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What does judging someone mean? ('thou shall not judge')

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limitgov Posted: Wed, Mar 6 2013 2:34 PM

google defines judge as: to form an opinion about

 

Does this mean, we are not to form opinions about people?  Do not judge others?  We are not to even have an opinion or draw a conclusion about the actions of others?  That seems almost impossible to do.  Am I thinking about this the right way?

 

So, if someone steals soemthing from someone else.  We should not form an opinion about them?  So, if I say he is a thief, that is not an opinion, though, correct?  So, that is not judging him?

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By expressing your opinion about this, you are engaing in a performative contradiction. Hoppe hates you.

The Voluntaryist Reader - read, comment, post your own.
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lol nice one

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Blargg replied on Wed, Mar 6 2013 10:45 PM

I believe the bible verse is differentiating between characterizing how you feel about something someone has done and how it affects you personally, and acting as if you know the totality of that person's circumstances and why they did something. If you do the latter and assert something about their being, you're playing judge, which in the bible is only rightly done by God.

If you're interested in justification for refraining from judging, take a look at Non-Violent Commuication, which characterizes all moral evaluations of people as tragic expressions of one's own unmet needs. Coming at it from a question of whether it can benefit me, I've gotten good value from refraining from judgment where possible.
 

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"I believe the bible verse is differentiating between characterizing how you feel about something someone has done and how it affects you personally, and acting as if you know the totality of that person's circumstances and why they did something. If you do the latter and assert something about their being, you're playing judge, which in the bible is only rightly done by God.

If you're interested in justification for refraining from judging, take a look at Non-Violent Commuication, which characterizes all moral evaluations of people as tragic expressions of one's own unmet needs. Coming at it from a question of whether it can benefit me, I've gotten good value from refraining from judgment where possible."

 

Nicely said.  I am trying to be more aware of my actions and thoughts.

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Do not judge so that you will not be judged. 7:2 For by the standard you judge you will be judgedand the measure you use will be the measure you receive. 7:3 Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eyebut fail to see the beam of wood in your own? 7:4 Or how can you say to your brother‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ while there is a beam in your own? 7:5 You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eyeand then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Reading it in context, it seems pretty clear that the point isn't that people shouldn't assess other people's behavior. The point is that if we are unmerciful, we won't receive mercy either. Often those quick to condemn have foibles of their own, but they are blind to them. Ideally, after some introspection, they'd notice their own faults and address them. Then, after "judging" sin in someone else's life, they could lovingly help them remove it.

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Clayton replied on Thu, Mar 7 2013 12:03 PM

+1 wakefield4011

Clayton -

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+2 wakefield4011

At last someone who can exegete a passage.

The atoms tell the atoms so, for I never was or will but atoms forevermore be.

Yours sincerely,

Physiocrat

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