​Looking down from the mountain [part 3 of 4]

I apologize that I haven't posted in a while. I have been a bit sidetracked with other activities. This post continues on a series I started a while ago about understanding others. Read the first and second posts

We have all had an experience in which someone around us was making fun of us or mocking something we believe. If this has ever happened to you, then you probably remember it as being hurtful. But if it is hurtful when is happens to you, then should you do it to other people? 

To mock someone for their beliefs is insinuating that they themselves are stupid because they believe differently than you. It is saying that what they believe is only held by those who are inferior.

But that type of thinking is not only prideful, but false. 

Mocking someone or something for is nearly always based on a misrepresentation of what they actually believe. It is a logical fallacy known as a straw man. A straw man consists of creating a stance that is not accurate of what someone is actually saying. But, a straw man pretty stupid to talk about, because nobody actually agrees with what you are making fun of.

But even assuming that you don’t misrepresent someone else’s views, you still have no business making fun of them. Remember, there are always at least two sides, and you just might have the wrong one.

One place where mockery or is especially inappropriate is in relation to the convictions of fellow believers. Some Christians are very liberal, have hardly any standards and are nearly indistinguishable from secular society (they might be accepting of practices such as abortion or marriage). Others have very strict standards and look down most cultural practices (they might abstain from eating bacon or using modern technology). 

Most of us, thankfully, fall somewhere in between: allowing many aspects of culture, but condemning quite a few others. If a fellow believer has a conviction that does not permit them to participate in something, the last thing we should do is disparage them. Sure, we can engage in a rational conversation about it if we believe they are clearly unscriptural in their beliefs, but that is a lot different from mocking their convictions.

Now, I want to make this distinction clear, because I myself had to figure out at what point simply making a parody or something similar becomes problematic. Clarification finally came one day when I asked my mom if I she would be fine with me partnering with a particular debater. My mom replied, "I can't stand her scorn." That's when it clicked.

We all have little quirks, little habits, little things we say. Many times when people point mine out, and I think about it, I realize that they can actually be pretty humorous. There is a difference between laughing with somebody and laughing at them or at what they believe. There is a difference between parodies that can be appreciated by everyone involved and scorning people for believing something. Simply follow the golden rule here; "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

Scorning the beliefs of others only makes them feel either humiliated or causes them to become bitter. Proverbs 22:10 advises, “Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out; strife and reproach shall cease”. May we all be like the blessed man in Psalm 1:1, who never “sitteth in the seat of the scornful”.