On Judging Others

The idea started with the Biblical "judge not lest ye be judged" but the word "judge" has some ambiguity and people are always extending it to mean things it was not intended to mean (ironically, in fact, often being judgmental of the judger in exactly the sense the teaching warns against), such as some of the things on your list.In fact we ARE supposed to judge one another, to be able to discern right from wrong, to rebuke wrongs and so on -- but in a spirit of good will to the person, knowing we too can fall the same way. What the injunction against judging one another is about is putting oneself morally above another person, in a self-righteous spirit. Here's one commentator on it:Bible Search and Study Tools - Blue Letter Bible{Edit: There are also verses that say we ARE to judge: Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You are right, and some of these judgments are the kind that Jesus is teaching against, but many are of a sort that can't be avoided, are even necessary, as you say, yet people misapply that verse to them anyway.The kind that Jesus is teaching against are the kind that MISjudge others, or apply harsh standards, or say gossipy mean things, or impute nasty motives instead of giving the benefit of the doubt and that sort of thing.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It has a definite political agenda to it. It's not OK to offend people in wheelchairs or gay people or third world people or women or Muslims or Wiccans or any religious belief except Christianity, or black people "African Americans" or Indians "Native Americans" or any race but the white race, and conversely it's also correct to say as much against Christianity and white people, especially white men, and Israel as possible and to place all the evils in the world at their doorstep. Really, it goes back to the Marxist agenda against the West.

Since I spent some years in Berkeley, one of the earliest cauldrons of political correctness, I experienced it before it became coin of the realm or the McPC now heard everywhere. One memory sticks in my mind of being in a store when a young man in a wheelchair accidentally bumped into me. Being a basically decent well-brought up fellow he apologized, and I said "No problem" and all was well UNTIL his very Berkeley Marxist Militant PC attendant, obviously there to train him in his Rights, counseled him furiously to "NEVER apologize to anyone EVER."That's PC.Another bizarre case of it in Berkeley was the conscious practice of pedestrians crossing the street against red lights, forcing cars to stop although they had the green light, this done on the political ground that cars were inhumane. This was usually in the vicinity of the university where the foot traffic was pretty intense.That's PC.The idea is to defend one group's supposed rights WHILE offending, demeaning and inconveniencing some other group, the Designated Oppressor Group, to the whitehot max.

Well, you could ask that of Susan Sontag, famous leftie who wrote for the leftist Partisan Review, and is famous for denouncing the white race, but she died a couple years ago so you can't: In Memoriam Susan SontagEdited by Faith, : No reason given.

It's a leftist PC concept. Ask them. I'm not a leftist.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Or, let me answer you this way: Your asking me what the white race is amounts to your own version of PC, by which you hope to nail me for accepting the term while you righteously huff about how there supposedly is no such thing as race.That's PC for sure. The white race is considered to incorporate Europeans from Greece and the Balkans to Britain and France and Spain and from Italy to Scandinavia and Russia.

Every people group on this planet has its own names for foreigners. Only modern western liberals get all pushed out of shape about the names westerners have historically had for foreigners.{edit; If it were merely a correction of a mistake, the outraged moralistic attitude would not be there.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Gee, I thought my boundaries were pretty inclusive of all that but maybe not. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Thanks. The nitpicking does get to one.

The subject was such things as the mistaken term "Indians," not namecalling, or something like "Koran" for "Qur'an" and "Peking" for "Beijing." Liberal snootiness. {edit: There's even some of that liberal moralistic huffiness about the term "blacks" instead of the hyphenated divisive "African-Americans," despite the fact that it was a term chosen by black militants themselves.}And now how about an acknowledgment of your error in Message 44.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

There was nothing vague about my response. See Message 48 and Message 50. You misread my answer.I defined the white race as European and I gave the boundaries of the area of their origin. I regard that area as definitive. But as usual you are merely changing the subject because what I think the white race is happens to be TOTALLY irrelevant. The topic is that strain of leftism that identifies the white race as the cancer of history and you need to ask THEM, not me.And no, there is no excuse for the bullying tyrannical moralistic self-righteous tactics of PC, otherwise known as the Thought Police or Big Brother.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I do not want to discuss genetics. This is just irrelevant pedantry. Ask the leftists if they include Egyptians in the denunciation of the white race as the greatest evil on the planet and I would venture the guess that they don't. That is all that matters here.

Sorry but historically AND SPECIFICALLY WITH REFERENCE TO THE TOPIC UNDER DISCUSSION it is defined as European and I don't give a damn about the kind of "facts" you all make such a nitpicking big pedantic deal out of in your crabbed pinched and myopic manner here at EvC. On a COFFEE HOUSE thread about a PHILOSOPHICAL topic for crying out loud. Get real.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Thank you for the totally gratuitous personal attack. In future I will try even harder to avoid you.