Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Refusing to forgive only causes harm to the person holding the grudge. It does absolutely nothing to harm the offender.
And there's a huge difference between "forgive" and "forget". To "forgive" means you do not expect restitution or repayment for a transgression. To "forget" means you are opening yourself up to the possibility of being wronged again.
Like with a debt... Say you loan a friend $500, and he never pays you back. To "forgive" the debt is to no longer demand payment, which also means no longer bringing it up in conversation and making the other person "pay" by feeling guilty. To "forget" means you'd be willing to loan him more money. I'm always willing to forgive a transgression once the time for restitution has passed, but I won't forget and allow myself to be put in the same situation again.
.
Well if the person who got ripped off by the friend still hangs out with them they will probably get ripped off again, in one way or another. Stealin' friend will see a sucker and only take advantage. That is the doormat factor that often comes along with concept of forgiveness. Let's look at the big picture, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
If it is about letting go of resentment, that is positive for the victim but you should be able to forgive someone and have them go away. A person that I forgave, thought it meant we were going back to the way things were like nothing happened but it meant I would not sue them and we would go our separate ways. They could not reconcile that I forgave but didn't want them in my life, that doesn't mean I feel hatred or hold a grudge or anything, I just misjudged them to have them as a friend in the first place and simply moved on.
Most of these people that do things we are supposed to forgive just go on to continue victimizing others.
No. My maternal grandmother lost all her family in the Holocaust, and only survived because she had immigrated to the US back around WW I. They weren't even Jews, although somebody in the family may have been Jewish a generation or two back.
Eva Kor is a better person than I.
Why is Eva Kor a better person than you? Is it because she was able to forgive people who had done terrible, inexcusable things to her and her family? I don't think it necessarily makes her a better, or worse, person than you just based on that one aspect of her.
As for me I could never forgive someone like Mengele. Sure I'd try to put it behind me enough to be able to live a productive life, but true forgiveness means that if you had a chance to harm the object of your hatred, you'd pass up that chance because you'd have forgiven them. I think true forgiveness is much rarer than it's portrayed in the media.
I don't believe I would have it in me to forgive. Because, to me, to forgive means 'it's okay', 'I understand', 'no hard feelings', etc. On top of that, if I cannot forget it, if I still cannot think of the wrongdoing without feeling anger or hated, then I cannot forgive. And this is why I'm not big on the popular, "I can forgive but not forget'. You can't forgive if it still rattles you to think of the wrongdoing.
I do agree with poster #4 in that "letting go" is different. Good example for myself is the resentment I felt (and still do) over a supervisor that laid me off a few years ago. Another department hired me, and I did my best to avoid running into my ex-super. If I saw her coming I turned another direction and avoided eye contact with her. In due time that started to change and we sometimes have light quick discussions. I still resent what she did, but I guess the big difference between then and now is that my blood-pressure no longer spikes when I see her. But I will never forgive her. I don't see any reason to.
I can forgive - up to a point. But I'd certainly never forgive Mengele and the Nazi's. I've read a couple of first person accounts of the Holocaust, and those books just made me feel sick. "Never forget" is the motto of the various memorials set up in the wake of the Holocaust, and I believe that the world in general has NOT forgotten. Yet look at all the horrific things which have and are happening in the world today - the "killing fields" of Cambodia in the 1970's where millions of the Cambodian people were arbitrarily murdered by the order of Cambodian dictator, Pol Pot. In 1994, one million people were killed in the mass genocide which took place in the tiny African country of Rwanda. Then there were the atrocities perpetuated during the war in Bosnia, and I won't even go into the nightmare we now call "the Middle East." Every last one of the people who were responsible for perpetuating such horrific crimes against humanity should be hunted down, tried before the people of the world at a UN tribunal and then hung or shot. The last thing we should do is to forgive such things.
On a more personal level, I have done my best to forgive those who I feel have harmed me. Sometimes it takes me a very long time to arrive at that place of forgiveness, but it's always as if a burden has been lifted from my shoulders when I do. Life is too short to be spent seething over a boss who unfairly passed you over for a promotion ten years ago or the ex who took the lion's share of your common property back in divorce court 20 years ago. Yep, those people were in the wrong as far as I'm concerned. Yet looking back, I can sometimes see how my own actions weren't always exactly angelic either. That was then. This is now. Time to enjoy life in the present instead of making yourself miserable over what some jerk did in the past.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
