And in so doing act against your rational self interest. Something most religions gloss over.
When you get on the plane, the flight attendant always says to put your own oxygen mask on first, before helping others. If you cannot help yourself first, you won't be able to help anyone else.
"Do as thou shalt" means just that. If it is your will to save others, to be charitable, to work in a soup kitchen, do those things. No one can gainsay you, no one can criticize you.
It is interesting that people presume that those who choose to live precisely as they please will be evil people. Why make that assumption, unless one believes that people are only good because they are FORCED to be good by their God, that their religion so persecutes them with fear of eternal punishment that they must be good or suffer damnation?
Are the people who believe that actually good only because they fear God? Is that their entire motivation? (I'm being rhetorical, I realize that some religious people do good because they want to and it also happens to be the law of their religion - I'm just saying).
Or is it possible that people choose to be good because that's what they want to do, not because that's what some God or rule book told them to do?
If there are people in the world who are what we would call 'good' and they are that way because that's what they want to be and do, I would tend to place them on a higher pedestal than someone who was commanded by their religion to do good, and who do it for that reason alone.
'Do as thou shalt' means people are responsible for their own actions, good and bad. It means you break it you bought it. It means God doesn't visit pain and suffering on people - pain and suffering exist and some people get a lot of it, but what they choose to do about it is their choice and not in the hands of a Savior or a Creator.
'Do as thou shalt' means if you hurt someone, you live with what you have done, and if you feel badly about it, you do something to make it right. No prayers for intercession, no hope for a brighter tomorrow for that person you wronged. You get it all, the joy and the sadness, the ecstasy and agony. It means at the end of the day, you look in the mirror and realize that everything you did that day, good and bad, YOU did. No one else.
'Do as though shalt' is about personal responsibility as much as it is about personal freedom. It means do what you want to do, but if you hurt someone through your own actions, don't blame anyone else, bubba.
'Do as thou shalt' doesn't shift blame. It doesn't consider sin, sinner, savior, redemption, karma, dogma, catma or anything outside of the self. It means if you're a nasty old so-and-so, then that is what you are, and you did it, not your parents, not your God, and not Charlie who stole the handle.
'Do as thou shalt' is a line drive to the gut wearing a new baseball mitt. It means you, and only you, get to take responsibility for your actions. You might escape wrath, you might escape retribution. There will be no homework assignment, and no judgment after this life. It means going to your grave knowing exactly who and what you are. And if you die knowing you were an absolute ****, then that's what you are. No one waves a cross and you and absolves you of your sins. No one makes you redo your life, only this time as a bug or a cow. The punishment is here and now, just like the reward - you are who and what you are. Life sucks, get a helmet, and if you believe in doing as you will, remember others do too. It might be smart to be nice to others and get some reciprocation going there. That's enlightened self-interest, too.
