_I_ didn't say thou shalt not judge, I just said I thought you weren't sposed to. And I was corrected - I never read the New Testament, so I do admit I was incorrect about that as a point of biblical reference. However, I still stand by the fact that making an overall judgement about a person based on this one event which harmed nobody is not a very nice thing for ANYONE to do, Christian or otherwise. BUT - that isn't an absolute standard, it's a guideline - I don't judge people on one piece of information, as you obviously do, unless that one piece of information is absolutely damning, like they killed someone and hacked them to bits. This doesn't fall in that category.
(2) "Outsiders" shalt not judge locals' behavior. Comment: Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat and an "outsider" to both Hungary where he was assigned and to the Nazis, did not simply oppose the Holocaust. He opposed all kinds of levels of treatment (some involved dignity issues) aimed at Jews. Wallenberg, an outsider, stood up to the Nazis on many different "fronts" involving multiple issues.
your selective quoting is clever, but also manipulative and a clear sign of someone who is not willing to debate an issue head on. I didn't say outsiders shall not judge locals behavior, I said that people outside a community don't get to decide FOR the community if the actions of a person or persons within that community deserve censure. Now, before you get ridiculous, I do not extend this to law breaking - so theft, murder, rape, these things can be judged by everyone because they are codified into our laws. Perhaps you assign the exact same standards to all situations, but rational people do not. As for your Wallenberg point, it was idiotic the first time and it's just getting worse. I am at this point beginning to find offensive your insistence on linking the mass murder six million Jews as well as six million other people from various walks of life (Gypsy, Jehovah's Witness, Homosexual, Mentally Ill, etc) with 20 teachers going to see a burlesque show.
3) "I don't want appropriate behavior for everyone defined by just one or two people." (Post 233) Comment: Have you told Jesus about this standard of yours? Was He offended by this sovereign decision of yours that limits His role in defining appropriate behavior for everyone?
considering I think Jesus was a nice guy in his time and nothing more, no, I haven't told him about it. I'm JEWISH, and therefore your constant discussion of Jesus is not relevant to me. Besides, if you believe him to be your lord and saviour, you can't exactly define him as a "person" which means he falls outside of what I said anyway.
Translation: "Let them walk away" really means two things: (1) "Letting them walk..." means establishing a pretty high bar for yielding Accountability. Accountability = only local group accountability; individuals, particularly narrow-minded individuals who live beyond the imaginary concentric circle, are excluded from attempting to yield one-on-one accountability; and (2) "Let them walk away" is another way of saying "Live and let live."
how terrible - I want people to live and let live so long as no one is hurting anyone else, which NO ONE is here. What a bastard I am. And you can yield all the one on one accountability you want within your own community, but you still don't get to decide for other parents if these teachers are suitable to teach THEIR children. If you try to, you are saying your judgement is superior to theirs, and I don't see where you get off saying that.
By your silence in responding to that aspect, you basically conceded that indeed you operate under certain absolutes (okay, I'll use your phrase of consistent, ongoing, always-applied guideline to soften the blow here) that you live by and apply to ethical decision-making.
We all have them. Call them absolutes, convictions, values, ethics, guidelines, principles, applied worldviews, mandates, directives, commandments, moral codes, or whatever else.
Aside from my minor comments--and obviously you disagreed w/me extending your applied worldviews to broader applications, my overall theme in drawing those together was to convince you that indeed you do operate on certain compass-points.
Now, what do your absolutes all have in common? The answer is in the area of accountability. Those who tend to cite the "don't judge" Jesus scripture are trying to avoid accountability for others or self. You also have consistently posted a reasonable, practical argument that if a local group sanctions these educators, that is fine since it's w/in their perview to do so. But if an individual tries to do so, then, no, an individual can't define for someone else how to behave. While that's a good general guideline, it carries some fallibilities. My major point w/the Wallenberg illustration was not so much the action (Holocaust) he was trying to prevent as much as the fact that a lone individual can indeed be right and can indeed be right in trying to define how someone else behaves. You were focusing on the actions of the Nazis whereas the major point of my illustration was to focus on the action of Wallenberg as one lone voice crying out in the wilderness. (I mean Wallenberg wasn't wrestling Jews out of the hands of Nazis; he was giving them jobs & assigning them Swedish-protected papers).
William Wilberforce and his small Clapham sect for years upon years (late 18th century) tried to define how the entire country of England should act, even though they were not slave owners. Wilberforce finally got his way in opposing a practice that was completely legal in England.
Again, the key point here, is that once again your absolute here zeroes in on staving off accountability from lone sources. John the Baptist, one of the greatest Jews who ever lived (Jesus referred to him as such), one time took on Herod the ruler over an issue that was completely legal. Herod was sleeping with his brother's wife, Herodias. (see Luke 3:19). John the Baptist publicly rebuked him. I guess you would take issue with that.
I suppose you would, had you lived then, had the gall to go tell John the Baptist to stop being a busybody. Who Herod slept with was not only completely legal, but was not John's business. John's underlying ethic there, is what Paul later said (to the Corinthians): "You are not your own. Your body is not your own. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit." So, once again, we are accountable in the way we use our bodies (Paul was objecting to someone in the Corinthian church who was sleeping with his father's wife).
Here again, I'm sure you would tell off Paul: "Who are you, a non-Corinthian, to come in here and tell the Corinthians how to live? If they want a person sleeping w/his father's wife to be in the midst of their church, live and let live. There's nothing illegal about that. If the Corinthian church wants to decide to sanction that, let them decide. Let their community decide. If they decide there's a problem, then will you be quiet?" [bold-face, your own quote]
You see, this whole thrust of trying to quiet still, lone voices is the liberals' greatest thrust vs. living lives of accountability. In a word, it's what one Christian thinker has called "safism"--the attempt to make the world safe for all atheists.