Ecological Eleven Commandments
/In the era of COVID-19, I think that the following commandments will insist upon their relevance. My goal in adapting, borrowing, and writing these eleven commandments was to show those who have an interest in religion, and in how religious texts may be / should be interpreted, just how a semiotician would likely interpret the "signs" of the Bible, that is, of the Word. Since true "signs grow," my work here was to "grow the Word, the Divine Logos," to interpret (INT3RP) the Word in the Spirit in which It was incarnated. To do justice to the Word, one must interpret It with regard to the Final Interpretant (C.S. Peirce) placed within it at the Beginning, that is, in the Spirit of Its creation.
©Eleven Ecological and Postmodern Commandments for the Semiotic-Semioethical Animal (Where different from the better known “ten,” the following are meant not to replace but to complement.)
Adapted, borrowed, or written by W. John Coletta
Thou shalt not pollute.
Thou shalt not steal from future generations.
Thou shalt not murder even indirectly, thus causing people or other nonhuman persons to be harmed from the manageable side effects of your actions.
Thou shalt not stereotype, thus making into absolute (i. e., graven) images species, races, or ethnicities, and thereby denying the unique individuality of each being.
Thou shalt not consider any life form (species, group, or individual) to be more or less “advanced” than any other.
Thou shalt not allow thine own conception of the “next world” (heaven) to lessen the value of the diverse and just sustainable worlds derived from this one, My Creation (remember the Earth Day and keep it holy).
Thou shalt not consider thine own views to somehow necessarily represent universal ones (and therefore in effect bear false witness against thy neighbors’ views).
Thou shalt not consider the fate of humans as separate from that of other living things, thus Genesis bids not only humans to “be fruitful and multiply,” but Genesis also bids that birds and fishes be permitted to do so as well: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth” (Genesis 1:20). (Since one cannot maximize two variables in a single equation, here the Lord creates an ecological aporia that should serve to check anthropocentrism.)
Thou shalt not commodify or privatize water, air, or healthcare.
Thou shalt not create, patent, and profit from genetic graven images of my Creation (thus committing adulterous acts against that Creation).
Thou shalt not interfere with the shepherding of being, that is, with the ushering into creation of a new self or selves—mineral, vegetable, animal, human, or post-human—as long as non-interference is in accord with the other commandments and as long as the beings that are so ushered into being are autonomous.
