Christian hypocrisy regarding reputation

We all have faults and nasty secrets, these are mainly things we would have done but couldn’t but that does not make them any better, so we should not speak of the faults of others to those who don’t know of them except for a greater good. It is terrible to speak ill of a person who is not around to tell you their side. It is saying things about them behind their back that they might never say about you.

It is easy to imagine that gossip is fine when the victim will never know about it and when the listeners enjoy it. But it is taking pleasure in an evil that there is no need for.

And it is useless to insist that gossip is desirable for people would get up to a great deal more mischief if nobody would talk about them. When they got found out and became the target of gossip once they could do the wrong thing again. The pain of being the subject of unsavoury tittle-tattle subsides and will not stop the person from attracting the adverse attention again. They could invite attention in order to kill off their inhibitions. When a person has the reputation of being a thief that person will continue to steal for he has lost his reputation anyway. The gossip of others motivates him to steal.

People enjoy the evil talk and they should not for it means relishing great evil while condemning what the person did which is dreadful hypocrisy.

If you have to tell something about somebody then do it for the sake of doing what is best and not for spite. Be sure you should tell first.

One should not read the scandalous stories in newspapers unless they expose dangerous thieves and rapists and murderers – we need to be informed about these kinds of people. We do not need to read about celebrities committing adultery or neglecting their children. It is none of our business.

Enjoying gossip is incompatible with egoism because people enjoy hearing these things because they have been bad themselves or they want others distracted from their own faults so when somebody is so silly and malicious that they will gossip and degrade themselves then they make a show of themselves and really only hurt themselves so do not worry about them. The person who uses something terrible that somebody did is really as bad as that person for taking advantage of the offence for thrills and carries no right to condemn the foul deed for he relishes that deed.

The best way to deal with gossip is to prove it wrong to those whose opinions of you matter and do lots of nice things for others so that the mistake fades into insignificance. It will help you deal with and get rid of the shame.

Religion says that all truth comes first. Humanism says that only the essential truths come first. Religion believes that God is truth and so it has to be stricter for God’s truth is very long-winded. When truth comes first that much then it cannot be wrong to gossip if somebody makes the mistake of thinking a vagabond is really a good person. Why? Because though truth exists and cannot be changed we don’t all perceive truth the same way and have to be loyal to truth as we see them.