I don’t know what determines the goodness of acts. I see theories and they seem weak. This doesn’t mean I am rooting for my theory, whatever it might be.
Now don’t be bringing Watts in again, LOL.
He who don’t doubteth is probalby an asshole.
I am not sure what to do with that.
I am not arguing it is literal, he’s talking about people and acts. The problem is that it is a rule, with no gradations or exceptions. The metaphor could have been used in a way that would have created less guilt and panic - especially given the potential problem with Hell, you better be damn clear what you are saying to people.
Again, I could not possibly have been reading it literally or it would have been a quote about agriculture, or permaculture, and while problematic on that level, I wouldn’t care and it wouldn’t lead to guilt but possibly to the throwing away of good fruit. Reading too much in it. Well, that’s the thing. I know humans and I know how many of them will take such quotes, and history is littered with people, good people, who tried to live up to scriptures, panicked regularly about the coming of hell based on scriptures, and had a hateful voice in their heads empowered by scripture. Telling me not to read too much into it - which I think is an ironic suggestion about a religious text that requires reading a lot into it - is missing the point. People read stuff in these things and if you don’t want people to plague themselves with ideas, there are simply ways to modify texts to make them more nuanced.
Bruce Lee sure as shit did not, as a rule, turn the other cheek. He fought people all the time for all sorts of things. Heck, he did it in the streets just to learn. And again, I have seen what the language of the Bible does to basically good people. Also the language of secular moralities that have similar naive presentations. The point is precisely that humans will try to navigate using these things and terrible things will result from navigating following the advice of people who are cut off from their emotions to various degrees. Jesus, if he said this, had stuff to learn. Which is fine, who doesn’t? He did his best.
Well, I didn’t know how you were defining stealing. It seems like your definitions is stealing is when you think you are stealing. I thought you meant when it is breaking the law. Property and things move around in all societies. My only point was that what is considered stealing in that society by the people in power, even by the majority may not be stealing and hence not immoral. I don’t think there would have been anything wrong about a slave going into the house and taking a piano or all the horses in the barn or whatever. Perhaps he should share with other slaves, but no possible property crime could be committed against a master by a slave in my view. He could burn down the master’s house for all I care.
Conscience and practical fear of consequences is the the guide for all of us, though many might not word it that way. The potential committers of what some might consider crime. I just wanted to make it clear that just because you follow your conscience you have not even the slightest guarantee this is meaningful, even to you in the long term, unless you have really gone deep into yourself.
OH, sure, there are practical issues I always take into consideration. That’s what I meant by at least TRYING to not offer the other cheek.