Can "Do Unto Others" really work?

[Hashi Lebwohl]

That's only ideal by your standards though, isn't it? Others will have other definitions of what is ideal behaviour.

--A

It isn't my fault that their standards and ideals aren't as good as mine.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."

That's the way I prefer to phrase it, and it never fails to instruct.

[Avatar]

Yeah, maybe, but nobody does. I would wager all of us do (or have done) things that we would not want done to us.

--A

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Re: Linna's question about the meaning of the phrase itself...

Remember, this comes from a specific part of a sort of specific book. Jesus isn't saying this in a vacuum since elsewhere He explains love of God and "neighbors" as the heart/basis of the "Law," which is also a set of instructions whose purpose colors the Golden Rule.

Also there's the Silver Rule to recall: don't do unto others as you would have them not do unto you.

But so, ultimately, when Jesus says this kind of thing, the implicit reading is, "Do unto others as you would have God do unto you." A human can only do so much harm. So you might harm another and not be worried, as such. But if you thought about what would happen if God did what you did, to you, well, that sounds like hell

[Linna Heartbooger]

...But so, ultimately, when Jesus says this kind of thing, the implicit reading is, "Do unto others as you would have God do unto you." A human can only do so much harm. So you might harm another and not be worried, as such. But if you thought about what would happen if God did what you did, to you, well, that sounds like hell

You know I never actually considered that idea being in those words.
(I am still thinking about it.)
In its favor, it does have tons of resonance with other scriptures.
(yay, context..)

One that is especially about that is where Jesus is having that discussion where one of his guys asks, "how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?"
(Surely, then I can give up, write him or her off as a lost cause...)


The discussion of the limitations on humans' ability to do harm is useful, too.
I think that one reason that I've so often been intimidated by the thought of others hating me is that...
...behind the words or the flash of anger in the eyes...
there's this sickening sense that if they could, they would do far worse.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Let us pray that in others' love we see what good they can do. However, I recognize your dread. The depths of sin being so vast, and the web of rationalization such a service to plumbing them, then even when I don't see overt hostility in others, there are little tics that I notice here and there that... unsettle me.