Pedestals revisited

I did a post on pedestals a week or two back. In hindsight, I don't think I explained myself very well... I had a point, but it got lost in the course of my trying to explain my thoughts surrounding it.

My core thoughts when writing that piece were... If you're going to put yourself up on a pedestal as being perfect and without reproach, you need to accept that when you fall, you're going to fall hard. And those of us, who you've elevated yourself too are going to judge you more harshly than we would someone who had not put themself up on a pedestal.

For instance...

If you've spent most of your life bitching and complaining about your religious leaders in private, you really shouldn't suggest that I remove my name from LDS Church records, because I don't necessarily sustain my Church leaders. In reality, it just makes you look like a damn hypocrite!

If you're going to act all offended that I may have shared some of my history online, albeit in an anonymous forum, you probably shouldn't then turn around and trash my name to everyone who knows me. Again, just makes you look like a damned hypocrite.

If you're going to get all offended because you think questioning the sitting US President is equivalent to treason, and then after he has screwed up royally and been replaced by a candidate from your opposition, resort to even worse methods of slander and criticsm. Again, just shows you to be the damned hypocrite you are.

In the New Testament, there are a couple of verses which discuss this kind of behavior:

1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.

2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

St. Matthew 7:1-4

Whether or not you believe that the Bible is divinely inspired, I think there are some words of wisdom in those verses. Many assume this speaks to a final judgement, but I think perhaps it applies more to our relationships with our fellow man.

If we elevate ourselves, assuming a higher level of ethics and morality, and see fit to criticize those who choose not too, I think it only reasonable that when we don't hold to the high standard which we claim to live, that we be cut down to size.