Religious Observations of George
Carlin:
The Ten Commandments
Transcribed and
introduced by David M. Fitzpatrick
Last updated
Tuesday, 30 August 2005
 George
complains about the Ten Commandments being artificially padded to get it to
a nice, round, official number that markets well. He then studies the list
of ten and comes up with how to pare it all down to make more sense, fully
outlining why the Ten Commandments are just silly anyway. While laced with
typical Carlin-esque humor, including a fair share of sexual references, it
all makes a lot of sense... especially his big ending to this excellent
spiel. Red emphasis is mine, indicating
an existing Xian Commandment. Blue emphasis
is mine as well, indicating Carlin's revised Commandments.
Purple emphasis, also mine, is, IMHO,
the most important line of the entire routine. We're gonna start with the
first three... and I'm gonna use the Roman Catholic version cuz that's what
I was taught as a little boy:
I am the Lord thy God;
thou shalt not have strange gods before me.
Thou shalt not take the name
of the Lord thy God in vain.
Thou shalt keep holy the
Sabbath.
Right off the bat, the first three: pure
bullshit. ... Sabbath Day, Lord's name, strange gods. Spooky language!
Spooky language! Designed to scare and control primitive people. In no
way does superstitious nonsense like this apply to the lives of intelligent,
civilized humans in the 21st century.
You throw out the first three commandments...
you're down to seven. Next:
Honor thy father and
mother.
Obedience; respect for authority. Just
another name for controlling people. The truth is, obedience and respect
should not be automatic: they should be earned, they should be based on the
parents' performance. Parents' performance! Some parents deserve
respect; most of them don't. Period!
You're down to six. Now, in the interest of logic—something religion is very
uncomfortable with—we're gonna jump around the list a little bit.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false
witness.
Stealing and lying. Well, actually, these
two both prohibit the same kind of behavior: dishonesty. Stealing and
lying! So you don't need two of them; instead, you combine them and you
call it Thou shalt not be dishonest,
and suddenly... you're down to five.
And as long as we're combining, I have two
others that belong together:
Thou shalt not commit
adultery.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.
Once again, these two prohibit the same
kind of behavior; in this case, marital infidelity. The difference is,
coveting takes place in the mind—and I don't think you should outlaw
fantasizing about someone else's wife; otherwise, what's a guy gonna think
about when he's waxing his carrot? ... But marital fidelity is a good idea,
so we're gonna keep the idea and call this one Thou
shalt not be unfaithful... and suddenly, we're down to
four. But when you think about it,
honesty and fidelity are really part of the same overall value—so in truth,
you could combine the two honesty commandments with the two fidelity
commandments and give them simpler language, positive language instead of
negative, and call the whole thing Thou shalt
always be honest and faithful... and we're down to three.
...They're goin' away fast!
Thou shalt not covet
thy neighbor's goods.
This one is just plain fuckin' stupid.
Coveting your neighbor's goods is what keeps the economy going! ... Your
neighbor gets a vibrator that plays "O Come All Ye Faithful"; you wanna get
one too! Coveting creates jobs; leave it alone. You throw out coveting,
you're down to two now: the big honesty and fidelity commandment, and the
one we haven't talked about yet.
Thou shalt not kill.
Murder. The fifth commandment.
But when you think about it ... religion has
never really had a big problem with murder. Not really. More people have
been killed in the name of God than for any other reason. ... All you have
to do is look at Northern Ireland, the Middle East, Kashmir, the
Inquisition, the Crusades, and the World Trade Center to see how seriously
the religious folks take Thou shalt not kill. The more devout they
are, the more they see murder as being negotiable. It's negotiable!
You know, it depends. It depends. It depends on who's doing the
killing and who's getting killed. So
with all of this in mind, I leave you with my revised list of the Two
Commandments:
Thou shalt always be
honest and faithful to the provider of thy nookie.
and
Thou shalt try real hard not
to kill anyone... unless, of course, they pray to a different invisible
man from the one you pray to.
Two is all you need; Moses could have
carried them down the hill in his fuckin' pocket. And if they had a list
like that, I wouldn't mind those folks in Alabama putting it up on the
courthouse wall... as long as they included one additional commandment:
Thou shalt keep thy
religion to thyself.
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