Atheists Rewrite Ten Commandments, MythBusters’ Adam Savage Judged New Commands

Atheists have written their own version of the ten commandments. These commandments were chosen from submissions to Atheist Mind Humanist Heart’s (AMHH) Re-Think Prize, a crowdsourcing project.

Previously reported by the Inquisitr, in November Adam Savage announced he would be a judge in the ReThink Project, the host of MythBusters (one of only two, these days), caused a new surge of interest and awareness for the contest — so much that the contest website crashed shortly after his tweet.

I’ve been asked to judge a contest called the Re-Think Prize. Submit your 10 Commandments alternative to win $10K! http://t.co/Z8CRfXgKJh

— Adam Savage (@donttrythis) November 21, 2014

As part of the crowdsourcing project, submissions were submitted to Atheist Mind Humanist Heart’s website. The submissions for new commandments were reviewed by the contest judges — Adam Savage was one of 13 judges — and ten submissions were chosen that were deemed worthy of being called commandments. The ten writers of the chosen submissions split a prize of 10,000 dollars.

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 over 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.

The question may be asked why it was decided to hold such a contest to rewrite the ten commandments. Lex Bayer, an executive at AirBnB, and John Figdor, a humanist chaplain at Stanford University, had created their own 10 “non-commandments” in a book they co-wrote: “Atheist Heart, Humanist Mind.” Bayer said the book forced him to clarify and articulate his own beliefs, and he thought others could benefit from doing the same.

In their Reddit AMA, they explained there was a need to establish what atheists believe as there is a growing percentage who count themselves as non-religious.

“Did you know that polling shows forty-five million Americans consider themselves non-religious? This number is on the rise, with a third of adults under the age of thirty self-identifying as non-believers. With atheism replacing religion for so many, the question arises: what do atheists believe in?”

“We used a philosophical approach grounded in logic and evidence to determine how to live a reasonable, ethical, and happy life without God, and we wrote a book about it.”

The ten chosen were among 2,800 total submissions. What do you think of them? You can read the original Ten Commandments here.