My thoughts today have been about the differences and nuances between two words in the English language: judgment and discrimination. Both have generally negative connotations, because many people think of judgment as synonymous with prejudice and discrimination as synonymous with legalized prejudice. Yet both of these are valuable words: the ability to make a judgment also is the ability to discern, and the ability to discriminate can mean the ability to tell the difference between things which are not value-based.

I have been thinking of this since reading that a friend's religion was "the non-judgmental kind". Well, we would all presumably like to think that we are non-judgmental when we come to others, but there is another way to read this idea. In my experience, what my friend is suggesting is that s(he) wishes to be a part of a spiritual practice where people are not judging each other. Of course. This principle dates at least to one of the most commonly cited Christian adages, "Judge not that ye be not judged." None of us has the right or the knowledge to judge another human being's character, development, or practice.

However, religion itself is non-judgmental, or should be if practiced the way it is written. I don't think there is much evidence for the great spiritual leaders having been judgmental and in fact they all directed humanity against such critique of others. In the Baha'i revelation, Baha'u'llah is very clear in re-affirming this principle:

26. O SON OF BEING!

How couldst thou forget thine own faults and busy thyself with the faults of others? Whoso doeth this is accursed of Me.

AND

27. O SON OF MAN!

Breathe not the sins of others so long as thou art thyself a sinner. Shouldst thou transgress this command, accursed wouldst thou be, and to this I bear witness.

It's apparently a pretty heavy duty thing we're not meant to do: worry about other people's "faults" and furthermore, to talk about them.

People transgress this principle all the time, but blaming the religion for it is inaccurate: it's the people, not the religion, who are doing the judging. I think this is worth remembering. I value the capacity we have to reasonably discriminate. There are times when it is necessary to do so: we use human judgment to be able to discriminate our own values, such as rejecting pornography or the inequality of women with men. The list is endless.

You are spared further ruminations on the subject because I have been called to family dinner.