Hi. Re 10 commandments. Well, this is the way I see it. I do believe that a man named Moses really did go up the mountain and came down with 10 commandments for HIS people, the Jews. They had gone bad and needed some guidance.

However, whether these 10 laws actually came from God or whether Moses went into some kind of a trance induced by the Devil - that is not for me to say.

Apparently, some of these ancient leaders would fast for 40 days in the desert - I mean, come on, without any nutrients for 40 days, you are capable of becoming mentally unhinged, and capable of "hearing voices", ie, this is the Devil's doing. I am saying there is a 50/50 chance that God really did put those commandments into Moses' mind. Which means that there is an equal chance he made it all up, or experienced a psychotic break. When this happens to people nowadays, when a person says he saw and and spoke with God, they give him Thorazine.

The other thing you pointed out is that Americans' building their society around God's laws brought about its greatness. Well, that would mean that God approves of slavery, because Americans practiced slavery for a good long time. America also killed quite a few of the aboriginal people in order to be able to make America safe for settlers. Because America could not have become great without moving the Indians out of the way, then that must mean God approves of the slaughter of non-believers, the unsaved, such as Indians, for one example.

This is why I say that we can believe in God, yet update ourselves for modern times. Do you really want to see the reintroduction of slavery because slavery was practiced in the ancient days of Moses/Abrham/Jesus?

Also, this is not well known, but the jews were heavily involved in slavery in America through ownership of slave ships and through buying and selling of slaves. They felt it was acceptable because their ancestors kept slaves, also. I believe that they would still keep slaves if the Christian government of the USA had not outlawed slavery.