Leave each other alone.
While I originally said this in a comment to a post of Tom Smith's in his LiveJournal, I want to record it here in my own journal for my own posterity's sake:
When it comes to religion, most of the moral thinkers have suggested treating each other as you (the reader and audience) would have others treat you. For the record, I am going to have to say that all of those moral thinkers were overly optimistic. People can justify anything to themselves; "if everyone treated me like I treated them, well, they'd all see I was right and we'd all get along better," is a fallacy of an ego incapable of empathizing with other minds, of seeing things from other perspectives. No, I'm afraid that Homo sapiens sapiens is incapable of abiding by the spirit of the so-called "Golden Rule." I suggest a more widely understandable and less easily-twisted rule of thumb: "Leave each other alone." If I want a person's input, I'll seek it out and ask for it. If I don't want a person's input, they'll know by my total and utter failure to ask their damned opinions.
When it comes to religion, most of the moral thinkers have suggested treating each other as you (the reader and audience) would have others treat you. For the record, I am going to have to say that all of those moral thinkers were overly optimistic. People can justify anything to themselves; "if everyone treated me like I treated them, well, they'd all see I was right and we'd all get along better," is a fallacy of an ego incapable of empathizing with other minds, of seeing things from other perspectives. No, I'm afraid that Homo sapiens sapiens is incapable of abiding by the spirit of the so-called "Golden Rule." I suggest a more widely understandable and less easily-twisted rule of thumb: "Leave each other alone." If I want a person's input, I'll seek it out and ask for it. If I don't want a person's input, they'll know by my total and utter failure to ask their damned opinions.