The New Commandments

workbob · 1 year

George Carlin did this schtick funnier and faster. I wish Mr. Hitchens to find new things, not re-address old.

NuclearWookie · 1 year

I'm certainly not religious, but let me attempt to play the devil's advocate here. Some Christians believe that the Ten Commandments were superceded by the Golden Rule in the history of the God's relationship to man. Their theory goes that God chilled out at some point and decided to knock up Mary since he had decided that the old covenant with man needed to expand to all humanity. The essence of Jesus' message could be distilled to the Golden Rule, which is generally to not be a dick, and essentially covers the territory covered by the Commandments that didn't apply to non-Jews.

In terms of sociological game theory, I think one can arrive at the Golden Rule withou having to base it in superstition.

critdragon · 1 year

Normally i love Hitchins, i mean i've read God is not Great and many of his articles in VF but for some reason i feel this one has lost his essence as it were. It was not his strongest piece despite being on a subject one would assume he feels passionately for, it was also not as engaging as his other pieces. Overall I feel that the article had the potential, but ultimately i feel something seems to have been holding Hitchins back from his usual standard of great work. Please disagree if you must, but compared to his previous work, i feel this is relatively poor.

BevansDesign · 1 year

Is this a reprint? I think I've seen it before, or he's repeating himself in several places (which is fine).

It may not be his most fiery or witty writing, but it does a great job presenting his points without coming across as something that can just be written off as god-hating. We all know he's an atheist, but you wouldn't necessarily be able to judge that from this article if you didn't know who he was.

zck · 1 year

IX Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. ...Note, also, how relatively flexible this commandment is. Its fulcrum is the word “against.” If you are quite sure of somebody’s innocence and you shade the truth a little in the witness-box, you are no doubt technically guilty of perjury and may be privately troubled.

Somehow, Hitchens misses that it doesn't say you can't bear false witness for your neighbor -- "no, your honor, he couldn't have murdered anyone; he was with me the whole night".

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