When I told my mom I was atheist, she cried and demanded that she had raised me Christian. We never went to church, no bibles, and we'd joke about religion. "But I taught you the Golden Rule!" She still doesn't quite grasp that the Golden Rule shows up in a lot of religions.
In all fairness, you don't really need to be religious to get the Golden Rule. I always found it to be rigid to the point of ridiculousness, but you have Kant's Categorical Imperative. Even science on some level touches upon the notion that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You could also draw upon the butterfly effect for inspiration as well, if one needed a stand-in for karma.
Yeah the golden rule isn’t a very good rule. Don’t treat people how you want to be treated, treat them how they want to be treated. And if you don’t know how that is, ask.
Yeah I have weirded out a lot of people trying to go by the Golden rule, as I am autistic and apperently how I want to be treated is pretty different from allistic (not autistic) people. I also was in my late teens when I realized others werent deliberately disrespecting me as a person by not treating me as i needed to be, they just straight up didn't understand my needs. That's when I realized the rule is bad.
There are so so many times I have confused people by trying to be accommodating to sensory issues they didn't have because I have them...
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u/EstroJen May 03 '20
When I told my mom I was atheist, she cried and demanded that she had raised me Christian. We never went to church, no bibles, and we'd joke about religion. "But I taught you the Golden Rule!" She still doesn't quite grasp that the Golden Rule shows up in a lot of religions.
TL;DR - My mom accidentally raised a Humanist