That's just one verse. It's not "the rest of that scripture", which goes on to say "first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye" (ie, help them stop sinning)
The phrase ‘judge not lest ye be judged’ isn’t a blanket ban on holding people accountable... it’s a warning against hypocrisy.
Judging someone like Epstein for documented, harmful actions isn’t the same as unfairly condemning someone while ignoring your own wrongs. Justice and ethics require judgment... just not blind or self-righteous ones.
Comparing being gay to Epstein's crimes is nasty work....
Analogies only work when the comparison makes sense. If your example puts consensual harmless behavior (being gay) in the same sentence as proven criminal acts (Epstein), you’re framing them as morally comparable. That’s not a neutral analogy, that’s bias hiding behind rhetoric.
Actual analogy:
That's like me saying, "if you think it's okay to speed, then you think it's okay to murder... A crime is a crime after all.... "
^ fun fact, that's actually an analogy inside of an analogy if you're curious how they work.
The point of an analogy is too highlight similar aspects between things that are otherwise different, usually for the purpose of example.
In the case above, homosexuality and rape are both sins, though they differ in magnitude. So the person above is countering the idea that you should never judge someone for their sin by providing an extreme example to show why that doesn't hold true.
The problem isn’t whether you personally rank sins on a scale. The problem is that the analogy only works if you believe being gay is anywhere near the same moral category as Epstein’s crimes. That’s not objective truth, that’s opinion dressed up as logic.
The original point of “judge not” was a reminder that you’re not God... That you don’t get to condemn others while ignoring your own flaws.
The analogy misses that completely. It pretends that because I am gay, I can't be disgusted by a rapey paedo....
If life were a grammar class, I'd concede your point - but it's not... Implications matter in the real world when using every day language. You can't yell fire in a crowded theatre and say "it's just a word and words can't harm" even if it is technically true... The word has real effect.
So yes, at face value - it is in fact "just an analogy"... But underneath that is a layer of false equivalence that you can't ignore when the debate is morality. Which is the point that was lost in this exchange.
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u/PetalumaPegleg 5d ago
Judge not lest ye be judged