APPLYING THE GOLDEN RULE:
I am not aware anyone ever debunks the Golden Rule as the basis for ethics. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is pretty much the sum of moral behavior. Reality, that major nuance of life, is another story. All, of us, each with our own uniqueness, find ways to nullify the Golden Rule---to let it apply only when we want it to apply. We use laws, inherited religion, political loyalty, culture, little phrases like "that is just the way it is" etc. to ignore the Golden Rule.
Killing, naturally, is wrong, UNLESS you do in on a grand scale like Germany did with the Jews or Americans did with the Vietnamese where in both cases a good 2 million of the 'enemy' were killed. The means differed, the results were the same, the reasons for the killing indefensible.
Torturing others is wrong UNLESS you are really, really mad, and then, only if you are the State, you can torture captured enemies to gain information from them BUT if others do that to your people for the same reasons it is barbaric and immoral.
Access to good health care is very very important to each of us, and for some of us, that is the end of it; if there are others without access to good health care it is somehow their fault and therefore in some way they are undeserving of it. Especially the kids, if they had chosen the right parents they would have access to good health care like our own kids.
A good education is clearly important---at least for our own kids. And besides all kids could have access to good schools if their parents would just live in an affluent neighborhood like we do---some place where property taxes are high enough to pay for a good education.
And so it goes---essentially the Golden Rule applies unless there is money involved, religion involved, power involved, ethnic differences involved----or more generally speaking, there is something really important which we want, but others have, or something we want which would cost us more if others were to have the same thing. Thus, we all, to differing degrees, put limits on the Golden Rule. Christ may not have, and preached no limits, but well, I'll use the phrase here which conservative religionists use all the time: "I don't want to talk about it".
If the founding prophets of most major religions were to look down upon the the religious organizations they founded they would be startled and disgusted at what they had wrought. If disingenuousness has ever been perfected, organized religion, with possibly a few exceptions, has achieved it. All that is left within these major religions are a few pockets of exceptions---a few individuals who still take the Golden Rule seriously. These individuals are invariably the rebels within the Church, resented and barely tolerated by the powers that be. Church attendance is down in most all sects of Christianity, perhaps because in this massive information age it is hard to ignore how shallow and mindless these meaningless rituals and sermons really are. Like what modern day crusade to gain more civil rights or justice for others has ever been led by the religious right? If the religious right had been the decider we would still have slavery, women still would not be able to vote, child labor laws would not exist, school integration would not exist, practically every government program to help the less fortunate would not exist, gays would still be in the closet, etc. The religious right were the last to accept any of these changes and one might question whether they really ever do accept or did. As far as many of them are concerned it is just such expansion of justice and civil rights which has made this country a cauldron of sin. They have now become a moral minority wrapped in phony patriotism, waving bibles in the air, and using the media to character assassinate all those who are repulsed by their hostility to diversity. Diversity to them is an endless contest and acquired attitude of "over my dead body". They always cling to the past and invent phrases like 'family values' to justify their myopic vision, selfish priorities, and persecutory impulses.
Be all this as it may, everyone is still faced with the dilemma of how to apply the Golden Rule in a realistic fashion. When Jesus said (or is said to have said): "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven", just what did he mean? At what point are you rich? When Jesus told a rich man to go and sell all his wealth and give it to the poor, was He serious? Since I have no real faith that God communicates with any of us via scriptures written by humans hundreds of years ago, I tend to look at the Golden Rule as a concept which is inherent in evolutionary evolved mental function, a part of our mental make-up, a consequence of evolutionary progress. Therefore, human reason is the only tool available to comprehend just exactly what the Golden Rule means.
But first, let's examine the problems associated with the Christian beliefs of being saved, forgiven, and as a consequence gain entrance to Heaven upon death. Any of this is obviously a belief, there is no scientific or logical proof for any of this. That, of course, does not necessarily make it wrong, but it does make it a belief. Are moral actions wasted if there is no heaven? Perhaps I should just knock off a few people here on earth, an action which would make life on earth, for me, just a bit more pleasant. Moral actions, it just seems from observing those who really do moral things and follow the Golden Rule, are actions which contribute to personal contentedness. Whatever else you can say about the religious right, they never come across as minimally contented. It is more like they are in a constant agitated state, with perceived enemies---called heathens---who serve as a constant target for their pent up aggressiveness. When one is doing the calling of God, especially a God who personally and constantly is judging you as an individual, and his human spiritual leaders have identified the enemies, the anger and persecution can get elevated to high levels. Reason is abandoned, faith soars, and and the slaughter commences (figuratively and literally).
This concept of being saved, aside from being beyond proof scientifically or logically, has been troublesome for centuries. According to this concept Jeffery Dahmer, who was 'saved' before he died, could go to heaven despite his crimes while his victims, who might not have been saved yet, could be destined for eternal torment. This is ludicrous. I do not say a heaven is not possible for the reason I also cannot comprehend how our current life is possible. If one is incomprehensible, but exists, then the other, also incomprehensible, might also exist. But it is clear that humans everywhere, devoid of mental illness like psychopathy, understand right from wrong. The evolutionary process has given us a moral compass, and it is internal, not something we can only get from human written scripture centuries ago. Ethics is not illogical. It is rarely a case of not knowing right from wrong, it is almost always a case of finding a reason for doing wrong rather than right, or finding the strength to do the right thing. I probably taught thousands of students, a good number from difficult environmental situations, and I can't say I knew hardly any who did not know right from wrong. We know right from wrong. Whether we will do right or wrong in any particular instance is the question.
Now back to the Golden Rule. What do I do with my money? How much of it should I give to the less fortunate? When should I give it? Right now? When I die? To whom? At one extreme I could give it all away right now and live on welfare. That seems a tad unreasonable. I am not one of those who goes around saying "it is my money I earned it, I will do what I want with it." I know that is bullshit. I didn't choose my parents, my place of birth, my physical characteristics, my neighborhood peers, the schools I went to, my basic personality, my inherited talents, my sexual peculiarities, my religion, etc. What I got is a hand dealt, with some good cards, and some bad cards. Compared to most in the world, I got a pretty good hand. So it would be ludicrous and self serving for me to suddenly claim "I earned it". There are many others who were dealt far worst cards and grew up under much more difficult environment circumstances. Many opportunities which I had, probably most others did not. Of course many others had better cards than I and have been more fortunate. Am I discounting any personal efforts made via my own established priorities, efforts, and understandings? No, I am not discounting personal achievement. But it really doesn't make any difference. Wherever we end up, for whatever reasons, the Golden Rule still applies.
It has taken me all these years to figure out to what extent I need use the Golden Rule with my accumulated money. For me, something has to be relatively simple or I can't be effective with it. So I have arrived at this decision. Whatever the basics I need to live comfortably is all deservingly mine. So let's say I need a car to get around. But I could buy a decent car for $20,000 or I could buy a desirable better car for $35,000 dollars. If I buy a $35,000 car ($15,000 more) it is ok if I then give $15,000 dollars to the less fortunate. That way their needs count as much as mine. They want and I want, so we split it. After all, a $35,000 dollar car is not exactly a necessity. I have hobbies which cost some money. In my case there really are no expensive hobbies but there are some. It is okay, for example, for me to go to the horse races if I then spend an equal amount of money on the less fortunate. In general, the principle I have adopted is that the less fortunate count as much as I do. Fair is fair (A Terrell Owens mantra).
But even doing this will result in money left at the time of death. Then all of it should be returned to the society from which it came, and to the less fortunate in that society. The less fortunate are almost always not your kids. I never have heard of any religious prophet who preached any obligation to your kids past raising your kids properly to adulthood. Nothing is more preposterous than these spoiled people who inherited wealth and then pretend their financial situation is because they "earned it". If that is not a farce, I don't know what is. Now that modern medicine and medical gadgets can enable us, no matter how feeble or limited, to live for many more months, even decades---because of all this many people in their productive years find themselves saddled with serious care-taking responsibilities for really extended periods of time. By the time their parents die, the inheritable money, hidden away in most cases to avoid paying for medical care out of the parents money, is inherited at an age when the kids are themselves retired or approaching retirement. Within this last sentence are all sorts of ethical dilemmas. At any rate it just seems the Golden Rule logically dictates that money I am fortunate enough to have extracted from society to sustain my needs, should then be returned to the society from which it was extracted, and to those less fortunate in life and young enough to benefit the most from it. Clearly, if you have a son or daughter with special physical or mental needs they qualify for inheritable money. Otherwise they really don't. This squirreling away money on a genetic basis, generation after generation, has reached the point now where in America 1% of the people own 90% of the wealth. Maybe the figure is really 3%, but no need to quibble here. Is this an America driven by equal opportunity or fairness to all? I don't think so and like every dominant civilization which went this way (they practically all did) the civilization imploded from the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few off the backs of the many.
So there I have it, after many decades of pondering, I finally have figured out a practical way to apply the Golden Rule. Now I will keep a record book of money I spend on myself which has nothing to do with the basic needs of living, and see to it that for every dollar spent on non-necessary things, another dollar goes to the less fortunate or to protect the environment, etc. I don't know wether it gets me to Heaven or not, but it enables me to be content with myself. Selfishness doesn't seem to ever breed contentedness. And if you can't be content, what the fuck is achieved by all the pushing, shoving, shell games, disingenuous bullshit, and selfish priorities? If you can't be in sync with evolution, God's created process of life, you will never be content. You can swim upstream all your life, or you can go gently down the evolutionary stream. It is the kindness of others which brings richness to our own lives. It is the kindness to others which is our duty as embedded in the Golden Rule.
