Is it wrong to forgive?

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marco
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Is it wrong to forgive?

Post #1

Post by marco »

Often when people do very bad things, someone forgives them and not always the victim. A father in Northern Ireland famously forgave the man who murdered his daughter. We can see the goodness in a victim forgiving an attacker but surely it is wrong for others, not involved in the attack, to forgive.

Is it wrong to forgive when one is not the sufferer?

jgh7

Re: Is it wrong to forgive?

Post #11

Post by jgh7 »

[Replying to post 10 by Tcg]

By forgive, I mean I don't hold on to a judgment of him as a bad/rotten person. I myself was unsure of what the OP meant by forgiveness when you are not the sufferer, so this is what I interpreted it as.

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Re: Is it wrong to forgive?

Post #12

Post by marco »

jgh7 wrote: [Replying to post 10 by Tcg]

By forgive, I mean I don't hold on to a judgment of him as a bad/rotten person. I myself was unsure of what the OP meant by forgiveness when you are not the sufferer, so this is what I interpreted it as.

I meant that if one is not involved in the wrong, do we have a right to forgive? The scenario you depict adds another dimension - the man's repentance. If someone stole somebody's purse, would it be wrong to forgive? It seems as though the forgiver is intruding on what doesn't concern them. Offering forgiveness is assuming a link that does not exist. We can maybe offer understanding - the person needed the money.

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Re: Is it wrong to forgive?

Post #13

Post by Dimmesdale »

Tcg wrote:
jgh7 wrote: I'll pose a hypothetical. A man steals a woman's purse. He later becomes very sorry he did and gives it back to her, apologizes greatly, and asks for forgiveness. For whatever reason she does not forgive him and still views him with hostility for what he did.

If for whatever reason I am moved by his repentant nature and forgive him, am I wrong for doing so since I was not the sufferer?

I don't necessarily see how being the sufferer or not has weight on whether it's right or wrong to forgive.
Given that you aren't the sufferer, what is it that you are forgiving the man for?
I would say, the mere offense of having broken the moral law. So long as one is moral and empathizes with others who are wronged, he or she has the right to forgive such offenses.

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Re: Is it wrong to forgive?

Post #14

Post by William »

[Replying to post 1 by marco]
Often when people do very bad things, someone forgives them and not always the victim. A father in Northern Ireland famously forgave the man who murdered his daughter. We can see the goodness in a victim forgiving an attacker but surely it is wrong for others, not involved in the attack, to forgive.

Is it wrong to forgive when one is not the sufferer?
It is my understanding that issues of right and wrong are based upon subjective opinion.

That aside, my understanding of the act of forgiveness is that it has everything to do with the one doing so, and usually it is associated with personal healing in that the offender does not even need to know you forgive them, or for that matter, might not even care. It is essentially an act designed to assist the self. Anything beyond that which has a positive consequence, is a bonus.

For those reasons I do not personally consider the act of forgiveness to be a wrongdoing.

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Re: Is it wrong to forgive?

Post #15

Post by William »

[Replying to post 3 by marco]
The ramification is that we expect God to forgive us our trespasses, when the deed was done to some poor victim. The expectation is that the victim, not even the Almighty, is the one who should forgive.
I find this pertinent to my own theology. In relation to study I have done to do with OOBEs NDEs and Astral Projection, it appears to be the case that every individual essentially judges themselves - although this is not always apparent to the individual that is what is occurring.

The design of the next phase allows that no thing we have done goes unrewarded nor unpunished, but there is no persona seated in the role of judge other than if the expectation of the individual believes such is required.

This is because the next phase responds to the individuals beliefs - not only the conscious beliefs but also deep rooted ones which the individual is not aware of but which nevertheless still exist in what is referred to as the subconsciousness - an aspect of the overall consciousness of the individual.

If one were to do poll on those who believe in the death penalty, I would not be surprised if a great majority of those also believe in the idea of hell.
The act of being unforgiving and requiring seeing that the unforgiven are severely punished, has its own consequences in the next phase.

Essentially if individuals leave this present phase with unresolved issues, they will still have those issues to deal with in the next phase.

So yes - the expectation is that even if there was an 'almighty' it is the victim who is required to forgive. The almighty would logically have no vested interest in mediating between the wrong-doer and the victim. Indeed, the wrong doer could for example, genuinely repent of their atrocity and in doing so, free their self from the rigidity of compensation/justice scenarios, whereas the victim might steadfastly not accept that in the least, and thus would still be bound by that rigidity until such a time when they are enabled to free themselves from that and move on gracefully.

Certainly by many accounts, the present human drama does spill over into the next phase, but not everyone is infected by that, as those who are not have learned how to let it go.

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Re: Is it wrong to forgive?

Post #16

Post by marco »

William wrote:
Certainly by many accounts, the present human drama does spill over into the next phase, but not everyone is infected by that, as those who are not have learned how to let it go.
Like many good novels the ending may hint at a novel to come. In our beginning is written our end so maybe in our end is written our beginning. Qui sait? As a boy obsessed with my unworthiness and inabiity to stop sinning, I knew that Purgatory -or God forbid Hell - awaited me, where figurative fire would cleanse me of my weakness. I sang hymns:
'O Father of mercy thine anger withhold; these works of thy hands in thy mercy behold; too oft from thy path they have wandered aside, but theee their creator they never denied.'
This was a plea to God to forgive those in Purgatory. It is obviously silly, as one sees it through adult eyes, but in the apple blossom of my childhood it seemed to make sense.

Those who favour capital punishment may not believe in hell at all. They may see life as just worthless if it is lived as a danger to others. Its cheapness is easily removed. They are not concerned so much with - sin deserves punsihment, but - a murderer's life is of no value. Death ends everything, including risk to others. Hell never features in their thoughts. If it did, then they might be prepared to wait.

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Re: Is it wrong to forgive?

Post #17

Post by William »

[Replying to post 16 by marco]
Like many good novels the ending may hint at a novel to come.
Indeed. :)
In our beginning is written our end so maybe in our end is written our beginning.
I was speaking more to the continuation of the story which has the appearance of having a beginning. Qui sait we did not have a prior experience before entering this one, which gives opportunity to explore the experience of 'having a beginning'.
As a boy obsessed with my unworthiness and inabiity to stop sinning, I knew that Purgatory -or God forbid Hell - awaited me, where figurative fire would cleanse me of my weakness. I sang hymns:
'O Father of mercy thine anger withhold; these works of thy hands in thy mercy behold; too oft from thy path they have wandered aside, but theee their creator they never denied.'
This is of course a type of indoctrination you had to endure as part of the process. You had a beginning, but therein you had others who explained to you who you were before you had the opportunity to think and decide for yourself.
This was a plea to God to forgive those in Purgatory. It is obviously silly, as one sees it through adult eyes, but in the apple blossom of my childhood it seemed to make sense.
Where did your learn of such notions, except through adult mouths? Are you saying that the mouths were speaking childhood indoctrination's through adults who had not discovered that they themselves had been indoctrinated?

But the question answered as to where these ideas come from is found in the alternate experiences people have, which are often embellished by those who hear such stories but have had no such experiences themselves.
Those who favour capital punishment may not believe in hell at all.


I did not imply that they did. I wrote of those who believe in hell may also be statistically more inclined to also favor CP.
They may see life as just worthless if it is lived as a danger to others. Its cheapness is easily removed. They are not concerned so much with - sin deserves punsihment, but - a murderer's life is of no value. Death ends everything, including risk to others.
Hell never features in their thoughts. If it did, then they might be prepared to wait.
I would count such folk as being materialists, and as such, would expect materialists to think in such terms.

Of course, thinking in such terms has no significant outcome. The story ends in the blank place of non existence which everyone remembers is the same place from where the story began.

Accounts of 'afterlife' are filed under 'hallucinations of brain malfunction' for the sake of remaining staring at that particular wall one stops at through the maze of human experience.

On the other hand, those that know better, understand that heavens and hells and everything else are created by the individuals experiencing them in the next phase. There is no actual GOD-figure sitting in judgement pointing people in one direction or the other, unless of course, this is part of the scenario the individual creates for themselves through expectation.

I think it is the best form of justice one desiring justice could hope for. Ingenious.
Read my previous post for more insight on that. Forgiveness allows one to circumnavigate the human drama in this and the next phase because one is not concerned with desiring justice.

:)

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Post #18

Post by Overcomer »

Marco wrote:
Often when people do very bad things, someone forgives them and not always the victim. A father in Northern Ireland famously forgave the man who murdered his daughter. We can see the goodness in a victim forgiving an attacker but surely it is wrong for others, not involved in the attack, to forgive.
The murder causes grief and pain for anybody who loved the victim. No crime or sin is contained. There are always ramifications for those connected to the people involved. Therefore, it isn't simply that they are choosing to forgive on someone else's behalf. They are choosing to forgive the pain and sorrow and hardship that the crime has caused themselves as well.

People have this idea that, if they forgive someone, they are letting him off the hook. They aren't. That person is guilty and if justice is not served in this life, it will be in the next. All the unforgiving person is doing is hurting himself/herself by hanging on to anger, hatred, bitterness, unhappiness, etc. Unforgiveness is like drinking a cup of poison, hoping that the other person will die. In refusing to forgive someone, you give that person control over you. There is freedom in forgiveness. And it's much better for your health -- physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual.

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Post #19

Post by marco »

Overcomer wrote:

They are choosing to forgive the pain and sorrow and hardship that the crime has caused themselves as well.

Commendable but not what was asked in the OP. The person who was hurt forgives NOT for the crime, but for the personal hurt received. There is no forgiveness for the original crime.
Overcomer wrote:
Unforgiveness is like drinking a cup of poison, hoping that the other person will die. In refusing to forgive someone, you give that person control over you. There is freedom in forgiveness. And it's much better for your health -- physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual.
You're again addressing the victim forgiving the perpetrator. We can accept this is good - I said as much. Is it right to forgive the crime that wasn't committed against us? Perhaps not. When we say: "I forgive you for the hurt you caused ME, that's forgiveness for something else, over which you have some right of control.

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Re: Is it wrong to forgive?

Post #20

Post by Aetixintro »

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

I see no reason to bother to forgive "heathens", the malicious people, as they are probably not humans for it either way.

To them, the forgiveness can only suggest that a given Christian is opening the heart to evil of the recipient for the forgiveness which is an evil hope for them, that they have been successful in their attacks on humanity.

So there may be a normative sentence for Christians so to not burden one's heart with the "contradictory" feeling to "accept" the wrongdoing of one who may have only had the worst motivations for it either way: "Do not forgive people who are not people for receiving forgiveness. Don't forgive if it breaks your heart and you feel awful by it!"

Psychology is more useful than ever before.

Cheers! :study:
I'm cool! :) - Stronger Religion every day! Also by "mathematical Religion", the eternal forms, God closing the door on corrupt humanity, possibly!

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