10 commandments 2.0

-

 I was chatting with my 10 year old on the bus to school and the 10 commandments came up. for context, my daughter age 8 has a quiz at church and I wanted to make sure she was up to date.


His question " Why do the commandments not include something like " don't torture people?"

Which honestly is a great question that I never thought of when I was a kid.

I explained it with  the rationale about how all bronze age religions were a bit bloodthirsty - he's been listening to 'Greeking out' and so he knew specific examples of human sacrifice in Greek mythology as well - Agamemnon's daughter, the offering to the minotaur etc.

But it got me thinking - the original draft was actually not too great - it focusses mainly on worship rules and a few core social prohibitions (murder, theft, adultery, lying). They do not explicitly address several ethical issues modern societies consider fundamental—such as slavery, torture, equality of persons, or treatment of outsiders. 

Would it have made the world a very different place if a better written code of justice existed? Possibly not, because people have always been dickish about religion. Still, its an exercise worth considering.

So, i got back home and decided to write my own version of the commandments version 2.0 Quite a few of these are influenced by the Iron code of Druss the Legend from the fantasy novels of David Gemmell.

Here they are.


  1. All people are equal in worth regardless of race, sex, religion, nationality, or social status.
  2. Human life must be protected, especially women and children
  3. Do not enslave, exploit, or own another person.
  4. Do not torture or inflict cruel or degrading punishment.
  5. Do not lie, deceive, steal or manipulate others for personal gain.
  6. Do not betray trust in marriage, family, friendship, or agreements.
  7. Practice fairness, empathy, and reciprocity. Stand by your word once given
  8. Those with power have a duty to defend the vulnerable.
  9. Your freedom ends where it harms the dignity and rights of others.
  10. Don't elect pedophiles, commit genocide or be a dick

I think this covers everything. Will revisit in a few days.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Article by the Asian Review

-
 https://asian-reviews.com/2025/03/11/fiction-mirrors-the-truths-emotions-and-complexities-of-the-world-we-inhabit-rohan-monteiro/   Fiction mirrors the truths, emotions, and complexities of the world we inhabit.” Rohan Monteiro By dhanukadickwella on 11 Mar 2025 • ( Leave a comment ) Q: Not everyone writes, nor can everyone write. Tell us what inspired you to pick up a pen and start writing, along with a brief introduction of yourself. A: It was 2014. I had just learned I was going to be a dad. I was at that point a research consultant in Singapore in a job and role that wasn’t going anywhere. I felt I needed to do something with my life that my kid (s) would look up to. Something that felt more meaningful instead of sitting in an office all day. That’s when I decided to write a book. My name is Rohan Monteiro, and my first non-fiction novel, ‘Keep Calm and Go Crazy’, was published in 2015 by HarperCollins. My most recent book was relea...
Read more

I Spent $1300 on Amazon Ads— Here’s what I learned

-
  Writing, requires the wearing of many hats. Its tempting to focus on honing your craft and leaving everything else to the professionals. It was one of those lessons hammered into us during our MBA days — outsource everything that isn’t a core competence and focus on what you are good at. The real world challenge, however is that we still need to find semi-competent sources to outsource the other processes to. Bear in mind, these are still essential processes, they are just not ones where we have an edge and so we tend to rely on those who claim they are good at their jobs. For ‘ Shadows Rising’ I chose one particular agency. In retrospect, I should have done a little more research before selecting them. But on the surface, they seemed good enough and I figured what’s the worst that could happen? Turns out, quite a bit. I worked with them for social media posts and Amazon Ads. I have no real complaints about the social media post aspects — there were challenges but nothing that c...
Read more

The pursuit of the perfect...desert?

-
  Back in the good old days, when I had more hair on my head than growing out of my ears, there was a girl I dated briefly. She was on a quest to find the perfect coffee. Every weekend, she would visit a different café across Dubai , choose a Cappuccino and pen down her observations in her journal. I had no such interest. Going out to a café became a thing in Mumbai roughly in 1996, when ‘Barista’ started popping up as a trendy chain of outlets across the city. Or maybe that was when I first began venturing out of my sheltered little pod because it was my first year of college. Until then, I hadn’t seen much of the city except a square kilometre around my house in Juhu which included my school, the doctor, the pharmacist, two churches and a graveyard. Basically, everything I might ever need was in that space and I had never ventured outside it. But now, I was in Bandra – the cooler, more hep cousin of all the other suburbs with shorter skirts, tastier food and a lot more entert...
Read more