Endangering The Life Of One's Neighbor

By saying things such as that we are to love each other, the Bible is not in those precise statements detailing what makes something loving.  This is where some people mistakenly think that an irrelevant deed is really mandatory.  Not holding the door open for a random person is not unloving, so even according to this idea that is objectively vague on its own, there is no Biblical obligation to show kindness in this exact way.  One would need to know the contents of Mosaic Law to know what love is.  A moral concept put forth in Leviticus is somewhat similar, pertaining to the narrower range of behaviors that can gratuitously put others in harm's way, which it does not elaborate upon afterward.  In this case, instead of corresponding Biblical passages along with reason, reason alone illuminates the matter.

Leviticus 19:16 does say not to endanger your neighbor's life, but it does not prescribe or even hint at many specific precautions many take against danger to humans--because for the most part, those measures are only situationally or individualistically obligatory.  Traffic laws, for instance, are in part motivated by the intention of protecting life and health, as well as that of extracting money from the citizenry, of course.  However, on the Biblical worldview, it is absolutely not driving at 65 or 75 or 100 miles per hour that is sinful, nor is it disobeying social constructs like mere human laws; it is a reckless, selfish approach to driving, such as driving even 45 miles per hour into a tight crowd of innocent and unwitting pedestrians, that endangers other people rather than any arbitrary daily speed of driving.

Deuteronomy 4:2 and the fact that it does not logically follow from driving at a speed like 50 miles per hour that there is automatic, unnecessary endangerment of life make it clear that such laws are still asinine.  At most, an individual person can be situationally in the wrong by knowingly or negligently putting someone else in danger, but it is not the simple act of driving "fast" to any arbitrary extent that is the sin.  Had this person never driven this way around a pedestrian or a stalled vehicle, there would be no sin because the error is not in the act or anything but the disregard for other lives.  This entire category is an example of endangerment-related laws in modern America that actually violate Deuteronomy 4:2, treating a permissible thing as if it should be criminalized itself.

To provide another example, it is not as if holding a knife within a three or two foot radius of another person, outside the context of something like a legitimate wartime kill for clarification, is actually immoral according to the Bible, or holding a gun in the presence of a companion.  It would be trying to harm someone with these items under the guise of a joke or active negligence in making sure the other person is safe the whole time that would be sinful.  In this way, someone could endanger their neighbor's life, though the deed or even the situation is otherwise entirely non-problematic.  Again, the obligation is respecting and caring for human life.  The mere possibility of danger to any person, in the sense of a slippery slope fallacy or otherwise, is not what makes something violate Leviticus 19:16.