You've gotta give the Bible one thing: The ten commandments story is pretty compelling, what with the Moses and the mountaintop and the stone tablets and all. The story behind the atheist ten commandments, which involves one of the Mythbusters, a crowdsourcing campaign promoted on Reddit, and a $10,000 prize. Which, you know, is nice, but is kind of lacking in drama. Anyway, here are the winners of the contest:

Be open-minded and be willing to alter your beliefs with new evidence.

Strive to understand what is most likely to be true, not to believe what you wish to be true.

The scientific method is the most reliable way of understanding the natural world.

Every person has the right to control over their body.

God is not necessary to be a good person or to live a full and meaningful life.

Be mindful of the consequences of all your actions and recognize that you must take responsibility for them.

Treat others as you would want them to treat you, and can reasonably expect them to want to be treated. Think about their perspective.

We have the responsibility to consider others, including future generations.

There is no one right way to live.

Leave the world a better place than you found it.

My immediate response is that they're awful reactionary—why even mention God at all?—but then I remembered that the biblical ten commandments are pretty reactionary too. Both you shall have no other gods before me and you shall not worship any false idols are direct slams of other religions, and the top one, which is basically "I'm God," isn't even really a commandment. So on the whole, I think these do the job that commandments are supposed to do: they provide guidelines for life in a preachy tone, and the satisfy humanity's build-in need to see things written out in lists of ten.