Posted by jonvon on September 20, 2002 at 13:38:40:
In Reply to: touchy subject but it has to be talked about regardless... posted by Mister Metal on September 20, 2002 at 09:05:51:
since you have asked a somewhat generic question i'm going to respond with a generic answer. i have no idea what you are talking about and i really really (i mean it) don't want to know.
i've noticed that the younger a person is, the more likely that person is to throw stones, so to speak. its harder the younger you are to know what taking the plank in your own eye vs picking the spec out of someone else's is about. a younger person is more likely to judge another person harshly, in other words. i say this from experience. life tends to just beat a lot of that out of you via experiences that are painful.
remember the story about how they brought the woman to jesus who had been caught *in the act* of adultery? and he said, let him who is without sin cast the first stone. and then they all dropped their stones and walked away. but its interesting, it says, starting with the oldest, they dropped their stones and walked away. older people who have garnered some wisdom along the way will (i should hope) be less likely to throw that stone, especially if they are confronted with the fact that they are pretty screwed up themselves.
you've got youth and the exuberance and the zeal that comes with it working for you to get you started in life, to get you focused, to move you forward. you need it cause you have some powerful biological urges to wrestle around with and you have a lot in general to do. there's a lot of stuff to figure out and it isn't easy. a lot of stuff including what is sin and what isn't and how am i going to live and all that. a lot of stuff like what you are going to do vocationally and all that too. but its real easy to turn all the zeal toward someone else who you think is missing the boat.
when we are young we are grasping for truth (a lot of us anyway) and we're trying to form all kinds of things that we can rely on later. foundational stuff. like who am i? what am i? who and what is god? what is truth? what is the collection of ideas that is truth? what is the truth that cannot be uttered? what is consciousness? what is right and wrong? what is transcendence?
man, i'm still figuring out a lot of that stuff. i have a lot of questions and they constantly lead me to deeper questions.
i'll tell you what i think about all this morality stuff, and judging other people, and the attempts we make to "fix" other people or lead them away from bad stuff. a lot of people on this board might not agree with me, and you might be one of them, and that is ok.
1. right and wrong are important. but they are only important in the context of real love. real love, divine love, agape love INFORMS right and wrong. if we are moved by compassion to tell someone they are wrong, then we are moved by the right thing. outside of that, you are really just trying to (by extension) fix yourself.
2. as a practical matter i try to not get in other people's business. except when moved by compassion. i do not try to ask compassion what it wants me to do. if i go there i'm just manipulating myself and attempting to manipulate that higher information (the voice of love) which has its source in god. i try to be completely silent about all things all the time when it comes to other people and the business they are about. if compassion happens to inform me that i need to DO something or say something, then i try to think about the way to go about it that would be the most wise. and the most non-confrontational. it is that kindness leads us to repentance.
as a general note i want to say that kindness is in some senses so foreign to us that no one knows what it is. we want to do the stuff that everyone sort of agrees is good to do, like pray for people when they need help. or give someone who is down and out something like a blanket or some food. and so forth. but everyday kindness, the kind that helps us to treat one another in a way that shows a fundamental respect, this kindness we are largely ignorant of, in general. what i mean to say is that this problem is endemic in christian culture. the fact that in our group we seem to for the most part stay out of one another's way and refrain from most of this crap is the main reason i have stuck it out so long here. steve in particular has consistently shown me an amazing amount of respect over the years. other than my wife i think he is the truest friend i have. he's definitely in the top 5 for sure.
well, i could say more, but anyway i think you have a general sense of my overall philosophy or at least my basic strategy concering these matters.