I Bring You The TEN [CRASH!] Um, FIFTEEN Commandments!

"There is in every village a torch and an extinguisher: the schoolteacher and the priest."
-Victor Hugo

The Athiest’s Commandments from ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins. The first ten are from a website he found while researching his book, then XI through XIV are his own additions, and XV is mine, as well as the comments in brackets.

 I. Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.

 II. In all things, strive to cause no harm.

III. Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.

 IV. Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.

 V. Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.

 VI. Always seek to be learning something new.

 VII. Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.

 VIII. Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you. [But don’t let them get away with faulty reasoning without a fight. Besides, maybe they’ll prove you wrong and that’s good too.]

 IX. Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.

 X. Question everything.

 XI. Enjoy your own sex life (so long as it damages nobody else) and leave others to enjoy theirs in private whatever their inclinations, which are none of your business.

 XII. Do not discriminate or oppress on the on the basis of sex, race or (as far as possible) species.

 XIII. Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.

 XIV. Value the future on a timescale longer than your own.

 XV.  Patriotism is a lie. Religion is a lie. God is an unknown. [Patriotism and Religion are not even compatible, and yet most Patriotic Americans are Religious too. Here, I’ll prove it:

 a) Patriotism = My country is #1, above and beyond all others, right or wrong.

  b) My Country is run by old rich cowards who want our young idealistic men to kill for their comforts

c) Religion says thou shall not kill. [even if that commandment is the only part of the Old Testament which actually says that, because otherwise God sanctioned quite a lot of killin’ and rapin’ in those days.]

  d) Therefore, Patriotism & Religion can not go hand in hand. Yet somehow, when combined in the mind of deeply uncritical people, they do.

I’m not saying I'm an atheist. But I am saying that I share a lot more in common with an atheist than with religious thinkers these days. And here's the reason. One time in Church, I remember my pastor doing that whole thing where he says that a lot of people out there in the world will try to tell good Christians that the Bible is full of lies and contradictions. His response to the congregation? "Well I'm here to tell you that the Bible is NOT full of lies!" Brilliant, carry on, Pastor. What? That's all you got? Huh. Anyway I think I related this story in somewhat more detail once before, here.

But the realization that I eventually came to is that belief in God is fundamentally, in the mind of religion at any rate, an insidious and lazy way of avoiding the issue of Life, The Universe, and Everything. What I mean is, one thing that many religious types use to try to convince people that evolution is bunk is the idea that the world is too complicated, too amazing, too wonderful to have all just happened by random chance, it must have been created. (Here's a YouTube I will NEVER get tired of, which is a prime example of that sort of reasoning. If, of all horrors, you find the banana argument compelling, please watch this one also. Thanks again, GoDrex! )

First off, anyone who has taken the time to attempt to understand evolution would never say that. Evolution is anything but random, which is part of its beauty and power. Secondly, all they've done by this argument is show a lack of logical thought. SO, you're saying that the Universe is too complicated and "well designed" to have just happened? So, there must be a Creator. Well then, logically, any possible Creator has to be larger and more well designed than the object of his creation. A hammer and anvil do not forge a blacksmith, for instance. Therefore essentially all that this argument has done is to push the question back a step and in reality, magnify it. Rather than believe in the apparent existence of a complicated and evolved Universe (based on verifiable fact), you'd rather believe in the apparent existence of an even larger and more complicated, magical Creator.

I'm not saying that definitively there's no God, which is why I'm not an atheist. (Although according to Dawkins' scale of atheism, I am a 5th or 6th degree atheist, with a 7th degree atheist believing absolutely %100 in the non-existence of God. I will always leave room for the possibility, if not the probability.) I'm just pointing out the weakness of logic in the Religious mind. And I AM saying that IF there's a God, he's not the God of that great work of fiction, the Bible. I think that IF there is a Creator, the only thing that he really gave us are our hearts and our minds, which are very effective tools when reason and logic are applied, and I think he'd be very disappointed in Religion.

For anybody who has read 'The God Delusion', it's apparent that I've used much of Dawkins' material here. In my own idiosyncratic way, of course. But I feel that it's a book which has provided me with a clear way of thinking about ideas which I've held for a while.

Basically what it all boils down to for me is this: Religious apologists have NEVER been able to prove the existence of God or the veracity of the Bible through either Science, logic, or reason. Which makes sense according to the Fundamental Religious version of "logic" anyway; it's all about faith, regardless of the facts. (Dinosaur bones were purposefully planted there to test our faith.) So why do they keep trying? Why do they want Creationism, sorry, Intelligent Design, taught in science classes? Science is about verifiable fact, religion is about faith. You don't see scientists banging on the doors of churches, trying to force Sunday school teachers to teach evolution. Although, the inevitable backlash has already begun with the likes of Dawkins. He's tired of Religion's interference in the world of reality, hence the book. It's time for the Religious to accept that faith is based on nothing verifiable, and that they are welcome to it. 

And his main points are good ones; You don't need Religion to be moral, brainwashing children with religion is immoral (Christians don't call it brainwashing when they do it, but what else would you call it when, in a different religion such as Islam for example, brainwashed children grow up to steer planes into buildings in the name of their faith?), and he (and I) would be the first one to believe in the existence of God should there ever be proof of his existence. In the meantime, people should stop fighting, brainwashing, and killing each other over minor differences in opinion as to his nature. Something tells me that should your particular version of God turn out to be the real one, he'd still be very pissed at you for adhering to such nonsense and calamity. Unless of course you're Jewish. The Old Testament God was an asshole.

On a final note, I want to reiterate what I believe to be Dawkins' most imperative point in his book: There is no such thing as a Christian child, a Muslim child, an atheist child, or a Buddhist child etc. There are only Children of Christian parents, Children of Muslim parents, Children of atheist parents, and Children of Buddhist parents etc. Until children are mature enough to have weighed all the facts and decide for themselves, they are only children. After all, no one says that their child is a Marxist, or a Democrat, or a Communist. It's ok to wait until the child is of age to decide for itself what its political leanings are, and the same needs to be true of religion.

Comments

[Miss Luongo]

I'll never understand Creationists.

Although, the stuff with kids is difficult because at times parents are forced to explain big philosophical points to them before they're ready.

KID: Your grandpa is dead, Mommy? What does that mean?

MOMMY: It means that we never ever get to see him again on Earth. And maybe there's an afterlife where we will be able to see him, but no one really knows.

KID: (panicky) Are you going to die and be gone forever?

MOMMY: Yes.

KID: Am I?

MOMMY: Yes.

KID: (Meltdown, childhood scar, overblown fear of death, adulthood risk aversion)

OR

MOMMY: He's in heaven with God and he's happy and watching out for us.

I think a lot of religious beliefs are just easy explanations, usually metaphorical, for children that adults have carried over because they're scared of death.

[Sissy]

ML - You forgot to add "with the angels". Angels in heaven go over well with kids.

When my grandmother died, I never gave the heaven story to my kids. I don't believe in the heaven that religions talk about. I do believe there's an afterlife and that our loved ones who have passed can hang where they want. I'm not alone in this train of thought. Alice Sebold illustrated the EXACT version of my heaven in The Lovely Bones.

"Something tells me that should your particular version of God turn out to be the real one, he'd still be very pissed at you for adhering to such nonsense and calamity."

I do believe in god. My proof is my own. And I couldn't have been more thrilled to read the above line. Because you're right. God is WAY pissed off right now over this whole mess. He sent an offspring to deliver peace, love, and understanding. And THIS is what he gets in return? I can't stand people who are like, "Where was god on 9/11?" or "Where was god when our son was gunned down on the street?" or "Where was god when my daughter was abducted?"

Where was god?

He was laughing his mother fucking ass off.

...okay, that was harsh. He probably wasn't laughing. He was probably more uninterested than anything.

[messiestobjects]

I think that the kind of comforting lie that you're talking about, Miss Luongo, is one thing. It's like lying about Santa Claus. Speaking as one who was kept awake nights as a child, terrified of burning in a bloody and fiery hell for all of eternity however, I think I would rather have done without either. This is the sort of emotional abuse which Dawkins feels is a good reason to not tell children tales meant to instill fear so that they'll grow up to be good Christians.

Personally, I feel that if you yourself don't believe in God or heaven, it's exceedingly dishonest to tell children that their grandpa is there. Maybe giving children a head start on dealing with death by telling them the truth is better than giving them false hope.

A major by-product of believing in the afterlife, really believing in it, is that it makes what you do in this world less important, other than following the rules originally laid down by old power hungry Catholic cowards as to what constitutes good Christian behavior. And very twisted rules they are. (Or the twisted rules of Islam, or Judaism, etc..)

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."
-Seneca

[messiestobjects]

Sissy, my best response to you is another good quote:

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not Omnipotent.

Is he able but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.

Is God both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?"
-Epicurus

[Sissy]

The thing is, most people have cultivated their image/notion of god from the bible. But humans wrote that book. Humans wrote that god would deliver us from evil. Then humans created religion. If we extracted the bible and religion from the concept of god, I genuinely believe we would be left without argument.

To date, although I don't own a copy and barely recall the specifics of its content, the Siddhartha made more sense to me than the bible and conventional religion at the time I read it.

I forgot to mention earlier that I love the above 15 commandments. I am going to hang them on my wall.

"Do unto others as you truly feel like doing unto others."
-Richard Bach

[Mr. Crowley]

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law"

[Gary]

I like Orwell's definition of patriotism (as opposed to nationalism)

"By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’(1). But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality."
---------

My son believes in Santa and the Easter Bunny. I think it's up to him to figure it out for himself what the deal is with that.

I'm not sure what to tell him about death. I personally think that the "afterlife" is something that doesn't make any sense and is wishfull thinking. But I can't really tell him that. I plan to seek some advice about how to talk about death. I think kids can handle it better than we think though and in the USA we're overlly afraid of death and that's why we tend to like to live in a fantasy land regarding it.

[messiestobjects]

Hey Gary that's a good distinction. I like it. Still though... Patriotism has such a nasty connotation for me after that day with the planes and the buildings and all that. Patriotism is the new Nationalism. It's that whole doublespeak thing.

"The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion."
-PRESIDENT George Washington

"I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature."
-PRESIDENT Thomas Jefferson

"The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my religion."
-PRESIDENT Abraham Lincoln

"A just government has no need for the clergy or the church."
-PRESIDENT James Madison

"I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end... where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice."
-PRESIDENT John F. Kennedy

"The United States is a Christian nation founded upon Christian principles and beliefs."
-pres George W. Bush

"I don’t know that atheists should be considered patriots, nor should they be considered citizens".
-pres George "Daddy" Bush

[messiestobjects]

Sissy, I'm unclear as to where else the modern human cultivates their idea of god from if not from some Holy Book, as dictated to you by some other human who was in turn indoctrinated by the concept when he was young. In the old days, it was a nature thing. Nowadays, it's a brainwashing thing.

My whole thing with God is that I'm unwilling to rule him out because Science, awesome as it is, hasn't yet explained everything. Maybe when we finally reach the bounds of the Universe, we'll see God's eyeball from the business end of a God-sized microscope. It's unlikely, though. Mainly I think the real reason I can't let him go is because I was raised that way, and I'd be lonely in my head without my God Concept to talk to. Bad habits are hard to break.

Mr. Crowley, The Devil has all the good music, but that's as far as I'll go.

[Mr. Crowley]

"Mr. Crowley, The Devil has all the good music, but that's as far as I'll go."

A most excellent start on our slippery slope - eh, young pilgrim?

Mwa ha! Mwa ha ha! Mwa ha ha ha haaaa haaaaaaa!

[Gary]

http://www.godrex.com/?p=614

that's my epic and silly post on the afterlife, with fun comments by Miss Luongo and others. I'm mad that they removed that Flips song though. It fit in so well. Still listen to the Talking Heads song anyway.

[messiestobjects]

Hey, did you have Professor Roche du Coppen?! I had him for sociology, and he told us that story about the ski lodge and the fondue... although I remember it being more freaky because he had this thing where he wanted to ski down INTO a huge bowl of cheese fondue and swim in it with his friends. Kind of freaked me out.

[Miss Luongo]

Oh, thanks for reminding me...I'm still working on those tenants.

[gary]

yeah that's the guy, though I don't remember that part. he's a weird dude for sure. sometimes I watch his shows on tv13. he talks a lot of new-agey shit but never really gets into any details. I don't think I learned anything real in that class. It was all from his own book and I think it's all a bunch of made up shit that he wrote while on mushrooms or something.

[messiestobjects]

Is tv13 the Stroudsburg local access channel? I didn't know we had one of those... crazy.

Anyway, I may have done that thing where I embellished his story in my mind at the time he told it because my impression of him was that he was such a freak, and over time my version has replaced what he actually said because mine is better. Of course I'm not sure, fabricated memory being as real as real memory, but it's a possibility.

[George Roberts, Venerable NewsAnchor]

"Is tv13 the Stroudsburg local access channel? I didn't know we had one of those... crazy"

It's not. It's just a local channel that someone you know may or may not have been a videographer for. It's not *much* above public access, but you gotta sell 'em on yer show idea, or buy the airtime.

[messiestobjects]

Hmm... a local channel that someone you know may or may not have been a videographer for... What kind of low profile is that, George?

[George Roberts, Venerable NewsAnchor]

I'm an honored public figure!