The Ten Commandments According To Christopher Hitchens

(From a YouTube video of the same name.)

One, Do not condemn people on the basis of their ethnicity or their color.

Two, Do not even think about using people as private property.

Three, Despise those who use violence, or the threat of violence, in a sexual relationship.

Four, Hide your face and weep if you dare to harm a child.

Five, Do not condemn people for their inborn nature.

Six, Be aware that you too are an animal, and dependent on the web of nature.

Seven, Do not imagine that you can escape judgment if you rob people with a false prospectus rather than a knife.

Eight, Turn off that fucking cellphone!

Nine, Denounce all Jihadists and Crusaders for what they are: psychopathic criminals with ugly delusions (and terrible sexual oppressions).

Ten, Be willing to renounce any god, and any faith, if any Holy Commandment should contradict any of the above.

(Switching here to editorial content.)

I tend to agree with Hitch in most things, and I am substantially in agreement with these commandments, with minor exceptions as follows:

Religion should be renounced in general. Singling out one religion or another just makes it personal. A general renunciation will make religious people angry enough. Don't go the extra step.

Don't mention the Freudian sexual horrors that underpin the attitudes of most religious extremists. Unless you are a qualified mental health professional, then it's okay.

You can still use your cellphone. Mr. Hitchens was just being cranky.

On my own behalf, may I add an eleventh commandment of my own? Perhaps as a replacement for number eight, which, to be fair, may have been a frivolous inclusion?

(Proposed New) Number Eight, Never be too certain that you are correct about anything. Always consider that you may be wrong.

Why do you think these new proposed commandments are at such variance to the original ten? (Or any of the several Biblical versions of the original ten?) Could it be because those Iron Age cretins were routinely violating many of the new proposals? Yes it could.

That is because our ancestors in the dim past of three thousand years ago were so different from you and me that a whole other set of things was important to them. Condemning your local enemies because of their ethnicity was an important precursor to slaughtering them. Killing their children after slaughtering the men was just good judgment. Taking their women as slaves was the natural order of things. Murderous condemnation of people based on their inborn natures was common. It's right in the Bible: God told them to do those things!

That is why using the Bible as a template for modern life is such a bunch of crap. Times, thank God, have changed.