A
recent WIN- Gallup poll conducted shows that more people in the U.S. identify as being atheist than in 2005. No doubt there will be great concern and
outpouring of fear from the religious folks regarding this and the future of
our society. My goal here is to put the
fears of the religious aside. I’m not
out to convert anyone to atheism, but rather, stop the stigma against it. Atheists and theists alike can coexist with
little conflict. However, there is one
caveat here: both the religious person
and the atheist have to be good people.
Since Christianity is the majority religion in America, I thought I’d
give a play by play on the 10 Commandments and how atheists view them, as well
as the Golden Rule.
1. Thou shall have no other gods before me.
This mandate really has no basis in ethics or morality and
everything to do with the perpetuation of the religion. In addition, as an atheist I see it as a very
dangerous mandate, one that has been manipulated and used by despotic
governments for centuries as a way to get poor men to go to war and die for
them, for free. This mandate provides a
framework and structure for the church, but really has very little to do with a
person’s ethics. The problem comes when
people associate it with that. That’s
when we get religious wars, persecution and prejudice.
2. Thou shall not make unto thee any graven images and thou shall not bow down to them.
This is definitely a church preserving mandate. In addition, when reading the entire passage,
I am struck with the idea that crosses and crucifixes are graven images. I really can’t see how this has anything to
do with morality.
3. Thou shall not take the Lord’s Name in Vain.
Like the first commandment, this one is more geared toward
what is in the best interest of the church than what is in the best interest of
humanity. Nevertheless, I do think there
could be some value for humanity in general here. I think that this could be about controlling
ones temper. At the same time, I think
saying a curse word is a lot healthier than suppressing all anger until it
explodes and takes casualties with it.
4. Keep holy the Sabbath.
One day of rest for people is very practical and, I think,
compassionate. I think there are only
two things atheists and theists would disagree about. The first would be the day itself. For atheists, it really doesn’t matter which
day is our day of rest, provided that we do have at least one day. Second, atheists obviously wouldn’t go to
church and therefore not keep it “holy.”
The exception would be certain religions that do not mandate a belief in
a god of any sort. Buddhism and
Unitarian Universalists come to mind.
5. Honor thy father and mother.
Every major world religion mandates filial piety. For the most part I would agree with this,
provided that a person’s mother and father were not bad people and/or
insane. I think there are a great many
Christian people who were told to hate people of a different race by their
parents. Those people did not follow
that mandate. Technically they would be
guilty of a sin. However, I doubt
there’s any question that what the people did was correct, in spite of the
“guidance” provided by the parents. I
would tend to think this mandate was designed more to perpetuate of the church
than ethics or morality. Nevertheless,
there is a certain amount of wisdom in it.
Generally, parents know more than their children and know better. What I really dislike about this mandate is
that it doesn’t give the parents any guidance.
I would think that the flip side of this commandment would be “parents
love your defiant adult children, but don’t interfere with their
decisions.” But then that would be more
of a parent effectiveness blog and not a social commentary.
This blog will be continued next time, with the rest of the
Commandments and the Golden Rule.
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