The Forgiveness Dilemma

Many people would say that forgiving is good for both the forgiver and the forgiven, but do we have the responsibility to forgive? Two articles especially stand out about forgiveness Six Reasons Not to Forgive, Not Yet and It’s for You to Know That You Forgive, an article about Eva Kor’s experience at the concentration camp being a mengele twin and forgiving the Nazi’s. She is a good example that people have the responsibility to forgive , but only when they are ready.

As I was reading the chapter on forgiveness in Psychology, Theology, and Spirituality in Christian Counseling by McMinn (2011), the personal life experience that jumped out to me was when I had to make the decision to truly forgive my ex-boyfriend and his parents for the emotional pain they caused me. After living in New Jersey for a month and spending time with my boyfriend and his family, working, and taking care of an elderly lady with dementia my world came crashing down on me. My ex-boyfriend’s parents discovered sin in his life and told me I could no longer pursue a relationship with him because of the sins he had committed. After finding out the sinful things my ex-boyfriend had done, I chose to forgive him. I also chose to give him a second chance at a relationship with me, but my effort to salvage our relationship was futile.

Forgiveness is not just practiced by saints and not only benefits its recipients but have strong connection with person’s physical, mental and spiritual health. It plays a great role in the health of families, communities and nations. Forgiveness provides common ground for love, acceptance, harmony and true happiness Most spiritual and religious leaders of the world will agree that forgiveness of oneself and others is one way to clear the mind, heart and soul and may result in a feeling of increased peace and happiness.

Calling the Holocaust a crime against humanity may be more than fitting, but to say that it is unforgivable may be a slight stretch. Simon Weisenthal's, The Sunflower, discusses the author's experience in the concentration camps during the Nazi Germany era and how a dying S.S. officer, Karl Seidl, changed his perspective on the Nazis as a whole. Forgiveness is understanding the offender’s actions and leaving the past behind to make for a better future as it is the more humane thing to do; for instance, something that Simon had done when he met Karl’s mother, allowing her to think of her son as a peaceful young man.

Everyone in one way or another has something they think is right. Whether it be forgiving or not they each have their justified opinion. I'm not here to try and change that, but some people have to look from all perspectives. But we still have to answer the question, can justice and forgiveness go hand in hand? That really up to what you believe. I can't make that decision for you. I believe in some cases yes they can

The most important questions are often the most controversial. The question of whether or not to forgive a wrongdoer is particularly debatable, especially when considering large-scale crimes. Large-scale crimes, or crimes against humanity, involve senselessly killing mass amounts of innocent people. There have been many examples of large-scale crimes in the history of mankind, and such atrocities are still occurring today. Forgiveness is the act of pardoning an offender, and for most people, it is easy to forgive small blunders made by others on a daily basis. But forgiveness becomes a lot more troubling for the victim when they are asked to forgive something as terrible as a large-scale crime, which has irreversible effects for millions of

As one grows from infant to adult an even elderly age, we experience many events in life. One only grows from mistakes that are inevitable to happen. Like the Yin Yang theory, for instance, shadow cannot exist without light. Therefor forgiveness comes into play, it is defined as the action or process of forgiving or being forgiven. In The Sunflower, by Simon Wiesenthal: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. It discusses the moral ethics of the matter of forgiveness. Questions are asked by Wiesenthal, what would you do? If a dying Nazi soldier asks for your forgiveness? Forgiveness can often be influenced by religious belief, psychological, and political point of view, one is always capable of asking for forgiveness or granting forgiveness to another, granted or not, one makes a choice and lives with that decision.

The article "Self-forgiveness: The forgotten stepchild of forgiveness research" is a qualitative rather than a quantitative study of the phenomenon of self-forgiveness. The authors distinguish self-forgiveness versus forgiveness of an 'other' in an outwardly-directed fashion. They state that self-forgiveness has been under-studied in the existing literature. The beginning of the article is devoted to a literature review of existing writings upon the subject, with using a working definition of self forgiveness "as a set of motivational changes whereby one becomes decreasingly motivated to avoid stimuli associated with the offense, decreasingly motivated to retaliate against the self 地nd increasingly motivated to act benevolently toward the self" (Hall & Fincham 2005: 622).

Forgiveness can mean so many things when everyone in the world has a different bird 's eye view of it. Some people think it happens once after someone hurts you others think it take a very prestigious amount of time to forgive. Your worldview, your morals can also have a big affect on the way you perceive forgiveness. When thinking of forgiveness do you think the meaning of it comes from the bible or an emotion in everyday life scientifically or maybe both? In our last step , step 5 of our integration project we will pick apart and elaborate on the steps to integration, the steps to resolving conflict, what forgiveness means to different type of human being with a christian worldview from a biblical viewpoint. We will talk about the agreements and conflicts of the different viewpoints, some diffrent evidence that the different sides brings. I also will bring my own personal experiences with integration. The main thing we which to get out of the last step is understanding something fully by using special and general revelation.

There has been a significant amount of reports of emotional abuse in the United States. Nearly 35% of women have reported that they have been emotionally abused by a husband or a significant other. Spousal emotional abuse has been a problem for quite some time and the effects of the abuse are long lasting.

In the King James Version of the Bible, there is a parable told called the Prodigal Son. As this story is told in Luke 15:11-32, we are told of a story where a wealthy man has two sons. One son stays behind and decides to work for his father and inherit a good life beside him. The younger son decides he will ask for money from his father, and leave him behind. As time goes on, this son goes out into the world and shortly after, loses all of his money he had received from his father. Because of this, he is ashamed and takes his time on his way back home. But when he eventually does make it home, he is welcomed with open arms to a loving father who could not be any happier to see his son. Although the father is happy to see

It is hard to say you forgive someone, but it even harder to actually forgive them and mean it. True forgiveness, I would have to say, is extremely rare. To truly forgive someone, you almost have to forget whatever it is that they may have done. In my personal Opinion would have to say that when most people say that they forgiven, they have not actually done so. People would tend to forgive, and then hold a grudge. “Can we as humans forgive people who have caused us such grief.”(Simon Wiesenthal 230) I saw many Cambodian people forced into being a killer and they had no other way to go because they would be killed themselves if they didn’t go by the rules. From what has asked, on the contrary believe you can always forgive for what a person has done, such as the soldiers during the Holocaust. I think you can forgive them because to me most of these soldiers were trapped or forced. They had no other choice or they had the chance to also be killed. When talking about specific individuals we always have the opportunity to forgive but forgetting about it is always the hard part! Forgiveness is not just about saying the words. “It is an active process in which you make a conscious

Forgiveness is a hard thing to give because forgiveness of another human being involves having you to forgive yourself. It seems a lot easier to withhold forgiveness and remain a victim. The forgiveness that I have given away or I have received has shaped who I am today, therefore becoming a part of me.

Simon Wiesenthal’s question “What would [you] have done” if one had the opportunity to forgive a Nazi soldier forces humanity to understand and apply our moral repertoire. My moral repertoire I mean the set of moral beliefs that informs our understanding of forgiveness and the criteria by which we evaluate its

I had never given the word forgiveness a thought; in fact I cared less about its true meaning until the morning of 1 July 2010. On the evening of 31st June 2010 I received a call from my supervisor asking me to report to work at a different site the following day, one that was an hour's drive towards Washington DC from where I lived in Baltimore County. It was barely a month since I was employed as a full time electrician at the firm. This was a surprise as it was unexpected; I had been working at the Timonium site north of Baltimore for some time as a part time employee and never thought I would be relocated to a different site since the project I was involved with was still underway.