Labels.

We've been taught... Don't judge a book by its cover. Yet we do. People form judgments based solely on labels.

Some 30-odd years ago I first read the book "The New Left - The Anti-Industrial Revolution" by Ayn Rand. A friend walked into my office just as I was looking at the cover of the little paperback. I held up the book and made some remark about it being a great book to read. My friend saw only the words "The New Left", and immediately declared he would not read such a book. I didn't know my friend's ideology (still do not) and he did not know what was in Rand's book. But he had made a firm judgment, all the same.

We frequently hear someone say America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. Some non-religious people I know cringe at that label. Neither Jew nor Christian, they nonetheless have deeply held principles and resent being told their principles are founded in a religion they do not follow.

If their problem is with only the label... not the principles, where did those principles originate?

I believe that when the earliest humans began to live in social groups, they surely discovered that their peaceful existence depended on the acceptance of certain rules of conduct. Further, I believe those rules evolved and became more perfect over time.

The early Jews and Christians clearly articulated those time-honored principles and recorded them in written language.

If you are troubled by the Judeo-Christian label, try the Greek Philosophy label. In about 300 B.C., the Philosopher Epicurus said (translated here), "Justice never is anything in itself, but in the dealings of men with one another in any place at any time it is a kind of compact not to harm or be harmed."

Not to harm or be harmed. Sounds like The Golden Rule to me.

Ancient traditions are traditional because they have stood the test of time. If you want to label your traditions, your moral principles, fine. If you do not want to say your beliefs sprang from an ideology with which you do not always agree, fine. Reject the labels. Not the traditions. Not the principles.