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Distilled Ancient Religion: A Definition of Religion
Jesus explained that the core of the ten commandments was contained in the first two commandments.
“Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind and all thy soul”
and
“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
I think all Christians can agree with that. Actually I think all Abrahamic religions could agree on that, so Jews, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, and Baha’is, more than half of all people on earth, could agree on these two core principles.
But what do we mean by “love God”? What does it mean to love a sprit, an abstraction we can’t see, hear or touch? It seems clear we do not know exactly what God is, and may not be able to agree on a definition. If we choose the broadest possible definition of God to be “the core purpose, meaning and values behind the universe” then maybe even some agnostics could agree. True, there are some atheists and scientists who insist that the universe can have no meaning and no purpose, but even some of them might agree that in a Godless universe, people should still create meaning, purpose and values.
So we might get broad agreement from many people that a good set of core guiding principles might be:
1. People should love, cherish and try to understand and promote the core values, purposes and meaning of existence.
2. People should love all people as themselves.
Perhaps these two guiding principles could help unite humanity.
And, the most important, most core commandment of all, is to Trust that existence has purpose, meaning and value, and that in the end Justice will absolutely prevail. Not just to believe, or just to have faith, but to Trust in ultimate purpose and Justice by actually acting as if we believe those things. We believe, we have faith, but even when we doubt, we should act in accordance with our love for the supremacy of purpose, meaning, values and justice.
In the extreme case of people who argue that it is absurd to talk about purpose, meaning and values, because the universe is purposeless, this leads to nihilism. Nihilism is not good for human society and civilization. Humanity needs a value system. So a core minimum value system might start with the two most important commandments:
1. People should love, cherish and try to understand and promote the core values, purposes and meaning of existence.
2. People should love all people as themselves.
Along with the other Noachide commandments:
3. Family is important, honor your father and mother.
4. Do not commit murder or violence.
5. Do not steal.
6. Tell the truth, do not lie.
7. Maintain a decorum about sexual matters. Because sexuality is such a strong drive, it is important to set boundaries and it is best to honor marriage and the family.
8. Do not be jealous, measuring oneself against others, but be satisfied with the fruit of one’s own work.
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