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At the same time, secular humanist figures like Bertrand
Russell advanced a critique of the Ten Commandments
from a rationalist perspective [3]. In works such as Why I Am
Not a Christian, Russell denounced religious moral
prescriptions as intellectually outdated, emphasizing the
need for ethics based on reason and social utility rather than
divine command. Later, thinkers such as Christopher
Hitchens, influenced by the intellectual climate of the 1960s,
continued this rejection, valuing critical skepticism and
human-centered morality over inherited religious norms.
These secular perspectives laid the groundwork for the
hippie-era cultural revolt against traditional moral authority.

The counterculture itself provided the most visible and
aggressive challenge to the Decalogue. Figures like Allen
Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman, and Ken Kesey
rejected conventional morality through poetry, public
activism, communal living, and psychedelic experimentation
[4,5,6,7]. Ginsberg’s poetry frequently critiqued the
repression enforced by religious authority and celebrated
sexual freedom, emotional openness, and social
experimentation. Leary advocated the radical exploration of
consciousness as an ethical principle superior to obedience
to dogma. Hoffman staged provocative stunts that mocked
legal, parental, and religious authority alike. Kesey and the
Merry Pranksters created alternative cultural rituals that
inverted traditional notions of sacredness, replacing Sabbath
observance with psychedelic “happenings” and
experimentation with communal ethics.

These critiques extended to each of the Ten Commandments.
For example, the prohibition of other gods and idols
(Commandments 1 and 2) was rejected by Sartre, Ginsberg,

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