This article in the box below (written by me) was originally published almost two years ago, May 9th, 2005, shortly before OpEdNEws was converted to a database driven system. What with CNN"s Christianne Amanpour special on Religious Warriors, I thought it was a good time to resurrect it.
I believe that a short collection of basic laws or rules need to be developed that civilized, mature, evolved religions all subscribe to. These rules should aim toward supporting humanity, earth and life with respect for differences.
Here's my first pass at putting some of these laws together.
1) Any religion must respect other religions which follow this rule. In other words, if your religion respects other religions then it deserves the respect of other religions. Religions which do NOT respect other religions do not deserve respect.
2-No religion is better than any other religion which follows rule one. Certain religions may be better for an individual, family, tribe or community, but this does not apply to all people, not in a neighborhood, town, city, state or nation.
3-No religion has the right to force or insist that its values and rules of culture and behavior be required of people who do not sign on, buy into or agree with that religion-- whether the person is a member of the relgion or not. On the other hand, a specific church, synagogue, temple, mosque, etc. has the right to set requirements for its members.
These three seem to be the most basic to me. I realize that some of the sects in some of the biggest religions might reject some of these rules.
Here are some additional rules I think worth considering.
4) assuming rule number 2, no religion should set rules that aim to maximally expand their numbers.
5) Evangelism that aims at destroying other cultures is unacceptable. Evangelism that does not take precautions for communication of diseases is unacceptable.
My own background: Born Jewish, now practicing (both) as a Jew, (and in an interfaith church) but my prayers are simple, to drop my barriers that keep me from being connected to the universal consciousness. God is universal. It is our own consciousness that separates us from God. When I can do that, I can have conversations with God. I've posted some of them at www.talkingtogod.com I believe that people have the god-given capacity to discover different paths to God and they should all be respected, based on the rules described above.
I'd love to hear your comments, suggestions, criticisms.
I should add that every one of the faiths Amanpour is covering-- Islam, Judaism and Christianity-- have millions of people who live their lives following these "Laws for All Religions." I think they are living lives more consistent with the original teachings of their faiths. Those who fail the test-- they live the rules that later interpreters and promoters of some versions of the religion (as opposed to the teachings of the faith's founders) created.
The human species needs some rules to survive. These seem like reasonable ones that could help all the people on the planet co-exist while honoring each others' differences.
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com and is a columnist with Northstarwriters.com. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
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-While I'm registered as a Democrat, I consider myself to be a dynamic critic of the Democratic party, just as, well, not quite as much, but almost as much as I am a critic of republicans.
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Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:27)
I believe this fits in with the "Laws" :) I am Jewish also, but practice a Scripture-based faith that does not subscribe to an organized state religion. I believe that wars in the name of adulterated state-sponsored religion, no matter what sect, are not sanctioned by the Almighty.
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Barbara Peterson (46 articles, 80 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 416 comments)
on Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 12:17:14 PM
I think another might be that they are not allowed to demand fealty to their religion above that of the society in which they operate. So, anyone who says there first loyalty is to their particular church should necessarily be considered a threat to the rest of society.
Jen
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Sumogirl (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 7 comments)
on Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 12:26:43 PM
Laws such as these for religions need to become a part of a revamped, revitalized, and dominant United Nations. If this recharged moderator of our worlds nations is to be sucessful all nations as well as all religious sects will need to be members and agree to rules such as set forth above. Nations will need to respect all current borders and allow no interceeding with any government without UN sanctions. The Security Council will be made up of regionally elected nations with no super powers being a permanent part of it. The religions will need to follow a similar setup. Religions and governments account for the vast majority of all wars or conflicts, if not all of them. If most religious sects are put on public view as world governments are there will be more thought on their part before authoring or encouraging wars or conflicts. Large amounts of wealth are wasted and mis-used by both governments and religions and a strong United Nations/religions will help focus this power where it is actually needed for disasters and the needy.
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Hayesml47 (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 501 comments)
on Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 12:40:09 PM
Most major religions do have seats at the UN. Most participate as NGO's and are involved in many of the committees organized by the UN. that is why the Muslims were able to gut some language out of a resolution that basically makes it impossible to criticize muslim governments because according to them, you are criticizing islam and, well, that is a problem.
Same thing happens in the council of europe.
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Sumogirl (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 7 comments)
on Friday, August 24, 2007 at 12:02:32 PM
Actually Rob I was meaning they should be represented there but not as voting members. There needs to be a world mediating body for religions just as we need one for world governments. I am a very firm believer in religions and government never, ever mixing. That has caused more catastrophies than any other meeting of different entities has ever done. Religions are for individuals and their beliefs whereas governments are for managing a country for all of it's citizens. Sorry for the confusion.
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Hayesml47 (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 501 comments)
on Friday, August 24, 2007 at 12:47:29 PM
I agree with all of your Laws on Religion. Maybe you could put them into effect with a Constitutional Ammendment? I don't want my faith imposed on anyone else or have someone impose a faith on me or anyone else. We need "Freedom From Religion" as well as freedom of religion.
Best regards,
Trainer12
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Trainer12 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 52 comments)
on Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 3:12:19 PM
Want A GoldnAge Peaceful Earth (AGAPE)? Then be aware that every human being has an equally exclusive right to: 1) physical life; 2) her or his Self; and 3) a just share of all of Nature.
Any religion that teaches a person should or must do anything other than what that person chooses to do without using force, fraud, or falsehood to injure or threaten any other person is guilty of infringing on that persons own "inner-being" path to ultimate or "ultra" awareness of her or his true Self as a part of the whole that not only contains the Universe but is the Universe.
The world we have, with its governments, schools, religions, businesses, societies, and any or all other walls of separation is exactly the world we've inwardly agreed to produce for ourselves to force us to an ever-growing level of Awareness of Oneness with the Allness that we're a part of.
We can only change what we have now for what we think we want by becoming aware that we really and truly want exactly what we've got at each moment, no matter how boring or horrible that may seem to us at the time.
Becoming aware of this and of how we can grow to live according to those three things I listed in the first paragraph is the way to stay joyfully alive in a Universe that appears bent on destroying itself.
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billmanning (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 21 comments)
on Thursday, August 23, 2007 at 11:19:53 PM
The idea is great however how are you going to enforce them?
Asimov had the laws imbedded in the positronic brain. Mind you, if I were a violent person I can think of quite a few 'religious nuts' I would like to imbed something into their skulls.
What are you going to do about the Christian huxsters those TV shows that fleece the emotionally gullable so the preacher can join the lifestyles of the rich and socially worthless?
What about the star crossed individuals. You cover families but what about children in that family what are their rights protections?
In Aus we have the 'bretheren" they pay for wives to divorce a husband if they don't follow the direction of the church. They also have be caught setting up the hubby so he'll lose acess to his children. what's your solution.
How are you going to enforce 4. Churches would argue that they need new converts to survive as their members die move away both physically and spiritually?
Rob, your views betray the fact that you are a man of good will, I wish it that others that worship were the same. The reality is your laws would impinge on dubious power structures and political bases . I can't see any of them allowing fresh air or light come through. To many involved at upper escelons this is a business pure and simple. As for the rest well have you ever tried to argue your point with a zealot or some one who implicitedly believes the ideological dogma? The coser to the edge of their understanding the shriller the conditioned/doctrinal responses become. All this is to do with emotions.
Seeing whe're in wouldn't it be nice mode. I would like for the people to take the free kick Religion Inc has. I believe it is appropriate to TaX any activity by Religion inc indulges in that isn't welfare or community church orientated. I think that Many of the activities of Religion inc. should be scruitinized. so the punters can see where their money actually goes. It's the 20million evangelical monuments should be viewed as the same as normal commercial sites. so there he he!
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Andris (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 531 comments)
on Friday, August 24, 2007 at 12:54:22 AM
When Sumogirl suggests that anyone who is more loyal to a power higher than the state is a threat to society she is taking a classic fascist position. When one argues that society must be protected from those who do not see the state as the highest moral authority, one is arguing for a fascist government. I certainly am not a "fundamentalist" Christian, but I find the idea of being coerced into giving the state my upmost fealty over my God to be even more threatening than the Bushite's brand of fascism. Moreover, this entire article and the comments attached to it are based upon a false premise: that their are people who are religious (have faith and believe in God) and people who are not. To the contrary, as I will demonstrate in a future article, everyone's world view is religious: based upon faith and somewhere hiding a God.
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W.M.L. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 385 comments)
on Friday, August 24, 2007 at 2:49:17 PM
Until a few years ago, I would have been in agreement with almost everything you said. However, if you look at the Old and New Testaments and the Koran, not cherry-picking small parts but taking them in their entirety, their primary points are intrinsically messages of intolerance. Much of the content of those books celebrates murder, torture, rape, infanticide, and other acts that civilized people today would consider abominations. One HAS to believe in the particular God of that particular religion. Outsiders or infidels are to be killed, and/or burn in Hell forever, while inside "believers" go to Heaven forever. The most devout believers in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all believe their way is the only true way. The first four of the Ten Commandments all have to do with belief in the proper God; Good deeds here on earth aren't even touched on until the fifth commandment.
Unfortunately, an unquestioning, true faith in any particular God is all-too-often incompatible with universal acceptance of others' beliefs. If you want to be promoting behavior which will make this a better world, alleviating suffering and promoting good deeds here on earth, the most effective, rational and consistent belief system is atheistic humanism (ethical humanism.) Recent popular books by such writers as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have examined this issue in detail, and I'd recommend them to anyone interested in making this a better world. The easiest, shortest read, and a good place to start, might be Harris' "Letter to a Christian Nation."
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Ray Smith (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 16 comments)
on Friday, August 24, 2007 at 2:51:05 PM
I challenge to just prove what you just wrote in your comment unless you know absolutely nothing about what you write. Since I am a Christian of Protestant and by choice since I was converted as an adult had not attended a Church in my life growing up in the USA, I will only speak of the Christians Scripture and leave the Tenakh (Old Testament) to others who depend on them. Give me one passage in the whole of the New Testament, remembering you can choose any passage from anyone of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament which teaches or condones murder, or stealing, or lying, or adultery. Just one. Come you can do it. Prove to us you are just not absolutely blinded by your hatred of Christianity. Surely you can give us one to prove you pontification! Come, CaveatMt, just one.
If you cannot, you are nothing but a dishonest bigot. Isn't that what you think we Christians are, btw? Just a bunch of hypocrital dishonest bigots.
By slandering the Bible, you slander me. Now prove your comment is not slander. If you do not have a Bible, I hope you and run out and buy one because I have a feeling you have never read one chapter in the New Testament in your entire life.
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pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 968 comments)
on Friday, August 24, 2007 at 3:10:42 PM
OK, pratliff94, first to answer your challenge directly (so many possible examples, I hardly know where to start, but here’s a tip-of-the iceberg specific):Since the New Testament starts with Matthew, let’s look at Matthew X, verse 21: “Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father the child; and children will rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.”This continues on, as in verses 34-37: “For I have come to set a man at variance with his father, and the daughter with her mother . . . and a man’s enemies shall be those of his own household.He that loves father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me . . .”There are hundreds, if not thousands of other specific examples, before we come to the end, with the destruction of Babylon, complete with “plagues, death, mourning, and famine” (Revelation XIX, 8-10.)The basic, recurrent theme of original sin, and sex as sin, repeated throughout the New Testament, has caused incalculable suffering among people.
I will agree with you that the Old Testament is even worse than the New Testament.We do have the Sermon on the Mount and other positive teachings, scattered in amongst the abominations of the New Testament.But if you really believe this is the word of God, how can you justify picking and choosing what to accept, and what to reject?
Your ad hominem attacks against me are neither justified, nor relevant.You know nothing about me. Here's some info: While I’m certainly no expert in Christian theology, I have, in fact, read a great deal of all the holy books of the Abrahamic religions.I was involved as a humanist, for over half a century, with Unitarian and Unitarian-Universalist Churches, and served in many capacities, including as a Trustee.I’m currently a member of an Ethical Humanist society.
I have “slandered” (you actually mean “libel,” not “slander,”) no book and no person, and stand by my original statement. I will repeat my suggestion that you check out recent books by Dawkins or Harris.
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Ray Smith (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 16 comments)
on Friday, August 24, 2007 at 5:42:29 PM
In October, I'll be 85 years old. At age 15 I started what was called "preaching" for one of the most restrictive of the "fundamentalist" churches. Within ten years I knew that much of what I had been taught wasn't as I was told it was -- rangeing from what "God" had to be to what human sexualilty was all about.
When I was 28 I had my first class in ethics at Texas A&M. When I was 30, I spent weeks wandering around the U.S., not knowing my name, where I lived, whether or not I had a family, and what I was supposed to believe about God. But I began to search for answers that made ethical and humane sense.
By the time I was 43 I had learned of Henry George, Silvio Gesell, A. J. Nock, Hillaire Bellloc, and Frederic Bastiat, along with moire than a hundred others who spent their lives searching for how human society could avoid poverty and violence for everyone on Earth.
Finally, I got that it can only happen when humans grow beyond the need for stress and distress to push them to open their minds beyond the levels that let "groupism" of any and all forms dominate their thinking and acting.
At age 43 I lived a year with the Kuna Indians in their Comarca on the Caribbean Coast of Eastern Panama. I saw how a society that had been called "arch isolationist" had learned a small part of what it would take for all humanity to live together in a golden age of peace and plenty for everyone.
I've lived 42 years since then, making many of the mistakes in judgement and beliefs that are possible for humans to make because they're not aware of what they are and why they act as they do. I've come to believe that the human body has the capacity to function well for centuries, as long as the "life-spark" in that body wants it to stay "alive". That wanting has to be reflected in and from awareness of what you've called ethical humanism.
Finally, I'm seeing a growing number of thinkers who're looking at how things are and asking "Why?" We're not going to stop what looks like madness or insanity until, as the whole of humanity, we have made conditions far worse than they are or have ever been before now.
Hopefully a remnant who clearly see the "cause and effect" of human existence will have their chance to work together to show what can and will come from every person seeing every other person as a part of the Allness of universal, infinite thought or energy.
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billmanning (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 21 comments)
on Friday, August 24, 2007 at 6:40:38 PM
Sorry, to get back so late to your response to my challenge. I work about sixty to sixty-five hours each week in my community with alcoholics, drug addicts, children running wild without supervison, battered mothers/wives and some others under mental health supervision. I do this because of the love God has put in my heart for Him and them through Jeusus Christ.
By the way you do slander Christ and all who follow him by your statements. Slander has two dictionary meanings: 1. legal. 2. Non-legal. I use it it in the common use of the word and not in the legal use: "a fasle and maliciaous statement that damages someone's reputation or character." Since all I know of Jesus Christ is in the New Testament and my daily spirtual walk with him is governed by the New Testament, when you slander the New Tesament, you slander Christ; when you slander Christ, you slander His followers.
Let us look at the Scriptures you mentioned in their context for a text without a context is a pretense to the truth.Remember the challenge was for you to state a Scripture in the New Testament where a passage of Scripture commands that a Christian harm or kill a human being for any reason whatsoever. It was not where God judges mankind and brings His wrath on them in destruction.
"Matthew X, verse 21: “Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father the child; and children will rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.” This continues on, as in verses 34-37: “For I have come to set a man at variance with his father, and the daughter with her mother . . . and a man’s enemies shall be those of his own household. He that loves father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me . . .” There are hundreds, if not thousands of other specific examples, before we come to the end, with the destruction of Babylon, complete with “plagues, death, mourning, and famine” (Revelation XIX, 8-10.) The basic, recurrent theme of original sin, and sex as sin, repeated throughout the New Testament, has caused incalculable suffering among people"
I really do care one whit about Dawkins or Harris. I care about you saying "there are hundreds if not thousands of Scriptures that command Chrisitans to kill and hurt people." This is not true. It is a lie or a mistake and demands an apology.
Your Scriptures:
Matthew 10:21:Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father the child; and the children shall rise up against their parents and cause them to be put to death."
It does continue on in verses 34-37, but I am afraid you miss the whole point do you not.You must go back to 10:5 to set the context. The Twelve Disciples and the Seventy were to go to Jews only, they were to go as sheep among wolves. They were to be the "sheep" not the wolves. They were to heal the sick and raise the dead, not kill anyone. In that context, Jesus says that in the end time they as "sheep" would be delivered up to the councils to be tried and put to death. He mentions brother betraying brother and child betraying parents.
Is this not happening in many Muslim countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Sudan even now? Sharia Law says if a brother or child or parents converts to any religion from Islam they are to be put to death.
Was this not fulfilled even in Jesus days and the days of the early church?
Jesus was delivered up to death, James was delivered up to be beheaded, Andrew was delivered up to be killed with the sword, Peter was delivered up to be crucified, Paul was delivered up to be beheaded, Stephen was delivered up to be stoned to death.
Jesus is not telling His followers to deliver up people to be put to death as you falsely insinuate; He is saying people would deliver them up to be put to death for the terrible crime of just believing that He is the Son of God, the only Savior of the World. He said it would get worse that some would kill His followers and say they were doing God a favor.
As far as putting a person at variance with his family, that He would bring a sword to set son over against father and mother. Is not that Sword the Gospel of Jesus Christ and does it not set believer over against his own family to the place that family will have the new Christian put to death for simply believing in Christ. Never is the Christian allowed to be violent to anyone let alone his own parents whom we are commanded to love and respect.
Yes, the Bible says that Satan and all who follow Him will be executed following the Great White Throne Judgment in Revelation 20. That deed is performed by God Himself who prepares the "lake of fire," but no follower of Jesus is commanded to kill or hurt anyone at any time.
You say the New Testament is full of God's commands for Christians to be violent and kill people. You even say hundreds if not thousands of passages in the New Testament. You must try harder. Those you mention give no such command. Let us be fair about this. You slandered me, my God and my Bible. Now put your money where your mouth is: where are the New Testament Scriptures?
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pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 968 comments)
on Monday, August 27, 2007 at 8:40:51 AM
