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Ferro comments on Human Evil and Muddled Thinking - Less Wrong
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Ten Commandments are just a part of a larger whole. Why would non-hypocritical people accept this part, and reject the parts about "if you see someone doing this or that, kill them"? Both parts come from the same book.
I assume that what you are referring to are some of the laws encountered in the Old Testament, which were part of a legal structure designed to apply to the Israelite nation (and no one else, point of interest). From a Judaism perspective, the law is supposed to apply only to Jews - those who are part of the religion and the race. Only Jews are affected, unless people attack the Jews and the Jews fight back (see most of the Israeli conflicts). From a Christian perspective, there is an explanation about the relevance of the Law to Christianity, explaining that as Christianity replaced Judaism, for obvious reasons sacrifices did not need to be carried out anymore. For similar reasons, the whole of the Mosaic Law did not need to be adhered to; the important things according to Jesus were to 'love God, and love your neighbour as yourself'. So, those are the operatives on which Christians are supposed to base their behavior. I think you would agree that Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Confucianism, along with most of the minor religions and cults do not pose much of a threat to humanity in terms of the instructions contained within them. Islam, granted, is a whole other story. There are a number of contradictions in the Koran for which complicated rules have been devised to find out the 'correct' interpretation, based on which part was written first and whether the Hadith applies, etcetera. There is particular conflict over whether to act on Surat At-Tabwah 9:5 ('kill the Polytheists wherever you find them... and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush') or Surat Al-Baqarah 2:256 ('Let there be no compulsion in religion'). The Hadith has even more to say on the issue. Most moderate Muslims place the latter Surat over the former, many Shiites however interpret it a different way.
In any case, the number of non-hypocritical people who would be doing massive amounts of good would outweigh the number of non-hypocrites doing evil - although the definitions of 'Good' and 'Evil' have to be looked at in the context of - wait for it! religion. However if, as I assume (please correct me if I'm wrong) you are basically a Utilitarian, it can be deduced that the net amount of human suffering would decrease if people were non-hypocritical about their religion. Of course, interpretation will always play a part. I hope that answers your comment/question.
Yes, because murder and genocide make perfect sense as long as you restrict them to a particular place and time! And there are such things as "races" and it makes sense for them to be units of moral analysis. And obviously "she must marry her rapist" (Deuteronomy 22:28-29) is a totally sensible rule for an ancient culture, and neither the Greeks nor the Chinese had figured out anything even remotely better by that time period. Yes, obviously, it was totally fair for Moses to be talking about slaughtering the Amalekites (and their children, and their cattle; Deuteronomy 20:16-17) at the same time in history when Demosthenes and Epicurus were debating about the proper form of democratic government. And no one today takes those ideas seriously, and certainly there aren't millions of Americans who use passages from Leviticus (18:22 and 20:13) to argue against gay marriage.
And of course Jesus came to change the rules; that's why he put it so plainly in Matthew 5:17-19:
\end{sarcasm}
Witness what religion does to a human mind; it makes an otherwise intelligent and reasonable person defend the obviously indefensible, because they cannot bear to accept the obvious fact that what they were told isn't true. Suddenly genocide becomes "a different time" and rape becomes "their culture", because the thought that so many people's precious beliefs are false is simply too much to bear. Contradictions in holy books are somehow seen as a good thing, because they let you take whatever meaning you want and declare the result infallible (when it's obvious from basic logic that contradictions in beliefs are always bad).
Of course no religion is harmless. Delusions are never a good thing. Some religions are more harmful than others, I'll grant you that; but if you want to know why Islam is particularly bad, it's because it actually follows the book. Jews and Christians have largely given up on the crazy evil books, and so they can behave (mostly) like reasonable human beings. Muslims haven't, and that's why they do things like hang gay people and keep women covered head to toe. Confucians are an interesting case, in that their books contain falsehoods, but are not genocidally insane, so that counts for something. Jain are also crazy, but crazy in a way that makes them relatively harmless---like the Amish. So if I could make every Muslim in the world suddenly turn Jain, I would; but I'd rather turn them atheist. What's more, I find it's easier to make people atheist, because the rational part of their brains already wants to.
As for what evil means, no, it has nothing to do with religion (other than the obvious fact that religion makes assertions about it, just as religion makes unfounded assertions about literally everything). Evil is found in human suffering, particularly when it could be easily prevented. It is found in death and destruction, especially when we are in a position to avoid them. Am I a utilitarian? Yes, I suppose I am---if you are not, you must be saying that your decisions can't be made to fit a Von Neumann-Morgenstern decision utility... and isn't that a lot like saying your decisions are irrational? If you meant to say that human beings rarely engage in intentional evil (accidental and negligent evil is far more common), that's actually a very good point; but then, this is just one more problem with religion, because religion often asserts that our enemies are servants of demons whose only goals are pure evil.
The net amount of human suffering would be decreased if people abandoned religion altogether. If they continued to believe in religion and stopped being hypocrites, no... I stand by my previous claim. They would burn people like me and most of the rest of Less Wrong at the stake. The war between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland would flare up once again, and really if theology is as important as people say, even Baptists and Methodists should be torturing each other over doctrinal differences. It is only a lack of religious fervor that defends civilization as we know it; and if given the choice between fanaticism and hypocrisy I wholemindedly express my preference for hypocrisy.