JF, he gets into personal abuse when you exceeds his logic levels.
Of course there is no need of religion to set up a sane society with rules, laws etc and good values.
Many religous values can be dispensed with. Strip out the god stuff from the 10 commandments and you have a set of self apparent natural rules to live by.
here is one set:
The 10 Commandments of the Bible -
Basic Value Scale for PM as well!
As with all other aspects of life on earth, our coexistence in the business can also only progress if we respect our basic values, which have proven successful as basic ethical rules for thousands of years. Included among these are the Golden Rule and also the human rights issued by the United Nations in 1948 and the Human resonsibilities from 1997.
Many people are surprised that, in the end, they are unhappy or unsuccessful in life, can find no fulfillment and wander along the vain search for this fulfillment throughout life and in the process become mentally and physically ill. This often happens because they do not respect these basic values, deride them or even consciously violate them.
Unfortunately, only a few people in the business are sufficiently familiar with, for example, the 10 commandments of the BIBLE which were handed down to us as duties or with equivalent rules from the KORAN, the TORAH or Hindu and Buddhist writings. Many have hardly or never learned them or internalized them at all. Therefore, they should appear here as an example and become part of this PM publication which characterizes our cooperation and leadership in the business.
Their value, which has been proven for 4,000 years already, gives me the courage as PM’s founder to put up with questions like "What for?" or head-shaking for bringing them into direct connection with our job. I do not consider them to be a "sanctimonious offering", but rather a means to a (good) end in the business for everyone.
Trust in the enterprise, compassion, as well as "love of the cause", which are so important and founded on these commandments, help people work together more effectively and lead happy professional lives.
The 10 commandments are the source of our Christian morals and also for most people the unconscious background of many rules which are promulgated and taught in the business world in general, in management seminars, in business ethics, etc.
From experience, we can save the expenses for these with employees who have internalized these commandments of the Bible from youth and who live them in practice. Since this is often missing, we should continually explain these basic rules anew at PUTZMEISTER and learn to observe them, in order to work together well and joyfully and to be successful in business life.
The value scale of our corporate philosophy - qualitative, innovative, motivated, flexible, competent, cost-conscious and value-conscious - would also be built on a foundation of sand without them.
These 10 commandments as basic rules of our business ethics can also become the basis of important business decisions at PM and shall determine and promote the coexistence with our partners.
Today, they are also already the basis of a cross-temporal and cross-cultural ethics which is founded on common sense and trust. They are equally valid in most of the world religions to which our employees and customers belong. One need not be of the Christian faith in order to acknowledge them. Since we deliver new machines on a daily basis, it is, incidentally, logical for us engineers:
People come into the world without operating instructions - therefore, they need the ten commandments.
Since these should be more like ten suggestions for the members of our firm than "pious" commandments, I quote our doyen Konrad Adenauer in connection with this:
"The ten commandments are so clear and unequivocal,
because they were not first of all decided at a conference."
1. "I am the Lord, your God.
You shall not have any other gods besides Me!"
According to the ecclesiastical interpretation, this commandment contains the demand for all religious people to profess faith in one God, who is at once Father, Son and Holy Ghost. We should place our trust in Him, in the sense of faith, love, and hope, as the source and goal of our life. He who is tempted to set himself and his work up as something absolute will find here an agreeable limit. He who is afraid of the future or who has major personal problems can find comfort and consolation in this.
A personified representation makes God understandable for simple-minded people. In truth this is false. According to the Jewish (and Moslem) interpretation, the name of God may never be visualized or even mentioned, let alone that anyone personify Him.
According to the Jewish philosopher Erich Fromm, God is a symbol for the realm of the spiritual world, love, truth and justice. Love of God exists in the act of experiencing oneness with God. Our entire experience serves the knowledge of God.
According to the Catholic theologian Hans KÜNG, signs of God’s Holy Spirit are present in communal life, when people practice consideration, appreciation, solidarity, collegial understanding, equal voice, communication and dialogue.
What else can we understand God to mean in the business? The immanently transcendent source of all being, knowledge and will. People’s affectedness at their core, direct religious self-consciousness.
What is Religion? Religion is religion of the heart: A person’s sense of being affected, touched, fulfilled and moved in his most inner self and in his entirety. Consciousness and sense of the infinite. It helps to establish trust, faith and good humanity as especially important values in the successful business.
2. "You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain!"
This is a commandment of reverence of the unfathomable secrets of God. If we go through life with open eyes and heart, we cannot conceive the vast scale of His work in us and the world. This must determine our discussion of God, our relations with him and with everything that belongs to God. Thus, in humility, we can also understand the modest possibilities of our own effect in life.
The way one is, so is his God;
that is why God is so often mocked. (Goethe)
3. "Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy!"
This is the demand to take part in the creative rest which God has prescribed with this rule and also to use the seventh day of the week to gather strength and to pay tribute to the gifts of Creation by reflecting on these and giving thanks for that which was given to us in this respite. This seventh day is thus the actual respite of humanity.
4. "Honor your father and mother, so that your days may be long!"
They gave us life, many good personal qualities and capabilities, together with their love and aspirations that we become good and happy people. This gift, like that corresponding to the protection and care of the State as well, should obligingly obligate us to lead a good life.
This commandment is thus the demand to treat every member of the community with respect, both in the family as well as in our cooperation within the State and society, and to stand by them knowing full well that the work of man is not without error.
This demand also includes the obligation to conscientiously help with the fulfillment of community tasks, in order to live up to our social responsibility. Fairness alone is not enough.
5. "You shall not murder!"
This is the commandment to respect the lives of oneself and others. Counted among these are all physical and spiritual gifts which were entrusted to us by God through our father and mother, as well as through teachers and examples of care and development. In addition to the duty to preserve and promote these values, this includes the task of providing for good living conditions and thus creating a climate of mutual care. In this, each person finds not only his right, but also that attachment, love and recognition, without which he must surely waste away.
6. "You shall not commit adultery!"
This is the demand for observance of devotion, trust and dependability between the sexes among those who live together in trust as man and wife.
No good long-term relationship or marriage can succeed without the gift of love for one another which God has granted to us human beings and upon which marriage is particularly based - not to mention the fact that it can otherwise become hell and be shattered. The person who commits adultery also breaks the trust which is placed in him and carries his soul. In doing so, he hurts himself most of all.
If we want to coexist well, we may deceive neither ourselves nor the partner. Caring for and developing this instrument of love between one another is thus an important discipline in our coexistence at work. This is not simply handed to us!
Serving and learning to understand the partner, standing by one another, recognizing the good in others, believing in this and learning to take pleasure in the little things, trusting in others and upholding trust, practicing positive thinking and self-discipline in that respect, all of these things help us to learn this instrument of love between one another. This is the only way that we can coexist well. It is a requirement for self-development, easier learning and positive change in the business.
The person who can do that for his marriage lives and fosters this trust and the attachment with other people as well - particularly with one another in the workplace. Therefore, the fostering of a good marriage and the role of a loving marriage partner is so important for a lasting well-being and fulfillment on the job.
Mature people often sense: Loving others helps us ourselves most of all; it makes us rich and strong.
From a rational point of view, love and the commandment "Love thy neighbor" are "means to a (good) end" which have been given to us by God - even one’s own immune system has been proven to react positively to this!
Love is at the same time the most noble form of service.
The significance of this commandment is likewise supposed to provide us with a guide for good relations of the individual within and toward the business with regard to loyalty and dependability, but especially with regard to fostering and preserving trust in one another. Trust in the business is like love in the marriage. Without it, close and good coexistence is not possible.
Trust and love keep people together; they make them stronger and many things easier. As the most important fuel in the business, we are not allowed to endanger such values or break these ties.
They are indispensable factors of our happiness and success.
7. "You shall not steal!"
This is the demand that what belongs to another should be respected as their property. One should not acquire anything nor cleverly obtain through false pretenses that to which one should not be entitled without merit and one’s own achievement or that which does not belong to him in good interpretation of the rules of our coexistence (Fairness Rules).
This also means that we do not withhold from or misappropriate from our neighbor that which we have firmly promised him, that which we have promised him in our advertising or in sales or that to which he is entitled by any standard. The person who becomes sick because he did not take reasonable care of himself misappropriates from his business and the company the services promised by him. He also thereby takes from his neighbor, who must work in his place and still complete his own tasks, thus doubly burdening him.
Correspondingly, this commandment also applies if we do not give our customers (both internal and external) all the promptness, services and product attributes we have promised them in the purchase. We thus steal from him the promised use to which he has a claim and hinder him from keeping his pledge of service to his customers which is founded upon this.
8. "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor!"
That is the demand for the truth and truthfulness in word and deed. No person can develop and no community can continue to exist if false pretense, deception and lies, defamation, disloyalty and undependability undermine and destroy trust and security.
We live by the allegiance and truthfulness of the rules given to us by God. History teaches that sooner or later misery, disputes and war overcome those people and societies which do not know and respect those rules or even consciously violate them.
We can only live in peace with ourselves and with others if we do not base our life on hypocrisy and lies, but rather on truthfulness. This applies not only in the coexistence of individuals, but also in society, in our sales message, in cooperation and in competition with others, within as well as outside of the business.
Our customers - both internal and external - should be able to depend on us observing our PUTZMEISTER values of the corporate philosophy and keeping our business principles.
9. "You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or husband!"
This warns us to respect the love which has grown between other people and their mutual trust, as we expect that our deepest human relations to our partner be respected by others in the noblest sense of the phrase "Love thy neighbor as thyself", thus not in a selfish way.
This commandment thus represents the demand to keep the gift of one’s own sexuality and sexual love free of selfishness and thus to respect marital love and protect it from destruction. Reasonable modesty and disciplined chastity protect the individual from egotism and disordered desire. A responsible attitude in that respect, as well as an attitude which is good and strong, create the condition for a decent encounter of the sexes.
This especially applies in the business, where we should strive for equal responsibility and summon up strength from the manifoldly positive-working tension between man and woman.
10. "You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor!"
This commands one to respect the property of one’s neighbor and to deal responsibly with one’s own and other’s possessions. For a well-ordered and secure property situation is the basis for the development of spiritual and cultural values in the life of the individual and the community. This obligates us to conscientious work and responsible use of all material goods entrusted to us, which our community, our business and Creation have in store for us.
In particular, so long as the working person forgets his common humanity and confuses his real claim in life with his empty desires, his work will necessarily remain under the sign of war (competition, class warfare).
The commandment is also supposed to sharpen our conscience so that we only claim, accept or give such gifts in the business realm as those which find their value through real, honest and upright work. We are thus also immune to temptations which could end in active or passive corruption.
– —
Preserving and increasing these life values requires - on a daily basis - one’s own contributions, discipline and also a willingness to make sacrifices.
Our 10 commandments shall not comprise a "dictatorship of values", rather they shall provide guideline assistance and also have the character of instructions where there are no longer any recognizable relations to God, because many people believe that they are able to manage their lives by themselves. If we respect the commandments which are directed toward material values, it becomes clear to us that God has His own economy. We come close to it when we understand that, actually, it is only this which makes us rich or that we only permanently have that which we give away.
When faced with the fact of the illusions of self-made values, no less than Mahatma Gandhi spoke of "destructive things" like
"Politics without principle,
pleasure without conscience,
wealth without work,
knowledge without character,
commerce without morality,
science without humanity,
worship without sacrifice."
Knowing full well that our life is too short to become perfect in the sense of the 10 commandments, we must continually strive to be true to these basic rules, thus giving our lives meaning.
This also applies in the awareness that the 10 commandments of the Bible and comparable duties or rules of other world religions do not come directly from God, but were rather documented by good people over the course of thousands of years as the norms for a fulfilled life. It deserves a high degree of respect that these were already drawn up in such an admirably clear and plain form so long ago and handed down to us through the world religions and churches.
Therefore, the Christian 10 commandments and all morals deriving from them today do not need to be felt as inhibitions and restrictions on life. Rather they can serve the good, noble, wealthy and proper life, in that they help us to better achieve our destiny, instead of wasting away. It is too expensive for us to be immoral!
Keeping these commandments is not a must, however it ennobles people in the sense of justice and trustworthiness in relations with their fellow men and thereby also as a personality.
As for the rest, the virtues (which can also make a person in our society good without apparent religiousness) are defined as acting correctly in everyday life and realizing the moral good.
Since Socrates (469 - 399 BC), the virtues have been defined as
"perfect spiritual and emotional capacities to develop the moral good."
The primary virtues are:
Intelligence - Justice - Courage and Moderation.
The secondary ones are:
Punctuality, Obedience, Diligence, Loyalty, Cleanliness,
Personal Courage
The supernatural or divine virtues are:
Faith, Hope, Love.
I now thank all those who jointly contribute to making these virtues and the underlying 10 commandments into a recognized and valued basis of our action in our business. Mind you: With respect to this, we all are still far from being "perfect".
and the real 10 are:
The following are the -real- 10 Commandments. This is what God instructed Moses after he clumsily broke the first set. I can't help but wonder these have to do with morality or living a good life. You crazy Christians...!
1. Kill everyone who isn't like you.
-"Drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times each year to appear before the LORD your God."
2. Trust no one, especially women.
-"Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same."
3. Burn down your neighboring cities.
-"Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles."
4. My name is Jealous, worship me and no other.
-"Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God."
5. Do not eat sacrifices.
-"Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices."
6. No work on Saturdays.
"Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest."
7. Do not make -anything- in my image. (This also applies to statues, paintings, etc. of Jesus since Jesus is Lord)
-"Do not make cast idols."
8. Party is down dude. But no yeast! (I guess that would include alcohol? ARGH!)
-"Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt. Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast, and do not let any of the sacrifice from the Passover Feast remain until morning."
9. Your firstborn is mine, sucka. If you don't hand it over, break it's neck.
-"The first offspring of every womb belongs to me, including all the firstborn males of your livestock, whether from herd or flock. Redeem the firstborn donkey with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem all your firstborn sons. "No one is to appear before me empty-handed."
10. I will be hungry from time to time. Bring me food.
-"Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God. "Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk."
If you don't believe me, why don't you actually crack open your dusty Bible and read it. It's under Exodus 34.
All the above from various searches
Bill |
