Meeting Minutes (Part VII): Pre-mortal Life Planning Session (The Ten Commandments)

Subject:  The Ten Commandments

Date:  Pre-creation

Attendees: Heavenly Father, Jesus, Lucifer
_______________________________________________________________________________

 Heavenly Father[HF]:  I am thinking of starting these meetings in a different way.  I am going to call it the Holy Order of Meetings.  First, we will sing a song, then somebody will pray to me, and then a spiritual thought will be given.  It will be like a warm up.

Lucifer:  It is a meeting where we sit on our asses, not a sporting event.  Instead of wasting 10 to 15 minutes upfront, why don’t we just get to it. 

Jesus:  I think a spiritual warm up will help us feel the Holy Spirit of Meetings so that we can proceed with love and caring throughout the meeting.

HF:  It is well.  Lucifer, you shall say the prayer, and Jesus shall provide the thought.  We shall begin by singing “How Great Thou Art.” 

Jesus:  That is about you dad!

HF: It is one of my favorites .

[Group Sings, at the end of the song everybody looks to Lucifer]

Lucifer:  I am not praying to you.  You are standing right there, it just feels a little awkward to have to pray to the guy standing in the room.

Jesus:  If don’t feel like praying, that is when you need to pray the most.

Lucifer:  Fine, I’ll pray if it gets this meeting moving. . .  Our Father in the chair at the head of the table, hallowed be thy name.  Your kingdom come, your will be done and please bless the brownies that they will provide us nourishment and strength.  Pay lay ale, booga booga booga. Amen.

HF: Jesus, please provide your thought.

Jesus:  I saw this quote and liked it:  “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” I think it means that everybody will have to make their own decisions and be held accountable for everything that they do.

Lucifer:  Ha!  Quoting Jean-Paul Sartre, now that is the funniest thing I have ever heard.  Jesus H. Christ, you are hilarious. You win the day with that one.

Jesus:  What?  I don’t understand what is so funny.

Lucifer: You don’t see the humor in what you said.   You just said that everybody should be held accountable for their own decisions.  Your entire role in Father’s plan is to ensure that people don’t have to be accountable for their own decisions!  You are paying the price, no, you are the price.  This is scapegoat theory 101. 

Jesus: I didn’t take that class. 

HF:  Don’t worry Jesus, Lucifer just doesn’t understand how an eternal sacrifice completed in the most inhumane and tortuous way can pay the price for other people to get into heaven.    

Lucifer:  Hey, don’t mistake my thinking your plan is ridiculous with me not understanding it.  I get it, I don’t think Mr. Scapegoat has fully grasped the concept of “eternal sacrifice.”   

HF:  That is a topic for another day.  I think this spiritual warm up was great and I feel ready to proceed with the meeting.  Today, we are going to discuss my ten commandments.  These are the top ten rules by which I want everybody to live.  To make this fun, let’s do a countdown from ten to one. 

Jesus:  I’ll do the drum roll (starts taping fingers on table).

HF:  Number 10:  Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's.

Lucifer:  What about my neighbor’s wife’s ass?

Jesus:  You know women can’t hold property!

Lucifer: That’s not exactly the direction I was going, but it raises a good question.  Why are you listing a neighbor’s wife with the other neighbor’s property?  If you are classifying women as property in your top ten rules, I really don’t like where this is headed.  I think these rules should make it clear that people – including women, manservants and maidservants – are not property.

HF: Women are the most special type of property in the world, way more than slaves.  Women will love being treated as property and put on a pedestal due to their unique and special nature.

Lucifer:  How benevolent of you, but I am pretty sure that women will not want to be treated like or classified as a chattel.  My guess is that women will want to be treated equally with equal rights, but what do I know, I don’t rule over thousands of spiritual wives. 

HF:  Okay, number nine.

Lucifer: I am not done with number 10.  Isn’t coveting a thought crime?  I understand the concept of thoughts proceeding actions, but not all actions are bad.  If I covet my neighbor’s house and use that as motivation to earn money so I can have a nice house, that can’t be bad?  How did this get into your top 10?  I’ll reserve judgment until I see the rest of the list, but I don’t think this would crack my top 50.

HF: Back to number 9:  Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.  . . . What, no snarky comment?

Lucifer:  With a broad definition of neighbor, I think this one is good.

Jesus:  Everybody is our neighbor!  My purpose is to teach the entire world about the great and wonderful plan.

HF:  Exactly, the entire Jewish world about my great and wonderful plan.

Lucifer:  Entire world? Or, entire Jewish world?  Please don’t tell me you are arguing for the narrow definition of “neighbor.”  Jesus, just remember that everybody is our neighbor.

HF:  Number 8: Thou shalt not steal.

Lucifer:  Doesn’t this make number 10 a little redundant?  If a person doesn’t steal, who cares about whether they thought about it?  

HF:  Number 7: Thou shalt not kill.

Lucifer:  What about your plan to destroy all human kind in a flood if they stop worshiping you?

HF: It is not killing if I order it.  I am only bound by the eternal spiritual laws, not these commandments.  Sometimes it is better than one man perish, than a nation dwindle in unbelief.

Lucifer:  Based on your plan, it seems like a lot of people will be perishing.  It just seems you should practice what you preach.

HF:  Hey, being a god is a messy job.  Yes, trying to create a holy nation involves some dirty work; it is what it is.  If people want an example, that is why I am sending Jesus.

Jesus:  I will be the perfect example.

Lucifer:  The mixed messages received from you two psychopaths will make humanity crazy. 

HF:  Number 6: Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Lucifer:  If you are married to thousands of spiritual wives that should be pretty easy not to stray.   

HF:  Number 5: Honor thy father and thy mother.

Lucifer: This is ranked higher than not killing?  What if, hypothetically, your father was a megalomaniacal douche?

Jesus:  This is ranked perfectly, you should always obey your father and mother.

Lucifer:  Jesus, what will you do if your two dads give you different directions?

Jesus:  Two dads?

Lucifer:  Your earthly dad, and the Heavenly Father . . . the one that banged your mom?

HF: Watch your mouth!  Me going down to earth and impregnating a teenager is a necessary part of the plan.  I wouldn’t do it unless I had to.

Lucifer:  Well, you made the plan, so you really don’t have to include that detail.  Plus, being married, doesn’t that mean you will be committing adultery when you impregnate Jesus’ mom?

HF:  Of course I am not committing adultery.  I already spoke with my wives and they have agreed to give me a hall pass. 

Jesus: What is a hall pass? 

HF:  God Dammit, just let me finish without interruption from the peanut gallery.  Number 4: Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God. Number 3: Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain. Number 2: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:  thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. And, number 1: Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Jesus: Great!

Lucifer:  Seriously, your top 10 rules don’t say anything about taking care of your children, loving your neighbor, not raping women, but has 4 about worshiping you the right way.  What kind of self-absorbed prick are you?  Let me guess, the last six were just kind of add-ons because you really only care about the first 4?

HF: That is not true, although, the market research did suggest that a lists of 10 items has a better ring to it than a list of the 4 commandments. 

Jesus: Why do you need to do market research if you are all knowing?

HF: Part of being all knowing means you follow good business practices.  When I set up my church on earth in the latter days, it will follow excellent business practices. 

Lucifer:  I really can’t condone this list.  You have some good stuff on here, but nothing that people wouldn’t be able to figure out on their own.  If people think worshiping you is the most important of all the commandments, then there is going to be some fucked up shit done in your name.  Let’s just nip it in the bud, and throw this list out.

HF:  I put a lot of work into, and I am going to use.  I don’t appreciate your negative attitude.  This meeting started so great with the hymn and prayer to me, and now those good feelings have left.  I may be your father, but you are the father of conflict. 

Lucifer:  I am just saying that your list and your plan have problems.  Don’t take my disagreement so personal.  Sometimes, you need to just relax and not threaten to punish 4 generations of people if their ancestors happened to worship a graven image. 

Jesus:  God’s law is God’s law, and we can’t change it.

Lucifer:  We can’t, but God can . . . unless we are living in some crazy ass matrix scenario where Heavenly Father doesn’t really have any power at all, but is controlled by laws greater than himself.  If that is the case, Heavenly Father is actually a sympathetic figure being required to enforce backwards laws that have been in place for eternities.  That would make being a god a punishment, as no free will would really exist in godhood as a god would only have the power to enforce laws already prescribed in the eternities.  So true hell is becoming a god in this plan of salvation where you have not free agency. 

HF: I don't know what you are talking about.  This meeting is over (has panicked look on his face storms out of the room).

Lucifer:  Jesus, is that why this plan is so ridiculous?  Heavenly Father doesn't want his children to become gods, because true happiness can only be found when exercising free will in the lesser kingdoms?  God so loves the world, that he has created a plan so fucked up that the only people who would believe it are children indoctrinated from birth and people who are found by missionaries while in their most vulnerable emotional states.  He is setting up a plan that cannot succeed in order to save his children from the misery he is suffering.

Jesus:  That can’t be, then why would he require me to atone for the sins of the world?    

Lucifer:  Either atonement is one of the eternal laws that must be fulfilled on earth, or he thinks you are a total brown-nosing tool?  I tend to lean toward the latter.

Jesus:  You are so mean.  I am leaving.

Lucifer:  I am going to have to talk to Father.  If I am right, then the most ethical thing for me to do would be to warn the people and try and keep as many people as possible from following this plan.  [Lucifer exits]