The Golden Rule and the Charter for Compassion

"Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you." I think I like that formulation of the Golden Rule a bit better than the one I have heard more often, "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you." For one thing, it makes it that much more difficult to justify the kind of logic that we Karen Armstrong quotes it in her recent TED Talk . It's 20 minutes long, but worth it.

As she accepts her 2008 TED Prize, author and scholar Karen Armstrong talks about how the Abrahamic religions -- Islam, Judaism, Christianity -- have been diverted from the moral purpose they share to foster compassion. But Armstrong has seen a yearning to change this fact. People want to be religious, she says; we should act to help make religion a force for harmony. She asks the TED community to help her build a Charter for Compassion -- to help restore the Golden Rule as the central global religious doctrine.

 

I was particularly struck by the notion that religious scriptures are nothing more than commentaries on the Golden Rule. I'd never heard that said quite that way before, and it's a interesting way to look at it. The entire speech is well worth listening to, I believe. (There's also an interesting bit about the original meaning of the word "belief".)

Tip o' the hat to Greg Laden's Blog , where I heard about the speech.

Submitted by Spiritual Lefty on Wed, 2008-04-02 17:52
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The Golden Rule

Religion is such a personal thing. For example, I found your comment very surprising

I was particularly struck by the notion that religious scriptures are nothing more than commentaries on the Golden Rule

Because that's all I have ever seen scripture (and the trappings and embellishments of the religion I was born into) as ;}

Religion's purpose, or function, if you prefer, is to help us get along with our neighbor, make the best of our lot in life, and maintain a cheerful and optimistic outlook no matter what life throws at us. All of which helps the greater community of mankind. And regardless of how some sects interpret Christianity, and how some individuals choose to demonstrate their holy righteousness, I still hold that belief.

The greatest of these is love ;-) Love thy neighbor as thyself. The key messages of Christianity, IMHO. And not just the neighbors you like or agree with ;-)

by: Purpleface - 2008-04-06 09:49 …………

Scriptures as commmentaries

I was struck by that notion because it does make so much sense. It's been a long time since I have been part of any organized religion. The view from the outside, so to speak, rarely gives the impression that the scriptures are not the end all and be all of the religion, probably because it is the fundamentalists who speak the loudest!

I think that is why I liked this talk so much. It was a reminder that the loudmouths don't speak for everyone, and that the core of religious belief is about compassion, not judgment.

We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki

by: Spiritual Lefty - 2008-04-06 10:12 ………… parent •

Douglas Adams said it best

In the opening paragraphs of the Hitchhiker's Guide:

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

This planet has----or rather had----a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it we unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of little green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

And so the problem remained; lots of people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches . . . .

And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change. . . "

by: Purpleface - 2008-04-06 13:35 ………… parent •

I like this description. It mirrors my own perspective.

Religion's purpose, or function, if you prefer, is to help us get along
with our neighbor, make the best of our lot in life, and maintain a
cheerful and optimistic outlook no matter what life throws at us. All
of which helps the greater community of mankind. And regardless of how
some sects interpret Christianity, and how some individuals choose to
demonstrate their holy righteousness, I still hold that belief.

I typically view the religious texts as being, for the most part, tried and true prescriptions for leading what will turn out to be a rewarding and fruitful life.  I view them as having been written by educated people (for their time) and having been designed to provide a cookie cutter template for the uneducated (which is why the rely on dogma and ceremony so heavily).

I believe that is their value, regardless of whether you choose to believe in the associated dieties concretely or abstractly or (for the educated) not even at all.  The embodiment of the dieties is real, even if they are not.

Acting as though they exist (by adhering to the intended principles they are meant to evoke) even if they do not.  In other words, does it matter that god is no more real than Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny?  I believe that a good case can be made for the view that these latter two really do exist, even though they don't.

Anyway, there's my $0.02. 

I'm the Bugs Bunny of Swords Crossed!
-4 Strongly Disagree - 0 Meh - Strongly Agree +4

by: GoRight - 2008-04-11 15:05 ………… parent •