immediately realized, that eating bacon is akin to blasphemy.

Catch that? Bacon is blasphemy. BACON IS BLASPHEMY. Every time you eat bacon, YOU ARE COMMITTING A DEADLY SIN.
So, basically...bacon's better than ever now, am I right?

Mmm... Tasty, atheroschlerosis-causing blasphemy.

I was told the stars were only buttons.

I wrote this little snippet last year around this time, and for some reason I find it very pretty despite its archaic mythology and out-of-contextual state. I'll use it in a story at some point, I'm sure, but at the moment, it's just a pretty little thing I have lying around.
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  “When I was younger, my father used to tell me that stars were the eyes of the ones we loved, looking down on us from heaven,” she said, resting her forearms on her knees and leaning forward. Her yellow hair twined about her face in a lovely fashion, reflecting moonlight.

“I was told the stars were only buttons,” the pale girl said. Head tilted upwards, she watched the stars with a certain curious intensity.

“Those must be some very shiny buttons, then.”

“Well, they're God's. They have got to be shiny,” she said solemnly.

“Of course,” Devon said, playing along. “God wouldn't walk around with dull buttons. Very ungodlike. No one would take him seriously.”

The pale girl turned to look at her suspiciously. Devon's face was the picture of innocence as she looked up at the stars.

“Funny things they tell us when we are children,” the girl said.