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Golden Rule
From A Storehouse of Knowledge
The Golden rule is the principle that you should treat others the way you would prefer to be treated yourself. Many different moral teachers have endorced this rule but it works as a general principle and is not good in every single case.
He (President Kennedy) asked whites to consider what it would be like to be treated as second-class citizens because of skin color. Whites were to imagine themselves being black - and being told that they couldn't vote, or go to the best public schools, or eat at most public restaurants, or sit in the front of the bus. Would whites be content to be treated that way? He was sure that they wouldn't - and yet this is how they treated others. He said the "heart of the question is ... whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated." [1]
Liberal Christians would say that when Jesus spoke about the Golden rule He meant it as a principle to be applied in most cases but not as something to be applied in every single case.
The Golden Rule applies not only to one's own family, religion, nation, or ethnic group [2] but also to the stranger, the alien, the other. [3]
References
Footnotes
- ↑ *http://www.jcu.edu/philosophy/gensler/goldrule.htm
- ↑ Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD
- ↑ Leviticus 19:34 But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
