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Originally Posted by Jasper84  Is is sensible to make an axiom about this? The very words "on the chance that one will be rewarded for such senselessness in an unseen, spiritual world." seems like reasoning that making decisions based on existence of an afterworld, is a bad idea because you should not make decisions based on things you do not know. Which would fall in the realm of logic. (or some other more fine-grained axioms perhaps. |
You may be right; perhaps that shouldn't really be an axiom.
Do you have an idea for a simpler axiom or two, from which this one would quickly follow as a result of logic?
With the axioms about treating others well...I thought about trying to formulate it about "what they want," but I found a couple of problems.
One, it might be bad to give them what they want, in some cases. Suppose my best friend wanted to kill himself...is it good or bad to help him? That's another debate for another thread, but I wanted to avoid the possibility altogether. Or possibly, if I'm raising a child I can't always give him what he wants, because he will turn into a spoiled and poorly adjusted adult. Also the child may want something very dangerous, like to play with fire. I wanted to avoid the possibility of all the above.
Two, how can I really know what someone wants? I have to use my own understanding or guess of what they would want.
So that's why I used terms like kindness and empathy. I'm trying to encapsulate the idea of, (a) trying to understand what people want, and then (b) trying to treat people accordingly, up to a point that does not harm them, or me, or someone else, etc.
...but without jumping through all the above hoops.
