CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE THAT FORGIVENESS IS OFTEN UNNATURAL HAS DANGEROUS RAMIFICATIONS

Is the power to forgive natural?  Is it even anti-natural?  Does God have to give everybody the power to forgive for it is beyond natural origin?  What if you haven't asked him for this help?

If it is unnatural this gives unforgiving religious terrorists ammunition.  If it is not unnatural but you say it is then that is still giving ammunition.  It is giving them an excuse.  God cannot judge somebody who is only doing what the nature he set up made them do. Also, you can pray sincerely for grace to forgive and nothing happens.  Religion will not take responsibility for telling you there is a God who helps you.  It will not take responsibility when you hurt others for you hoped help was there and it was not.  Atheists are accused of being dangerous for they do not ask for God's grace to override nature and become forgiving.  If you are considered dangerous people will hurt you to defend themselves.  Religions will hurt you.

Christianity stresses forgiveness as a core teaching. The idea is you must forgive all for God would forgive you all. Forgiveness is seen as being about the relationship with the other person. Even if the other person cannot be friends with you or you with them you are open to being good to them. So that is a relationship.

Pardon is seen is about you having the power to remove some of the bad results of what a person has done from them. For example, the person may be banned by you from your home for they have proved dangerous to associate with but you may pardon them if you think they have changed and let them back in. God both forgives and pardons.  You are told that if you want to live up to what you are, the image of God you must forgive as he does.  This is a startling doctrine. It is certain that any doctrine that pressures a person to forgive for that is a personal thing is oppressive and bigoted. God is nothing more than a weapon for moral bullies.

Real forgiveness happens without pressure.  In religion, those who swear they forgive you certainly will not act like it in time.

Religion says that forgiveness is not natural. Most people agree that if the other has done something abhorrent to you then of course it is not natural.  As there is so much pressure it it is wise NOT to believe the religious person who says, "I forgive".  Some would reply, "Unnatural?  Yet people do forgive such things.  Atheists forgive them too so is it more natural than we think?  If so then we do not need religion to be forgiving.  We just need to find strength."

If you forgive those who rape and murder your children then what?  And if we have to go that far it definitely is not natural. It is unnatural anyway, but doing it for God and to the extent that God would want makes it worse. That implies that God must give you the power to forgive or help you. If religion cannot give you this power or if God does not give it or does not exist then religion is demanding that you forgive when you cannot. It is asking you to abuse yourself for it is self-abuse to try and do what is not natural. You are part of nature. A religion that does not offer redemption and freedom from the harm done to us by others is necessarily a passive-aggressive trouble maker at best. Its evil will be subtle.

Jesus urges assertive no nonsense dealing with the person who offends you.  He said go to the person and tell them what they have done and if they repent forgive otherwise you do not regard them as a brother.  This is in Matthew 18:15-17. 

You go and basically judge your brother in private. It is said it is not about general sin but about the brother personally hurting you. Really?  Well not entirely.  The text is clear that the sin against you is a private matter but the brother's refusal to repent is a refusal to let the Church be a united family so that bit is general. Jesus in Luke 17:3-4 also calls for you to rebuke the person who wrongs you.

Why is God’s forgiveness so instant and so complete? This makes no sense unless it is necessary to avoid the damnation of an eternal hell. So God has to be generous for that reason. He does not want to risk us staying one second in sin just in case. Nobody likes God’s forgiveness if that is the doctrine behind it!  All would agree that it is judgemental to surmise that a person may be asking for an everlasting life of evil and ill-will.  So Christian forgiveness is nothing special when it comes from a place of hate.

If you love God and God gives you all you have then you have the right to feel abused when somebody abuses God.  For one to insult your mother is one insulting the person without whom you would not exist.  For one to insult your mother is to insult you for she also raised and fed you.  If you believe in God as much as you say, the list of wrongs to forgive will be forty times as long as it would be if you were atheist!  It is not humanly achievable.   You will stop forgiving others or forgive one person randomly and not another.  That is what will happen.  You will reach a state of learned helplessness regarding your forgiving side.

Religion is parasitic on the fact that if you are hurt you need to mourn what loss the hurt brought you so that your emotional health can improve.  This is moving on.  It is not forgiveness for it is possible to reject an enemy as a friend and feel good about it.  Religion pretends that forgiveness is good for you when the real truth is that moving on and forgiving are not the same thing.

Religion is an enemy of forgiving.  It is an enemy of moving on more so.