Is the Golden Rule a Foundational Moral Principle or A Rule of Thumb?

[meltzerboy]

That sounds nice but what of Saul?

24 But Samuel said:
“Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obedience to the LORD’s command?
Obedience is better than sacrifice,
to listen, better than the fat of rams.*

23 For a sin of divination is rebellion,
and arrogance, the crime of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,
the LORD in turn has rejected you as king.”

The first verse you quote reveals that animal sacrifice does not atone for sins without sincere repentance, prayer, and seeking amends from those we have wronged. This is what G-d commands of us: humility, mercy and compassionate behavior toward others, seeking amends for our wrong actions, and an effort to change our sinful behavior. It is not obedience to G-d in the sole sense of subservience to G-d, but more to ennoble ourselves by doing the right thing toward our fellow humans. Mere blood sacrifice, or flour on the part of poorer Jews, will not suffice in this respect. Likewise, idolatry makes no sense in terms of achieving a pure heart and moral behavior, because we are not seeking aid from the One who can rightfully help us achieve these things. Worshiping G-d is not to appease the ego of G-d, but more basically for our own benefit.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

The first verse you quote reveals that animal sacrifice does not atone for sins without sincere repentance, prayer, and seeking amends from those we have wronged. This is what G-d commands of us: humility, mercy and compassionate behavior toward others, seeking amends for our wrong actions, and an effort to change our sinful behavior. It is not obedience to G-d in the sole sense of subservience to G-d, but more to ennoble ourselves by doing the right thing toward our fellow humans. Mere blood sacrifice, or flour on the part of poorer Jews, will not suffice in this respect. Likewise, idolatry makes no sense in terms of achieving a pure heart and moral behavior, because we are not seeking aid from the One who can rightfully help us achieve these things. Worshiping G-d is not to appease the ego of G-d, but more basically for our own benefit.

God punishes Saul for disobedience, not for sacrifice. The only on Saul had wronged was God, by not killing his fellow man to the last man.

If it’s not for God’s ego then why are we told

5
you shall not bow down before them or serve them.d For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their ancestors’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation

 

[Aloysium]

God punishes Saul for disobedience, not for sacrifice. The only on Saul had wronged was God, by not killing his fellow man to the last man.

If it’s not for God’s ego then why are we told

5
you shall not bow down before them or serve them.d For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their ancestors’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation

I think I understand what you believe scripture is saying.
Yeah, I don’t believe in that god either.
Confusing ain’t it?

 

[meltzerboy]

God punishes Saul for disobedience, not for sacrifice. The only on Saul had wronged was God, by not killing his fellow man to the last man.

If it’s not for God’s ego then why are we told

5
you shall not bow down before them or serve them.d For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their ancestors’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation

The Hebrew words used in the Hebrew Bible that mean “jealous” have the sense of “impassioned,” as is a man who loves his wife and detests the fact that she may be having an adulterous relationship with another man. This is the kind of jealousy that is not sinful. G-d loves mankind so much that it grieves Him when mankind does not understand the passion He has for His creation. Disobedience toward G-d reflects mankind’s lack of understanding of G-d’s love. The transmission of punishment from one generation to the next is contradicted in several other verses of the Hebrew Bible. So what does it mean when G-d refers to this? G-d is talking in didactic terms in that if parents do not understand G-d’s love for them, they will likely not transmit G-d’s love to their children, and therefore each generation will be deprived of the knowledge of His love. That is the wickedness and punishment of which G-d speaks.

 

[Bradski]

Ok. Then for whom is it false that murder is always wrong? And for whom is it false that we may take any man’s woman when we so desire? And for whom is it false that killing babies for fun is abhorrent?

For the sake of this point, I will assume that there are Absolute Truths. So what we are trying to decide is what they are. How we can decide which ones are true and which ones aren’t. In any given example above, without making any decision in advance, you are suggesting that we can discover this by finding out if anyone disagrees with it.
If you can’t find anyone who agrees that murder is wrong (for whom is it false?), then it must be an Absolute Truth.

There are obvious problems with this.

The first is that if there is any disagreement at all, then by your definition it cannot be Absolute. We also then have no way of telling who is right and who is wrong (unless you have another way of deciding, such as appeal to a higher authority, which you should be using in the first instance).

The second is that anything is acceptable as long as eveyone agrees to it. I’m not sure that that’s that an argument you’d like to follow through.

And yet again, the examples you are using are too simplistic. Why not give an example of things about which we disagree. You can’t use the argument above, so how do you tell (without that appeal to a higher authority)?

No. The position of the Church is that killing babies is wrong.

I thought we could do this without appeal to the church.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

The Hebrew words used in the Hebrew Bible that mean “jealous” have the sense of “impassioned,” as is a man who loves his wife and detests the fact that she may be having an adulterous relationship with another man. This is the kind of jealousy that is not sinful. G-d loves mankind so much that it grieves Him when mankind does not understand the passion He has for His creation. Disobedience toward G-d reflects mankind’s lack of understanding of G-d’s love. The transmission of punishment from one generation to the next is contradicted in several other verses of the Hebrew Bible. So what does it mean when G-d refers to this? G-d is talking in didactic terms in that if parents do not understand G-d’s love for them, they will likely not transmit G-d’s love to their children, and therefore each generation will be deprived of the knowledge of His love. That is the wickedness and punishment of which G-d speaks.

I think we are using the same meaning, with a different understanding. I would still say that it is ego driven. It’s not an outward pouring of love but rather a measure of unrequited love. I don’t love my children because they love me.

If the verses are contradicted how can the claim of genuine transmission or revelation be established.

 

[meltzerboy]

I think we are using the same meaning, with a different understanding. I would still say that it is ego driven. It’s not an outward pouring of love but rather a measure of unrequited love. I don’t love my children because they love me.

If the verses are contradicted how can the claim of genuine transmission or revelation be established.

The verses are contradicted only superficially because of the difference in style; however, the essence of both messages is the same. Homiletic, didactic, midrashic style is less straightforward and not literal. I think you may have misunderstood what I said, for this is not a case of unrequited love. G-d still loves us no matter what we do and His love is not based on our reciprocation. He realizes, however, that since we are not fully aware of His love for us, we are suffering because of this. It is not He who is making us suffer or punishing us for our lack of awareness; we do that by ourselves. But all is not lost since He is always affording us His help so that we may better understand His love and benefit by doing so.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

The verses are contradicted only superficially because of the difference in style; however, the essence of both messages is the same. Homiletic, didactic, midrashic style is less straightforward and not literal. I think you may have misunderstood what I said, for this is not a case of unrequited love. G-d still loves us no matter what we do and His love is not based on our reciprocation. He realizes, however, that since we are not fully aware of His love for us, we are suffering because of this. It is not He who is making us suffer or punishing us for our lack of awareness; we do that by ourselves. But all is not lost since He is always affording us His help so that we may better understand His love and benefit from doing so.

It sounds like an abusive relationship. Why do you make me hurt you? Can you see how much I love you?

 

[meltzerboy]

It sounds like an abusive relationship. Why do you make me hurt you? Can you see how much I love you?

There is no “Why do you make me hurt you?” Not loving G-d and being aware of His love for us necessarily results in our pain, but the pain is not inflicted by G-d.

 

[Peter_Plato]

That’s what I said originally, obedience is the only moral imperative from Yahweh. Even if flies in the face of other “absolute” principles.

Obedience is one of THREE supernatural imperatives from God.

In order:

1. to know God
2. to love God
3. to serve God

In the OT there were very few who knew God face to face. Moses was one.

The fallen moral state of humanity prevented virtually all humanity from having an intimate knowledge of God himself.

Without that knowledge, it was impossible to properly carry out the other two imperatives. Moses mediated the knowledge of God to the people through the Law. By that mediation, the people could come to know, love and serve God by following his laws. By “walking in his ways” the people would come to know him better and thus love and serve him, i.e., be in harmony with the creative power of God.

You have to realize that we have a very twisted understanding of what “serve” means vis a vis God.

Creation is spoken into existence by the word of God (And God said…). When we act according to “every word that comes from the mouth of God” that means we allow ourselves to be created by the omnipotent power of God, by being formed in his image, rather than forming ourselves by some illusion we concoct. To be obedient essentially means to be created or formed by God.

So we come to know God, love him and trust him; (the first two imperatives build trust) and only when the bond of trust is sufficient can we truly “serve” him in the sense of allow ourselves to be properly created by him.

In the OT, being influenced by the pagan cultures around them meant that the Israelites allowed those cultures to form them in the image of a corrupt idol rather than in the image of the authentic ground of all existence, God himself.

Obedience doesn’t fly in the face of the three other principles precisely because the pagan cultures around the Israelites were the greatest danger to them. They were a deadly influence. Those cultures would take away from the Israelites the very possibility of finding their identity in God, finding who they truly were as a people and as individuals.

This is why the “killing of babies” was very symbolic. It represented the extent of the power these pagan cultures could exercise over the Israelites. The babies represented the nascent form of evil, the power these cultures had to create evil, the power of generating or initiating the evil form humanity would take, in opposition to the form God was raising up in the “children of Israel.”

What did these cultures do with their babies? Burned them alive in sacrifice to Moloch, which is where the Israelites would end up if they allowed their identity to be formed, as a “baby” nation in the image of the demon god of the Canaanites.

Complete renunciation and defeat of every evil tendency was called for, including “cutting down” the seemingly harmless evil represented by the “baby” Canaanites. The Israelites were required to be ruthless where evil is concerned, because any toleration of it would allow it to take root, grow and overpower the divine life taking root in the people of Israel.

With the Incarnation, God has come to make himself known to every human being. We can have intimate knowledge of God through Christ. His death and resurrection has conquered the power of evil. Our knowledge, love and service of God are accomplished through the exercise of three supernatural virtues - faith, hope and charity - by the power of grace operating in us.

The evil that resided in the fallen nature of the pagan cultures in the OT, the evil that had to be rooted out like a cancer from the body of humanity in order to insure its survival, has finally been dealt with and removed by Christ, who was himself sacrificed to enter into the depths and death of humanity and finally deal with the power of evil.

God has rooted out evil from the depth of every human heart. If we cooperate with his creative power at the depths of being we become our true selves in the God who is. The power over evil now lives within each of us, but the responsibility to effectively use that power is ours.

Instead of being concerned to subdue the potential influences of external evil forces, we only need to tap into the infinite power of grace within. It is no longer an external battle for the hearts and minds of humanity, it is an internal one being fought inside of each of us. Still a battle, though. Only the field has changed.

Someone asked the question of what I would do if God ordered the killing of another person. That question implies a lack of knowledge of the history of humanity, a misunderstanding of the plan of salvation, no sense of where the field of battle is today two thousand years after the coming of Jesus and, most of all, separation from who God is. Jesus’ incarnation, death and resurrection has changed everything. Including the nature of the battle. For one thing, wouldn’t happen today because the battle plan is clear. It simply isn’t how God is working today, given what Jesus accomplished.

To complete the analogy, the human body is systemically and sufficiently healthy because God himself lives in mankind, so the “immune system” deals with cancerous cells internally.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to be a cancer cell in the body these days, either.

Unfortunately, the body seems to be inflicted with another cancer and the body is killing off its own cells (leukemia perhaps?) The white cells (political bodies) that are supposed to be protecting the body are actually overpowering new cells and destroying them. (Think about it :sad_yes It is a difficult time, to be sure, but God lives in the body and is more powerful than any disease, even of the cancerous types where the body destroys its own cells.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

There is no “Why do you make me hurt you?” Not loving G-d and being aware of His love for us necessarily results in our pain, but the pain is not inflicted by G-d.

He made the game, He makes the rules, He made the players. How is not responsible? If we are not aware, how is the fault ours?

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

Obedience is one of THREE supernatural imperatives from God.

In order:

1. to know God
2. to love God
3. to serve God

In the OT there were very few who knew God face to face. Moses was one.

The fallen moral state of humanity prevented virtually all humanity from having an intimate knowledge of God himself.

Without that knowledge, it was impossible to properly carry out the other two imperatives. Moses mediated the knowledge of God to the people through the Law. By that mediation, the people could come to know, love and serve God by following his laws. By “walking in his ways” the people would come to know him better and thus love and serve him, i.e., be in harmony with the creative power of God.

You have to realize that we have a very twisted understanding of what “serve” means vis a vis God.

Creation is spoken into existence by the word of God (And God said…). When we act according to “every word that comes from the mouth of God” that means we allow ourselves to be created by the omnipotent power of God, by being formed in his image, rather than forming ourselves by some illusion we concoct. To be obedient essentially means to be created or formed by God.

So we come to know God, love him and trust him; (the first two imperatives build trust) and only when the bond of trust is sufficient can we truly “serve” him in the sense of allow ourselves to be properly created by him.

In the OT, being influenced by the pagan cultures around them meant that the Israelites allowed those cultures to form them in the image of a corrupt idol rather than in the image of the authentic ground of all existence, God himself.

Obedience doesn’t fly in the face of the three other principles precisely because the pagan cultures around the Israelites were the greatest danger to them. They were a deadly influence. Those cultures would take away from the Israelites the very possibility of finding their identity in God, finding who they truly were as a people and as individuals.

This is why the “killing of babies” was very symbolic. It represented the extent of the power these pagan cultures could exercise over the Israelites. The babies represented the nascent form of evil, the power these cultures had to create evil, the power of generating or initiating the evil form humanity would take, in opposition to the form God was raising up in the “children of Israel.”

What did these cultures do with their babies? Burned them alive in sacrifice to Moloch, which is where the Israelites would end up if they allowed their identity to be formed, as a “baby” nation in the image of the demon god of the Canaanites.

Complete renunciation and defeat of every evil tendency was called for, including “cutting down” the seemingly harmless evil represented by the “baby” Canaanites. The Israelites were required to be ruthless where evil is concerned, because any toleration of it would allow it to take root, grow and overpower the divine life taking root in the people of Israel.

With the Incarnation, God has come to make himself known to every human being. We can have intimate knowledge of God through Christ. His death and resurrection has conquered the power of evil. Our knowledge, love and service of God are accomplished through the exercise of three supernatural virtues - faith, hope and charity - by the power of grace operating in us.

The evil that resided in the fallen nature of the pagan cultures in the OT, the evil that had to be rooted out like a cancer from the body of humanity in order to insure its survival, has finally been dealt with and removed by Christ, who was himself sacrificed to enter into the depths and death of humanity and finally deal with the power of evil.

God has rooted out evil from the depth of every human heart. If we cooperate with his creative power at the depths of being we become our true selves in the God who is. The power over evil now lives within each of us, but the responsibility to effectively use that power is ours.

Instead of being concerned to subdue the potential influences of external evil forces, we only need to tap into the infinite power of grace within. It is no longer an external battle for the hearts and minds of humanity, it is an internal one being fought inside of each of us. Still a battle, though. Only the field has changed.

Someone asked the question of what I would do if God ordered the killing of another person. That question implies a lack of knowledge of the history of humanity, a misunderstanding of the plan of salvation, no sense of where the field of battle is today two thousand years after the coming of Jesus and, most of all, separation from who God is. Jesus’ incarnation, death and resurrection has changed everything. Including the nature of the battle. For one thing, wouldn’t happen today because the battle plan is clear. It simply isn’t how God is working today, given what Jesus accomplished.

To complete the analogy, the human body is systemically and sufficiently healthy because God himself lives in mankind, so the “immune system” deals with cancerous cells internally.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to be a cancer cell in the body these days, either.

Unfortunately, the body seems to be inflicted with another cancer and the body is killing off its own cells (leukemia perhaps?) The white cells (political bodies) that are supposed to be protecting the body are actually overpowering new cells and destroying them. (Think about it :sad_yes It is a difficult time, to be sure, but God lives in the body and is more powerful than any disease, even of the cancerous types where the body destroys its own cells.

I’ll parse more out later but I’m struck by your notion that the Hebrews had to kill babies to keep from killing babies.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I think we are using the same meaning, with a different understanding. I would still say that it is ego driven. It’s not an outward pouring of love but rather a measure of unrequited love.** I don’t love my children because they love me. **

If the verses are contradicted how can the claim of genuine transmission or revelation be established.

The difficulty here is that human love is only analogically like God’s love.

When God loves, he creates, he keeps in existence. Not loving God means, essentially, cutting ourselves off from the source of our own existence. It is death. We can only love BECAUSE God loves (creates) us. No other love is even possible because God is the source of all that we are - he is the fullness of Being itself. On our own we are nothing. Think of the parable of the vine and branches.

We can only love because God first loved us into being. To not love God is to sever ourselves from ourselves, the essential nature of who we are.

The problem is that we misconceive who or what God actually is by projecting some image from an incomplete understanding and then decide we don’t like THAT god, without really knowing the real God. That projected god is not the god we are to love. The God we are to love is the source of all that is, the ground of who we are, the Truth Itself, Goodness Itself, Being Itself. Take that very literally.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I’ll parse more out later but I’m struck by your notion that the Hebrews had to kill babies to keep from killing babies.

Never said that.

I said the Canaanite babies represent the power of evil to generate or seed itself in human existence. The Israelites had to destroy every stage in the development of evil, even its initial or “baby” stage.

The reason Canaanite culture was recognizably evil was because it killed its own babies. That is the culture of death that evil represents. Evil is death to all it touches. That Canaanite culture sacrificed its own babies demonstrates its profound irrationality, even insanity. It lives to destroy. That is what should have “struck” you as difficult to parse because a culture that destroys its own babies is insane.

It was that entire mindset that the Israelites had to remove, perhaps symbolically, but I wonder, from the face of the earth.

To see how remarkably enduring the mindset is, however, we just have to look at our own culture and the slippery way that the insanity of abortion has “eased” its way into “modern thinking.” And we have allowed it, blithely unaware of its true nature. The cancer never was completely rooted out, apparently and a lesson as to why God commanded that it be completely removed.

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

The difficulty here is that human love is only analogically like God’s love.

When God loves, he creates, he keeps in existence. Not loving God means, essentially, cutting ourselves off from the source of our own existence. It is death. We can only love BECAUSE God loves (creates) us. No other love is even possible because God is the source of all that we are - he is the fullness of Being itself. On our own we are nothing. Think of the parable of the vine and branches.

We can only love because God first loved us into being. To not love God is to sever ourselves from ourselves, the essential nature of who we are.

The problem is that we misconceive who or what God actually is by projecting some image from an incomplete understanding and then decide we don’t like THAT god, without really knowing the real God. That projected god is not the god we are to love. The God we are to love is the source of all that is, the ground of who we are, the Truth Itself, Goodness Itself, Being Itself. Take that very literally.

Still. Sounds like “why do you make me hurt you?”

 

[Roscoe_Turner]

Never said that.

I said the Canaanite babies represent the power of evil to generate or seed itself in human existence. The Israelites had to destroy every stage in the development of evil, even its initial or “baby” stage.

The reason Canaanite culture was recognizably evil was because it killed its own babies. That is the culture of death that evil represents. Evil is death to all it touches. That Canaanite culture sacrificed its own babies demonstrates its profound irrationality, even insanity. It lives to destroy. That is what should have “struck” you as difficult to parse because a culture that destroys its own babies is insane.

It was that entire mindset that the Israelites had to remove, perhaps symbolically, but I wonder, from the face of the earth.

To see how remarkably enduring the mindset is, however, we just have to look at our own culture and the slippery way that the insanity of abortion has “eased” its way into “modern thinking.” And we have allowed it, blithely unaware of its true nature. The cancer never was completely rooted out, apparently and a lesson as to why God commanded that it be completely removed.

You just said again. Canaanites killed babies so they needed to be utterly destroyed. The Israelites have to kill babies (and everyone else) so they don’t end up killing babies like the Canaanites.

 

[PRmerger]

Are you saying the Church holds that contradictory positions can be held.

No. The position of the Church is that killing babies is wrong

I thought we could do this without appeal to the church.

The question was posed to me by Roscoe regarding the Church’s teaching, Bradski.

 

[PRmerger]

If killing babies is metaphorical for separating from pagans as you said, what does this have to do with abortion?

It has nothing to do with separating from pagans. It was simply a question which segued from your comment that you “rather not kill babies”.

I rather not kill babies so I’ll be an outlier.

So are you against legalized abortion?

 

[PRmerger]

He made the game, He makes the rules, He made the players. How is not responsible? If we are not aware, how is the fault ours?

We make our own choices, Roscoe.

 

[Peter_Plato]

He made the game, He makes the rules, He made the players. How is not responsible? If we are not aware, how is the fault ours?

Why would he need to “make the rules” if the players were “entirely made by him?”

If the players were entirely determined by God to be a certain way or to “play” a certain way, then rules would be superfluous.

Your question assumes something about the nature of the players that I am claiming is not true. The rules are the means by which the players are made. Moral beings are self-determining which is why the responsibility becomes taken on by them. Rules form the moral nature of the players.

Free will is merely glossed over by your remarks. Which is why your questions reveal a self-contradiction. Rules would NOT be necessary if the players were pre-programmed. So God didn’t “make” the players in the morally relevant way implied by your questions. We are self-determining in terms of choices and behaviour.

When our self-determination leads to corruption, God may be well within his rights to intervene, at his discretion, not ours. We do not have the purview to see when that intervention is necessary.