Since the planet Earth has been having problems
with
the old commandments,
perhaps we should discuss new and updated commandments,
which are more in tune with the times.
OUTLINE:
A.
NEW FIVE COMMANDMENTS.
1. DO NOT COMMIT MURDER.
2. DO NOT COMMIT GENOCIDE.
3. DO NOT COMMIT WAR.
4. DO NOT STEAL.
5. TAKE CARE OF ONE ANOTHER.
B. FOLLOWING SUCH NEW COMMANDMENTS
ALLOWS US TO
GIVE UP TRIVIAL
LEGALISM.
C.
AMENDING OUR NEW COMMANDMENTS.
Creating
New Commandments
by
James Leonard Park
Human beings everywhere on Earth set up rules
of behavior.
Perhaps it is time to make our rules more reasonable,
in part replacing the
haphazard
Ten Commandments
that many people have been trying to
follow for years.
Another problem with the original Ten Commandments
was that they did not include enough details about how to apply them.
This led to lots of speculation and nit-picking.
So, as we create new rules of collective behavior,
we will include some explanations
with each new
commandment.
Some of the new commandments are
similar to the old.
But most of the less important commandments are omitted.
What do you think about the following basic principles?
A. NEW FIVE COMMANDMENTS.
1. DO
NOT COMMIT MURDER.
We might have noticed that most of the people on
planet
Earth
have some form of this commandment written into their laws.
Those few groups of human beings who do not prohibit murder
usually do not last very long,
since they tend to kill each other off for trivial reasons.
For example, rival gangs sometimes protect their 'turf'
by killing off the
competition.
Such tribal killing just encourages retaliation.
Gangs that kill each other over 'ownership'
of a certain location for
selling illegal drugs, for example,
are doing more harm to themselves than to anyone else.
On the other hand, some people have interpreted
the
original commandment too literally.
They think that they should not kill even tiny insects
that might harm
them.
However, self-defense
is permitted under this ban on
murder.
It is not an act of murder if someone must kill in order not
to be killed.
If someone is trying to shoot you,
you have a right to kill him or her
first.
2. DO
NOT COMMIT GENOCIDE.
Perhaps we need a separate commandment
because some people might extend the right of self-defense
to include the collective
killing of members of other groups of people
just because of hatred based on group
identity.
When we find hatred in our hearts
for human
individuals we do not know,
perhaps because we identify them with their group,
we are moving in the direction of committing genocide.
In the next new commandment, war is prohibited,
which is often a form of genocide.
3. DO
NOT COMMIT WAR.
Warfare is fighting among groups of people.
It might take more than 100 years for people to give
up warfare.
But this prohibition of warfare might encourage people
to take wise steps to preserve the peace of the Earth —without
resorting to one nation committing war against another.
Because there will always be some violent
individuals and groups,
the people of the planet Earth
might have to develop a World Peace
Force,
so that renegades can be controlled, imprisoned,
or if absolutely necessary, even killed
if they do not give up violence as a way of settling disputes.
Once we have established a good world system to
control violence,
then each nation-state can give up its own national military
forces.
They will no longer be needed:
When we have finally given up warfare
by establishing a World
Peace Force,
we can then give up all means of committing war on one another.
And when we no longer have
the means to commit wars,
we will be inclined to settle disputes in peaceful ways.
4. DO NOT
STEAL.
Along with giving up murder,
we will find it easier
to give up stealing from one another.
Sometimes people are tempted to commit murder
as a means of protecting their economic interests.
But if we create good local police forces,
devoted to the protection of private property,
then there will be less temptation to commit murder.
We should create orderly ways
to transfer private
property among ourselves.
Buying and selling should take place
at reasonable prices we can agree
upon.
And we will need local police and courts
to take
care of situations in which some people
have been tempted to steal what does not belong to
them.
Murder is never the correct response to theft.
5. TAKE CARE OF ONE ANOTHER.
It would be wonderful if we could love one another,
but feelings probably cannot be commanded.
So we could encourage ourselves to be kind to other people.
We will have to work out the exact details of how to be nice.
And it should not become an overwhelming duty.
However, in most cases, there will have to be some forms of taxation
so that those who do not voluntarily provide for the welfare of others
will have their income and/or wealth taxed
in order to support the less fortunate:
the young, the old, the poor, the sick, & the dying.
About family structure and personal relationships we
need fewer rules.
We can be creative and thoughtful about our relationships.
See what works for us.
We create our kinship systems for our own benefit.
B. FOLLOWING SUCH NEW
COMMANDMENTS ALLOWS
US TO GIVE UP TRIVIAL LEGALISM.
We will have to work out some details
emerging from
the
above list of new commandments,
but for the most part we should give up
the foolish elaboration of
rules of behavior.
This will come as a great relief to many of us.
We were struggling under the burden of
systems of
rules that were too complex.
Sometimes the rules emerged without much rational basis.
For instance, with respect to dietary
rules,
there was originally a good reason for not mixing milk and meat.
This prohibition was originally created
to prevent Jews from joining pagan cults,
which involved boiling a calf in its mother's milk.
But this cult has long since disappeared from the Earth!
So those who continue to follow such trivial rules about food
have lost sight of the original reasons behind them.
But we can give up all such irrational rules of behavior.
Our new rules of behavior should be easy to understand,
both with respect to what is required and what
is prohibited.
And there should be good reasons behind all of these rules.
For example, we should have rules
about public
health.
When we discover the causes of diseases,
we are wise to establish systems of clean water
and to prohibit selling products that will harm people.
But once a law has outlived its usefulness,
there is no reason to keep that law in effect.
For example, we have mostly abandoned 'blue laws',
which prohibited buying and selling on certain days of the week.
When we create new rules of behavior,
we should ask what good they will do.
When we understand the reasons for washing our hands,
we can abandon foolish rules about ritual cleanliness.
C. AMENDING OUR NEW RULES.
We human beings are responsible
for creating our
rules of behavior.
And we can make reasonable modifications
when such changes make good sense.
AUTHOR:
James Park is an independent thinker,
who believes that we should base our moral behavior
on rational principles that we can debate pro and con
rather than on claims that some behaviors
are endorsed by supernatural beings and others are not.
Much more information about James Park
will be found on his website, James
Leonard Park—Free
Library.