The Made in the Image of God Principle and the Foundations of Ethics

Welcome back!  In this episode, Dr. Ray discusses how the principle that we are made in the image of God and Jesus’ two commandments, which are (1) we must love God above all else and (2) to love our neighbor as ourself, formulate the foundations of all ethics. Dr. Ray calls this the made in the image of God principle or the namaste principle. Building on previous concepts expressed in the podcast, Dr. Ray uses the ideas of objectivity and language described in episodes It’s Algebra All the Way Down, It’s Context All the Way Down, and To Agree or Not to Agree (among others) to place the namaste principle in the context of building a shared language. For those familiar with the podcast, it is known that building a shared language is equivalent to building a shared spirit which is to have a shared perception, which is to have a shared model of reality, which is to have a shared vector in the space of configurations, etc. The foundation for building a stable shared reality is our ethical responsibility to all others who come together to build the world of our shared perception/spirit. That is, each mind that gives up some of their personal subjective freedom to create the world are images of the god of that world.  To do this, is to enter into a social contract.  As such, one must treat these others as the self since it is your relationship with these others that give rise to the self with which you identify. For instance, I have an ethical responsibility to all other physicists to hold the world/spirit of physics together.  This idea of self being defined by relationship with others is the dependent origination principle in Buddhism. 

So join us as Dr. Ray makes his arguments for the foundations of ethics using ideas from Christianity, Buddhism, and the concept of the social contract.  Peace

meaning of namaste:
https://www.learnreligions.com/what-does-namaste-mean-1770004

Poem: The Heart of Things
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheBottomTurtle/comments/1bnfg02/poem_the_heart_of_things/

Foundations of Ethical Arguments
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheBottomTurtle/comments/1bnfhzw/foundations_of_ethical_arguments/

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