So, the Torah (the history and rulebook if your parents have decided you are Jewish) or Old Testament (one of the history and rulebooks if your parents have decided you are Christian) has a tale of how a god handed down Ten Commandments for the Jews of the day. Nobody saw these commandments handed down, of course, apart from the guy they were, ahem, ‘handed’ to. Conveniently they were chiselled onto some stones, apparently.
The ‘commandments’ or rules for the tribe seem to indicate it was a pretty disgusting and badly behaved tribe before the rules were provided. But, heck, they were ancient times, and most people died in their 20s, so were predominantly young children. Young children run wild and covet things.
Now then. Millennia later, even though humanity and its command of logic is evolving beyond those crazy days of old, Jews and Christians still abide by these Ten Commandments. This is difficult for them since the ‘Bible’ provides two slightly different versions of those Ten Commandments, the character Jesus revoked or changed or supplemented them with something he heard John Lennon sing about, and are also problematic because most Christians and Jews no longer have slaves these days.
Recently a bunch of atheists (people who have grown out of and away from whichever religion their parents forced them to believe from birth, or people who were lucky enough to have no religion forced into them by their parents) decided to hold a competition to write Ten (why ten?) more relevant non-Commandments.
They sifted through 2,800 suggestions, and the team of 13 selected these as the Ten new non-Commandments relevant to these more enlightened times:
1 Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.
2 Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.
3 The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.
4 Every person has the right to control of their body.
5 God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.
6 Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.
7 Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.
8 We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.
9 There is no one right way to live.
10 Leave the world a better place than you found it.
Not bad eh?
England's England 