BlackWodin

I've seen that claim before, but I think it really completely misses the point of what Jesus is saying. I'd like to elaborate on this here. I think Jesus' form of it IS unique, at least for the most part, at that time (and most subsequent examples were probably influenced by him).

Plagiarized material deleted

NZSkep

IOW all th other golden rules are about what you don't do, but Jesus talked about doo-doo?

GakuseiDon

What if it wasn't unique? Does that mean that Jesus shouldn't have said it? Or that it is no longer true?

And what if it was unique? Does that validate Christianity somehow? Does it make the Golden Rule more true?

The fact is that others before Jesus had expressed similar thoughts, so even if it was unique in wording, it wasn't unique conceptually. But then, so what?

Jayhawker Soule

At issue is whether the Christian variant is unique and superior. I don't know about unique, but I prefer Tobit to Matthew.

ShadowGryffindor

It appears (from your own wiki source) that Confucius beat Jesus to "upping the ante".

~500 BC "Now the man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself, seeks also to establish others; wishing to be enlarged himself, he seeks also to enlarge others. To be able to judge of others by what is near in ourselves; this may be called the art of virtue." Analects of Confucius 6:30, Confucianism, tr. James Legge.



Also, from your own wiki source, we have this from Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC): "We should bear ourselves toward others as we would desire they should bear themselves toward us."

And this from Plato (428/427 BC – 348/347 BC): "May I do to others as I would that they should do unto me."

So no, as shown from YOUR OWN SOURCE, Jesus' message is not unique, and in fact was likely inspire by (or plagiarised from :devil1: ) the statements of Plato and Aristotle (as you can see, just change it to a command, and Plato's statement becomes Jesus' - and just "modernize" Aristotle's statement, and it becomes Jesus'). Note the years that Plato and Aristotle (and Confucius) lived - well before Jesus.

Joan of Bark

Hey, Shadow, is the Golden Rule applied in Golden, Colorado?

Your arguments are reasonable, BW, but I believe that when Jesus stated this rule, he meant it to apply to Jews only. I base this assertion on:

Matthew 15:21 (NIV) Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."

23Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."

24He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."

And in Matthew 10: 5These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: "Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. 6Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.

It's clear from a reading of the Gospels that gentiles were not regarded as highly as Jews in the mind of Jesus, as he makes many disparaging remarks about gentiles and Samaratins. This doesn't mean that the Golden Rule can't be expanded to include everyone, but the credit for that belongs to someone else (most likely Paul).

jyoshu

I'd like to point out that the starting post of this thread was completely plaigarized. It was a post I wrote on a different forum called "4forums". Here is the link to the original: http://www.4forums.com/political/showthread.php?t=10221

"Blackwodin" apparently pasted it into a post here about 30 minutes after I created the post on 4forums. Someone there pointed out the plagiarism after seeing the post here as well.

Diogenes the Cynic

Thank you for bringing this to our attention, jyoshu. The plagiarsim will dealt with swiftly.

DtC, Moderator, BC&H

Diogenes the Cynic

Since virtually the entire OP was plagiarized, I'm locking this thread. The question of the originality (or lack thereof) of the Golden Rule is a worthy discussion but if anyone wishes to continue it, I ask that they start a new thread.

Thank you,
DtC, Moderator, BC&H