Series #2

More of the "ten" commandments, and a dose of rationality. moving onto the second:

"Do not have any other gods before me."

This stinks of authority based leadership, if you were the one "true" god, why would you have to command it? We trust our doctor's abilities not because they demand we do, we choose to, based on their track record and accomplishments. If I walked into a doctor's office and he commanded me to trust/believe in him, and to not take any other doctor before him, I would trust/believe my ass right out the door and find a non-retarded doctor. Seems pretty sensible to me.

I think it revealing that god would command us about like children. Religion takes this even further, using the same kind of relationship type. We call our religious leaders "father" in the same way we call our gods "father"; it's also fitting since women were not allowed (and still are not allowed) to hold high office within the church, same with blacks -- until the churches had a "revelation" right about the same time as the civil rights act. Humans are far from perfect, and still need some kind of structure, but it doesn't follow that they need to be treated like children and have right action commanded to them.

Lastly, and this will be a recurring critique: is this really important enough to occupy the spot it was given? (at least, in some versions) Don't you think rules about murder, rape, theft, torture, or child abuse, would be more fitting for the first or second position on the list? Do the first couple/few commandments have to be about a seemingly vain and jealous god demanding you fall into line? I might suggest a results based approach, or one based on relevancy; because the current mafia style strong-arm tactics is one of the reasons religions and gods force themselves into the margins.