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Commandments for Atheists?

Ranb

Penultimate Amazing
Ranb
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http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/19/living/atheist-10-commandments/index.html?hpt=hp_t4

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.
Click to expand...

What would you all add or delete? If you care that is. :)

Ranb
 
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Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.
Click to expand...
This is not true. You need to discuss how another person wants to be treated and then treat them that way. Sometimes they want to be treated in ways that you want not want to be treated.

For example if someone has been to see a movie I am going to go to and there is a twist at the end, I want to know about that twist. Yet most people would not want that. So following that above rule (which I have seen plenty of times before) I would tell people about the twist in the movie, upsetting them. But they would upset me when they refuse to tell me about twists in movies I have not seen.
 
Only 5 seems to have any connection to being an atheist, and it's not a commandment, just a statement of fact. A statement of fact that it's safe to presume most atheists are already aware of and so don't need written down for them to memorise and abide by.
 
Here's a list I was working on a few years ago. (I know there are more than ten.) I wanted to keep them as simple as possible.

Ten Tenets for The Modern Age

Improve yourself
Work hard
Help others
Keep promises
Take responsibility

Don’t harm
Don’t lie
Don’t steal
Don’t disrespect

Play occasionally
Relax
Take time

Have fun
Keep learning
Keep clean
Keep fit
Protect yourself (and yours)
 
Ranb said:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/19/living/atheist-10-commandments/index.html?hpt=hp_t4

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.
Click to expand...

What would you all add or delete? If you care that is. :)

Ranb
Click to expand...


My question is, what are these ten non-commandments trying to achieve? It seems to be a mish-mash of statements of principle and general directives with no specific purpose.

They might serve a starting point for developing a code of moral conduct, which is normally the point of creating a replacement for the Ten Commandments, but it's nowhere near to being a final product.

For example, 3 seems to be addressing epistemology, 5 seems to be addressing religion, 7 seems to be addressing morality. It's all over the place, switching subjects with every line.

Some of them I even somewhat disagree with.

Does 4 apply even to people who aren't mentally competent to make these decisions? After all, it does say "Every person". For example, would a 5-year old have the right to refuse life-saving surgery because they're afraid of being operated on?

And number 8 seems a bit pointless, as it only requires consideration and not any alteration of behaviour. You could consider all the ways your actions might harm others, then go ahead and take those actions anyway, and still be fully in accord with number 8.

But let's put all that aside. These sort of rules are usually attempts to define a code of moral conduct, so let's stick with that.

I've attempted to come up with a simple set of moral guidelines myself, and I think I've come up with a pretty good result with just six guidelines (not Commandments).
1. Do not cause avoidable harm, suffering or distress.
2. Act to prevent or lessen the harm, suffering or distress of others.
3. Do not steal, damage or mistreat the property of others.
4. Honour your agreements and arrangements with others.
5. Do not intentionally deceive, mislead or misdirect.
6. Do not taunt, harass or mistreat other people.​
 
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1. Never trust a dog with orange eyebrows
2. Rainbow Dash is best pony
3. "...because Skyrim" is a valid excuse
4. Boxxy is queen
5. Pizza tastes better fried
6. Put it down, you don't know where it's been
7. Arthur hurt his upper arm
8. Any attempt to arrest an OCP officer results in immediate shutdown
9. Ceiling Cat is watching you masturbate
10. This way up
 
In all seriousness, do atheists want to celebrate their lack of morality or moral guidelines? Because that is the impression I get from some of the responses here. I'm actually interested in the subject right now (will have to dig up some of the past threads) because I'm debating a believer friend on the subject of morals. It can be tricky, since there is such a wide disparity of opinion on the subject by atheists (everything from "morality is what we say it is" to "morality has a scientific and/or evolutionary basis") Is there any consensus?
 
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