Atheist Commandments

Atheists Write Their Own 10 Commandments

Atheist Commandments

Atheists host the Re-Think Prize, a contest to come up with their own list of 10 Commandments to live by with Mythbusters’ Adam Savage as one of the judges.

If you thought the Ten Commandments, the major laws established by Judeo-Christian faiths, are the only set of rules we humans are to live and be judged by, wait until you see the brand new set of 10 commandments created by atheists from the around world. The 10 new commandments help serve as the primary list of rules to govern those who do not believe in any religion or god. They were pieced together via a crowdsource contest hosted by authors of the book Atheist Mind, Human Heart John Figdor and Lex Bayer. 2,800 contestants submitted a wide variety of rules to live by in the hopes of winning a piece of the grand prize pot of $10,000.

Atheist Mind Humanist Heart’s (AMHH) Re-Think Prize, as the crowdsource project was christened, saw a spike in activity and participation when Adam Savage, one of the two hosts of the hugely popular Discovery Channel owned science program Myth Busters, was brought on board as one of the 13 judges of the competition.

Featuring lines such as “There is no one right way to live,” among the list, the final 10 commandments were selected from the 2,800 submissions made to the Atheist Mind Humanist Heart’s website, after being considered a worthy commandment through a rigorous assessment and approval process made by the team of 13 panelists. Each of the 10 writers whose writings were selected from the pool of submitted commandments went home with a $1,000 prize.

Here are the new 10 commandments that made the cut with the names of the writers who penned them:

  1. Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence. (Jeremy Jimenez)
  2. Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true. (Matthew Main)
  3. The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world. (Isaiah Jackson)
  4. Every person has the right to control over their body. (Chris Lager)
  5. God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life. (John Roso)
  6. Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them. (Jamie Andrews)
  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. (Carol Fly)
  8. We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations. (Michael Marr)
  9. There is no one right way to live. (Eli Chisholm)
  10. Leave the world a better place than you found it. (Maury McCoy)

Lex Bayer, an executive at AirBnB, together with John Figdor, a humanist chaplain at Stanford University, explained via their Reddit AMA that there was a need to establish what atheists believe, as there is a growing percentage who count themselves as non-religious. According to a statement published by Figdor “There is often a misconception that nonbelievers don’t share strong ethical values. In reading through the thousands of submissions in the contest it’s very clear that is not the case.”

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2 comments

  • Alison Lesley
    1:08 pm

    For it’s written As I live, says Adonai every tongue will bend before me
    And every tongue will publicly acknowledge God.

  • Alison Lesley
    1:08 pm

    I’m not sure which comment you’re referring to. I see one comment under your name which was approved this morning: “Those atheists sure spend a lot of time and energy opposing something they claim doesn’t exist. Are they crazy, or what?”

    Let me know if there’s something missing.

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