Tuesday, March 4, 2008

The Ten Commandments Explained: It was the Drugs!

Look out you homophobic homosexuals on the religious right, we now learn that the founder of family values, Moses hisself, was on DRUGS when he saw the burning bush and wrote the 10 Commandments. I guess he forgot "Thou shalt not be a hypocrite".

"High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.

Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.

"As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics," Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.


It really is the only logical explanation once you eliminate "sheer fiction". You don't come up with stuff like talking burning bushes without some help.

Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the "burning bush," suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances.

"The Bible says people see sounds, and that is a clasic phenomenon," he said citing the example of religious ceremonies in the Amazon in which drugs are used that induce people to "see music."


One fact the family values crowd hates (OK, they hate all facts), is that drug use is and has been a cultural universal for thousands of years. Of course ancient man used drugs, and of course this influenced their legends and religions. Talking bushes and talking donkeys? Sounds like they had some really good stuff. It also explains why the 10 Commandments is actually a pretty poor list. How else does one explain the obsession with graven images, and lack of concern for rape.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

what credibility does this guy have to explain a theory about something that happened thousands of years ago?

ScienceAvenger said...

He's a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Granted, it's not the greatest expert we could get, and I certainly wouldn't count out "totally made up" as an explanation, but his theory sure is a lot more plausible than the traditional religious explanation.