Love Thy Neighbour- Is Something Missing?

This is more of a random thought than anything else, but a friend of mine recently shared an image on facebook and it got me to thinking.

It was an infographic with extracts form the holy books of all major world religions, showing how they correspond to each other in that every single one of them has some ecquivalent of "love thy neighbour" or "treat others as you would want to be treated". I think the point of the post was that if all religions contain this fundamental princinple shouldn't we all get along etc. etc.

I disagreed. with all the statements next to each other like that, it seemed obvious to me that something very important was missing from all of them. the statement should read:

"Love thy neighbour and treat them as you would want to be treated with their consent."

This may seem a pointless addendum at first, but i really feel that most of the evils of religion that we rail against can be explained by its absence. Not one religion had any concept or respect for the idea of individual sovereignty or the importance of individual will. In all of them, loving is something that is done to someone else, not a reciprocated action. this leaves the "other" at the mercy of the lovers definition of "love" with no say in the matter at all. In most of these religions, the human body is in some way "on loan" from the divine, and humans should be humble, grateful and obedient. All of them seem to revolve, to one extent or another, around supressing individual desires in the service of something greater.

This has its positives, there's no denying it, but it paves the way for great evils as well.

"well, if i was an uneducated savage, i would want to to be taken from my family, have my heathen ways beaten out of me and brought into the light of the lord- I just wouldn't realize it at first. It's the loving thing to do."

there are videos of members of IS weeping, consoling and embracing homosexuals before stoning them to death. These are people who genuinely believe that they are performing a loving action for the good of the people they are about to kill.

How different might the world look if just one of these religions had even a tiny footnote in their holy books saying that individual will is important and should be respected?

 

"there are videos of members of IS weeping, consoling and embracing homosexuals before stoning them to death. These are people who genuinely believe that they are performing a loving action for the good of the people they are about to kill."

but doesn't the Bible say, too, "thou shalt not kill?"

or is it just filled with contradictions?
I do not know. I have not read the Bible.
I know the 10 Conmandments, and am not sure I agree with all of them, but I do agree with thou shalt not kill.

 

And if they don't consent?

 

Then leave 'em alone, i would have thought.

 

The bible contains a lot of specific instructions which seem to contradict each other.

But I'm talking about overarching themes of the whole- chief among them is suppressing personal desires in service to a greater being. You are taught that what you want as an individual is not important at best, disobedient and sinful at worst. This is all fine, but implicit in this is the idea that this is true of all people, and that what other people want isn't important either.

From this fundamental principle, it seems to me, all the historical evils of religion spring. It naturally follows that all individual wills should be supressed in service to a greater being, regardless of whether consent has been given. Consent not being given is only evidence of disobedience and the need for more supression to be imposed.

The point of my friends Facebook post was that, if all religions have at their core the statement "love thy neighbour" then it should be a simple matter to achieve peace between them by having them all realise that at their heart is the same principle. I disagree because it seems to me that even in that seemingly innocent statement, the nugget of totalitarianism from which all other evils spring, is present. It can only be rectified if all religions realise that their service to their fellow man must recognise the sovereignty of the individual and the validity of the right to refuse "love" whatever form it may take.

 

Like the bees in a bee hive all working for Queen bee....?

nah...i am for individuals and individualism....as long as no one is hurting anyone...and i am happy this time around that I have neighbors that i do love....

i agree if you don't like someone...then just leave them alone and hope they do they same.

 

What if someone is causing some problem? I can treat them as I would want to be treated and ask nicely that they desist. If they then refuse to negotiate and continue to cause problems what then? Since they declined to be treated as I would want to be treated should I just accept that and let them continue, because otherwise I'd be contradicting this new version of the golden rule?

 

Just as the current rules imply that all people should supress their individual desires (or have them supressed by others) a rule that recognises the sovereignty of individual will in others implies that your will is significant as well. "causing problems" would presumably mean acting in a way that had no respect for the will or desires of others. If it doesn't, then it does not contradict the rule and the right of the individual to act in that way should be respected. Nowhere in the rule does it say or imply that you shouldn't take any steps to prevent someone else from imposing their will upon you.In fact, this new version of the rule is the only one that implies that you should stand up for yourself.

 

OK - I say to x 'do you want to be treated by me as I would like to be treated by others?' No x replies, then starts destroying my property. I can't ask him to stop - because that's how I'd want to be treated if I was the one doing the damage. I either use force myself, or call the police, neither of which option I would want applied to me in that situation.

Of course I could still ask them to desist but that would be in breach of the new version of the rule. I have no choice if I want to stick to the rule but to skip the step of asking nicely and resort to force.

In actuality I'd say to hell with ethical formulations and ask them to stop, then take more vigorous action if they don't.

 

I suspect we may be talking at cross purposes, but here is how I see it.

Scenario:

X is destroying my property or attacking me.

I say: "please stop that"

X says: "I don't want to stop, I want you to leave me alone."

Under the new rule, I endeavor to behave in a way towards my fellow man which I believe is most beneficial to them or would cause the most happiness. However, I modify this behavior based on the will of my fellow man. If they wish me not to do what I'm doing, even if I personally think that my behavior is beneficial to them, I respect their desires to be left alone. so I should allow them to continue destroying my property because they have refused my kindness, right?

nope, because:

A set of implications follow from this rule:

1) individual will is important and must be respected and not infringed upon
2) it is my responsibility to respect the will of other individuals
3) The importance of individual will is universal
4) It is my responsibility to respect my own will, as an individual
5) I must prevent my will from being infringed upon.
6) It is my responsibility to impinge as little as possible on the will of others while defending my own.

Remembering that the first rule is "treat others as your would like to be treated" and "with their consent" is only a stipulation to that rule. So you would try and find a way to prevent them from destroying your stuff in a peaceful way, with escalating levels of action if necessary.

If you interpreted the rule as literally as in your argument, then you would not ask them to stop at all, presumably, because why would you want someone to bitch at you when you were having fun destroying all their stuff?

In actuality everyone would. I'm not suggesting that we consult this rule to govern our every minor social interaction (although I think the outcome would be the same), I'm just saying that (supposedly) this is an ethos which underpins most world religions, and might the addition of three words be a very good thing, in the long run?

 

I just don't know if it would be an improvement or not. In a way, I can't really see the necessity for it. By 'not dong to others etc' I can't see many practical ways that I as an individual could impinge on the will of another who had the same rule. If I want others to respect my individual will, then I have to respect theirs. I can't see why they would not consent to that.
If a person wants to cause trouble and that's their will, I'd say they have to be prevented but with reference to the way we would wish to be thus prevented ourselves.

Religions ignore their own rules anyway, so I doubt they'd be affected by the caveat. But maybe some religious people would say that the individual will is not sovereign, because the will of God as expressed in scripture is the only sovereign will. 'Thy will be done'.
Thus religions can be similar to totalitarian states where the will of the individual is to be subordinated to the collective or the state.

Generally those kinds of institutions want to impose on the individual their own ideology or belief system. If that's the kind of situation where you think the addition of 'with their consent' might make a difference, still, I don't know.

Personally I'm for the sovereignty of the individual. And obviously mutual respect is the basis of any collective living.

 

Aye, me too. that's my point in a nutshell really. I think the world would be better off if individual sovereignty were enshrined into the fabric of the worlds major religions at their most basic foundational point, rather than the situation we have at the moment in which individual will is downplayed or demonised. The addendum, as I see it, is essentially a check/balance on the potential excesses of religion, an attempt to curtail the homogenizing, totalitarian tendencies of religious dogma.

 

Whilst I'd like to see religions change their game, I don't think it's likely they'll accept any kind of amendments to the Bible, Koran etc.

 

To grow your argument OP you have to take each so called religion and examine what their holy book means in context to the word love.


For example homosexuality is brutality against another human. It's a criminal act. You cannot love in a homosexual relationship. Not according to truth. It's not true love, rather it's a Greco-Romantic love of the senses and of lust. The anus was not evolved for or created to receive a penis. It destroys the body. Love does not destroy.

True love is justice. It's not romantic. The Western theologian has created a Jesus who pick's flowers and spent the 4 years of his ministry teaching polite morality. However, the fact that he was executed by capital punishment for sedition by the Roman imperialist reveal more. He was a threat to the existing order that mercilessly oppressed the pople. One of Jesus' main revolutionary political aims was to redistribute the earth's wealth form the few to the many and to start a movement.

The apostle's picked up his mantel and they brought the revolution to the principalities and powers, the message of the Kingdom of God-- to be established firmly here on earth, --growing like a mustard seed and to engulf all oppressive political structures.

Jesus came to reestablish the conventional practices of Moses the great law giver, whom to love your neibhor as yourself "hangs on Moses and the prophets"

This is love.

True love then is not a personal pity or cultist practice done once a week. It's political as well as practical, it's found in government and it's first in the mind. For from the mind comes first any inkling to set your hand to do anything. All labor starts in the mind first. And this society has not love in it's collective mind as it's oppressive structures that repress man bare strong witness. Justice to man is to see that his life is not how we live today under the oppressive structures of the world powers, who put profit over people in every instance, at every turn and in all epoch of history.

True love is not found in any developed nation's ruling bodies. It's no wonder you can't tell who's a woman or a man. It's no wonder that a society that does not know love or God are okay with injustice (to know God is to do justice to all people..its not a little feeling you get in your heart). Gandhi was Hindu but knew the the creator.

The root is corrupt and already the axe is laid to it.

Take for example the Hebrew Bible. One of the biggest hurdles to get around in ones quest to understand it is the Western theologian and the ruling elite's depoliticizing it's content.

The legislation of Moses is love as it lays the foundation of a egalitarian society where none lack and the land and it's raw materials are available to all as all have need. Not just to a few landlords. From this legislation stems a slew of by laws and other regulations that ensure justice. But the Western capitalists and their religious institutions have "nailed to the cross" the liberty found in the text and have in their wake, made the bible to be none other than superstitious fantasy void of context to real history.


When you find a truly just society for all, where no classes exist, then the natural use of the woman goes back to women. The natural use of a man goes back to man. This beastly system in it's systemic and complex web of utter corruption on every level has truly confused life on earth as a result of it's ruthless drive to put profits over the people.

 

Personally I do not believe in true individualism only in perceived self therefore while I do understand your POV I do not think it would make any lasting difference. In my opinion individuality is at the core of all human suffering and therefore acknowledging it will only lead to more suffering