Alain de Botton's 10 commandments for athiests

Alain de Botton's 'list for life'

1.Resilience: Keeping going even when things are looking dark.

2.Empathy: The capacity to connect imaginatively with the sufferings and unique experiences of another person.

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, love someone else or save the planet if we don't keep up with the art of sacrifice.

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.

6.Humour: Like anger, humour springs from disappointment, but it is disappointment optimally channelled.

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.

8.Forgiveness: It's recognising that living with others is not possible without excusing errors.

9.Hope: Pessimism is not necessarily deep, nor optimism shallow.

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.

Interesting reading. My own '10 commandments' would look a little different, but I think these are all valuable traits in life. Not sure about the comment on 'humour' stemming from disappointment though

Hmm...may have to go and figure out mine.

Ok, I agree with this list in priciple, but why's it a "10 Commandments for Atheists"? Most "Christians" (Paulists) I know could use some help in the areas this addresses... particularly Empathy, Politeness and Forgiveness, as ironic as that is.

PS - I *am* an atheist.