Several alternatives to the Ten Commandments have been promulgated by different persons and groups, which intended to improve on the lists of laws known as the Ten Commandments that appear in the Bible. Lists of these kinds exist in many different cultures and times. They are sometimes given names – for example, the Hindu Yamas.

Examples

Bertrand Russell (1951)

Bertrand Russell was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate. He formulated these ten commandments:

Ten Commandments of Socialist Morality and Ethics (1958)

The Ten Commandments of Socialist Morality and Ethics (German: Zehn Gebote der sozialistischen Moral und Ethik), also known as Ten Commandments for the New Socialist Man (German: 10 Gebote für den neuen sozialistischen Menschen), were proclaimed by Walter Ulbricht, then First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1958. Formally based on the biblical Ten Commandments, they summarized the political duties of every citizen of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Anton LaVey (1967)

Anton Lavey was an American author, musician, and occultist. He was the founder of the Church of Satan and LaVeyan Satanism and published "The Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth":

Summum (1975)

Summum is an informal gathering of people registered as a tax exempt organization in the state of Utah, U.S., in 1975. Summum contradicts the historical Biblical account of the Ten Commandments by claiming that, before returning with the Commandments, Moses descended from Mount Sinai with a first set of tablets inscribed with seven principles they call aphorisms. According to the group, the seven principles are:

George Carlin (2001)

George Carlin was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, actor and author. In his twelfth HBO stand-up comedy special Complaints and Grievances, Carlin reduces the Ten Commandments to three:

Ten Offers of Evolutionary Humanism (2005)

In his 2005 book Manifesto of Evolutionary Humanism German philosopher Michael Schmidt-Salomon devised "The Ten Offers of Evolutionary Humanism". In short, they read as follows:

Richard Dawkins, citing Adam Lee (2006)

Richard Dawkins is an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and author. These are the alternative to the Ten Commandments written by blogger Adam Lee, cited by Dawkins in his book The God Delusion: Dawkins uses these proposed commandments to make a larger point that "it is the sort of list that any ordinary, decent person today would come up with". He then adds four more of his own devising:

Christopher Hitchens (2010)

Christopher Hitchens was an English American author, columnist, essayist, orator, religious and literary critic, social critic, and journalist. His new Ten Commandments are:

Bayer and Figdor's Ten Non-Commandments (2014)

As detailed in the book Atheist Mind, Humanist Heart: Re-writing the Ten Commandments for the Twenty-first Century by Lex Bayer and the Stanford Humanist Chaplain John Figdor, it is devoted to the subject of creating a secular alternative to the Ten Commandments and encouraging readers to formulate and discover their own list of beliefs.

The Atheists' New Ten Commandments (2015)

These are the ten winning beliefs of the Rethink Prize, a crowdsourcing competition to rethink the Ten Commandments. The contest drew more than 2,800 submissions from 18 countries and 27 U.S. states. Winners were selected by a panel of judges.

Temple of Consciousness' #8ROZUM (2021)

Originally proposed on now defunct atheist.social social media platform, it was adopted by atheistic religion movement Temple of Consciousness. Name #8ROZUM is a Polish acronym and a world play. Rozum is the part of mind that is doing the reasoning and analysis, stressing out the fact that such guidelines can indeed be formed out of process of reasoning. Full name Osiem Realistycznie Osiągalnych Zasad Uniwersalnej Moralności roughly translates to Eight Realistically Attainable Principles of Universal Morality. The name reveals the ideals behind the rules. They are meant to be realistically achievable even on individual level and even in hostile environment. But they are also meant to be scalable and still work as intended when everyone in society adheres to them. Which is one of major critiques the founder has against cultures and moral systems based on traditional religions. They always have blind spots and rely on sinners support in order for the whole community to not collapse.