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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help@anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin@anon.penet.fi.