Via Hemant Meta, the Friendly Atheist.

Hitchens dissects the best-known commandments (there are, of course, far more than the top-10 that they teach in Sunday school) and proposes 10 new ones (begins at 6:16):

1. Do not condemn people on the basis of their ethnicity or their colour.
2. Do not ever even think about using people as private property or as owned or as slaves.
3. Despise those who use violence — or the threat of it — in a sexual relationship.
4. Hide your face and weep if you dare to harm a child.
5. Do not condemn people for their in-born nature. (Why would god create so many homosexuals only in order to torture and destroy them?)
6. Be aware that you, too, are an animal and dependent on the web of nature; try to think and act accordingly.
7. Don’t imagine that you can escape judgement if you rob people with a false prospectus rather than with a knife.
8. Turn off that fucking cell phone (you can have no idea how unimportant your call is to us).
9. Denounce all jihadists and crusaders for what they are: psychopathic criminals with ugly delusions and terrible sexual repressions.
10. Be willing to renounce any god or any faith if any holy commandments should contradict any of the above.

Money quote:

Classroom crucifixes were made compulsory by two laws in the 1920s when Italy was a fascist state.

Fascinating that Italians would think of the crucifix as a nationalist symbol rather than a religious one. Can’t imagine seeing a crucifix and ever associating it with Italy, rather than Christianity… Precious few American Christians, for example, think they have an Italian symbol at the front of their sanctuaries, I’d wager.

(Via RichardDawkins.net.)

“It is individuals who have rights, not religions,” Ottawa’s representative told the [U.N. Human Rights Council]. “Canada believes that to extend (the notion of) defamation beyond its proper scope would jeopardize the fundamental right to freedom of expression, which includes freedom of expression on religious subjects.”

It’s nice to see Canada’s on the right side of this issue.

April 3 update:

The meaning of freedom: Why freedom of speech must include the right to “defame” religions —The Economist

Apple’s Canadian iTunes store has this show, Christianity: The First Two Thousand Years. Haven’t seen it, don’t want to. I’m sure it’s great. Really.

But the description of the first episode helpfully points out that “Jesus died at Calgary“. I’m a little rusty on my Canadian history, I’ll admit, but this could be huge for Alberta tourism.

Nice to see someone making the extra effort and going beyond the traditional typo, in which Jesus dies at Cavalry…

Irony. Does it come any richer?

As the wider Anglican Communion fragments over homosexuality, England’s established Church is moving towards its own crisis with a crucial vote on women bishops this weekend. —The Times Online

In a letter to Williams, the “traditionalists” state, in part:

We do not write this in a spirit of making threats or throwing down gauntlets.

They’re not saying they’ll take their toys and go home if they don’t get their way but, coincidentally:

The Catholic Church is short of priests and is expected to welcome them again, even if they are married with families, as it did when the Church of England ordained women priests.

Wait a minute — there are Catholic priests with wives and children?? One wonders how the Catholic priests who didn’t come in through the Anglican-back-door feel about that.