"Judge Not"

One of the most vague misconceptions about the New Testament (the most glaring and slanderous ones all pertain to the Old Testament!) is the very popular idea that it condemns making moral judgments about other people, which is based on a misinterpretation of the early part of Matthew 7.  Some translations a key phrase the first verse of this chapter "Judge not," and many people seem to stop reading right there or are only paraphrasing something they have heard but never read for themselves, much less rationalistically analyzed.  There is even a verse where Jesus himself instructs people to judge, just without making errors, that can be found in another one of the gospels.  Reading this verse without assumptions is an easy way to refute the idea that the Bible condemns judgment--which would itself be a judgment.

John 7:24 sees Jesus say to judge rightly, not to avoid judging others altogether.  In this verse, Jesus opposes making assumptions based on "mere appearances" (a highly rationalistic thing to acknowledge), which is all that most people ever appeal to as it is.  He says to instead make a correct judgment rooted in how things are.  A host of epistemological limitations like the inability to see other minds and their thoughts and an inability to know if the whole of one's sensory perceptions are accurate are relevant here; despite these limitations, one can still understand what the evidence of behavior points to and make judgments based on perception accordingly, knowing certain things could be different than perceptions indicate.  However, simply from fact that the Jesus presented by the Bible gives moral prescriptions and makes moral condemnations, it is already very apparent that there is moral judgment in the words and philosophy of the Biblical Jesus.  John 7:24 only says with more directness what many of his statements already affirm.

The main text of the Bible about moral judgment of others that Christians and non-Christians are familiar with, though, is Matthew 7:1-5.  Like Paul in Romans 2:1-2 and 17-24, Jesus in Matthew 7 is only pointing out the stupidity and inconsistency in condemning others for what one practices.  Comparing a speck of sawdust to a plank of wood, the passage makes this clear when Jesus specifically refers to hypocrites who judge others for trivial offenses when they are guilty of even worse or more numerous things.  Even then, this does not mean that a murderer cannot judge a murderer, a liar a liar, or a rapist a rapist; if something is evil, judgment of it and those who practice it is inherently justified, but it is the hypocrisy that reveals insincerity and irrationality.  A person needs to avoid or stop whatever sins they judge others of: this is the point of Matthew 7:1-5.  Judgment is never the problem, but insincerity, hypocrisy, and other stupidity.

There is no rationalistic, philosophically correct reason to oppose judging others.  If some things are morally wrong, judgment of those intentions and behaviors--and people who exhibit them--is obligatory.  If no moral obligations exist, nothing is evil, including judging others for their actual actions or for things they have not even done.  Without the existence of moral obligations, it would be irrational to judge others while believing that it is morally imperative, but there would be nothing morally wrong or even irrational about it in itself.  Many people are just so eager to feel comfortable that they never even think about judgment past whether it is subjectively appealing to them or not.  There is nothing accurate or deeper than this behind their judgment of judgment.

Ultimately, whether or not the Bible is even true, this is the inescapable hypocrisy at the heart of condemning judgment of others.  To even express an opposition to judging, a person must judge others, whether or not they are hypothetical people or those one can interact with.  A judgment might be inconsistent.  It might be made out of selfish motivation instead of rationality or true moral concern.  It is nonetheless true that the judgment of judgment is the very thing the person is trying to condemn and get away from.  The only way to not judge anyone, even if only in the sense of subjective judgments rooted in conscience as one knows that conscience does not prove morality exists, is to have no moral preferences, no philosophical knowledge, or no ability to interact with or perceive others at all.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.