Satan Wrote the Bible

Christopher Hitchens in his book god is not Great addresses impossible tasks put forward in the Bible.

“The order to ‘love thy neighbor’ is mild and yet stern: a reminder of one’s duty to others. The order to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ is too extreme and too strenuous to be obeyed, as is the hard-to-interpret instruction to love others ‘as I have loved you.’ Humans are not so constituted as to care for others as much as themselves; the thing simply cannot be done.” [p 213]

The obvious answer to that is: just because a thing can’t be done shouldn’t mean it is not worth striving toward, however, taking it as a command and feeling like a failure when falling short would be a mistake.

My answer is a bit different. I agree with Hitchens that we are not constituted to care for others as much as we care for ourselves. I firmly believe we should care for ourselves above all others. Here is the step that makes self-love work for me. To care for myself, I need to know myself. To know myself I need to think about what makes me happy and what makes me sad. I have found that it makes me happy to make others happy and that if I make another sad, it makes me sad. So there you have it. If I make you smile, if I give you something nice to think about, if I give you a fond memory; it is purely selfish on my part.

PS: I recommend god is not Great for more evidence that Satan wrote the Bible, though, to be sure, Mr. Hitchens does not believe in Satan any more than I do.