Practical Application of the Golden Rule
The Golden Rule is probably the most basic, the most inherent ethical premise, the most universal code of ethics. All the other religious dogma is mostly verbiage. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is an ethical guideline everyone can understand---a kind of moral attitude dependent on human ability to reason; this ability acquired via God's created evolutionary process. BUT, the application of this Rule is less clear. Pure religious dogma often goes to the extreme: "Go, sell what you have, and give it to the poor" or "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. " The trouble with such extremes is that they are conveniently ignored by just about all the sectarian believers of these faiths. LIke how many Christians are going to take any of this serious? Of course once the picking and choosing of dogma starts where does it end? Clearly it ends at different points for different members of that particular faith. At this point you essentially have no hard fast ethical guidelines and each member sort of establishes his/her own level of compliance to moral standards. Thou shalt not steal EXCEPT........Thou shalt not________ EXCEPT and so it goes until all ethics becomes relative. What is left is sometimes contradictory, confusing, vague sectarian dogma which is followed, unless inconvenient at the moment, by religious rituals, glittering cathedrals, hymns, prayers, social events, and an inherited religion as a ticket to some kind of heaven.
It just seems, in the last analysis, that for one to accept the above as the basis for ethical behavior is to perceive God as some sort of Insecure biased tormentor deeply involved in human individual behavior. The very idea that God 'might' do good IF we pray for him to do so just seems like we have the cart before the horse. The idea that I could seriously ask God to help me for this or that problem and that he would do so while the less fortunate are left living lives of quiet desperation strikes me as just absurd. I suspect some refugee in Darfur needs divine intervention before I do with any of my problems. I just doubt God is waiting around to be guided via prayer as to who to help when. We just try to make ourselves too important, God too dependent on our own actions, and not only imagine humans as a favored species, but that our own relationship with God is 'tight'. Of course there is no real evidence for any of this and everyone actually seems impacted by God's laws of nature in the same way.
To make our silliness complete most humans tend to thank God for our blessings, THEN adopt an attitude of our having EARNED any successes, dismissing the less fortunate as having made poor choices, or being too lazy; if they want to live like us they can do it the old fashioned way----EARN IT----just like WE DID. Of course IF we are sincere in thanking God for our successes, then WE didn't EARN IT. For some reason God saw fit to help us and not someone else? REALLY? Did we do something to earn our blessings? Did we choose our parents carefully? Did we select our place of birth with care? Did we choose the quality of schools within which we were educated with proper deliberation? Did we play any role in our inherent physical or mental abilities or disabilities? Did we use the proper diligence in selecting our inherited religion? When we find ourselves at the right place at the right time for something good to happen did we plan it all out? When we inherit money is this earned income? Of course not, inherited money is a gift. Whatever you spend the gifted money on you did not earn. That is something which the person who gave it to you earned, unless of course this is just trickle down genetic drivel.
At any rate, ethics requires choices. All the time. The Golden Rule is not genetically based. It doesn't say do unto those who are biological family as you would do unto yourself. Humans invented that notion to the extent it now even has a title called 'family values'. This is just another guise to avoid the Golden Rule. Clearly parents have an obligation to raise their children properly to the best of their ability. I don't really know of any religion or any logical train of thought which claims this is a life long obligation. At some point, minus legitimate mental or physical handicaps, offspring are expected to assume their own responsibilities as adults in their productive years.
At any rate, for years I have grappled with how to implement the Golden Rule in a practical, consistent fashion. It starts, in my mind, with responsible reproduction, then responsible parenthood, and then how to handle financial success. My thoughts here have been measurably influenced by Peter Singer, Andrew Carnegie, Warren Buffet, and Bill Gates. I guess many people commit a certain percentage of their wealth to go toward helping out the less fortunate. But this mostly turns out to be rather stingy. If a church member tithes 10% of their income, that is considered generous. HOWEVER, both the amount and the efficiency of this is suspect. Churches are not exactly known for any efficient way to get help to those most in need. Anyone familiar with any Church Budget knows what a small percentage of the money in a church budget ever gets into the hands of the less fortunate. There are salaries, maintenance expenses, travel expenses, and the list goes on and on. So if I give 10% and the church then gives 10% of it DIRECTLY to those in need, I have only given 1% of my wealth to those in need. Not too impressive. The rest of it went to support a massive church overhead.
The next choice is when to give how much. If you give all your money away you might find yourself in need down the road, and by not giving some of your money away right away it allows the money to accumulate and grow, so that when you die there is a good amount of money you can give to those most in need. The logic for giving your money to those most in need is quite simple. If one is FORTUNATE enough to amass some wealth from society, then it follows that this money extracted from society for your own use be returned, at least in good part, to the society from whence it came. The choice is simple: it either gets directed to those with the greatest needs or it is genetically hoarded. Hoarding wealth by genetic families is one of the reasons so many people have so little in the world. Carnegie believed if you don't give it back, sooner or later, then you will go to hell. At the very least, hell or no hell, you haven't done the right thing. The Golden Rule dictates you direct your good fortune to those less fortunate than yourself. If you were in their shoes you would be ever so receptive and grateful.
At any rate, in my mind, I have settled on the following: I try to live a reasonably simple life. As a rule of thumb it goes this way. Whatever I really need I just buy. If I spend money on something not really needed then I must contribute the same amount of money to the less fortunate. That way, in my mind, I have indicated others count as much as myself. For example, if I need a car to get me from point to point I can buy a decent car for $20,000. If I want a $35,000 car then I am obligated to give $15,000 to the less fortunate. Moderation in most things is a good thing. If I decide to take a trip and spend $5000 on the trip then I am obligated to give $5000 to the less fortunate. One of the bonuses you get by this sort of mentality is contentment. You are clearly sharing with those most in need, and yet clearly enjoying things in life you want to enjoy. Then in your will you leave the remaining to the less fortunate. If everyone lived this way the number of less fortunate in the world would be almost nonexistent. The playing field in life is not level. We all know that. Chance plays a big role in evolution. That is the way God's process works. Fairness, to exist in any human society, depends on social justice. And social justice depends on the Golden Rule.
Now, the next problem is what charities do you give your money to in your will? I was shocked when Warren Buffet decided to leave almost all his fortune to the Bill Gates Charity. But his reasoning is interesting. Buffet feels it is very difficult to have your donated money be effective. And the object is to effectively help as many of the less fortunate as possible. So you need find a charity which targets the population you want, and can effectively help those most in need. Buffet is one who expects to get the biggest bang for his buck, not donate to some inefficient charity where most of the money disappears with nonproductive costs. Bill Gates targets the least fortunate world wide. This seems more noble than any restricted patriotic or religious constraints to the help.
Bill Gates has set up charitable enterprises which are capable of tackling all aspects of the needs of the less fortunate. That is, you simultaneously help those most in need with health access, education, job training, etc. all at the same time. I once set up a charity to help those young people from the worst urban communities achieve career goals. It failed because my little charity was not big enough in scope, and the money, let's say for career purposes, ended up being spent to get the person dental care, stuff like that. It is pretty hard to sit and watch some young person lose their teeth because you want them to spend their money on something else. If you try to help these people with the greatest needs you quickly realize just how steep and varied are the hurdles they face. The idiots who go around and talk about all these "useless bums with no drive, no get up and go, stupid mother fuckers who need to be taught a lesson or two about life so they will then shape up"---well they are not just idiots, they are selfish cruel idiots . Whenever I hear people talk like this I always have the urge to see them put in the place of those most in need. If they faced the same hurdles, in the same environment, with the same upbringing, with the same inherent limitations---the likelihood of their doing any better is miniscule.
If one wants to become content one needs face up to how fortunate one is themself, then assume the responsibility to view the least fortunate as deserving as oneself when it comes to spending your good fortune. When you have reasonable good fortune and you share that good fortune with the less fortunate, then and only then, can real contentment with your life begin to become a reality. Anyone who has spent any time amongst those for whom money, power, or titles is never enough knows very well how discontented they are most of the time. Fuss, fuss, fuss, fuss, fuss all the time. And when they aren't fussing they are looking over their shoulder, and when they aren't looking over their shoulder they are plotting how to outsmart others, or position themselves, etc. Of course we all do that to varying degrees in our productive years but there comes a time when enough is enough and it is time then to begin to repay the society from which you gained this monetary success.
What is happening across the globe right now, in numbers which are astounding, is not only an abomination, but a very real threat to human society as we now know it, and to the very existence of thousands upon thousands of species across the globe. None of us, individually, can stop the insanity of our collective behavior, but each of us can, via the Golden Rule, make life on this planet better for some of those most in need. The Golden Rule dictates we do this, both with our politics and our bank book. The immediate reward is contentment, a satisfaction that right creates justice, and in that faith we do our duty as we understand it. Any future past our temporal existence is beyond human grasp. For any kind of Heaven there can only be hope. But for now, contentment of any meaningful sort comes from following the Golden Rule. Let's face it, contentment is no small reward.
