Getting Along

Conservative columnist and radio talker Dennis Prager wrote an Op Ed piece in a recent issue of the Times that made an apparently cogent argument against religious fanaticism. Its gist was that adherents of any faith who use "God's will" as an excuse for killing are not only wrongheaded in their misplaced theology but do severe harm to the profile of religion worldwide. I certainly can't disagree with this premise. Theistic religions are founded on the somewhat shaky grounds of mysticism and mythology, and don't need violence, murder and terrorism on their agendas to inculcate the faithful.

Yet one of Prager's assumptions underscores the flimsiness of narrowminded religiosity. He writes about our "God- based moral code", suggesting that without a divine authority the moral and ethical laws by which we live would lose their compulsion, and we could devolve into evil and chaos. We are, more or less, incapable of ruling ourselves, of establishing legal codes and rules for peaceful social coexistence without the threat of a divine retribution or the need for godly approbation (leading to a reward in the heavenly afterlife).

This would be news to the drafters of the American Constitution, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, and Hammurabi, among others, all of whom were able to draft workable rules for citizenship and neighborly cooperation that we collectively call the Common Good. Now most codes of human behavior that have survived are perhaps tinged with some religiously inspired sense of communal decency. Even Hammurabi, the great Babylonian king who first codified laws four thousand years, probably had idols in his palace portraying the horned gods of his contemporary mythology. Whether or not Moses existed, the Torah that was attributed to him is a compendium of rules derived from Hammurabi's first civilizing code, with a thousand years of experience adding to the framework. Following him in importance was Jesus Christ, who, as a Jew, modified the Mosaic code with a layer of humanism, though still claiming divine inspiration; and Buddha and Confucius among other non-Westerners, whose insights into the role of humans in a natural world were profound but not purportedly inspired by a specific divinity.

You know what? All these guys, Hammurabi, Moses, Jesus, Confucius and Buddha were pretty smart guys, and they were all human! (Well, some would say only halfway for Jesus). And they, along with the Athenians Democrats and Roman Republicans and a slew of other anonymous judges and legislators throughout history have labored very hard to establish the common rules of ethics by which civilizations survive. I'd be happy to honor all these representatives of my species who have contributed to our security and prosperity, without having to attribute it all back to that great Mythological Intelligent Designer in the Sky. Some of us done good.

A letter in response to Prager's column states compellingly, "He just doesn't get that the world over, without input from the gods, people have concluded that thou shalt not murder, steal, bear false witness or covet. Belief in God is not the beginning of righteousness; it is the source of self-righteousness and the justification for imposing one's will on another." I like that.

For all the ink spilled (not to mention the blood) over the establishment of accepted legal doctrine in modern human society, the simplest most concise rule has always been "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." What a great Commandment that would have made! Have empathy, and you won't do ill. That could emerge from the sensibilities of a child; we don't need a Creator for that. Common sense of common courtesy are apparent, even in the least articulate of human souls. It was, in fact, a very flawed human being--Rodney King-- who uttered one of the great profundities of modern times: "Can't we all just get along?'