Quote:
Originally Posted by awareness
No need for apology, your rambling posits some good points.
I might point out, however, that the Golden Rule needs no god. It makes since if I'm honest with myself. That which I don't like done to me, I shouldn't do to others. That which I like done to me, I should do to others. It operates out of honesty with myself. No god needed.
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The societies from which the golden rule comes in it's various iterations also have conceptions of the ultimate or the transcendent including gods. So not only the golden rule is cross cultural and so arguably universal, but so is the idea of transcendent or ultimate reality with which God is identified.
The golden rule as an ethical standard is insufficient for producing compassion. What if the "others" do not want done onto them what I would have them do onto me? I think the formula "Love thy neighbor as thyself" goes beyond the golden rule as typically formulated. In any case, compassion requires empathy with the feeling of the person. It has as a basis for action the inability to bear the suffering of other person.