El Conquistador
Ruler of Zamunda
No tombstone. I have in my will to be cremated, toss my ashes in a water hazard at my local golf course, then throw a huge kegger at the clubhouse.
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I'm An Atheist Who Follows the Golden Rule
- Thread starter PackJason
- Start date
Grumpuss
Active Member
That sounds somewhat offensive, particularly given pork's status as non-Halal and Dr. Seuss's well-documented bigotry.
The Mormonator
Kolob University
Speaking of Tombstone, anybody seen that movie?
Frank Merton
Active Member
That's great and how I use to think, until virtual universes got thought up. It seems to me almost certain that we are deep inside a bunch of them.
Nope. It existed pre-Bible.
The Confucian version I have heard is my personal favourite.
Seems less open to stupid misinterpretations.
Frank Merton
Active Member
Most if not all the words put in Jesus mouth by the Gospel writers were Neoplatonic maxims with wide circulation at the time.Nope. It existed pre-Bible.
The Confucian version I have heard is my personal favourite.
Seems less open to stupid misinterpretations.
With this one being even older in source...
I always get a little confused when the Golden Rule is held up as a Christian thing, to be honest. Or even a religious thing. Certainly religions can include or (hypothetically) embody it, but they certainly don't own it.
El Conquistador
Ruler of Zamunda
Yes. But the pizza sucks.
Frank Merton
Active Member
We can't make ethical decisions by following rules. It is too difficult a thing to try. Most of us want to do the right thing, but sometimes some rule, such as telling the truth or the golden rule, misleads us to do something wrong. I am not about to be truthful if the Gestapo are at my house asking where Anne Frank is hiding. I am not about to follow the Golden Rule if it means voting to acquit an obvious criminal, even though if I were in his spot I would want it.
I've worked on this all my life, as probably most of us have, and worked it down to three general rules of thumb:
1. Utilitarianism. This much maligned approach is sensible and most of the objections are invalid. It means try to maximize good and minimize harm, even though we know we never can know all the consequences of what we do.
2. Never use another person (in Buddhism this would read "sentient being") as an object to an end (Kant).
3. Be compassionate. This is the tie breaker. Be merciful, forgiving, loving, whatever.
Regardless, we will nevertheless make mistakes and our efforts to help or at least reduce trouble will backfire. What can I say -- life is complicated, and we are limited and never know the whole story so we aren't gods and so we do things that have bad consequences. At least the above would prevent me coming to think it was my holy duty to go out and kill people.
I've worked on this all my life, as probably most of us have, and worked it down to three general rules of thumb:
1. Utilitarianism. This much maligned approach is sensible and most of the objections are invalid. It means try to maximize good and minimize harm, even though we know we never can know all the consequences of what we do.
2. Never use another person (in Buddhism this would read "sentient being") as an object to an end (Kant).
3. Be compassionate. This is the tie breaker. Be merciful, forgiving, loving, whatever.
Regardless, we will nevertheless make mistakes and our efforts to help or at least reduce trouble will backfire. What can I say -- life is complicated, and we are limited and never know the whole story so we aren't gods and so we do things that have bad consequences. At least the above would prevent me coming to think it was my holy duty to go out and kill people.
El Conquistador
Ruler of Zamunda
So it's more of a guideline than a rule?
Marsh
Active Member
That was Hammurabi, I think, but Jesus may have said it best.
Marsh
Active Member
Dr. Seuss's was a bigot. Please enlighten me.
Grumpuss
Active Member
Catered in stereotypes, especially those hateful to Asians.
Demonslayer
Well-Known Member
Come on man, you want your final act to be shanking yourself into the water? Put your ashes right in the 18th hole, finish in style!
I see the Golden Rule as axiomatic. I believe how you treat others is how you will be treated. Or I see 'judge not, lest ye be judged' as how reality is set up. Where it gets tricky (to understand, explain) is in the finer nuances of how I (or we) think I am treating others. There's too many examples of that for me to name, but it is could be simplified along lines of, "I bought you a cup of coffee, you could treat me to lunch." And if that doesn't happen, then thinking the Golden Rule isn't at work, that some exception has been found. I don't see it that way (well perhaps sometimes I do). I think the "how we are treating others" isn't concerned with specifics, but more like perspective. Plus, it just seems obvious to me that the Rule is really about you, not others. To me, the Rule could also be explained as, "how you treat others is how you treat your self." Again, 'the others' aspect is incidental. It is how you are doing this, not how the others feel they are being treated.
When not viewing the Rule in the above fashion, then I do think of it as a guideline, and not a hard, fast rule.
When not viewing the Rule in the above fashion, then I do think of it as a guideline, and not a hard, fast rule.
Frank Merton
Active Member
We want to do what is right because it is right, not because it will gain us a reward, such as others treating us better. To some extent this does happen but in the real world there are those who take and never give.
This brings to mind the concept of karma, not a magical cloud of good and bad energy we accumulate but the fact that to a large extent evil people end up in places like jail or worse and good people do get treated better. It is not guaranteed, as I just said, but it does happen. More important, when we do what is right it changes us for the better and vice-versa. The more evil we do, the easier evil becomes, the more good we do the more natural it becomes. In short, we make what we are by what we do.
Frank Merton
Active Member
I would defend him; his stories always have a couple morals in them, one the silliness of the boundaries we draw and the second to have an open mind about what might be out there in the bigger world.
Just what stereotypes do you have in mind anyway?
That is pretty much what I was saying, is how the Golden Rule works. I actually believe it is not possible to break the Rule.
Marsh
Active Member
One of my favourite Dr Seuss books is Green Eggs and Ham. Are there stereotypes in this children's classic that are hateful?
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
“do unto others as you would have them do unto you”
How could it possibly be wrong to do others as you'd wish to be done? It's simply a basic ideal that transcends religion. My guess is that it was an old aphorism that predated Biblical times and was included because it was so patently obvious. As a born again atheist, I have no problem living by the "golden rule". It's far from ironic. It's simply pragmatic.