the golden rule in application is unclear

do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. one might argue the golden rule is clear, but could only referring in that instance that the rule is stated clearly. i agree with that. that's why i said 'in application' in the opening statement, it's not clear. if it is clear, what are the guiding principles that can determine how to act in accordance with it? instead of a mess of ideas, given this idea is hard for me to discuss in the abstract, i will give an example. for example. John is doing cocaine, and only dabbles in it and views it as nondebateably harmless in the bigger picture. Bob thinks any cocaine use is going too far, and is not debatable to say otherwise. Bob personally would want someone to invervene if he was doing cocaine. on the other hand, Bob also would want people to respect his wishes on things he sees as debateably okay or nondebateable. does Bob intervene, based on the fact that he'd want intervened with on cocaine use, especially given he personally sees it as undebateably not okay? or does he respect John's wishes given John must at least view cocaine use as at least debateably to nondebateably okay and Bob wuldn't want someone else intervening if he views something as debatebable to nondebateble? all one is really able to say is that the golden rule can provide some very general guiding rules. we first have to assume that we should approach it subjectively, which is debateble, instead of looking for an outside standard. -do you act based on your own perceptions of what's debateable, or seek some more objective source? -plus there's objective and subjective things to consider. some people might view certain acts as okay, but society and pretty objectively, their acts are not okay. so when do we defer to their subjective reality, versus the objective nature of the situation? but after that, so what gives? does Bob intervene or not? if you say yes he should, then he's placing his own view of cocaine over John's, or at least his own view of whether it's debateable over John's. and, Bob is ignoring the prospect that he could ahve deferred to John given John views it as debateable, and Bob would want left along on things he views as debateable. given it's a tough call, Bob might want some outside standard to help guide him. but given it seem like th golden rule is meant to be subjective, he's left with a decision with no way of knowing hte best way to approach it. reliance on the golden rule doesn't really direct how to approach it. it admittedly gives you food for thought and directs you in a laudable way in general, but how to respond isn't so clear cut. ------------------ given cocaine use is probably viewed as 'objective' wrong by christians and most people that might taint their view. though even still, there are a lot of libertarian christians and general peoples who view it as wrong personally, but view it as the ight of others to do as they wish. but do to the objective status of cocaine use, there are less objective examples to think about,that mostly involves jugment calls with no way to know the best way to approach them -someone doesn't eat meat cause they think it's immoral. -what about those who: smoke cigarettes, marijuama, drinks, eats food and sometimes too much or bad nutritionally.... and then the varying degrees of usage for each --someone is setting of fireworks close to the road, but it's debated if it's too close. alternatively, someone is setting off fireworks with people around, but it's debated if there's too many people around. alternatively, someone is staying too close to the fireworks, it's debated. some people say these situations are not debateable in their views of the matters, other say it is debateable. so even if it's debateable is debateable, or at least debated.