Double-Standard Court in Session: Judge Hypocrite Presiding

This rant is not about whether Christians are allowed to judge others. Some Christians say yes, some say no, but that’s another debate for another day. (You can start preparing now though. Check out the links at the end of this piece to behold some very impressive chapter-and-verse tap dancing, self-deception, and first-class hypocrisy.)

What I want to discuss here are those Christians who believe that only god may judge his creations.

Indelible Hypocrisy

So I was waiting in line at a local sandwich shop one afternoon, and there was a young guy, probably in his early 20′s, standing in front of me sporting a tattoo that read, “Only God Can Judge Me.”

What a steaming, festering, intellectually dishonest lode of flaming horse shit.

Please forgive the poor quality of the picture (left) as all I had with me at the time was my cell phone camera. I asked if I could take a picture to show a few of my friends who might find it interesting.

I saw no need to reveal my true motive. (After all, I’m a god-hating lying minion of Satan, right?) He seemed like decent human being, very gracious, and quite flattered that someone admired his ink. So I fed his delusion and thanked him for the photo.

I swear I’ve seen this phrase tattooed so many times that I’ve lost count. In fact, I saw the same stain on a guy’s arm at the gym just a few days prior to this one. (Just an FYI, I have no problem at all with ink.)

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to pen this rant for at least a few of years now, so I took these two sighting as a sign from god to finally sit my ass down and scratch out a few thoughts on the matter.

Cherry-Picking for Duality

Christians love to cherry pick the precepts of their religion as if it were some kind of cafeteria-style belief system. They decide which rules and maxims are valid [read: convenient] and decide on a case-by-case basis when they apply and when they don’t so as not to stand in the way of their wants and desires. They invent their own imaginary footnotes to bible mandates and manufacture the most mind-numbingly stupid and disingenuous rationalizations to maintain their faith and their intellect when bible lore and common sense collide.

While the adage “Only god can judge me” can be found nowhere in either the old or new testament, one need not look very far to see that Christians by and large do cling to this precept. There certainly are enough indelible tattoos (and other demonstrations) to back that up. Add to this the overused “Judge not, that ye be not judged” (Matthew 7:1) maxim, and you have more than enough ammo to make the position assailable.

Regardless, whether it’s in the bible or not, Christians love to spew this nonsense for one reason and one reason alone: they’re looking for an out when they’re called out for doing that which they’re not allowed or supposed to do. And moreover, none of them really believe it.

We All Judge

The morons who continually spew that “only god can judge me” tripe constitute the WORST offenders of Christian hypocrisy. Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Here’s what judge (as a verb) means according to Merriam-Webster Online:

1. to form an opinion about through careful weighing of evidence and testing of premises
2. to sit in judgment on to determine or pronounce after inquiry and deliberation
3. to form an estimate or evaluation of (specifically, to form a negative opinion about)
4. to hold as an opinion

Intellectual honesty time. When someone says “Who are you to judge me?” (or similar phrasing) they are clearly referring to definition 3. The implication is that you’ve formed a negative opinion of them based on your own personal biases. And any Christian who spews such bunk is a first-class hypocrite because they judge others ALL THE TIME in the same manner or another.

Christians, when confronted by this, spin one bullshit excuse after another, typically rationalizing their judgments as “informed decisions.” No. Sorry. That’s not gonna work, you lying sack of shit.

We make informed decisions about purchases, investments, and career opportunities – to name a few. But the character judgments [long pause to make my point] we make daily (yes, daily), whether they extend to the friends we keep, the business we conduct, or any other aspect of interpersonal relations, are based purely on emotion and bias. And that is the very essence of judging another.

Everyone judges, and we do so every single god damn day. And I’m not even talking about innocuous judging, like choosing decaf over regular coffee. No, I’m talking about impactful life altering decisions that affect us and others directly and indirectly.

A Modest Proposal

POOF! You’re now a Human Resources manager and you’re charged with hiring a [fill-in-the-blank customer-facing position of extreme importance, trust and confidence]. In the door walks candidate Joe, and he’s reeking of alcohol. He hasn’t shaved in two weeks, bathed in days, he’s dressed in shorts and a torn vomit-stained t-shirt. He can’t form a coherent sentence but swears and spews racial epithets every 10 seconds. You just checked his credentials, and they revealed that he’s an incompetent boob and his own work and character references have nothing positive to say about him. He was fired from his last three jobs for theft of corporate assets, poor performance, insubordination, and repeated accusations of sexual harassment. He’s also a convicted child molester and rapist.

Now your ass is on the line. Will you hire him and why (or why not)?

Ssshhh, darling. Don’t say a word. You’ve judged this loser on so many levels that your head is spinning. And don’t even think about spewing your “That’s not the same!” feces in my presence. Yes, it is the same. And just like commandment 6, there are no footnote exceptions or qualifications to judging.

Oh, I’m well aware of the few biblical [making huge quote fingers] “exceptions” to judging that you’d love to cite right now, but sorry, those are nothing more that disingenuous rationalizations. God wants you to be aware of false prophets – so that’s permission to judge? Please. Save it. This logic fails on every level. You know perfectly well that it doesn’t apply here. Just admit that you’re full of shit.

If you have a morsel of intellectual honesty you’ll confess your judgment-based condemnation of Joe.

The Bottom Line

Either you can judge, or you can’t. End of discussion. And quite frankly, I couldn’t give a flying fuck which stance you take. I’m just disgusted by those who want to have it both ways. (Just a little consistency, folks. It’s all I ask of you.)

If you’re going to tender an answer to my question it better sound a little like, “No, I wouldn’t hire that loser because I’ve judged him to be incompetent, untrustworthy, morally-impaired, incorrigible and physically repulsive.” Anything else is a big, fat, commandment-breaking lie.

And I can’t help but wonder if you’d be swayed to change your summation of the disgusting fellow and hire him if he played the “only god can judge me” card. The answer of course is no. You know it, I know it.

Okay, so the guy was physically repulsive, had a felony rap sheet, stole a few laptops from work, spewed hateful comments, and grabbed the hot receptionist’s ass a few times. Awful yes, end of the world no. But we do judge people who commit profoundly hideous, morally reprehensible acts. And we judge them without giving it a second thought.

Judging the Bastard

One day several years ago I posted a comment on a public forum where I passed moral judgment on some garden variety low-life street vermin who committed one act or another of questionable morality. It wasn’t an act of murder or cruelty, but it was something worthy of shame. (Sorry, it was too long ago to remember the specifics.)

Irony Alert: Someone is about to judge the Bastard.

Then some Christian jackass responded to me. He wrote, “You must be the most moral person in the world to hold this man’s life in your hands and judge him the way you have.”

Just a quick note for context: A few weeks prior, some other guy let loose with a gun in a community center and shot five children dead.

My response to him was, “The man who just killed those five kids at the community center is sub-human slime. I judge him as not fit to live in our society. Tell me, if he shot YOUR child would you still hold the same position and utter those same words?”

He sent me a private email that read, “If he even looked at my child in a questionable way I’d send him home with his teeth in a fucking bag.”

If this isn’t first-class judging hypocrisy, then I don’t know what is.

Unlike You I Confess

I proudly and unabashedly judge murders, rapists, pedophiles, spouse abusers, child abusers, elder abusers and animal abusers as well as all who enslave, scam, defraud, defame, unjustly accuse, and intentionally fly planes into buildings – just to name a few. I judge them all to be very bad people. Human filth. And you’re an awful person if you don’t judge likewise.

Don’t agree with me? Fine. I’m right, you’re wrong. Now go home and beat the crap out of your kids. People who think like you won’t pass judgment. Maybe you can all become good friends.

It’s time to embrace reality, people. You make moral judgements every single day. But here’s the good news. I agree with you. I really do. We’re both on the same page. We judge, we should judge, and we’d be worse off if we didn’t. Only difference is, I don’t pretend not to. And I don’t spew that profoundly hypocritical and patently dishonest “who am I to judge” horse crap.

Judging is good. Judging works. And judging has its place, whether it be on moral grounds or founded in something of lesser significance or importance. And we’d be in deep shit if we didn’t judge at all.

If you’re a Christian, don’t bother sending me your tired, lame excuses to rationalize your hypocrisy or diffuse my charge. I’m not interested in what you are willing to admit to me. My only interest lies in what you are willing to admit to yourself. And we both know exactly what that is.

Finally, for those incurable duplicitous judgers looking for inane rationalizations to justify their hypocrisy, I suggest the following websites (below). This just may help you sleep better tonight.

www.withchrist.org/judge.htm
www.jesuscult.org/judge.htm
www.bibleteacher.org/Judging.htm
userwww.service.emory.edu/~cmadd01/shouldju.html
 

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