In Matthew 7:12, Jesus says to always practice treating others the way one would have them treat oneself. What is almost universally overlooked is how he is not inviting a subjectivist, conscience-based moral epistemology that both contradicts the Bible and is logically invalid wholly apart from whatever the Bible says. In that very verse, he mentions how this is when practiced correctly consistent with Mosaic Law, yet Yahweh's commands are far more precise than the "golden rule" of doing to others what one would hope for it the treatment was reversed. It is absolutely impossible to know from the golden rule which actions are obligatory, which are evil, and whether morality exists at all. On its own, the golden rule even could lead to outright sin on the Christian worldview in everything from casual interactions with other people to the most egregious human rights violations.
A key Biblical example would be the thief on the cross who according to Luke's account actually said he thought he deserved forced nudity, extreme physical torture, and a prolonged, sadistic execution because some tyrant had the power to use crucifixion to intimidate others. Only a goddamn fool would think that any of this is allowed or prescribed in the same Mosaic Law that condemns more than 40 lashes, separates corporal and capital punishment, degrading someone in their physical or psychological treatment, and forbids discrimination against foreigners (Roman crucifixion was reserved for non-citizens); in fact, Roman crucifixion is perhaps the single most Biblically unjust legal punishment from all of recorded history [1], and the Bible itself says someone who was victimized by it though it was just. Over the centuries, many Christians have in their almost endless stupidity and confusion over Biblical ethics agreed with the thief on the cross. This is one way to apply the golden rule without rationality or justice behind it.
There is this side of the matter, that people might mistakenly think they deserve abuse, dehumanization, and disproportionate punishment (the Bible always has upper limits that are never to be transgressed for each of its physical and financial penalties), and then there is the fact that the golden rule on its own would mean that even someone who was being justly punished would be being mistreated as long as they did not want to be treated as they actually deserve. If the golden rule is all that there is to morality, morality does not really exist and is a matter of subjective whim, for the person who does not wish to be treated even as they deserve would be right under the golden rule isolated from all other truths or ideas about justice. People who like the golden rule almost never seem to realize this, but then again, no one who actually thinks the golden rule in a conceptual vacuum even gives a moral direction to go in are highly irrational already.
Jesus, an obvious Christian theonomist, would be contradicting almost everything else he says about God's commands in the Torah if this is what he was supporting. That he says that the golden rule summarizes "the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12) shows that this is not the foundation or clarity of Mosaic Law, but the other way around. Mosaic Law with all of its specific prohibitions and punishments is the foundation of the golden rule! Leave it to evangelicals to misunderstand the most fundamental, deep things about a Biblical issue, though. There is not one thing about Christian theology or rationalistic philosophy, the truths of the latter being the intrinsic foundation of all things, that evangelicals will not misunderstand at least in part. Assumptions, contradictions, and vagueness are the hallmarks of their philosophical ideas and beliefs.
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