“Wait….what? How is merciful judging = fuck you? I’m confused.”
Lol… I was drinking, don’t even remember making that post. (Quitting alcohol and pot for awhile.)
But, what I meant is that people say that they are Christian, but then they cruelly judge others and essentially say “fuck off”, or “go to hell” and such… the disposition that there is a really terrible fiery pit of hell and they do not care if the other person goes there. And is tortured forever. Or, at least, that is what they think might happen.
So, for instance, they don’t think gays or lesbians can go to Heaven. But, they can. In fact, Heaven is not even about one’s sexuality.
One church I went to believed only their group was saved. And they also believed that not being saved meant your body becoming immortal and then thrown into a fiery pit forever and ever. And they are okay with that.
Wait, a lot of churches are that way, you know…
And those sorts are false. Because invariably that means they are judging everyone else with absolutely no regard for mercy.
Why are they false? Because judging others mercifully is a central tenet of Christ. His life was a message for that its’ self. The people he came to did not recognize him and murdered him. They judged him mercilessly using a terrible standard.
Oh, hey, mamajoy… my IP address is getting banned by the site’s filter. Now I can do PMs or reply, but to post I have to get on another system. For this forum, I usually use the system with the banned address.
I suppose this is automated and because I DARED use cuss words.
Never tasteful perhaps, but they still seem to have some manner of uses… and no one here is under the age of ten.
I think we can *observe* and try to say that a certain line of thought or worss or behavior is counterproductive but, at least according to the bible, which is the standard you seem to be looking for, ours is not to judge.
Everyone judges everyone… you can not not make a judgment on anything you perceive.
Judging is perception.
For instance, you have an arby’s roast beef and chedder sandwich in front of you, say. You have never tried it before. Some might judge it as an ugly sandwich and go, “Eew”, and not even eat it. Others have to give it a bite. Some might find the taste incredibly delicious. And so… good. And some may find the taste absolutely terrible. And so… bad.
Now, replace arby’s sandwich with other human beings.
…
Now, can it not be so that we really and truly do “not judge”? Judging mercifully and not judging at all is one and the same thing. Usually.
Yes, a judgment is made and that is you do not know everything.
You do not know what it is like to be that other person.
“I think we can *observe* and try to say that a certain line of thought or worss or behavior is counterproductive but, at least according to the bible, which is the standard you seem to be looking for, ours is not to judge.”
Second response to this one…
Again, from an entirely different angle, and so requiring a second response.
Right, ours is not to judge … though at the same time Christians will judge even the dead.
As you know, one young man got with his father’s girlfriend and became an item in a church. Paul learned of this and asked why they did not judge him. Saying, ‘even pagans do not do this’.
Why was that bad. What even is bad?
(Girlfriend, wife, whatever. I am sure it was not his mother. Maybe stepmother.)
The mindset is to maintain credibility. Say an unbeliever is really impressed by how awesome their coworker is. Their coworker says that they are so full of joy and everything because of this belief system. So, the coworker takes the unbeliever to the church and is introduced to a young man and his wife. And he learns that the sons wife used to be his stepmom.
Well, he would think “anything goes” then, as taking your stepmom as a wife is absolutely atrocious.
If that goes on, then what else goes on? Maybe if he digs a little deeper he might find another parishioner is a sadist serial sex killer.
Put another way: You taste an incredible sandwich at work. Just shock and awe, it is so delicious. Well, you ask where the sandwich came from. Then, when you go to the sandwich shop you discover cockroaches are running all over the place. Your restaurant (church) will not have a new customer. Definitely not one who would eat there everyday.
So, a good restaurant owner would see the cockroaches and immediately take steps to get rid of them for good with complete assurance.
A bad restaurant owner would not.
We are the restaurant owner. That is, replace “restaurant owner” with self.
We have to make judgments if we want to have customers. And we want to have customers because that is the whole reason for opening the restaurant — to get customers.
Do we sit around and dawdle, imagine the restaurant workers seeing cockroaches scurrying about and just go, “I don’t care, I don’t see them”. Nobody does anything. They should, but they do not. Because they do not care about the restaurant at all. It is just a job. They are not paid to be exterminators. They do not even know how.
….
Anyway, and that is some crazy stuff :-), but I judge mercifully, or try to. Not always. Sometimes folks who do not use their blinkers when changing lanes really makes me upset. For instance.
Should they use blinkers? Yes, of course they should, or they could cause an accident, which can be fatal and everyone knows that.
After a brief, “grr”, I then go “who knows what their deal was”. I am well aware that they may not use it because they have a good reason. Hopefully it is not that they think I will not let them over. By not using their blinker they can sneak over and then not even have to rely on me!
Maybe they had a bad day… maybe their blinker just broke and they are going to the shop to repair it… and so on.
But, the initial reaction and judgment was so strong! So angry. What was it? Adrenaline. Fight or flight kicking in. Because these annoyances, like not using a blinker to change lanes, or tailgating, can mean your life is in jeopardy.
And you physically react with a big dose of ‘fight or flight’ energy. Your attention becomes intense under adrenaline, so you can avoid danger.
…
I think, that, in regards to mercy in judging and Christians… there are very many Christians who do very cruelly judge others. They do not usually do anything truly terrible to them. But, in their heart, they are fine with letting them go to a place of eternal torment.
They really believe that and it is really true…. for them.
It festers in their heart. A misreading of the bible. They see what they want to see, their preferences. And so, they are clouded eyes, seeing the great masses going to eternal torment. When they contemplate on these matters, they might as well be doing it themselves. And a lot of them really do have these fantasies of their enemies being tortured in a hell forever and ever. It makes them feel good.
So, as it is in the heart, so in deed.
As Jesus said about adultery. Why did Jesus use sex for that? Because sexuality is a major part of who we are right now. So, our computers (bodies, temporary) are programmed to provide very strong imaginings of sex.
But sex is not the only thing people think about and feel pleasure by doing so. Just the most vivid.
Now, in my timeline, I already finished responding to your post about Person A who is a paraplegic and can do no good deeds because of that. You maybe have not read my response there yet. Or maybe you have.
But, that is a great example.
Let’s call this Person A.
Person A judges Person B harshly. Countless ways they could do it. Ever seen Seinfeld? He would judge people (girlfriends usually) on the stupidest and most minor of criteria. Just going, “Okay, thanks, bye, you might as well go to hell”.
Because that is what you do when you eject someone from your life.
If they get sick, you are not going to visit them. If they get fired from their job and need money simply to stay alive, you won’t be there for them. When they have a baby, you do not care, even if you made the baby with them. Let them raise the baby with all the hassle.
And that is judging harshly. Without mercy.
Does any of this mean there is never a place for the fire? There is a place for fire, still, in this world. Fire burns, removing things.
Today, the world is full of “someone else”. Clearly. But, tomorrow, that someone else will be burned away and only Christ will remain.
In the regards to the dichotomy of self and Christ Paul spoke of…
By effectively dividing between “judging” and “discerning”.
To judge, is to look for personal [punishable] fault. It looks for “bad people” (and often as a selfish process of looking to reinforce ourselves as “good” [or at least “better”] people than them).
To discern is to look for “bad process” — and then to invite a good process of recognition and willing change. It is altruistic.
And even when bad process has gone so far as righteous judgement against a person is warranted, mercy is manifest in remembering the sheer number of times I was granted mercy when I had gone too far in a bad process.
Can we ever properly discern? Truly? We can’t ever know the full extent of the situation. Even, I, who have asked pertinent questions about a situation by asking multiple people who know what’s going on (and what has gone on), in order to try to piece together something of what has happened, can never really and truly know everything, because they probably don’t know the whole story either!
The child who never tries to walk, will never walk let alone run.
We should not let the fact that something may be difficult, be the excuse for not persisting. The most valuable triumphs in life are invariably those we had to work the hardest at.
Trying to figure it out is much more headache than what it’s worth! And doing so more often than not messes with my head. So to me it seems better and less problems to let others live their lives so long as it doesn’t affect me.
Messes with my head = the need for counseling. If I had followed the world’s advice I wouldn’t be so messed up, because I wouldn’t have allowed my brother back into my life. Many other people would have simply turned their backs on him and say ‘don’t contact me PERIOD, you’re not my brother.’ Yet I could not. If I had, he wouldn’t be back home to stress my mom out to the point that she had to be rushed to the hospital for high blood pressure due to the fact that my brother and his friend were arguing outside her window in the middle of the night.
“Can we ever properly discern? Truly? We can’t ever know the full extent of the situation. Even, I, who have asked pertinent questions about a situation by asking multiple people who know what’s going on (and what has gone on), in order to try to piece together something of what has happened, can never really and truly know everything, because they probably don’t know the whole story either!”
Yeah, and again, as you always do, a good point. (Granted, normally I see your anti-Christian statements as merely as devil’s advocate position and not really “you”, but that is invaluable to me because it helps me work through difficult matters.)
I do not like “like” and “dislike” voting systems on forums, because here, for instance, I might “like” everyone’s post anywhere everywhere.
But, yes, we are *finite beings*, and very finite at that. Tiny in the scope of the universe.
On the ground, we can not see much. But, from the sky, eagle’s eye viewpoint, we can see it all. However, we will never be there, perhaps, as we human beings, sadly, were born without angel wings. :-)
You have the spirit and are a Christian, which means you have a soft, living heart. Not a stone one such as unbelievers have.
So, you judge mercifully.
I just replied to Jear77 that not judging and mercifully judging is one and the same thing. And there are many times where I do not judge.
What do I say to myself when I do not judge? “Well, he probably has had a terrible life, or maybe brain damage, or whatever, I do not know”.
In my day job, it is security. Homicide detectives are also security. Because they are cops and cops are for security of the people. So, in this culture, we have all seen many homicide detectives in many situations where they do not judge… say they have twelve people who had connections with the murdered victim…
Appearances could have the homicide detective judge the wife right off the bat. Usually murders are performed by the spouse or former lover. But, they have to suspend their judgment until they gather more evidence.
Bad homicide detectives go out, find some mentally unstable person, who has no connections to anyone, and judge them as the guilty party.
No evidence following at all. No professionalism.
Most importantly, no empathy. A bad detective does not care if an innocent person gets the electric chair, while the guilty person goes free.
A Christ like detective does care, because they have connections with other people at the heart level and can not fathom performing such an atrocity.
Judging a person unto condemnation he is not our job.
Discerning a path that is leading there, or judging a person’s actions as leading to folly is just a good exercise of compassion and concern for others.
Provided we voice it with mercy and concern for the other. And within our arena of personal authority with them. ( ask if you’re not sure what this means).
But the moment we use this to try to service or further our selves, we sin against them and God; and invite similar unjust judgment upon ourselves. Selfishness enters the room and mercy leaves.
“Judging a person unto condemnation he is not our job.”
“Provided we voice it with mercy and concern for the other. And within our arena of personal authority with them. ( ask if you’re not sure what this means).”
I work in security, so yes, I understand.
I have my own domain. I have to be extremely accurate before I pull the proverbial trigger.
If I receive a word and do not have the utmost confidence, then it is useless to me. If I have a word and do not have the utmost confidence in it, then it is useless to me.
Nothing happens.
Being confident at that level means that I have to be extremely mindful of all my judgments of confidence on everything I possibly can.
This is why I study and research. This is why I work on cleansing the doors of perception.
So that when I need to, I can call in confidence, and in confidence have a response.
Whatever that may be.
Because I was trained in ‘how to learn’, I can master any subject, but that takes a lot of time and a lot of heart. So, I have limitations in what I have been able to truly master.
The Bible speaks of those dying before 100 as being regarded, in the future, as mere infants. I certainly can not argue that I know anything as yet as I should.
I identify a lot with the apostle Paul. I know I am fully capable of atrocities and have even committed a few myself.
But that is in my past and I know what merciful judgement looks like. I know how greatly I benefited from it.
And now I wish others to benefit greatly from it as well.
Perhaps only a person who understands the depravity of their own soul, so can judge mercifully?
A soul bent on proving its own self-righteousness can only judge self-righteously.
( this is why it is said in judging others we judge ourselves)
“I identify a lot with the apostle Paul. I know I am fully capable of atrocities and have even committed a few myself.”
“Perhaps only a person who understands the depravity of their own soul, so can judge mercifully?”
I am a lifer, born and bred. I used to say, quoting the Blues Brothers, when we got in my car, “We are on a mission from God”.
I did not know my buddy, my buddies, were angels at the time. Consciously.
I would like to be congenial and say I was joking, but I was not.
That was when I was fifteen, maybe sixteen. After I got my own apartment and moved out for good.
I did not even have the language to process anything then. I did not read the BIble. I had read some, but not much. I went to Sunday school for some years, in the seventies. My kindergarten was at a church. My high school, was fly by night, moved around a lot, but a lot of the time, it too, was at a church.
I had a lot of serious miracles and knew I was a serious guy, that is, very, very unusual in capability, but I did not know the details. So, my conscious had no language to process these things.
I was entirely off the radar until my late twenties. Then, I decided I better do a real job, and quickly used my skills and knowledge in learning, psychology, communication, and so on to rise to the top in hacking.
I was not ever surprised to find success, or to find a lot of profound coincidences. And in security, we know probabilities.
First, I was brought through a very, very dark intelligence thing. Human, or so it seemed. I did not have the language to process angels doing this sort of thing. My friends were beyond human, I knew in my heart, but they also had their weaknesses. I had no idea those very weaknesses were cover. I did not understand what cover was.
When that layer started to get pulled back, it was absolutely horrifying.
I found myself as both the good and the bad in the apocalyptic statements of Jesus in the gospels. I learned and felt true hellfire. Something I had already tasted here and there when I was much younger.
I was really pure, kind, very merciful as a teenager. But, as the curtain lifted, the war came into my heart, and I discovered immense struggles and feelings.
As one angel pointed out, I was nervous about the smallest mistake like a boy in love with a girl. Truly in love. The most minor of infraction was immense.
I saw and heard a lot of truly terrible things. I have seen and heard many amazing things.
My own wife of about twenty years watched Legion (Marvel’s) and immediately had to turn it off, saying it was like looking into my mind. She is right.
Shame is like fire. In these things, it would become so incredibly intense, it was far beyond what a human being could handle. And it was soul fire. Not flesh fire. So it hits at everything, at who you are. Your being, your consciousness.
Ultimately, these things are unspeakable. Indeed, the definition of unspeakable.
I saw and walked through enormous doom. Absolute certainity.
But, then, God brought me through the fire.
So, when the war was over and the fires of hell relented, the birds sang, and it was Spring. A new day. I had survived a death far worse then what anyone I had ever read about.
It felt like my soul was burned into pieces.
Time by time, moment by moment. Until, it was gone.
Merciful judging of others? I leave it up to the people who want to either punish or tolerate their behavior. As long as it doesn’t effect my own life, I let them hash it out with society. Who am I to judge? However, in my personal little bubble, if someone is calling me names and constantly bitching at me, that person is shut out of my world. If it is family, I stop calling. I may not answer the phone when the offending person calls. This has saved me from having to listen to two-hour monologues from a cousin that wants to praise Hillary and try to make me feel shame for supporting the man I voted for. I feel that giving her two hours of my time for her to rant, is just two hours wasted. I don’t care to hear her rantings. If she doesn’t like the President voted for by all the “red” states, she can go to another country and live. I don’t need to be called vile names in my little world. As for other people? The same rule applies. I don’t care what you do. Society will deal with you if you are getting out of hand. I will pop some popcorn and sit back and watch the circus of your lives. I don’t have to join in. I don’t need to control others, or to judge.
On social media, if I am being harassed by name-calling and someone trying to control my opinions and constantly argue with me ——- there is a blocking button and I push it.
I’m an expert on judging because it is by far my worst characteristic. It took me a while to connect what it actually is. It’s a mirror.
To mercifully judge, one option is to look at a situation, apply the awareness to self and then connect to personal behaviours, of which, you may be oblivious. Kinda amazes me how quite often I can see a connection.
I’ll give you a relevant example. Currently an athlete is being chastised for throwing a homophobic slur at another athlete. Easy to judge and say he is an idiot. I think a merciful judgement would be to use the incident to examine ourselves and use it as an example of how we consciously don’t want to behave.
The words themselves in many cases have little relevance. It is the spirit of the delivery that we should pay attention to and there is no one who hasn’t allowed passion to influence their delivery when anger or frustration rules.
Merciful and judging don’t belong in the same sentence. Judging by definition is not merciful. It is an opinion formed mostly without facts or knowledge of the person or situation.
23 responses to “Merciful Judging of Others?”
Wait….what? How is merciful judging = fuck you? I’m confused.
“Wait….what? How is merciful judging = fuck you? I’m confused.”
Lol… I was drinking, don’t even remember making that post. (Quitting alcohol and pot for awhile.)
But, what I meant is that people say that they are Christian, but then they cruelly judge others and essentially say “fuck off”, or “go to hell” and such… the disposition that there is a really terrible fiery pit of hell and they do not care if the other person goes there. And is tortured forever. Or, at least, that is what they think might happen.
So, for instance, they don’t think gays or lesbians can go to Heaven. But, they can. In fact, Heaven is not even about one’s sexuality.
One church I went to believed only their group was saved. And they also believed that not being saved meant your body becoming immortal and then thrown into a fiery pit forever and ever. And they are okay with that.
Wait, a lot of churches are that way, you know…
And those sorts are false. Because invariably that means they are judging everyone else with absolutely no regard for mercy.
Why are they false? Because judging others mercifully is a central tenet of Christ. His life was a message for that its’ self. The people he came to did not recognize him and murdered him. They judged him mercilessly using a terrible standard.
Oh, hey, mamajoy… my IP address is getting banned by the site’s filter. Now I can do PMs or reply, but to post I have to get on another system. For this forum, I usually use the system with the banned address.
I suppose this is automated and because I DARED use cuss words.
Never tasteful perhaps, but they still seem to have some manner of uses… and no one here is under the age of ten.
I think we can *observe* and try to say that a certain line of thought or worss or behavior is counterproductive but, at least according to the bible, which is the standard you seem to be looking for, ours is not to judge.
Everyone judges everyone… you can not not make a judgment on anything you perceive.
Judging is perception.
For instance, you have an arby’s roast beef and chedder sandwich in front of you, say. You have never tried it before. Some might judge it as an ugly sandwich and go, “Eew”, and not even eat it. Others have to give it a bite. Some might find the taste incredibly delicious. And so… good. And some may find the taste absolutely terrible. And so… bad.
Now, replace arby’s sandwich with other human beings.
…
Now, can it not be so that we really and truly do “not judge”? Judging mercifully and not judging at all is one and the same thing. Usually.
Yes, a judgment is made and that is you do not know everything.
You do not know what it is like to be that other person.
“I think we can *observe* and try to say that a certain line of thought or worss or behavior is counterproductive but, at least according to the bible, which is the standard you seem to be looking for, ours is not to judge.”
Second response to this one…
Again, from an entirely different angle, and so requiring a second response.
Right, ours is not to judge … though at the same time Christians will judge even the dead.
As you know, one young man got with his father’s girlfriend and became an item in a church. Paul learned of this and asked why they did not judge him. Saying, ‘even pagans do not do this’.
Why was that bad. What even is bad?
(Girlfriend, wife, whatever. I am sure it was not his mother. Maybe stepmother.)
The mindset is to maintain credibility. Say an unbeliever is really impressed by how awesome their coworker is. Their coworker says that they are so full of joy and everything because of this belief system. So, the coworker takes the unbeliever to the church and is introduced to a young man and his wife. And he learns that the sons wife used to be his stepmom.
Well, he would think “anything goes” then, as taking your stepmom as a wife is absolutely atrocious.
If that goes on, then what else goes on? Maybe if he digs a little deeper he might find another parishioner is a sadist serial sex killer.
Put another way: You taste an incredible sandwich at work. Just shock and awe, it is so delicious. Well, you ask where the sandwich came from. Then, when you go to the sandwich shop you discover cockroaches are running all over the place. Your restaurant (church) will not have a new customer. Definitely not one who would eat there everyday.
So, a good restaurant owner would see the cockroaches and immediately take steps to get rid of them for good with complete assurance.
A bad restaurant owner would not.
We are the restaurant owner. That is, replace “restaurant owner” with self.
We have to make judgments if we want to have customers. And we want to have customers because that is the whole reason for opening the restaurant — to get customers.
Do we sit around and dawdle, imagine the restaurant workers seeing cockroaches scurrying about and just go, “I don’t care, I don’t see them”. Nobody does anything. They should, but they do not. Because they do not care about the restaurant at all. It is just a job. They are not paid to be exterminators. They do not even know how.
….
Anyway, and that is some crazy stuff :-), but I judge mercifully, or try to. Not always. Sometimes folks who do not use their blinkers when changing lanes really makes me upset. For instance.
Should they use blinkers? Yes, of course they should, or they could cause an accident, which can be fatal and everyone knows that.
After a brief, “grr”, I then go “who knows what their deal was”. I am well aware that they may not use it because they have a good reason. Hopefully it is not that they think I will not let them over. By not using their blinker they can sneak over and then not even have to rely on me!
Maybe they had a bad day… maybe their blinker just broke and they are going to the shop to repair it… and so on.
But, the initial reaction and judgment was so strong! So angry. What was it? Adrenaline. Fight or flight kicking in. Because these annoyances, like not using a blinker to change lanes, or tailgating, can mean your life is in jeopardy.
And you physically react with a big dose of ‘fight or flight’ energy. Your attention becomes intense under adrenaline, so you can avoid danger.
…
I think, that, in regards to mercy in judging and Christians… there are very many Christians who do very cruelly judge others. They do not usually do anything truly terrible to them. But, in their heart, they are fine with letting them go to a place of eternal torment.
They really believe that and it is really true…. for them.
It festers in their heart. A misreading of the bible. They see what they want to see, their preferences. And so, they are clouded eyes, seeing the great masses going to eternal torment. When they contemplate on these matters, they might as well be doing it themselves. And a lot of them really do have these fantasies of their enemies being tortured in a hell forever and ever. It makes them feel good.
So, as it is in the heart, so in deed.
As Jesus said about adultery. Why did Jesus use sex for that? Because sexuality is a major part of who we are right now. So, our computers (bodies, temporary) are programmed to provide very strong imaginings of sex.
But sex is not the only thing people think about and feel pleasure by doing so. Just the most vivid.
Now, in my timeline, I already finished responding to your post about Person A who is a paraplegic and can do no good deeds because of that. You maybe have not read my response there yet. Or maybe you have.
But, that is a great example.
Let’s call this Person A.
Person A judges Person B harshly. Countless ways they could do it. Ever seen Seinfeld? He would judge people (girlfriends usually) on the stupidest and most minor of criteria. Just going, “Okay, thanks, bye, you might as well go to hell”.
Because that is what you do when you eject someone from your life.
If they get sick, you are not going to visit them. If they get fired from their job and need money simply to stay alive, you won’t be there for them. When they have a baby, you do not care, even if you made the baby with them. Let them raise the baby with all the hassle.
And that is judging harshly. Without mercy.
Does any of this mean there is never a place for the fire? There is a place for fire, still, in this world. Fire burns, removing things.
Today, the world is full of “someone else”. Clearly. But, tomorrow, that someone else will be burned away and only Christ will remain.
In the regards to the dichotomy of self and Christ Paul spoke of…
Anyway *I* think it is cool stuff. :-)
By effectively dividing between “judging” and “discerning”.
To judge, is to look for personal [punishable] fault. It looks for “bad people” (and often as a selfish process of looking to reinforce ourselves as “good” [or at least “better”] people than them).
To discern is to look for “bad process” — and then to invite a good process of recognition and willing change. It is altruistic.
And even when bad process has gone so far as righteous judgement against a person is warranted, mercy is manifest in remembering the sheer number of times I was granted mercy when I had gone too far in a bad process.
Can we ever properly discern? Truly? We can’t ever know the full extent of the situation. Even, I, who have asked pertinent questions about a situation by asking multiple people who know what’s going on (and what has gone on), in order to try to piece together something of what has happened, can never really and truly know everything, because they probably don’t know the whole story either!
The child who never tries to walk, will never walk let alone run.
We should not let the fact that something may be difficult, be the excuse for not persisting. The most valuable triumphs in life are invariably those we had to work the hardest at.
Trying to figure it out is much more headache than what it’s worth! And doing so more often than not messes with my head. So to me it seems better and less problems to let others live their lives so long as it doesn’t affect me.
Exercise often messes with my muscles.
But they become stronger over time.
Less exercise can seem like a better (easier) solution at the time. But over time it works against us.
Messes with my head = the need for counseling. If I had followed the world’s advice I wouldn’t be so messed up, because I wouldn’t have allowed my brother back into my life. Many other people would have simply turned their backs on him and say ‘don’t contact me PERIOD, you’re not my brother.’ Yet I could not. If I had, he wouldn’t be back home to stress my mom out to the point that she had to be rushed to the hospital for high blood pressure due to the fact that my brother and his friend were arguing outside her window in the middle of the night.
“Can we ever properly discern? Truly? We can’t ever know the full extent of the situation. Even, I, who have asked pertinent questions about a situation by asking multiple people who know what’s going on (and what has gone on), in order to try to piece together something of what has happened, can never really and truly know everything, because they probably don’t know the whole story either!”
Yeah, and again, as you always do, a good point. (Granted, normally I see your anti-Christian statements as merely as devil’s advocate position and not really “you”, but that is invaluable to me because it helps me work through difficult matters.)
I do not like “like” and “dislike” voting systems on forums, because here, for instance, I might “like” everyone’s post anywhere everywhere.
But, yes, we are *finite beings*, and very finite at that. Tiny in the scope of the universe.
On the ground, we can not see much. But, from the sky, eagle’s eye viewpoint, we can see it all. However, we will never be there, perhaps, as we human beings, sadly, were born without angel wings. :-)
…
Griz… lol… :-)
You have the spirit and are a Christian, which means you have a soft, living heart. Not a stone one such as unbelievers have.
So, you judge mercifully.
I just replied to Jear77 that not judging and mercifully judging is one and the same thing. And there are many times where I do not judge.
What do I say to myself when I do not judge? “Well, he probably has had a terrible life, or maybe brain damage, or whatever, I do not know”.
In my day job, it is security. Homicide detectives are also security. Because they are cops and cops are for security of the people. So, in this culture, we have all seen many homicide detectives in many situations where they do not judge… say they have twelve people who had connections with the murdered victim…
Appearances could have the homicide detective judge the wife right off the bat. Usually murders are performed by the spouse or former lover. But, they have to suspend their judgment until they gather more evidence.
Bad homicide detectives go out, find some mentally unstable person, who has no connections to anyone, and judge them as the guilty party.
No evidence following at all. No professionalism.
Most importantly, no empathy. A bad detective does not care if an innocent person gets the electric chair, while the guilty person goes free.
A Christ like detective does care, because they have connections with other people at the heart level and can not fathom performing such an atrocity.
Judging a person unto condemnation he is not our job.
Discerning a path that is leading there, or judging a person’s actions as leading to folly is just a good exercise of compassion and concern for others.
Provided we voice it with mercy and concern for the other. And within our arena of personal authority with them. ( ask if you’re not sure what this means).
But the moment we use this to try to service or further our selves, we sin against them and God; and invite similar unjust judgment upon ourselves. Selfishness enters the room and mercy leaves.
“Judging a person unto condemnation he is not our job.”
“Provided we voice it with mercy and concern for the other. And within our arena of personal authority with them. ( ask if you’re not sure what this means).”
I work in security, so yes, I understand.
I have my own domain. I have to be extremely accurate before I pull the proverbial trigger.
If I receive a word and do not have the utmost confidence, then it is useless to me. If I have a word and do not have the utmost confidence in it, then it is useless to me.
Nothing happens.
Being confident at that level means that I have to be extremely mindful of all my judgments of confidence on everything I possibly can.
This is why I study and research. This is why I work on cleansing the doors of perception.
So that when I need to, I can call in confidence, and in confidence have a response.
Whatever that may be.
Because I was trained in ‘how to learn’, I can master any subject, but that takes a lot of time and a lot of heart. So, I have limitations in what I have been able to truly master.
The Bible speaks of those dying before 100 as being regarded, in the future, as mere infants. I certainly can not argue that I know anything as yet as I should.
“In quietness and confidence is your strength; in returning and resting is your salvation”
(paraphrased from Isaiah 30:15, one of my favorite verses)
Yes, this is one of my favorite verses, one which I rely on considerably.
I identify a lot with the apostle Paul. I know I am fully capable of atrocities and have even committed a few myself.
But that is in my past and I know what merciful judgement looks like. I know how greatly I benefited from it.
And now I wish others to benefit greatly from it as well.
Perhaps only a person who understands the depravity of their own soul, so can judge mercifully?
A soul bent on proving its own self-righteousness can only judge self-righteously.
( this is why it is said in judging others we judge ourselves)
“I identify a lot with the apostle Paul. I know I am fully capable of atrocities and have even committed a few myself.”
“Perhaps only a person who understands the depravity of their own soul, so can judge mercifully?”
I am a lifer, born and bred. I used to say, quoting the Blues Brothers, when we got in my car, “We are on a mission from God”.
I did not know my buddy, my buddies, were angels at the time. Consciously.
I would like to be congenial and say I was joking, but I was not.
That was when I was fifteen, maybe sixteen. After I got my own apartment and moved out for good.
I did not even have the language to process anything then. I did not read the BIble. I had read some, but not much. I went to Sunday school for some years, in the seventies. My kindergarten was at a church. My high school, was fly by night, moved around a lot, but a lot of the time, it too, was at a church.
I had a lot of serious miracles and knew I was a serious guy, that is, very, very unusual in capability, but I did not know the details. So, my conscious had no language to process these things.
I was entirely off the radar until my late twenties. Then, I decided I better do a real job, and quickly used my skills and knowledge in learning, psychology, communication, and so on to rise to the top in hacking.
I was not ever surprised to find success, or to find a lot of profound coincidences. And in security, we know probabilities.
First, I was brought through a very, very dark intelligence thing. Human, or so it seemed. I did not have the language to process angels doing this sort of thing. My friends were beyond human, I knew in my heart, but they also had their weaknesses. I had no idea those very weaknesses were cover. I did not understand what cover was.
When that layer started to get pulled back, it was absolutely horrifying.
I found myself as both the good and the bad in the apocalyptic statements of Jesus in the gospels. I learned and felt true hellfire. Something I had already tasted here and there when I was much younger.
I was really pure, kind, very merciful as a teenager. But, as the curtain lifted, the war came into my heart, and I discovered immense struggles and feelings.
As one angel pointed out, I was nervous about the smallest mistake like a boy in love with a girl. Truly in love. The most minor of infraction was immense.
I saw and heard a lot of truly terrible things. I have seen and heard many amazing things.
My own wife of about twenty years watched Legion (Marvel’s) and immediately had to turn it off, saying it was like looking into my mind. She is right.
Shame is like fire. In these things, it would become so incredibly intense, it was far beyond what a human being could handle. And it was soul fire. Not flesh fire. So it hits at everything, at who you are. Your being, your consciousness.
Ultimately, these things are unspeakable. Indeed, the definition of unspeakable.
I saw and walked through enormous doom. Absolute certainity.
But, then, God brought me through the fire.
So, when the war was over and the fires of hell relented, the birds sang, and it was Spring. A new day. I had survived a death far worse then what anyone I had ever read about.
It felt like my soul was burned into pieces.
Time by time, moment by moment. Until, it was gone.
The second death.
Merciful judging of others? I leave it up to the people who want to either punish or tolerate their behavior. As long as it doesn’t effect my own life, I let them hash it out with society. Who am I to judge? However, in my personal little bubble, if someone is calling me names and constantly bitching at me, that person is shut out of my world. If it is family, I stop calling. I may not answer the phone when the offending person calls. This has saved me from having to listen to two-hour monologues from a cousin that wants to praise Hillary and try to make me feel shame for supporting the man I voted for. I feel that giving her two hours of my time for her to rant, is just two hours wasted. I don’t care to hear her rantings. If she doesn’t like the President voted for by all the “red” states, she can go to another country and live. I don’t need to be called vile names in my little world. As for other people? The same rule applies. I don’t care what you do. Society will deal with you if you are getting out of hand. I will pop some popcorn and sit back and watch the circus of your lives. I don’t have to join in. I don’t need to control others, or to judge.
On social media, if I am being harassed by name-calling and someone trying to control my opinions and constantly argue with me ——- there is a blocking button and I push it.
I’m an expert on judging because it is by far my worst characteristic. It took me a while to connect what it actually is. It’s a mirror.
To mercifully judge, one option is to look at a situation, apply the awareness to self and then connect to personal behaviours, of which, you may be oblivious. Kinda amazes me how quite often I can see a connection.
I’ll give you a relevant example. Currently an athlete is being chastised for throwing a homophobic slur at another athlete. Easy to judge and say he is an idiot. I think a merciful judgement would be to use the incident to examine ourselves and use it as an example of how we consciously don’t want to behave.
The words themselves in many cases have little relevance. It is the spirit of the delivery that we should pay attention to and there is no one who hasn’t allowed passion to influence their delivery when anger or frustration rules.
Merciful and judging don’t belong in the same sentence. Judging by definition is not merciful. It is an opinion formed mostly without facts or knowledge of the person or situation.