{"id":5868,"date":"2013-05-26T10:44:36","date_gmt":"2013-05-26T16:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/?p=5868"},"modified":"2013-05-26T10:44:36","modified_gmt":"2013-05-26T16:44:36","slug":"the-10-commandments-for-atheists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/?p=5868","title":{"rendered":"The 10 Commandments for atheists"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Daily Telegraph<\/a> weighs in on Alan de Botton’s philosophical “commandments” for atheists:<\/p>\n

\n Politeness he equates with tolerance for the “otherness” of people whose views do not chime with our own. As for self-awareness: “To know oneself is to try not to blame others for one’s troubles and moods; to have a sense of what’s going on inside oneself, and what actually belongs in the world,” he says.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Arguably, these are all great virtues for everyone, not just atheists, to strive for.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Resilience: Keeping going even when things are looking dark.<\/li>\n
  2. Empathy: The capacity to connect imaginatively with the sufferings and unique experiences of another person.<\/li>\n
  3. Patience: We should grow calmer and more forgiving by being more realistic about how things actually happen.<\/li>\n
  4. Sacrifice: We won’t ever manage to raise a family, love someone else or save the planet if we don’t keep up with the art of sacrifice.<\/li>\n
  5. Politeness: Politeness is closely linked to tolerance, -the capacity to live alongside people whom one will never agree with, but at the same time, cannot avoid.<\/li>\n
  6. Humour: Like anger, humour springs from disappointment, but it is disappointment optimally channelled.<\/li>\n
  7. Self-awareness: To know oneself is to try not to blame others for one’s troubles and moods; to have a sense of what’s going on inside oneself, and what actually belongs to the world.<\/li>\n
  8. Forgiveness: It’s recognising that living with others is not possible without excusing errors.<\/li>\n
  9. Hope: Pessimism is not necessarily deep, nor optimism shallow.<\/li>\n
  10. Confidence: Confidence is not arrogance – rather, it is based on a constant awareness of how short life is and how little we will ultimately lose from risking everything.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Daily Telegraph weighs in on Alan de Botton’s philosophical “commandments” for atheists: Politeness he equates with tolerance for the “otherness” of people whose views do not chime with our own. As for self-awareness: “To know oneself is to try not to blame others for one’s troubles and moods; to have a sense of what’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-life","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5868"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5870,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5868\/revisions\/5870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.reams.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}