Question of the Week: Don’t all religions teach the Golden Rule?
Verses: Luke 6:31
The claim that the Golden Rule, treat others as you yourself want to be treated, is something that every religion taught before Christianity is merely an attempt from the secular crowd to assert that Christianity isn’t based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, but a collection of other religions teachings. For this to be true, there would need to be evidence that religions before Christianity even taught this. Buddhism: Udanavargu 5:18: Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.
This is what’s called The Negative Golden Rule. Also note that these writings are sourced back to the 6th century BC, but the earliest we have date to the 2nd Century AD after Christianity had reached India.
Hindu: Mahabarata 5:1517: “This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you”
Cited in a book dated to the 1400’s BC but only available to the public in the 1950’s AD.
Islam: Quran 4:36: “Serve God, and join not any partners with Him; and do good- to parents, kinsfolk, orphans, those in need, neighbors who are near, neighbors who are strangers, the companion by your side, the wayfarer (ye meet), and what your right hands possess [the slave]: For God loveth not the arrogant, the vainglorious.”
Not only does this verse not even closely resemble the Golden Rule in Luke, but in context is speaking to fellow Muslims. Not as a rule of conduct for all people especially after Surah 9 was written.
Judaism: Tobit 4:16: “See that you never do to another what you’d hate to have done to yourself.”
The book of Tobit was tot recognized by the Jewish people as divine scripture since it was written in 150BC when all revelation had stopped until Messiah came 150 years later.
Native American: “Live in Harmony, for we are all related.”
That is a Lakota/Sioux proverb that was passed by oral tradition within the last 2 centuries. Ironically 2 hundred years after Christian missionaries had already influenced their societies.
Wicca: That is the Wiccan Rede that was invented in the 1940’s AD by Briton Gerald Gardner. He was hardly original or even clear in the system of morality he tried to invent.
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