From: an12070@anon.penet.fi (Enlightened Sage)
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 93 00:44:19 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: On Hypocrisy, Stoning, and Forgiveness
Message-ID: <9311280843.AA23271@anon.penet.fi>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


There is a saying, `let he who is without sin cast the first stone.'
Some people have perverted this saying to their own ends, as many
people have done with the teachings of the enlightened saint and
god-among-men Jesus Christ.

Some people believe that this means that one should never attempt to
uncover other's faults, and prod them into reforming their behavior.
Nothing could be a greater lie.

The context of the quote was that a riotous crowd was about to kill a
man for his sins, by public stoning. `Let he who is without sin cast
the first stone.' But notice that the public was not asking the man to
reform himself or repent. They had already made up their mind. There
would be no forgiveness. They had judged him, and his sentence was Execution.

What about in the context where a crowd has *not* decided upon their
Judgement for a crime? They know that someone is guilty of it, but they
have not yet committed to stoning them, forgiving them, or even being
upset, or whatever. What is the meaning of the saying there? 

The saying is meaningless in this context. It is like division by zero. Undefined.

So, it is either, in punishment `let he who is without sin cast the first stone.'
In forgiveness, it is `let he who is with sin cast the first confession.'

Another concept At Stake is that of Reputation in accusation. If a
criminal is correctly called a criminal by a hypocrite, who is the
criminal? who is the hypocrite? The answer is that the criminal is
accountable for his criminality and the hypocrite is accountable for
his hypocrisy. But it is not the case that the hypocrite's hypocrisy
nullifies the criminal's criminality, of course. Also, if a criminal
calls an honest person a hypocrite in an attempt to discredit him, it
is just another Lie and another black mark on the criminal. That's the
situation with criminals, is they like to dig holes and drag down and
bury as many other people they can in the process.

Finally, regarding hypocrisy, a great many people are attempting to
discredit one or the other of L.Detweiler or S.Boxx by flimsy,
incorrect `proofs' that L.Detweiler == S.Boxx. Uh, who gives a damn?
Please redirect your analytical energies into resolving far more
interesting and nontrivial theorems like E.Hughes == P.Ferguson or
T.C.May == H.Finney.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program.
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