This may be true, I'd say the difference between a motto and a commandment is the scale of it and the heavier weight of the commandment. — mentos987

"Commandment" can be an awfully semantically loaded word, if what you mean is something more along the lines of "something likely to be beneficial for all of us to subscribe to in a social contract."

Nicely put.

If you say so ... :roll:

"Measure" what? I didn't propose to quantify anything.

If you say so ... — 180 Proof

It's vital to the topic at hand. (Waiting for @Joshs to chime in.)

"Measure" what? I didn't propose to quantify anything. — 180 Proof

You said:

'Prevent or relieve more suffering than you cause'. — 180 Proof

If you want to "prevent or relieve" _more_ "suffering than you cause", then, clearly, you need to have some measurement in mind. How else can you know whether you're preventing or relieving more suffering than you cause?

Judgment, not a ruler.

Thus, ego-friendly. With a vague approach like yours, you can always feel good about yourself and always feel that you have prevented or relieved more suffering than you caused.
:lol:

Go troll yourself.

O sancta simplicitas!

It's just that for Harry, Dick is a cunt, and for Dick, Harry is a cunt, and neither of them think of themselves as cunts. Now what? — baker

I think that's often, but not always, the case. But there's no magical pathway out of a values clash, is there? I remember talking to an old Nazi 30 years ago, "We were trying to improve the world and create a golden era. The bad guys won," he said.

Do we take the above to mean there is no point in trying to improve our moral behavior since everything is just a maelstrom of personal perspective?

What is better:
”Spend some effort to find what misery you spread, then try to lessen it.”
or
”Spend some effort to find what misery you spread and then try to lessen it.”
?

This quote doesn't make much sense except there having been a context where Augustine was under the impression that there were an embarrassing number of Christians who aren't such critical thinkers. — wonderer1

1. @Hanover is simply correct that figurative interpretations have been accepted since ancient times.

2. You claim is not in evidence, for Augustine spoke of an "ignorant individual." Not a lot of folks have time to drum up strange theories, then or now (but especially then), and before the printing press books were extremely costly.

3. Low-hanging fruit is not unique to Christianity. For example, the Enlightenment clarion call of "Sapere Aude!" turned quickly to, "Oh shit, the masses are way dumber than we realized."

1. Hanover is simply correct that figurative interpretations have been accepted since ancient times.

2. You claim is not in evidence, for Augustine spoke of an "ignorant individual." — Leontiskos

1. I'm not arguing against figurative interpretations existing since ancient times, as I already explained to Hanover. I'm simply pointing out that the Augustine quote itself points to literal interpretations existing alongside figurative interpretations in ancient times.

2. You seriously think that Augustine wrote that to discuss the behavior of one individual? Ok, consider the fuller quote with emphasis added:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.

The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason?

Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.” [citing I Tim. 1:7]

- My point was not that there was only one, but that "embarrassing numbers" is an overstatement, not in evidence. Augustine is lamenting literate, rhetorically skilled Christians who attracted audiences. These are not large in number.

1. Hanover is simply correct that figurative interpretations have been accepted since ancient times. — Leontiskos

This is not the part of his claim that sparks a debate. The part that I question is where he claims that the amount of figurative interpretations has remained the same or lowered since the forming of the religion. He is arguing that fundamentalism has made religion more literal than is ever was, I disagree on this point. For I think that fundamentalism was mealy a resurgence of old ways, an angry reaction to the change in interpretation towards an ever more figurative meaning.

Figurative interpretations have always been a large part of all religion. But this was never in question.