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The Golden Rule with Adjustments Wednesday, March 2, 2022.

You're Dawson. If you're any kind of a Christian at all, you know about the Golden Rule.

All kinds of people know about the Golden Rule, in fact, including many unbelievers.

What many people do not know is that the Golden Rule is a rule that sometimes requires spiritually sensitive adjustments.

Here's the rule, book.

Therefore, all things whatsoever you would, that men should do to you, do you even so to them, for this is the law in the prophets.

Matthew 7-12. The rule seems simple and straightforward, and so what do I mean by this dark reference to sensitive adjustments?

The Golden Rule is one that operates Mutatus Mutatus, which means, after the necessary adjustments are made.

In other words, the Golden Rule is a bad rule, Dawson, when you're shopping for birthday presents for your mom.

You don't buy her what you would like her to buy you for your birthday. Simple, right? Yes, simple enough, but there are layers and depths and swirling currents at the bottom of those depths.

George Bernard Shaw put it this way, quote, do not do unto others, as you would, that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

This is not a rejection of the Golden Rule, despite surface appearances. It is actually an additional application of it.

From the Confucian adage, negatively stated, do not do to others what you do not want unto yourself, Confucius, Analects 1523.

To the Christian version of the same thing, positively stated, do unto others, we see different applications of the same basic principle.

With that in mind, if we then look at the Shavian example, we see the same thing, the same basic principle, applied while taking certain additional factors into account.

A husband shouldn't buy his wife a shotgun for Christmas, with the idea that that's what he would like to get.

His wife should not buy him a very nice string of pearls because she could then borrow them.

These are areas where their differences would skew a wooden application of the Golden Rule, and would wreck the Golden Rule if applied.

But if either of them broke a leg, they would both want to have it set and treated by a competent doctor in the same basic way.

This is because their broken bones are similar enough to be treated in the same way.

So why am I giving you all this Golden Rule stuff?

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