IF I WERE GOD:
I Would Issue New Commandments


    I am not God in any sense, but if I were,
then I might be inclined to straighten out my people with a new set of commandments.

    Giving commandments about human behavior is not my main purpose,
but since so many people look to me for rules of behavior,
I might as well have a reasonable set,
rather than the haphazard Ten Commandments people have been trying to follow for years.

    Another problem with the original Ten Commandments
is that I did not explain what they meant in enough detail.
This led to lots of speculation and nit-picking.
So this time I will issue some explanations with each of my new commandments.

    You will note that some of my new commandments are similar to the old.
But I have dropped all of the trivial commandments.

DO NOT COMMIT MURDER

    I have noticed that most of the people on planet Earth
have some form of this commandment written into their laws.
Those few groups of human beings who do not prohibit murder
usually do not last very long,
since they tend to kill each other off for trivial reasons.
For example, rival gangs sometimes protect their 'turf'
by killing off the competition.
Such tribal killing just encourages retaliation.
Gangs that kill each other over 'ownership' of a certain location for selling illegal drugs,
for example, are doing more harm to themselves than to anyone else.

    On the other hand, some people have interpreted my original commandment too literally.
They think that they should not kill even tiny insects that might harm them.

    However, self-defense is permitted under this ban on murder.
It is not an act of murder if one of you must kill another in order not to be killed.
If someone is trying to shoot you, you have a right to kill him or her first.

DO NOT COMMIT GENOCIDE

    I have decided to make this a separate commandment
because some people might extend the right of self-defense
to include the collective killing of members of other groups of people
just because of hatred based on group identity.

    In my next new commandment, I prohibit war,
which is often a form of genocide.

DO NOT COMMIT WAR

    Warfare is fighting among groups of my people.
I realize that it might take more than 100 years for you people to give up warfare.
But if you hear this prohibition,
you will take wise steps to preserve the peace of the Earth
without resorting to one nation committing war against another.

    Because there will always be some violent individuals and groups,
you people of the planet Earth will have to develop a World Peace Force,
so that renegades can be controlled, imprisoned, or even killed
if they do not give up violence as a way of settling disputes.

    Once you have established a good world system of controlling violence,
then each of your nation-states can give up its own national military forces.
They will no longer be needed:
When you have finally given up warfare by establishing a World Peace Force,
you can then give up all means of committing war on one another.
And when you no longer have the means to commit wars,
you will be inclined to settle disputes in peaceful ways.

DO NOT STEAL

    Along with giving up murder,
you will find it easier to give up stealing from one another.
Sometimes people are tempted to commit murder
as a means of protecting their economic interests.
But if you will create good local police forces,
devoted to the protection of private property,
then there will be less temptation to commit murder.

    You should create orderly ways to transfer private property among yourselves.
Buying and selling should take place at reasonable prices you can agree upon.

    And you will need local police and courts to take care of situations
in which some people have been tempted to steal what does not belong to them.
Murder is never the correct response to theft.

TAKE CARE OF ONE ANOTHER

    I would really like you to love one another,
but I realize that feelings cannot be commanded.
So I offer this positive encouragement to be kind to other people.
You will have to work out the exact details of how you will be nice.
And it should not become an overwhelming duty.
However, in most cases, there will have to be some forms of taxation
so that those who do not voluntarily provide for the welfare of others
will have their income and/or wealth taxed
in order to support the less fortunate:
the young, the old, the poor, the sick, & the dying.

    About family structure and personal relationships I make no rules.
Be creative and thoughtful about your relationships.
See what works for you.
Whatever kinship systems you create are for your benefit, not for mine.
Don't believe anyone who declares that only one kind of family is blessed by me.









FOLLOWING MY NEW COMMANDMENTS ALOWS YOU TO GIVE UP TRIVIAL LEGALISM

    You will have to work out some details emerging from the above list of new commandments,
but for the most part you should give up the foolish elaboration of rules of behavior,
even if they were originally attributed to me.

    This will come as a great relief to many of you.
You were already struggling under the burden of systems of rules that were too complex.
These were created by other people to oppress you.
They did not come from me.

    Sometimes, for instance, with respect to dietary rules,
there was a good reason for not mixing milk and meat.
This was created to prevent you from joining pagan cults,
which involved boiling a calf in its mother's milk.
But this cult has long since disappeared from the Earth!
So those who continue to follow such trivial rules about food
have lost sight of the original reasons behind them.

    I do not give you any irrational rules of behavior.
Everything I have included in my new Commandments
can be easily understood both with respect to what is required and what is prohibited.
And there are good reasons behind all of these rules.

    I invite all of you to create other rules of behavior as needed.
But be sure that there are good reasons behind everything you require and prohibit.

    For example, I do approve of all laws about public health.
When you discover the causes of diseases,
you are wise to establish systems of clean water
and to prohibit selling products that will harm people.

    But once a law has outlived its usefulness,
I see no reason for you to keep that law in effect. 
For example, I am glad that most of you have abandoned your 'blue laws',
which prohibited buying and selling on certain days of the week.

    There is no end to the elaboration of trivial rules in my name
if you have no rational basis for deciding
what rules are meaningful and what rules have no value.
When I make up new commandments,
it is always with an eye to what is good for my people.
I do not make up rules just to make your lives miserable.
And when you become advanced enough
to understand the reasons for washing your hands,
then you can give up all of the foolish rules about ritual cleanliness.

AMENDING MY NEW COMMANDMENTS

    Please feel free to ask me any questions
that arise from this new set of commandments.
I am a reasonable person, not a rigid and arbitrary law-giver.




   
Created February 6, 2009; Revised 3-20-2009; 5-20-2009; 7-2-2009

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