William Jamison Instructor

What if we revised the TC this way:

1. Don’t put secondary values ahead of what you recognize as your highest value.
2. Don’t ridicule your highest value.
3. Take some time at least once a week to spend appreciating your highest value.
4. Respect your parents and their values.
5. Don’t murder.
6. Don’t have sex outside of accepted social contracts.
7. Don’t steal.
8. Don’t give false information to authorities.
9. Don’t desire what other people have for yourself.
10. Don’t desire another person’s spouse for yourself.

Let’s think over why these might be absolutely essential for the well being of a community.

Every communications system has a highest (and lowest) symbol for the elements of the system. Our ethical narratives are communications systems. Therefore you have a highest symbol representing your ethical narratives highest value, as well as the relative placement of your other values. 10 is greater than 6, for example. Pizza is better than spinach? An SUV is better than a Geo? God is better than a goat. (For this see my comments on why the ontological argument works.) What God represents for each of us may not be the same sets of other symbols – definitions. Some of us may even consider the symbol “God” as associated with negative behaviors so prefer a different symbol as our highest value – “freedom” perhaps. Yet there must be some consensus for the community to thrive. Too much consensus might be bad for the health of the community since then there would be great difficulties reacting to changes in the environment. Too little consensus and the health of the community deteriorates into no community at all. (Notice the relationship between the words “community” and “communication”! Communication requires common definitions and I would also argue these require common narratives. So this all supports rule 1.

If you break rule 2 you make it difficult for yourself to maintain the confidence in your narrative that is essential for your emotional health. (See Why God Will Not Go Away). “To thy own self be true!” but this requires being true to your beliefs – your narrative.

Rule 3. “Give yourself a break today, so get up and get away – to McDonalds! Heck, if a commercial organization like that has researched this enough it must be right.

Rule 4. Societies where children do not respect their parents (and their parents values) are societies that have more turmoil than those where children do respect their parents. Social stability equals social stability.

Rule 5. No one ever argues with me that murder should be all right. This one always tops my surveys.

Rule 6. This one is among the most remembered in my surveys but I wonder why it is. Is it because we recognize the importance of this or is it because it is the one we love to break the most? I would argue that reproduction is the most important issue for the survival of a society (no children -- no future) and adequate protection of the contracts that make reproduction successful is essential. Certainly under different conditions a society will evolve the appropriate rules. Why are we at zero population growth? Is that why commitments to one another are down? Is it a national sense that we should deliberately decrease our reproduction for the overall health of the community? Even so, a commitment to honor the mutual understanding between persons requires that individuals who want to be held in high esteem by others should respect their “contracts” concerning who may mate with whom.

Rule 7. This one rates right up with number 5 in popularity. Clearly no one wants anyone else to take their stuff.

Rule 8. My interpretation of the Eighth Commandment (Do not bear false witness against thy neighbor.) is not to interpret it as an injunction against lying per se. It seems instead a matter of community stability with regard to successful resolution of legal and other judiciary issues. To get a just settlement the litigants must not bear false witness to the judge. But we must also keep in mind that being dishonest with others destroys their confidence - their "Trust" - in us.

Rule 9. We have evolved a very good system of interpreting other people’s interests and this makes it very difficult to lie while looking into another persons face. We are even getting a better grasp of this now. So much so that we should soon have devices – such as at airports – where security personnel can ask if you are a terrorist and the machine will let us know if you are lying or not. Computers can also read a brain and we have established the area that “lights up” when you do – even just when you are thinking about lying! So what is the best way to not cause your friends and neighbors to relax when you are around their things? For them to know without a doubt that you have no interest in taking their things. How can you do this? By really being concerned for them and thinking most about protecting the community over and above your own interest in having those kinds of things. Accept the contracts we have with one another and follow them concerning how each earns what they get and stick to it. Want it that way.

Rule 10. The same as rule 9 with the main concern being the spouse of another person.

I would argue that these 10 rules are the essential elements behind the Ten Commandments and that they are very common in all successful societies. Most of our recorded history the narratives that legitimize the structure of communities have been religious. I would even argue that all legitimating narratives are religious. Further, all religions that have been around long enough to demonstrate that they have been successful at enabling living communities to adapt to changing environments have traits in common. What do they all have in common? Good social practice for community maintenance. There have been many other religions that were less successful. The big ones, the religions with billions of followers, must be doing something right.

I would also argue that all ten (among many other such sound social practices) are encoded in our laws in one way or another.

Are their concerns with the various interpretations of our religious narratives and how they affect our laws? Of course there are. Can they be avoided while still maintaining consensus enough to keep our society stable? I think so.

I also think we have a state religion -- the religion of democracy. But that is another subject.

JC offered those as a summary of the law. Divide the TC into halves – not quite but almost – (a tablet each?), and notice that one set concerns our relationship to values and the other set to our community. Considering the TC was the Hebrews’ travel code as they left a highly legalized and bureaucratic society in Egypt (Hebrew is Egyptian for slave, Moses is Egyptian for “Out of” and notice Ramses the Great “Ra Moses” means “Out of Ra”), it is most likely the TC are an abbreviated version of basic Egyptian law. So what we have in the NT is JC’s abbreviation of an abbreviation. 

By the way, in class I often ask everyone if they know JC’s middle initial! Almost everyone knows the same letter as His middle initial! By why? It of course is not a middle initial nor would Jesus (Greek for Joshua) have thought of “Christ” (Greek for Hebrew “Messiah” meaning “anointed” in English) thought of “Christ” as a last name. Still, it is interesting that many of us had fathers that used the Lord’s name in vain using His middle initial! Anyone know what I mean?

A very interesting new book on the TC is this one:

Bill