"Matthew Johnson" <matthew_member@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:aY6Wj.246$ll1.47@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> In article <m3OVj.357$za1.108@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, Jani says...
>>
>
> [snip]
>
>>Babies are actually incredibly self-centred little creatures.
>
> Self-centered, yes. But self-centered is not necessarily always the same
> as
> selfish, neither does the one _necessarily_ lead to the other.
Indeed. I was taking issue with the idea that babies are nothing more than
a
kind of amorphous 'love', with no genetic or biological predispositions.
[]
>>What age-group do you mean, here? Very small children *have* to learn to
>>recognise difference, otherwise they function as if everyone else was a
>>'clone' of themselves, and can't understand perspectives other than
their
>>own.
>
> And alas, I can think of a lot of adults who never seemed to have
learned
> this:(
True, but that's not quite the same as the point I was making ;)
>
>> That's a fairly major factor in autism.
>
> Which, alas, does not explain the adults I just mentioned.
No, but it does explain why I don't agree with the OP's argument that
recognising difference, in young children, is a *bad* thing. It's part of
healthy mental development.
>
> [snip]
>
>>I was reading an interesting article on the Golden Rule which is
relevant
>>here; the author pointed out that the GR relies heavily on the actor's
>>assumption that the recipient has exactly the same view of a situation
as
>>they do.
>
> But does it? Or is making this assumption a _mis-application_ of the
Rule?
He was talking of the GR in general philosophical terms, rather than
specifically Christian ones, yes. But it led me on to wondering how
applicable it is even within Christianity, given the variation between
Christian cultures (hence, my example of fasting, which I assumed would be
familiar to both orthodox and non-orthodox Christians, whether or not they
practised it themselves).
>
> [sni]
>
>>Jani, who hadn't considered the GR in that light before, and finds that
it
>>makes a LOT of sense. Although I expect that Matthew, amongst others,
will
>>think it too relativistic :)
>
> Actually, since you mentioned 'relativistic', my first response was to
> misread
> 'GR' as meaning "General Relativity", even though you had already shown
> you
> meant "Golden Rule" just a few lines above;)
Heh. Well, at least this isn't an interfaith group: Einstein probably
isn't
the first thing that a Wiccan would have associated with 'GR' :) No, I was
musing more on the generality of the Golden Rule, and whether an orthodox
Christian would distinguish between GR-the-philosophy and
GR-as-expressed-in-Christianity.
>
> But as I hinted above: the major problem is not that it is too
> _relativistic_
> but that the article and your summary of it appear to rely too much on a
> rather
> simplistic interpretation of it.
Ah, well, as I said, it was not a specifically Christian perspective that
was being discussed, and I probably should have made that more clear.
>
> After all: consider the example you and the article use, that of placing
> steak
> before someone who is fasting. Now recall the audience he was speaking
to:
> they
> were all very familiar with, for example, the Yom Kippur fast. Would
_any_
> of
> them even _think_ of placing food before a fellow Jew keeping this fast?
> Of
> course not. They all knew better.
>
> In short, the GR was never supposed to be understood to mean _whatever_
> you
> would like to be treated as. It was always meant to be understood as
> meaning how
> you would like to be treated, assuming you were thinking rationally and
> piously
> about how you would want to be treated.
*nods* so, in effect, there is no need to consider how other people want
to
be treated, because they *should* want to be treated in the same way as
you
do? This is where I'm going with relativism ...
>
> To make this a little clearer, let's take a look at the _whole_ verse:
>
> So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this
is
> the
> law and the prophets.
> (Mat 7:12 RSVA)
>
> Notice the check: "for this is the law and the prophets". Of _course_
the
> law
> and the prophets never recommend eating on Yom Kippur. So your desire to
> eat
> during the Fast is _not_ how you should treat others either.
In my example, though, the person who wanted to give food saw only a
hungry
person; they weren't even aware of the rules of fasting. Certainly, if
they
*had* known, it would be a deliberately harmful act - but I'm talking
about
an unintentional one.
>
> Finally, this would perhaps be a little more clear if the RSV
translators
> had
> correctly observed the distinction between 'wish' and 'will' in the
> translation
> above: it really should read "will tha men would do to you", not 'wish'.
> The
> difference is that the _will_ is by definition rational and natural.
> 'Wish' is
> often neither. This is why Theophylact says, commenting on this very
> verse:
>
> what you do not love yourself, do not do to others; in this instance,
both
> the
> law and the prophets agree with what natural law dictates to us
> [http://pagez.ru/lsn/0113.php#07]
>
> Note the reference to _natural_ law. This is justified by Christ's
> reference to
> our _natural_ will, in the word 'will'.
I think I've been sidetracked, but I'll go with it :) The OP implied that
babies are born with a 'natural will', but it becomes subverted to 'wish'
because of human interaction. Is this what you mean?
Jani
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