The Atheist Bible

The Code Of Hammurabi, a law system from around 1772 BCE

The Code of Hammurabi was a Mesopotamian law, engraved on this stone, dating to 1772 BCE. It regulated criminal law, family law, property law, and commercial law -- already 1000 years before the Ten Commandments were written.

CC-BY-SA Fritz Grögel, more at suchanek.name/texts/atheis...

No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behavior to sin; he does not say: “You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go!” Rather, he attempts to find out what is wrong and to set it right. Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell's quote hints at a radically different way of dealing with evildoers: Rather than punishing them, we should find out what made them act the way they did, and try to remove that cause.

A difficult but promising endeavor. More at suchanek.name/texts/atheis...

#law #humanism

My life and limb and liberty, my property and privacy, creative works I cause to be, my public credibility, your truthfulness, tranquility — that is what you shall grant to me and I shall grant the same to thee.

Ever noticed that, of the Ten Commandments, three are about God? Here is a secular alternative, which focuses on people instead. It prohibits killing, injury, theft, false testimony, and disturbance. Oh, and also slavery, and privacy and copyright violations.

More at suchanek.name/texts/atheis...

Liberty consists in being able to do anything that does not harm others. Thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man has no bounds other than those that ensure to the other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights. These bounds may be determined only by law. The 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

The Enlightenment gave us brilliant words about universal human rights -- but fell short of its ideals (many societies owned slaves at that time). Today, we're still falling short of these ideals, but we know at least what to aspire to.

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#freedom #humanrights

SLAVERY was normal until the 19th century. The UN abolished it in 1948, Saudi Arabia in 1962, the Catholic Church in 1965. GAY LOVE was acceptable in Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and Mesopotamia. Today, some countries allow gay marriage, others punish homosexuality by death. ABORTION was permitted in Catholicism from 1591 to 1869, but not longer today. THEFT is usually a crime, but not in the Hutterite and New Harmony Societies. KILLING INNOCENTS is a usually crime — but not if as sacrifice to the Mayan gods or Yahweh.

Moral norms have shifted dramatically across cultures and centuries. That's not a bug - it's proof that we humans are the authors of our ethics. The power to define right and wrong has always been ours. Let us use it wisely.

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#philosophy #ethics #atheism

Picture of a book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Rousseau suggested that society works best when we build it together by consent -- not by inherited tradition, divine authority, or, for that matter, a king or president who acts like one. We’re freest when we agree to play by the same rules.

More at suchanek.name/texts/atheis... pic in #uruguay

Photocopiez au lieu de découper

Spotted in a university library: “Photocopy instead of cutting” - a simple rule: Don’t cause harm. Worth remembering, even outside the library!

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No one won the last war, and no one will win the next one. Eleanor Roosevelt

Wise words that still carry truth from Eleanor Roosevelt, the driving force of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

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#iran

What you believe = what you say = what you do

When your beliefs, words, and actions are aligned, life gets a lot easier - for you and for those around you.

Not everyone can live that alignment openly - which makes it all the more important for those who can.

More at suchanek.name/texts/atheis... #psychology #freedom

I don’t take his toys, and he doesn’t take my toys. Léonard (age 4)

Clubs of non-aggression form spontaneously among fishers, plane crash survivors, and even soldiers of opposing parties and Mafia members. People who are on equal terms realize they fare best when they don’t harm each other. Not a commandment, just common sense.

More at suchanek.name/texts/atheis...

One monkey scratching the back of another one

These two monkeys figured it out quite nicely: One scratches the other’s back, and then the roles reverse. They did not need a holy book to find this out. Neither do we: When we help each other, we’re all better off.

More at suchanek.name/texts/atheis... , picture taken in Bali, Indonesia

A firefighter rescuing a child

Empathy and altruism are ancient, evolved traits. They exist not just in humans, but also in humpback whales, dolphins, and apes. Turns out, compassion doesn't need a holy book -- it just needs a heartbeat.

More at suchanek.name/texts/atheis..., pic taken in Lagos, Portugal #atheism #evolution

People push a train to free a commuter whose leg slipped into the space between the train and the platform.

People push a train to free a commuter whose leg slipped into the space between the train and the platform. Empathy is an innate trait -- let us use it more often.

More at suchanek.name/texts/atheis... picture by a CCTV camera via abc.net

The 1991 video game "Lemmings" lied to us 🐾 In reality, animals don't throw themselves off cliffs. Most animals have a pretty strong instinct to stay alive. It's easy to see what happened to those that did not...

SVG+CSS, more at suchanek.name/texts/atheis...

#evolution

The difference between a miracle and a fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal. Mark Twain

What do we know about the origin of the Universe? How did life come into existence? How did humans evolve? Why are snowflakes so beautiful?

Fascinating questions (and the answers religion never gave you) in Chapter 4 of the Atheist Bible: suchanek.name/texts/atheis...
(also as a free audio-book)

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The answer is the egg, but it was not from a chicken.

The egg came first because Evolution happens mainly between generations, not within them. Sometimes the best answers to ancient riddles come from science.

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#science #philosophy #evolution

Aa Hi, my name is Jesus! Reportedly, I healed a number of people 2000 years ago. Half the world worships me. Hi, my name is Edward Jenner! I invented modern vaccination, saving millions of lives to this date. Who knows me? CC-BY Fabian M. Suchanek in the Atheist Bible, with Christ by Heinrich Hofmann 1880,Jenner CC-BY Wellcome Library, idea anon.

Two men, two legacies: One reportedly healed a few people, and inspired billions to believe; the other invented vaccination and quietly saved the world. Sometimes, true heroes don’t need a crowd - just science and compassion.

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#science #vaccination #atheism

Science is not the truth. It is a way to find the truth. The Candid Atheist

Science isn't about absolute answers; it is about asking the right questions and exploring the wonders of the Universe together.

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#science #philosophy

Pictures of Pluto with increasingly better resolution

Science doesn't know everything. But what it knows is at least validated and often useful. Oh, and it steadily becomes more.

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#science #universe #astronomy

Even if you decide, as part of a little intellectual exercise, that you are going to sit around and do nothing because you have concluded that you have no free will, you are eventually going to get up and make yourself a sandwich. And if you don’t, you’ve got bigger problems than philosophy can fix. Joshua Greene and Jonathan Cohen

If our brain is just atoms, do we have free will?

Probably not in the sense that we can do what is not determined by the workings of these atoms in our brain. But probably yes in the sense that this working is largely unpredictable for the outside world...

More at suchanek.name/texts/atheis...

Who can say where the road goes? Where the day flows? Only time... And who can say if your love grows As your heart chose? Only time... Enya in “Only Time”

If we knew the exact state of every atom and object -- would we then be able to “compute” what the future brings?

Most likely yes. However, this computation would be so complex that it would not run faster than nature. So the best way to predict is... to wait.

More at suchanek.name/texts/atheis...

Conway's Game of Life. Looks complex?

Look again: Every single checkerboard cell changes its color based only on its 8 neighbors, without any global coordination.

Just in case someone tells you that complexity cannot arise from simplicity...

SVG+Javascript. More at suchanek.name/texts/atheis...

Why are snowflakes so beautiful? Because they grow by switching between uniform growth and 6-fold branching, depending on the temperature they fly through. Since this temperature is the same around the flake, the growth is symmetric.

Image CC-BY-SA A. Kljatov, more at suchanek.name/texts/atheis...

Homo sapiens moved out of Africa and superseded the other human-like species.

Around 100,000 years ago, homo sapiens emigrated from Africa to the rest of the world. They replaced the Neanderthals they encountered -- but also mated with them. Sometimes reality is weirder than the writers of the scripture imagined...

suchanek.name/texts/atheis... #evolution #biology #atheism

Homo heidelbergensis

Homo heidelbergensis, our 700,000 year old ancestor, controlled fire and was the first human-like species we know who built simple shelters, constructed spears, and hunted in groups.

Reconstruction in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, more at suchanek.name/texts/atheis...

People are just fish plus time - Dilbert

Evolution reminds us that we’re all connected -- from the ocean to the office.

More at suchanek.name/texts/atheis... #evolution #atheism

Reocnstruction of Sahelanthropus tchadensis

Meet Sahelanthropus tchadensis, possibly the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees, 6 million years ago. Turns out our origin story is written in fossils, not scripture...

Reconstruction Smithsonian Museum of Nat. History, more at suchanek.name/texts/atheis... #evolution #biology #atheism

On our own behalf: We’ve started a conversation on Reddit about the Atheist Bible - feel free to share your thoughts!

www.reddit.com/user/TheCand... #atheism #reddit

This diagram shows the evolution of humans and other humanoid species - a messy design process with countless prototypes, several discontinued models, and one species that somehow made it to mass production and eliminated the others…

More at suchanek.name/texts/atheis... #science #atheism

If God created humans from dust, why is there still dust? Checkmate, Christians! — Anonymous

“If humans evolved from apes”, the saying goes, “why are there still apes?” Here is a reply to that.

More at suchanek.name/texts/atheis... #evolution #atheism