John Adams knew it was not unique to Christianity. One reflective Sunday, Adams wrote in his diary that Christianity included the rule but did not invent it: “One great advantage of the Christian religion is, that it brings the great principle of the law of nature and nations,—Love your neighbor as yourself, and do to others as you would that others should do to you,—to the knowledge, belief, and veneration of the whole people.”21 According to Adams, the Golden Rule is not a Christian principle: it is a universal principle, a “principle of the law of nature and nations.” Christianity was one
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