Human/e Sensibility

"If you're an atheist you don't have a God like figure who has the authority to tell you what to do, but that doesn't mean everything is equally good or bad, it simply means that it's up to society and individuals to guide ourselves with respect to what is good for a human being and what will make a society work well for each other."
Alain de Botton, British philosopher/writer

Well, after all, the sterling qualities of the better side of human nature are inherent to human nature when we're at our best. And sometimes we are. One must not necessarily have a spiritual nature, respond to the call of faith, a belief in divine intervention, and seek to please our divinity by acting in accord with His considered instructions to fallible humans.

We are capable of free will, we can call up from within ourselves the attributes of compassion, charity, civility, hope.

We are capable of respecting others, of accepting the differences that reside within each of us that become apparent when we interact with one another. We are able to love and to value one another because nature has equipped us to be considerate as gregarious creatures requiring the company of others, and valuing that company, and striving to be worthy of love.

But Mr. de Botton has put together a slate of humanistic conventions, recommending it be adopted by those who distinguish themselves as atheists. And the religious community, those of faith in a Deity rise up in umbrage, claiming him to have ransacked the divinely inspired catalogue of human virtues for his purpose; that attributes like emphasizing forgiveness, sacrifice and patience belong in the canon of God's imperatives.

"It looks strangely familiar. Most of it can be found in the Bible itself, in one form or another", claims William Badke, former professor of theology at Trinity Western University. "It says the fruit of spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control", in The Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22-23, he insists.

Well, precisely, since as atheists believe, the concept of God is a human construct and humans wrote the litany of human virtues to be recognized as the word of the Almighty.  So, on the other hand, a professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia, Scott Anderson, feels Mr. de Botton's virtues are not a plagiarization from the Bible but based on "the wisdom of human history".

"It's valuable for people like Alain de Botton and Christopher Hitchens (sigh, may he rest in peace) before him to make a polemical case on what atheists can say is ethical and justifiable in its own terms."

The Atheist's Ten Commandments

1. Resilience: Keep going even when things are looking dark.
2. Empathy: The capacity to connect with the sufferings and unique experiences of another.
3. Patience: We should grow calmer and more forgiving by being more realistic about how things actually happen.
4. Sacrifice: We won't ever manage to raise a family or love someone else if we don't keep up with the art of sacrifice.
5. Politeness: The capacity to live with people with whom one will never agree.
6. Humour: Humour springs from disappointment, but optimally channelled.
7. Self-Awareness: A sense of what's going on inside oneself.
8. Forgiveness: Living with others is not possible without excusing errors.
9. Hope: Pessimism is not necessarily deep, nor optimism shallow.
10. Confidence: How short life is and how little we lose from risking everything.