|
Post by Liberator on Jul 9, 2009 3:07:23 GMT
One is called the Golden Rule and the negative one the Silver. The simplest thing is that likes differ more than dislikes. It's pretty obvious what nobody would like but it can be dangerous to prescribe for people. You can think of headscarves. All the talk about them being repressive and so on but nobody says that about East and South European women and it edges over when somebody insists that she wants to wear one, to suggest that she doesn't know her own mind. Do you know the poem I am a cat that likes to do good? Sometimes doing unto others forgets what the others actually want done! You can be fairly sure that if you don't like it, you're not likely to go wrong refraining from doing it to anybody else either. But, what if I don't like doughnuts but someone else does? Then not giving then doughnuts won't do any harm. But supposing they follow the same rule and give you a nice big treat of loads and loads of doughnuts because that's what they'd like? More seriously, I'm a sado-masochist, so I know you like it 'really'; I enjoy sex, so I know you do, whatever you say; I know you'll go to Hell if you you don't believe, so torturing you to accept the Faith is a small price for how much you'll thank me afterwards; the only thing that matters in life is loadsadosh, so I will get you a job that provides it no matter how much you hate it. The Golden Rule far too easily degenerates to telling people that what you like is what they must like. The Silver just says Lay off
|
|
♫anna♫
Global Moderator
Aug 18 2017 - Always In Our Hearts
The Federal Reserve Act is the Betrayal of the American Revolution!
e x a l t | s m i t e
karma:
Posts: 11,769
|
Post by ♫anna♫ on Jul 9, 2009 12:49:26 GMT
"Live as an Example for Others to Follow!"; is alluded to in the book of Mark.. I can't remember which philosopher is also associated with this concept.. Of course most of us have our "vices" here and there so this idealistic statement remains an ideal!
|
|
|
Post by Big Lin on Jul 9, 2009 15:34:42 GMT
Anna, I'm surprised you didn't know that Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative is basically a restatement of the Golden Rule!
|
|
|
Post by Liberator on Jul 9, 2009 21:05:43 GMT
"Live as an Example for Others to Follow!"; is alluded to in the book of Mark.. I can't remember which philosopher is also associated with this concept.. Of course most of us have our "vices" here and there so this idealistic statement remains an ideal! Marcus Aurelius I expect. He didn't like Christians and thinks of them as stubborn for the sake of it. The way he talks about Zeus is very like the 18th century's Providence - a sort of impersonal Order more than any kind of a personal God. I expect we'd see him more as a superstitious atheist than what we think of as a pagan, if certain things didn't get done, invisible forces might get out of hand. So he wouldn't understand why Christians refused to do them. It would be something like ignoring safety regulations that could endanger everybody. Actually, I have a list of some in my possible signatures file. I'm not sure about the last one. Maybe it is a sort of judge not, lest ye be judged"Take care not to feel towards the inhuman as they feel towards humans" - Marcus Aurelius. "The best way to avenge yourself is not to become the same" - Marcus Aurelius. "It is a ridiculuous thing for a man not to fly from his own evil, which is in fact possible, but to fly from other men's evil, which is impossible" - Marcus Aurelius. "People exist for the sake of each other. Teach them then or bear with them" - Marcus Aurelius. "No longer talk at all about the kind of person a good one should be but be such" - Marcus Aurelius. "If anyone has done wrong, the harm is their own. But perhaps they have not done wrong". - Marcus Aurelius.
|
|
|
Post by everso on Jul 10, 2009 17:39:33 GMT
But, what if I don't like doughnuts but someone else does? Then not giving then doughnuts won't do any harm. But supposing they follow the same rule and give you a nice big treat of loads and loads of doughnuts because that's what they'd like? More seriously, I'm a sado-masochist, so I know you like it 'really'; I enjoy sex, so I know you do, whatever you say; I know you'll go to Hell if you you don't believe, so torturing you to accept the Faith is a small price for how much you'll thank me afterwards; the only thing that matters in life is loadsadosh, so I will get you a job that provides it no matter how much you hate it. The Golden Rule far too easily degenerates to telling people that what you like is what they must like. The Silver just says Lay offO.k., I get your drift. I DO like doughnuts, BTW
|
|
|
Post by ronmorgen on Jul 11, 2009 17:45:55 GMT
The golden rule, be good to others as you would like them to be good to you Is just the definition of love. The silver rule is the same thing because I wouldn't want anyone to force their definition of "good" on me. I want free choice so I allow you to have that. If I can see that you are in danger love requires me to warn you, but if you want me to stop, then love requires me to stop warning you.
|
|
|
Post by Liberator on Jul 11, 2009 18:57:12 GMT
All of which I find heading in the direction of realisation that we are all One.
|
|
|
Post by mikemarshall on Jul 11, 2009 21:35:24 GMT
All of which I find heading in the direction of realisation that we are all One. We are all one? We are all one what, exactly?
|
|
|
Post by trubble on Jul 11, 2009 21:42:28 GMT
All of which I find heading in the direction of realisation that we are all One. We are all one? We are all one what, exactly? Unit?
|
|
|
Post by mikemarshall on Jul 11, 2009 21:49:40 GMT
We are all one? We are all one what, exactly? Unit? Unholy mess? Morass of confusion? I suppose I should (in the Parliamentary sense of the term) declare an interest here. I am not a monist; I am a pluralist. All monistic views of the universe are inherently reductionist and inevitably coalesce into a miasma of enforced unity rather resembling the nonsensical bleatings of St-Just about virtue. Sadly, from at least the days of Plato (if not indeed Parmenides) it was ever thus.
|
|
|
Post by trubble on Jul 11, 2009 21:57:24 GMT
But being One would not require any rules or order, we would just be. We just are.
|
|
|
Post by Liberator on Jul 11, 2009 22:17:01 GMT
That is basically the nearest to a description of Nirvarna, literally Nis=No, Varna=Distinction.
|
|
|
Post by ronmorgen on Jul 12, 2009 23:12:12 GMT
Nirvana! Is that heaven? I want us all to go to heaven, with God's permission, of course. Its his house after all.
|
|
|
Post by Liberator on Jul 12, 2009 23:42:25 GMT
It's Heaven to your average person brought up in a Buddhist society but really it means more a state of mind than a place. Some say you can achieve Nirvarna in life, others that more than being somewhere, it is a freedom from being. It's more like merging with God than being with God. I find it a rather negative, maybe even depressive idea. It's easy to understand that life has been a pretty bad deal for most of history. Even a king could expect to die of some disease at best. So religions that offer freedom from having to exist are understandable.
|
|
|
Post by ronmorgen on Jul 13, 2009 0:21:29 GMT
I practiced yoga for years before believing in the gospel. We were supposed to be able to reach that state through yoga in this or a subsequent life. But really I have reached peace through Christ Jesus. Not exterior peace, but peace in my soul.
|
|
|
Post by Liberator on Jul 13, 2009 0:55:51 GMT
Same thing, different language. I used to be looking at other places and other times until I thought that modern paganism is a very cleaned-up version of all the superstitions that real pagans believed in the past and many still do within the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Then I thought the same about Oriental religion. They developed it to suit themselves, and the 'pure' Buddhism and Daoism that westerners espouse is not the reality of a typical Thai or Indian or Tibetan or Japanese. On the whole, they are as full of extraneous superstition as we are. Not only that, but they have developed their beliefs to suit their culture and that is not our culture.
So why look to a 'purified' version of beliefs from far away in space or time when we have a tradition that we developed to suit our culture and ca do exactly the same to that? Christianity was the expression for the Age of Pisces and that Age is ending. But Christianity sprang from (in my belief) taking parables as literal history, and because of historical developments, the schoolchildren threatened the teachers into hiding, like in Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution but through 1500 years of it.
Now, the Gnostic scriptures have been restored to us, and we do not use the same figurative symbols that we think the ancients took literally. We have the image of blind Justice with her scales and sword on our courts. What matters is not that we do not believe there is such a personage controlling Justice, but that we imagine they ever did. We can see far more in the symbol of Christ crucified and risen than a mere historical miracle. If that really happened (given ignorance of what constituted death, and yogic possibilities) it makes it an interesting historical incident and no more.
It's like, if 'King Arthur' turns out to be all explained by 5th century events, that is history belonging to that time, but King Arthur of the Grail is Myth with something to say for all time time. It's like the Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime is Mythic time out of time, both a perhaps far past and at the same time, now and all time in the notional 'world'.
|
|