The New Ten Commandments

“Can we come up with a new decalogue that would be more relevant and useful for the world today?” asks Ebonmuse from New York, author of Daylight Atheism blog.

“The old ten are showing their age and provincial origin by now; we need an updated set. But by the same token, the laws we come up with should be genuinely universal, applicable to all human beings at all times and places, past, present and future, no matter how society or culture may change. Laws must address pressing concerns to be relevant, but they must be enduring and all-encompassing to be just.

“Therefore, it seems clear that what we must do to produce a new ten commandments is to consider all of human history up to this point and abstract from it those principles of human behavior that span the ages - the moral lessons that apply across space and time, regardless of society or circumstance. From these general universal maxims we can distill the rules that will become a true decalogue for the modern world.”

Here are his suggestions:

1. Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.

2. In all things, strive to cause no harm.

3. Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.

4. Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.

5. Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.

6. Always seek to be learning something new.

7. Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.

8. Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you.

9. Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.

10. Question everything.

For an interesting contrast read Ebonmuse’s article on the “old ten commandments” as well as his whole article on the “new ten commandments.”


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5 Responses to “The New Ten Commandments”

  1. lil angel Says:
    September 17th, 2006 at 4:09 pm

    Atheism does not make sense to me. It’s just not logical.

  2. Theresa Says:
    September 18th, 2006 at 6:58 am

    What is logical about Christianity John?

  3. lil angel Says:
    September 18th, 2006 at 8:08 am

    I can’t accept that we are just sitting on a little blue marble in a universe that has no end that just happened by chance. Where did it all come from. Even the most staunch atheists cannot say that something comes from nothing.

  4. Theresa Says:
    September 18th, 2006 at 8:13 am

    And yet Christians do…Where did God come from?

  5. lil angel Says:
    September 18th, 2006 at 8:58 am

    There has to be something/someone who has creative power that has always exsisted. The problem is that we as finite do not have the mental capacity to grasp such a being. Therefore faith comes into play. The challenge atheists have is that they don’t accept faith. In fact they try to quantify it by doing studies on the effecacy of prayer. They see Christianity as nothing more than magic words that either work or don’t work. Jesus said that is you have faith the size of a mustard seed you could move mountains. In all of the quotes where Jesus states a cause and affect, do this and this will happen, The context of that quote is always colored with His showing us the importance of faith and our lack of it. Christianity is not magic.

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