Out with the old, in with the new … commandments

Arguably the most agreeable commandment of all

Christopher Hitchens doesn’t agree with the Ten Commandments of the Christian faith, and has proposed his own:

It’s difficult to take oneself with sufficient seriousness to begin any sentence with the words “Thou shalt not.” But who cannot summon the confidence to say: Do not condemn people on the basis of their ethnicity or color. Do not ever use people as private property. Despise those who use violence or the threat of it in sexual relations. Hide your face and weep if you dare to harm a child. Do not condemn people for their inborn nature—why would God create so many homosexuals only in order to torture and destroy them? Be aware that you too are an animal and dependent on the web of nature, and think and act accordingly. Do not imagine that you can escape judgment if you rob people with a false prospectus rather than with a knife. Turn off that fucking cell phone—you have no idea how unimportant your call is to us. Denounce all jihadists and crusaders for what they are: psychopathic criminals with ugly delusions. Be willing to renounce any god or any religion if any holy commandments should contradict any of the above. In short: Do not swallow your moral code in tablet form.

Hard to disagree with any of that. Nothing about worshiping egomaniacal false gods (ie. all of them), judging and persecuting others based on their nature or beliefs (only their actions), or any of the nonsense that took too much space in the original Decalogue. All makes sense.

(via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)