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Awful crimes necessitate forgiveness even more urgently than mere mistakes. To brag about deeming anything "unforgivable" is amoral and disrespectful of the nature of human soul. Anybody is eligible to redemption.
Even people who engineer the mass murder of entire ethnic groups for their own political or monetary ends?
You're right in most respects, but mass murderers' only forgiveness should be given at the end of a rope.
The problem with this argument is that it has virtually no ceiling. You start with mass murderers, proceed with torturers, sadists, animal abusers, child abusers, rapists, and from abjection to abjection you end up justifying to yourself not forgiving your neighbour for letting his dog poop in your yard.
I think the greater the evil, the harder it is, most understandably, to forgive. But it remains a spiritual duty.
Although, I don't think forgiveness is a legal action. Breaking the law should always have legal repercussions. I take it more as a safeguard against hatred, a security net not to freefall towards resentment, hatred and ultimately a realm where no redemption is ever possible.
"Never forgive, never forget" sounds cool but from a spiritual standpoint, it's not much less dehumanizing than horrors such as mass murders.
"But muh slippery slope!'
Sorry, I can't respond to the reductio ad absurdum response of saying that mass murderers' do not deserve forgiveness and that not forgiving them is any way close to the mass murder of people.
I get the point you're trying to make, but we fundamentally disagree on the concept of even the most basic morality, clearly, if you can find any moral similarities between the two situations.
That's not a slippery slope, that's the logical outcome of setting thresholds to forgivability.
I'm not exactly surprised people would disagree. I've been served the very same argument again and again (albeit, instead of mass murders, I usually either get rape or literal nazism). That's kind of the point of this thread to begin with, I didn't expect to be met with understanding.
Refusing the other your forgiveness is dehumanizing. I didn't mean to say that's it's quantifiably similar (whatever that would even mean...?), simply that's it's a similar effect on one's soul. It is unquestionable that pyschopathically hurting others (or commit atrocities of any kind and of any magnitude) takes a much greater toll on one's soul that being denied any shot at redemption. My point was they both take a toll on one's soul. Not that they carry the same weight. Apologies for poorly expressing my opinions. It's difficult enough in my own language, let alone in english.
I don't see anything morally warranted in defiling one's humanity any further under the pretense they brought it upon themselves. More often than not do we ultimately realise that evil roots in fear, pain and one's inability to handle these. I do believe the core of the human person deserves to be saved and it starts with presence and forgiveness.
Actually yes (in my opinion).
There's two options. People have a choice in what they do and can change how they behave - in which case we, as a society, should help them to change and be their best selves. This process would take place somewhere where they could no longer harm anyone, a "locked rehabilitation centre" or whatever. Basically prison but without the hangups on what many prisons are like right now.
Option two, people don't have a choice in what they do and can't change - in which case, how can we blame them? Keep them out of harm's way and let them live the best life they can without being a danger to anyone.
So, theoretically, anybody is eligible for redemption in my mind. Either because they can change and grow, or because they have literally no choice in their antisocial behaviour. In reality, the sort of people we're talking about? I don't know what they would have to do to prove to me that they have actually changed and want to atone for what they've done. Is it even possible to make up for the crimes of politicians and billionaires who will do anything to keep their money and power? Still, I don't think that killing anyone is the correct answer in my ideal world
I agree that anyone is eligible for redemption - contrary to the zero-tolerance moral purity attitude that seems popular now. But a society where people were instantly forgiven for whatever bad things they did wouldn't work, because those people would make life miserable for everybody else. The system needs a way to discourage those people so the vast majority can live their lives in peace. So the question you didn't answer remains: how would you deal with horrible actions?
I agree. I don't believe instant forgiveness is ever warranted. Albeit I don't take forgiveness for something that can be ponctually granted, more like an ongoing effort to let the door open for the other's return. It's still up to the other to make the effort, on his side, to crawl back out of the hell he let himself slip in.