Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c220IR // #c220Synthesis

It is the crime of taking away human life which is condemned in the Decalogue: the Ohoharahi objects to wounds as nasty, unsightly things, unmeet for a God to look upon or to be in any way associated with. In a word, the Japanese offence was ritual, the Jewish moral.

— In our words · Source: Shinto: The Ancient Religion of Japan (William George Aston)

[Use when]

When two rules look alike, compare the motive underneath — same prohibition, ritual motive versus moral motive, completely different religions.

[Why it matters]

The sharpest one-line comparative ethics in the book — self-inflicted wounds, the cutting of dead bodies, and justifiable homicide all polluted equally, because pollution is about unsightliness before the gods, not wrongness.

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