This one is about forgiveness

It came up in one of the classes I have to take in order to stay in this program (might get kicked out soon anyways.)

It was about forgiveness and spiritual growth. And I brought up the question about the negative aspect of forgiveness because to me in order to forgive something you have to accept what happened and to me there are somethings you just can't accept and move on. To me that would be an injustice and a copout for the other people. But does that mean I won't be forgiven of my sins because I can't accept the sins of other people? Jesus forgives other people through his grace and love. And although I don't even like certain people it shouldn't be on me to accept them or the things that they have done.

And I don't care if Jesus does forgive them and they go to heaven when they die. Heaven is a very big place it's not like I'll actually have to see them or if I did I'd rather be in hell anyway. Now before this turns into an hour long page of me ranting about hating people. Does anyone have an opinion on forgiveness? And can you still hold on to resentments and live a pure life.

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LeopoldBloom · M

Many people misunderstand forgiveness. In the Biblical sense, it's analogous to forgiving a debt. In order to do that, the creditor must first have power over the debtor, where he could force him to pay, but instead, he forgives the debt. But if he has no ability to collect the debt, forgiving it is irrelevant because the debtor doesn't have to pay in either case.

So if someone wrongs you, you can't forgive them unless you have power over them to hold them accountable. If you don't have that power, your forgiveness means nothing because the effect on the person is the same whether you forgive them or not. Your forgiveness has to be meaningful to the person you're forgiving, otherwise you're just wasting your time. If someone assaults me and I have no ability to harm them, saying I forgive them doesn't mean anything, because I can't harm them anyway, so saying I'm not going to harm them when I couldn't even if I wanted to changes nothing.

It's different when you're talking about God because in Christianity, God has total power over people, so when he forgives them this has a real effect.

It's amazing how many religious people misunderstand this concept.