Do Not Deny That Oneness
Seven Laws for a Beautiful Planet The Noahide Tradition
By Tzvi Freeman
The second principle of Noah is not to profane that oneness in any way.
In a simple sense, that means not to damn or curse the one who conducts this universe, or deny that there is one.
This, too, is an essential part of creating a sustainable world for humankind on our planet. If the magnificent plethora of life that surrounds us is nothing more than an accident, why should we bother to make the sacrifices necessary to preserve it? Recognizing that this world has a master who has made us its stewards is a vital step in taking responsibility for our environment in the long term.
It’s also an essential part of building a sustainable society. The bedrock of the morality of healthy societies is the human intuition that there is meaning and purpose to life, that this purpose serves as an absolute measure of good and evil, and that the choice is up to us whether or not to work towards fulfilling that purpose.
Purpose requires a higher context. Just as an automobile can have no purpose without a road and a destiny, just as a hammer can have no purpose without a nail and structure to be built, so our world and the life
within it cannot have purpose without a higher consciousness that chooses a destiny for the world and gives it meaning. But without a context greater than itself, life can have no purpose. And when purpose is robbed from human beings, the very fabric of their morality swiftly crumbles.
If there is no meaning, then all courses of life are equally purposeless. If there is no purpose, then all efforts to defend our values are a joke. If there is no absolute good or evil, then morality is left to each person to decide, according to his or her whims and benefit.
If we have no free will to choose between good and evil, then all is justified—because no justification is necessary. There is no “me” who did anything wrong. There is only a relentless, blameless, mindless chain of cause and effect. Anything can happen. And it does.
The 20th century provides us with a laboratory demonstration. When human beings abandoned a higher authority to serve the icons of their own making then the most atrocious acts of inhumanity, mass slavery, hatred and genocide ever known to humankind spread across the planet. Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China and Pol Pot's Cambodia are prime, but not lone, specimens of this truth. These were not the acts of barbarians, but cold and calculated acts perpetrated in the name of G‑dless human ideologies.
This is the crucial importance of the second law of Noah: It tells us that to actively and explicitly deny the existence of a single, deliberate and purposeful conductor of this universe is a serious, irresponsible and reckless crime against humanity. Because it undermines the very foundation of responsible human conduct—the knowledge that there is a singular reality beyond our own that gives us purpose and to whom we are held responsible.
Source Text:
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4157474/jewish/Seven-Laws-for-a-Beautiful-Planet.htm#
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