Custom term paper on Forgiveness and Religion

Obviously, forgiveness is one of the central concepts of Christianity and it is quite natural that interviewed Christians prefer to forgive other people, including enemies. However, this idea is unacceptable for the overwhelming majority of atheists. For instance, it is possible to refer to the case of a boyfriend beating his girlfriend. From the legal and atheist point of view, this act is unacceptable and the boyfriend should be punished for his offensive, violent actions. In contrast, Christianity implies that the girlfriend should forgive her boyfriend. At the same time, it is obvious that the boyfriend should also act virtuously and stop beating his girlfriend. Ideally, they should arrive to the mutual forgiveness. Obviously, such a view of Christianity on forgiveness implies that people should avoid aggression and violence in their life and forgiveness turns out to be a good tool that helps them to avoid aggression and violence. In addition, Christian philosophy focuses on the development of positive thinking and rejection of negative emotions and feelings. In such a way, through elimination of negative feelings and emotions Christians can be more tolerant and, therefore, they are able to forgive more than atheist. In this respect, it is possible to refer to the study conducted by Fox and Thomas (2008), which revealed the fact that Christians are more inclined to forgiveness than atheists.
Remarkably, Buddhism also promotes the concept of forgiveness as one of the central concepts of Buddhist philosophy. Similarly to Christianity, Buddhism refers to forgiveness as an attribute of Buddha. Researchers can trace examples of forgiveness in sacred texts of Buddhists:
He abused me, he struck me, he overcame me, he robbed me”—in those who harbor such thoughts hatred will never cease.
He abused me, he struck me, he overcame me, he robbed me”—in those who do not harbor such thoughts hatred will cease.”
(Dhammapada 1.3–4)
As human beings we all want to be happy and free from misery. We have learned that the key to happiness is inner peace. The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger and attachment, fear and suspicion, while love and compassion, a sense of universal responsibility are the sources of peace and happiness. (Toussaint, et al., 2001).
In this respect, it is possible to refer to the interview, which reveals the act of forgiveness from the part of a Buddhist girl. To put it more precisely, in response to her boyfriend cheating, the girlfriend did not attempt to revenge but, instead, she felt her responsibility because her boyfriend was lonely and she was not with him that led to his cheating. Remarkably, such a situation and outcome of a boyfriend’s cheating is not always the case among atheists who quarrel and break up their relationships in case of cheating.
In this respect, it is quite noteworthy to refer to Dalai Lama’s words about the purpose of religion:
The whole purpose of religion is to facilitate love and compassion, patience, tolerance, humility, forgiveness. (Rye, 2005).custom term paper
Conclusion
Thus, the concept of forgiveness is the central concept of Christianity and Buddhism. At the same time, forgiveness is a very important from a psychological perspective because it brings inner peace to believers and Christianity and Buddhism used successfully this effect of forgiveness on people. On the other hand, forgiveness should include key features such as taking others’ perspectives and looking at a bigger picture over the event; through understanding and emphasizing the offender, the offended feels justified and lets go of the negative feelings to achieve the inner peace but the forgiver should make a conscious choice to forgive to achieve the inner peace.

References:
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Dhammapada. (2008). New York: Routeledge.
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Fox, A. and T. Thomas. (2008). “Impact of Religious Affiliation and Religiosity on Forgiveness.” Australian Psychologist, 43(3), p. 175-185.
Hope, D. (1987). “The Healing Paradox of Forgiveness.” Psychotherapy, 24(2), pp. 240-244.
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Appendices:
Interviews
Count: Christian 2, Islam 2, Buddhist 2, Atheist 2, Catholic 1
Owe: 2 Jewish, 1 Catholic

Atheist #1

Model case
conflict in work, frds who know each other for many years
treasure the relationship because true friends are hard to find
shouldn’t just waste it for a part time job
everyone has selfish moments

Contrary case
Friend sold out her secret in front of a group of people
Never talk to her or want to see her again
Wants to get revenge all the time, even dreamed about spilling sulfuric acid on her face

Atheist #2
Model forgiveness:

if you ask me to help you with your assignment today and i promised to do so, but I ended up not having it in my mind at all because I was too busy. I believe you should forgive me because we are friends, and I feel sorry about this.

Contrary to forgiveness:

If someone lied/harmed me to fulfill their self-interest and without thinking that they were wrong. Then there’s totally no reason for me to forgive that person because they never realize their own faults.

Christian #1

Model case:
For someone to be still able to truly love and care for the people who have hurt them physically/mentally, not pretence, then I think that’s forgiveness. It’s extremely difficult for anyone because we are human, but it is not impossible.

I don’t remember the time/place but this is a true story: a group of Christians went to a native village in Africa with their family. They planned to stay there and spread the gospel to the natives. They knew that the natives are extremely brutal, the natives would even kill their own people. But the husbands from the group still went into the village to try and socialize with them. And they were all killed. After they were killed, their wives and kids didn’t leave. They stayed near the village and through many years, they continued to showed their love and care for the natives through various ways. To be able to love the ones who killed their loved ones, I think that’s forgiveness.
Contrary case:
When people try to stay away or never engage the ones who hurt them is when forgiveness is not present. That’s just hiding the hatred and not letting it affect anyone.
Using the model case as an example, even if the wives and kids didn’t think of any way to get revenge on the natives and just left that place. Forgiveness would not be present. I think forgiveness is not just about forgetting the pain that someone has caused you. It is being able to overcome that pain and being able to love and care about that person again.
Christian #2
Model case:
Mom constantly makes his computer down
Forgive because it doesn’t help fixing the computer, and understands that she didn’t do that intentionally, also can’t do anything about it since it’s his mom

Contrary case:
a hk model got beat up by her bf, and decided to call the police
because broken trust (she thought he was a suitable future husband), do not understand how can her bf beat a girl up, psychologically disturbed (no inner peace), can’t move on to another relationship

Catholic #1

The definition of forgiveness

To be able to treat your enemy as you friend is what I learnt from my religious. Not to hate the person even after he/she did something bad to you either mentally or physically. Be able to feel no upset or any other emotion anger to that person when happens to appears in front of you.

Model case

A friend a mine (who i considered to be one of my best friend) back from High school had betrayed our friendship by talking nasty stuff behind my back. i was really mad at him to a point that i got myself out of group of best buddy. (cos we both belongs to the same group of friend.) i was so mad, i kept on thinking about it everyday, i told everyone that i know what had happened between us.but then after a few years later, I realized to hate everyone will only make myself not happy. Therefore, i tried to forgive this person. Then recently, i had bumped into to this person again. i no longer have that mad or hatred feeling anymore, then i realized, i really had forgave him.

contrary case (this is my friend’s case)

This Hk girl who think she is one of a kind, always likes to make fun of people.
theres one time a friend of mine broke up with his relationship with his girlfriend.
he got so emotional and started crying. he cries because he loves her girlfriend
very much. at the moment we were all trying to comfort this guy friend, this HK girl
started laughing at him. saying how ugly he looks when he crying. at last, my guy
friend got so pissed off at this hk girl got in a words fight with her. after that
incident he guy friend wouldn’t want to see this hk girl anymore.
Buddhist #1
Model case:
office setting, A faulted B, B’s friends want to boycott A but B refuses their help
revenge leads to consequences (karma), understand the situation that causes A to act like that, believe that forgive brings more happiness than revenge
Contrary case:
something just can’t be forgiven, teenagers dealing drugs, even if you love them, their sins can’t just be forgiven until they are punished and pay for their actions

Buddhist #2
Model case
Boyfriend told her that he cheated on her during their long distance relationship
She forgave him because she realized she’s not around him when he needed someone to accompany him, so she has responsibility in this event. She also values this relationship and thinks that they will have a happy future if the relationship goes on

Contrary case:
a friend suddenly got mad at her and talk behind her back, telling all other friends to boycott her, and until now still refuses to tell her the reason for that
not understanding why, she doesn’t feel the urge to get revenge, but she still has negative feelings when she saw that friend again

Muslim #1
forgiveness is necessary, mercy is required and should be part of your personality
need to forgive in less than 3 days, otherwise it’s a sin
Model case
A friend stole $50 from her mother’s purse, and then they went to buy candies without knowing that friend stole the money as she never told her. When that friend’s mother finds out, the friend blamed her and other girl stole the money.
Forgave because later the friend was sorry and apologized, and she realized that everyone makes mistakes, the important thing is learn a lesson and don’t do it again
Contrary case
God will not forgive if there’s another idol you worship

Muslim #2
Model case
There was this uncle who did something really bad to the family, her parents were angry at him but didn’t want to show the anger because it’s Islam law to forgive someone in 3 days, but there was still tension after they made up
Some time after that, there was a family gathering, when the uncle enters the room, there were no seats for him because everyone was seated
At that moment, she decided to give her seat to her uncle, everyone including her uncle was surprised that she’s so forgiving
She forgave because Islam law teaches you to respect your elders, so even though emotionally she hasn’t forgave him yet, she still want to show kindness to him as it promotes family peace
Contrary case
Brother and sister upset her because they won’t listen to her, so she didn’t talk to them and ignored them for 3 days
Unforgiving at that time because they acted really horribly, and there were no respect to the elder, but finally they apologized.