10 Commandments Quotes

“Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning Elohim formed the heavens and the earth,” establishes the two necessary components of any cognitive process. The heavens are the container for abstract thought, categories, and mental representations. The earth is the container for raw, unprocessed sensory input. The verse does not describe the origin of physical matter. It describes the formation of these two cognitive containers. Without the heavens, there is no place to hold the recreated images the mind generates. Without the earth, there is no source of the sensory information that feeds those images. The narrative places both at the very beginning because neither can be ordered without the other already in place.”
― E. Ravago, 10 Commandments: Opposing Unbiblical Claims

“There are believers and nonbelievers that claim that God loves everyone unconditionally without requiring change, that He will never punish anyone eternally, that He overrides His justice, and that everyone will be saved eventually. Nonbelievers use this idea to have a strawman figure that they could easily argue, a god who tolerates everything and judges nothing, a god who poses no threat to their self-referential standard. On the other hand, believers who follow their unbiblical preachers also claim this because they have been taught that love cannot include judgment, that patience means permanent acceptance, and that the narrow gate is not actually narrow.”
― E. Ravago, 10 Commandments: Opposing Unbiblical Claims

“A belief that is lawless cannot be honored as if it were righteous, and a belief that is dark cannot be respected as if it were light. To honor or respect every belief equally is impossible because if among that everyone, one belief is wrong, then honoring it as equal to the truth would itself be a violation of the command to abhor evil, to cling to good, to have no partnership with lawlessness, and to touch nothing unclean.”
― E. Ravago, 10 Commandments: Opposing Unbiblical Claims

“A belief that the text never teaches is an addition to what is written. A disbelief that rejects what the text actually states is a subtraction from what is written. Both moves violate the single operating rule of the closed system which is to preserve the word exactly as given, adding nothing and taking nothing away.”
― E. Ravago, 10 Commandments: Opposing Unbiblical Claims

“There is no instruction in Scripture that authorizes anyone outside that appointed structure to collect tithes on behalf of God. Just as it would be presumptuous and dangerously misguided to mimic Noah’s ark or Abraham’s sacrifice, it is equally wrong to act as if one has the divine right to collect tithes today when no such mandate has been given. If the instruction is not directed to us, then we should not be the ones doing it.”
― E. Ravago, 10 Commandments: Opposing Unbiblical Claims

“The claim that the Bible commands us to respect all religious beliefs equally and to never call any belief false is itself a belief that cannot be found within the biblical text. The Bible does not teach that truth is relative or that every path leads to the same destination. It draws lines. It distinguishes righteousness from lawlessness and light from darkness.”
― E. Ravago, 10 Commandments: Opposing Unbiblical Claims

“There are words from the ancient writings that cannot be translated with exactly the same connotation the author intended. Yet, when an accurate translation is possible, in which there is an exact word in the target language that accurately represents the original source, we must not deliberately misrepresent it, fabricate narratives that are not there, or clash with observable themes that were clearly maintained by the author and are consistently observable in their writings.”
― E. Ravago, 10 Commandments: Opposing Unbiblical Claims

“The dynamic, where a foundational reality for one era becomes an unthinkable fiction for another, is not merely a historical curiosity. We can see the exact same structure of belief and denial play out by projecting it into a hypothetical future. Now, if there will come a time when in-vitro fertilization becomes the only way for humans to reproduce, let us say, not that I am wishing for this to happen, that sexual intercourse has been considered unhealthy to the point that history and technology erase the method or render it obsolete, then future humans could see that sexual method for reproduction as fictional. They might even deny it, no matter how absurd that denial may sound to us right now. For them, since they are from a time that generations over generations have passed and in-vitro is the new normal, reading a historical record may seem fictional to them as it can no longer be proven. Testing the sexual method for reproducing offspring would be immoral to them as the life of the offspring will be at risk (let’s say they have justified it to be too unhygienic or if at their time, there exist a virus that could be passed on if humans tried having sex) and they have made so many arguments to justify how safe in-vitro is.”
― E. Ravago, 10 Commandments: Opposing Unbiblical Claims

“Our goal is not to convert anyone to belief or to unbelief. It is not to defend the Bible or to attack it. It is to trace the internal shape of a closed communication system with as much precision as we can achieve.”
― E. Ravago, 10 Commandments: Opposing Unbiblical Claims

“This suspension of belief and disbelief is our primary guard against bias. Any reader who enters the text with a fixed theological or anti-theological commitment has already added something to the words or subtracted something from them.”
― E. Ravago, 10 Commandments: Opposing Unbiblical Claims

“As we read the Bible, we should not begin with a decision to believe or to disbelieve. We should begins with a decision to suspend the question altogether for the duration of the analysis.”
― E. Ravago, 10 Commandments: Opposing Unbiblical Claims

“Most preachers weaponize Psalm 14:1 to launch a blunt ad hominem attack on skeptics, dismissing anyone who questions God’s existence as a “fool” instead of engaging their reasons. However, from a narrative’s analytical perspective, the verse is not primarily a philosophical argument but a declaration that operates entirely within its own story's established norms. It treats the existence of God not as a proposition to be debated, but as an ordinary, self-evident reality within that world.”
― E. Ravago, 10 Commandments: Opposing Unbiblical Claims