I’m always a little offended, but not too much, when I have any sort of in-depth conversation with a person all religioned up about my own beliefs. This is my one and only statement of faith:
I do not believe in the supernatural.
That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in God, that’s a terribly simple way to describe a complex belief system. It does mean I don’t believe in the Magic Sky Jew or any other floating humanoid with greater than explainable power having any perceivable influence on the Universe. I especially do not believe (like most theists do) that the Magic Floating Humanoid will ever bother to come down to Earth to prove me right and kill off anyone who disagrees with me (us). But, not believing in the supernatural does not mean I don’t appreciate mystery; I most certainly believe in the preternatural. There is nothing unexplainable, there is only what we have yet to learn.
That is as concise a statement of faith as I can make. I actually try as hard as possible to have no faith whatsoever in anything, though I find it impossible to completely divorce myself from assumption. However, I don’t feel like making the above mentioned conversation any more complicated than necessary. Because I know I will need all my patience and rhetorical ability for the inevitable next question. Depending on the ignorance of the person, it will be somewhere in the complete solid solution series between two extremes:
How do you make moral decisions?← (-) dipshittery (+) →Then how do you not murder/rape people?
Those sorts of dumbass questions (the +dipshittery end member), more of assumptive statements, really irritate the hell out of me. I see absolutely no benefit, in the morals department, of having religion. Any religion. I won’t point fingers and make the typical atheist/theist argument of body count. The carnage on both sides of that coin is very high. It is almost impossible, anyway, to really argue what belief system one person was operating under when they decided to commit one atrocity or another. Point out the Crusades or Inquisition or some other such nonsense and your typical Christian will point out that those guys were all Catholic, obviously the wrong kind of Christian. Point out the Native American genocide, undertaken mostly by whitebread protestants, and they’ll say that was perpetrated by the wrong type of Protestant (probably Baptists). The same as the Muslim people I have known throughout my life all say those guys blowing up innocents are the wrong kind of Muslim. So, whatever, Stalin was the wrong kind of Atheist. More likely, the murderers were all just the wrong kind of people.
The point I meant to make was that believing in anything does not lessen your chances of being a murderer. Or murdered. Which brings me to the real jist of this ramble. Janet recently posted ten canons (not commandments) for herself (read them before continuing). I thought that was a fairly brilliant move. One can argue more easily that certain morals, usually the most universal of them, have an evolutionary purpose rather than a progenitor in the sky. Having evolutionary purpose to me makes a moral an order of magnitude more potent than the threat of an invisible Ghost/Ghoul/Karma punishing me (especially since so many terrible people are not punished). Janet purposely veered from Commandment territory, instead having a more sliding scale approach. I thought that was a decent way to go about it.
I decided to rip her off. I did give myself the latitude to include one (and only one) commandment. Most appropriately, I think, I wrote these on a Sunday.
Commandment: Leave it better than you found it.
Canons:
- Assume every other living thing deserves respect and every other human being deserves dignity and liberty, at least until the person proves otherwise.
- Don’t assume you are right, since the probability of that is very small. The scientific method will save us all, my friend.
- Question authority. Question everything. Most of all, yourself.
- Do not lie. Do not steal. Do not covet. No thing and no person is worth your honesty.
- Learn all you can about everything, even subjects that don’t immediately interest you, the universe will become a more interesting place, and you just might get turned on to someone like ee cummings. Or Tom Waits, God help you.
- Save money and actually own outright everything you have, that way you can focus on people. Be beholden to no man. You’ll be surprised how your things turn into tools instead of trophies when the title is in your hand.
- Never be brand loyal, with religion, with people, with politics, with products. You weaken them all with your unwillingness to challenge them.
- Teach others (should they be willing to learn) what you know how to do. Don’t bother teaching them what you think. Teaching how to accomplish things will bring about greater change in the functioning of your immediate circle of influence than any preaching.
- Don’t be a punk-ass bitch. Man up. Everybody had it hard, most had it harder than you, sugar tits. If you ain’t bleeding, you can’t cry, Cupcake.
- Don’t wait for God, make the changes you want to see. Fight the powers of ignorance and the cheapening of your race. This is not easy, so, brothers, be strong and courageous, and do the work.
Every single one of these guidelines, most of which are not new, make evolutionary sense to our species. Respecting every living thing ensures a continued food supply and a decent quality of life for your fellow man.
Now, I am not in the business of memes. But I am curious, I know there are a few people who I think would be sort of fascinating to hear from on this. So, I would like to see some of you, anyone, do as I did, even if I don’t know you. One commandment, ten universal transcendent behavioral guidelines that people in any belief system can use to better our existence. You don’t have to link back or any of that typical bloggy crap, just write it down and let me know. I would like to see it on your own blog instead of my comments, since it would be interesting to see your commenters have a crack at your guidelines. Then ask some others. I guess that is a meme. Now I feel dirty.
Some people I am most interested in hearing from on this one:
Mssc54 (I know you have no idea who I am, but you seem to have an opinion)
(S)wine (same thing)
Oh, and let’s keep it respectful.
