DangerousTalk

I was listening to a video yesterday in which a Christian preacher was talking about forgiveness. It always fascinates me when religious believers talk on this subject. This video was no exception. So I thought today I would compare religious forgiveness with my view of secular forgiveness.

The context of the video was Reverend Creflo Dollar defending Reverend Eddie Long who has been accused and has admitted to sexual relations with a number of teenaged boys. In the video Reverend Dollar talks about how his fellow Reverend has been forgiven and will be going to Heaven.

The way I see it, it is easy to be forgiven within Christianity. All you have to do is admit that what you did was wrong, confess your sins to Jesus, and promise to God that you won’t do it again. You can still do it again though. If you do, then you have to admit that what you did was wrong, confess your sins to Jesus, and promise to God that you won’t do it again, etc. Some Christians stress that your promise must be sincere, but that isn’t to say that it must be kept, because it doesn’t. You can repeat offend again and again as long as you are sincere when you promise not to do it again.

The Christian view is that we are all evil sinners and we all make mistakes. Since all sins are equal, we all deserve to be tortured for all eternity in Hell. We are forgiven for our sins (whether it is breathing of mass murder) by grace alone. In order to receive that grace, we must admit that what we did was wrong, confess our sins to Jesus, and sincerely promise to God that we won’t do it again.

I am a big believer in secular forgiveness in which all crimes are not equal and the no one deserves eternal torture. For me, there is no such thing as eternal punishment. When someone does something wrong then need to try to make amends for their crime. Some crimes like murder there really are no amends. This causes a problem. We can’t bring back the dead. So how do we deal with that?

In ancient myths, often time the hero of the story was once a villain. He or she might have done unspeakable crimes and murdered many people. But at some point they decide that they want to turn their life around. It is at this point that they rededicate their lives to helping others all the while torturing themselves with what they have done.

When they first try to help people, they are met with hate and distrust based on their previous reputation for wrong doing. But after awhile as they have continue their hero’s journey, people begin to cheer as the hero comes to help. Despite the new reputation as a hero, the hero remains tortured by their past misdeeds.

At one point on the hero’s journey after being re-branded as the hero, the hero meets up with a relative or loved one of someone they had killed. This is a challenge for the hero to earn that person’s forgiveness. It may not ever happen, but the hero continues to try. That is what secular forgiveness is about, the journey to be forgiven by those you have wronged. No deity can give this to you by deed or grace, it must be earned by people and deeds. That is the only real path to it.

Filed under: Alternative Worldview, blood sacrifice, forgiveness, Judge God, People of Reason, responsibility