Agnostic Guide Chapter 13 - My 10 Truths

A Golden Rule of Thumb

Humanity works through our rules of good for any given situation as an imperfect fellowship to determine society’s laws to guide us. If there were eternal standards of good then they would be universal and applicable to all situations. “Thou shalt not kill” is an absolute standard of good which should prevent us from killing but also prevents us from using deadly force as a police officer or a military member.

Most theists judge for themselves when this supposed absolute standard of good actually applies and try to differentiate between a justified killing and murder. They then define one as killing and one as murder so they can say there is an absolute standard for murder being wrong. This obscures the fact that selectively choosing whether each act is a justifiable killing or murder means the murder rule itself isn’t an absolute standard. The ability to define exceptions breaks the absoluteness of it.

Even the “golden rule” is just a guide and isn’t a perfect standard in itself. Most religions have a variation of the Christian “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and this seems complete on the surface. However, if I were a different kind of person who enjoys pain then I shouldn’t follow the “do unto others” rule and inflict pain on other people. Come on, you know you enjoy pain just like that person. They’re just following the “golden rule” when they bring the whips and chains to your party.

We use our inherent good as a society to collectively determine what’s good for our societies. It isn’t perfect but our tribes have managed to graduate to governments and laws working fairly well for the basics of good. If someone steals from me or murders my family then the police and court systems all step in and take care of it. Hopefully the police could prevent the murder of everyone but dealing with the murderer at least stops that person from killing again. A golden rule or other religious standards doesn’t prevent murder whereas locking them in prison might.

Religious standards of good are claimed to be needed because we’re all evil sinners. Religion offers unconditional forgiveness for the murderer in trade for their faith and devotion. If a murder has faith then religion teaches they should be set free to live for religion. They’re also free to kill again in their next moment of weakness. Religion is teaching it’s not a murder’s fault for their actions because a god made us all evil sinners. Each act of evil should be forgiven with love. What kind of nonsense is that?

I don’t believe most people have evil thoughts and urges. I don’t. I don’t usually see all that evil in others. Let’s continue down the thought process of the Bible being the absolute standard of good. The 10 Commandments should become the law for this country and our most severe punishments should be for violating them since this is the top 10 list. If I have another god before the bible’s god or create false idols, then I should be punished more severely than being a murderer if the commandments are ranked in order of importance. I should also be punished for the thought crime of coveting. All parents should be honored so that would do away with child protective services and child abuse crimes. These are just some examples of an absolute standard of good provided by the 10 Commandments.

The truth is we’re good without gods and absolute standards of good. We aren’t evil by nature. I don’t need a religion to stop my hand from stealing from you, killing you, or any other evil deed religions think we’re compelled to do as sinners made that way by our creator. Simply providing religion as the ultimate standard of good just doesn’t cut it. Humans disagree on many points and we work through it all situation by situation. If there were perfect standards of good then one true church would rule the world and we’d only need a single religious leader to serve as judge and jury over all evil deeds. The Roman Catholic Pope is an example of how that concept just doesn’t work.

Truths Instead of Commandments

I’ve thought through 10 personal truths to guide me in place of the highly flawed 10 Commandments I was raised to believe. Here’s a notional guide for life:

1. Independent human life is very rare in the universe so it should be valued
2. Liberty is the gift we give each other when we value our own freedoms
3. The pursuit of happiness is an individual desire adding unique value to our lives
4. Numbers 1 to 3 aren’t equal so balance “I want” with these priorities; independent human life is more important than individual liberties and our liberties are more important than individual happiness
5. We know very little about all which can be known; we must seek and improve upon our knowledge in order to improve our lives, liberties, and pursuits of happiness
6. Knowledge makes us better humans since our actions become better informed actions
7. Belief or faith in the unknowable isn’t a substitute for knowledge
8. Hope alone isn’t enough; you must take real actions to make real changes
9. Forgiveness isn’t guaranteed since it comes from people; therefore take that into consideration with everything you do
10. All you need is love - The Beatles

This list is just some food for thought. These ideas are pretty much threaded throughout this book if you want to explore any of them in more detail.