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

1. Thou shalt not pollute.

2. Thou shalt not steal from future generations.

3. Thou shalt not murder even indirectly, thus causing people or other nonhuman persons to be harmed from the manageable side effects of your actions.

4. 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.

5. Thou shalt not consider any life form (species, group, or individual) to be more or less “advanced” than any other.

6. 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).

7. Thou shalt not consider thine own views to somehow necessarily represent universal ones (and therefore in effect bear false witness against thy neighbors’ views).

8. 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.)

9. Thou shalt not commodify or privatize water, air, or healthcare.

10. Thou shalt not create, patent, and profit from genetic graven images of my Creation (thus committing adulterous acts against that Creation).

11. 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.

INT3Rp This 1 (Our new contest!)

Hey, CONTESTANTS: INT3RP THIS! 1. Where was the image below taken? 2. Explain the symbolism of the image, paying especial attention to color and placement of the colors! Log your answers in the comments section below. First best answers win! Winners will be announced monthly!

What is the meaning of the Egyptian ankh?

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Egyptian Ankh

Yes, the Egyptian ankh cross is the ancient hieroglyph that stood for the concept “life.”  It was originally, some think, an iconic sign of the thong of the sandal (an iconic sign being one that stands for its object on the basis of some resemblance; the ankh looks like a sandal-thong). Consider, of course, how essential an intact sandal-thong is to securing your foot to the sandal and thus to protecting your foot from damage and disease.  Sandal-thong = life (the ankh) is thus a symbolic equation based on an actual cause-and-effect relationship, and so the ankh is an indexical sign as well (one that stands for its object in some real, causal manner). Of course, it is general in cultural evolution, as semioticians tell us, that icon indices become over time symbols, signs that stand for their objects in conventional ways–and so the underlying sandal-thong iconic index has been lost (it is a dead metaphor), but while the visual connection may be “dead,” the feeling of security and of linked (looped) connectedness that that original iconic and indexical sign produced is still alive.  The loop of the ankh, the key element of the sandal thong, of course, represents in its closed-circuit form, like a wedding ring, wholeness and endlessness (and thus faithfulness and eternity). These of godly traits.

Not surprisingly, the ankh in ancient Egypt was symbolically linked to the gods, indeed, to all of the gods of the Egyptian pantheon, and so it became an inclusive symbol of religious ecumenicalism.  Perhaps for this reason, scholars tell us, the ankh has been picked up by the (inclusive) “New Age” religious movement.  Clearly, the ankh today also derives symbolic force from its resonance with (1) the Christian cross (while avoiding the allusion to violence that that symbol of torture, and love, of course, necessarily carries with it) and with (2) the symbol for Venus, for goddess worship and the divine feminine: more inclusivity!