A current bestselling novelty book is entitled Plato and Platypus Walk Into a Bar, which quite deftly explains philosophy through jokes, most of which we’ve hear before, but their context makes them funnier in the deconstruction process. On page 86, it lists the various incarnations of the Golden Rule in spiritual traditions chronologically. Bahá’ís are very familiar with this, as we often use this to illustrate the unity of religion, and I was pleased to see Bahá’u’lláh’s Arabic Hidden Word #29 quoted: “O Son of Being! Ascribe not to any soul that which thou wouldst not have ascribed to thee, and say not that which thou doest not. This is My command unto thee, do thou observe it.” And since it was chronological, the Bahá’í quotations are always final. However, the authors located one even more recent, from Episode Twelve of the Sopranos: “Whack the next guy wit the same respect you’d like to be whacked with, you know?” Ha ha ha!! I got a good laugh out of that one.
2 comments:
Allah'u'Abha Geza:
Good to find you in cyber space. I hope you remeber the old Canadian friends. I thoroughly enjoyed your pieces on Divine and Human, Advice to the Baha'i Writers, and even the paltypus history.
Keep Well,
Fu'ad and Behnaz Foroughi,
Ottawa, Ontario
I have Google set to let me know about new articles that highlight the Golden Rule and so was led to your page.
I hadn't heard about the book you mentioned so I want to thank you twice. I love to find people who find meaning in humour, and I am always interested in uses of the Golden Rule.
Perhaps if enough of us say it often enough, we can generate enough understanding to create a truly Golden Rule world.
David Keating
Golden Rule Radical
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