The 10 Commandments for the Atheist

A quick note before I start: I tend to write these posts about a week before I publish them, giving me a buffer in case I get in a lazy mood (which happens often). With the exception of this paragraph, I wrote this post after barcode9588 mentioned she was making a video on the topic, but before I saw her video. It's only a happy coincidence that our views are almost identical. I can't prove it, though. Hopefully you'll see enough difference in styles to believe me. Anyway, here goes.

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Christian and Jewish adherents find the 10 Commandments to be the beginnings of written, objective law and a divine tool for bringing about peace, law, and morality (though, I understand the 10 Commandments do not have any special authority over any other commandments in Jewish circles). Non-religious people find the 10 Commandments to be a means of control by an authority with little or no objective benefit to the running or quality of a society. Obviously there's a severe disconnect between these interpretations, an almost utter lack of common ground. Since they are written down in black and white in languages we can all read, it seems bizarre that such different interpretations arise. Clearly, something in the context changes dramatically between believers and non-believers.

After considering these things, I think the difference in context arises from what the word "God" represents. Yes, the Judeo-Christian tradition sees some thinking being behind the name, similar to a human (at least in the sense that humans were created in His image). Atheists point to this human interpretation of the Lord and see the resulting commandments as a kind of authoritarian government, comparable to a demands of a dictator to obeyed no matter how intrusive his edicts. But this ignores the subtler and more important aspect of the traditional definition: God is good. Literally.

To the adherent, "God" is symbolic of righteousness and morality first and foremost and symbolic of governing authority only in the sense that government tries to imitate divinity. Obeying the commandments is precisely doing the right thing, not because obedience and submission are especially moral but because the behaviors commanded are right in themselves. If commandments seem to be immoral, the mistake is not in the Lord but in the phrase "seem to be". By definition, either it is not divine or it is not immoral. Considered in this light, the first commandment (no other gods or idols or whatever before the great I Am) is not of authoritarian dictatorship ("Obey me above all others.") but of personal morality ("Do the right thing above all else.").

But, a skeptic might ask, if it's not about obedience why should it be stated as a commandment, an order from a Lord? Consider the timing. The Hebrews had just escaped generations of chattel slavery in which obedience was the only law. So soon after their escape from the Pharaoh and his nearly-godly authority was to throw a huge, violent, naked, drunken party that seemingly included human sacrifices. They had freedom, but no concept of how to use it to preserve themselves or establish a society. So the Lord gave them a guide to morality in a form they could understand: orders. The underlying meaning is universal, but the delivery is customized for the audience. It offered them a transition from being told what is right to understanding for themselves what is right.

I've covered the first commandment. How do the others translate through this lens?

Do not take the name of the Lord in vain. This is often taken as a commandment against swearing in the modern sense, not just referring to God casually or disrespectfully but also not referring to His powers or to private parts of the body or bodily functions in crude ways for their shock value. An older interpretation is not to use God as the basis of an oath or promise, especially one that you do not fulfill. Taking the Lord to be symbolic of morality, this commandment becomes "Take morality seriously." Do not indulge in any habits or philosophies that claim the expectation to do the right thing is silly, irrelevant, or unreasonable. Continue to believe that right and wrong matter.

Later on, several of the commandments use the word "covet". I understand "covet" to mean more than "want" but less than "steal". It is the urge to have, the temptation to take. It is the motivation to improve your situation by making someone else's situation worse. Maybe you don't actually have to steal to be covetous, but you're willing to manipulate events to encourage them to give it up. Maybe you'll screw them over for it, convince them it's broken so they give it away, or guilt them into thinking they owe it to you. Even planning stuff like that is covetous.

Thus, my 10 commandments translated for the atheist are:

1. Do what's right above all else.
2. Take morality seriously.
3. Take time to rest and think things through one day a week.
4. Do your parents' proud. Obey them unless they ask you to do immoral things, and always live so that people respect your parents because they know you.
5. Promote life, not death.
6. Take others' romantic feelings seriously. Don't abuse their trust.
7. Respect others' stuff and their right to control it's use and condition.
8. Don't try to convince people of things you do not believe.
9. Don't lust after people who will never be with you, or who can only be with you through violence or heartache.
10. Don't cheat, manipulate, or con things away from people. Don't even indulge the urge to.

That's what the 10 commandments mean in the Judeo-Christian tradition, translated from scripture-speak into the vernacular for an atheist or secular audience. That's why we consider it the origin of modern law. If everyone followed those ten rules, would we even need laws and governments to keep the peace?

Hopefully this explanation will bridge the culture gap between adherents and atheists a little and help us all to get along a little better.