Reflections From a Murky Pond

The “Golden Rule” states that one should do unto others as he would like them to do unto him. This may be the best piece of evidence for a universal absolute moral code. Just about every religion in existence exhorts their followers to practice this simple ideal. A few examples are listed below:

Buddhism (500 BCE)

Hurt not others in ways you yourself would find hurtful.

– Udana-Varga, 5, 18

Christianity (50 CE)

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

– Matthew 7:12

Confucianism (600 BCE)

Surely it is the maxim of loving-kindness: Do not unto other that you would not have them do unto you.

– Analects, 15, 23

Islam (622 CE)

No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.

– Imam An-Nawawi’s 40 Hadiths, 13

Hinduism (1500 BCE)

This is the turn of duty; do naught unto others which could cause you pain if done to you.

– Mahabharata, 5, 1517

Judaism (1800 BCE)

What is harmful to you, do not to your fellow men. That is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.

– Talmud, Shabbat, 312

Taoism (300 BCE)

Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.

– T’sai Shang Kan Ying P’ien

Zoroastrianism (600 BCE)

That nature alone is good which refrains from doing unto another whatsoever is not good for itself.

– Didistan-i-dinik, 94, 5

If this stricture were limited to only the Abrahamic faiths - and possibly Zoroastrianism - I would write it off as nothing of note. Each of those faiths builds upon its predecessor. The Golden Rule is not so limited however. Even religions and philosophies with little or connection or exposure to the Abrahamic faiths include essentially the same stricture.

While this alone is not proof, it seems to be enough evidence to support postulating a universal absolute morality.

I believe that just about everyone in America knows of MLK’s “I Have A Dream” speech - even if very few in America actually know much of the text of that famous address of August 28, 1963. Few though remember a later and much more controversial speech by Dr. King though.

On April 8, 1967 - a year to the day before his assassination - Rev. Martin Luther King gave this speech, entitled Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, at the Riverside Church in New York.

MLK: Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence

I believe that Aaron McGruder is one of those few who knows of this speech. In episode 9, The Return Of The King, of his animated series Boondocks McGruder shows a alive and well Rev. King protesting the US’ response to 911 and being branded a “Hate American Traitor” by the media for doing so. This is almost exactly what really happened in ‘67.

If you would like to read the full text of King’s Beyond Vietnam - A Time to Break Silence, it’s posted after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

I came across this post on Wordpress’ Tag Surfer and it really set me off on a rant. The blog’s owner apparently dislikes dissenting opinions and deleted my comment, so I’ll quote him verbatim below and add my commentary.

Mental Illness in America II

December 14, 2007 by nightbird16

Just a week ago, Richard Dawkins, a distraught and mentally ill teenager in Colorado, shot eight shoppers. Sunday morning, another young mentally disturbed young man, Matthew Murrey’, shot five members of a missionary training center and church, also in Colorado. Although a few years older than Richard, Matthew exhibited the same symptoms of an isolated, depressed and failure-plagued young person: relationship problems with parental figures, isolated from possible friends his own age, feeling a failure and abused, and at last hearing voices in his mind, he struck out at a christian community he felt had rejected and let him down.

His parents chose to take him out of the public school to home school him in a strict Christian fashion, which he resented because it deprived him of opportunities to make friends. He felt unable to “live up to the strict behaviorial standards set for him by his parents and fundamentalist theology and that plunged him into a deep and suicidal depression. His parents put him on medication to control the depression, but that apparently didn’t help. He sought aid from church and missionaries, and they too failed to heal his panic and suffering.

Finally, he armed himself with an assault rifle, handguns and 1000 rounds of ammunition and went to take revenge on a Christian community which he could not join and could not escape.

Guns and mental illness is a fatal combination, but parents and church must share responsibility for what happened. Without support and effective counseling, many teens fall by the wayside in America. And the story looks dreadfully similar: isolation, failure, unrelenting pressure and control leads to tragedy again and again. When something goes wrong, parents blame “the wrong crowd.” The church blames evil values. Politicians blame evil children.

I blame a sick society that devours its own children.

Yes, Nightbird16, America suffers from a sick society. That sickness is manifest in the people that put on their oh-so-comfortable blinders and claim any sort of evil or selfishness as an illness. Evil exists! Selfishness, Evil’s bastard spawn exists! They don’t magically go away because people mislabel them as some sort of illness, or blame them on society.

Dawkins and Murrey were a pair of selfish, self-centered losers who wanted to die in a blaze of fame and supposed “glory” - nothing more. They weren’t mentally ill; they were evil, selfish and useless. Do their parents share the blame for that? Yes, they raised a pair of misborn freaks who turned to evil. Does society share them for that? Only insofar as it doesn’t have an effective means of culling such human trash before they can harm others.

It’s is decades past time for America to start forcing people to be responsible for their own choices and their own actions. It is decades past time to stop excusing the criminal and evil behavior of individuals because we’re too cowardly to look evil in the face and pull the trigger.

I blame it on a sick society who’s too afraid to face evil.