Lech Walesa, a past winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and former president of Poland, said on Monday that what the world needs is a new Ten Commandments that’s heavy on the worldly and light on the Judeo-Christian spirituality — a “secular Ten Commandments.”
Mr. Walesa, who won the Nobel prize 30 years ago for his leadership of Poland’s Solidarity trade union and the group’s peaceful end to communism in 1989, said the new Ten Commandments is needed to bring together the world under one basic set of principles, Newsmax reported.
“We need to agree on common values for all religions as soon as possible, a kind of secular Ten Commandments on which we will build the world of tomorrow,” he said, during the summit of Nobel Peace Prize winners in Warsaw.
He didn’t give solid examples of what those core principles would be — but the Ten Commandments already contain what many might consider principles of honest living that are pertinent to all religions, such as “do not steal” and “do not commit false witness.”
Others at the event include: the Dalai Lama, the 2003 Nobel winner Shirin Ebadi, the 1976 laureate Betty Williams and Hollywood star Sharon Stone, who’s due to receive the Peace Summit Award for her campaign against AIDS.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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