New Ideas

Forgiveness as an Illusion

If materialist brain activity determines how we behave, then we have no personal responsibility for our actions. If behaviorist punishments, reinforcements, and modeling determine how we behave, then we have no personal responsibility for our actions. If we have no personal responsibility for our actions, then we have to stop the illusion that we, ourselves, engage in right or wrong behavior, as if this were our own choice rather than materialistically determined for us either by interior activity of the brain or exterior activity of others and society. Moral right and wrong become, then, illusions.

When we forgive, therefore, we are responding to illusions. Forgiveness itself, therefore, is an illusion. Are you by any chance feeling very upset by another’s injustice against you? How will you rid yourself of persistent resentment if you cannot forgive? Biological materialist views of the brain and social materialist views of behavior modification will block you from forgiving and from experiencing inner emotional relief……if you have faith in these two (or really, either one of) these philosophies of human anthropology and anti-ethics.

In fact, your job is to stop using such words as “another’s injustice against you” and begin to talk of synapses and urges produced from the brain and inevitable behaviors emerging from how others have reinforced or punished you in your life. Forgiveness? Get over it. It is an illusion. Why live a life of illusion when you can wallow in your resentment…..without relief…..for…..the…..rest…..of……your……life.

Isn’t the practice of materialistic philosophies fun?

Robert

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Two Over-Simplified and Very Dangerous Ideas Emerging

There are two thought movements spreading in the Western world:

1) There is no personal responsibility because of brain activity which determines how we behave, rendering free will impossible; 2) social forces, such as poverty and oppression, determine how we behave, rendering free will impossible.

Beware of these over-simplifications of humanity. Do you see the implication….no really….do you see it?: If there is no personal responsibility, then there are no moral offenses…..rendering forgiveness impossible. Why? How can you forgive those who just couldn’t help it?

These new thought-movements are not saying that **some people** are incapable of free will. They, instead, are claiming that **all people** are incapable of free will. This is dangerous. Why? If one buys into these simplifications of humanity, then one must conclude (it follows logically) that no one is morally responsible for…….anything. Do as you wish (complete freedom….or is this license?) because your brain or social circumstances make you what you are rather than your own efforts helping to form who you are. How human is this?

Robert

 

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When Is Doing “Enough” Sufficient?

I was talking recently with someone who works with caretakers of those who are ill. The insight from the conversation is this: Many caretakers have a sense that they did not do enough. They need to forgive themselves. Self-forgiveness implies that you have broken a moral standard; you have offended yourself and perhaps others.

I am not so sure that self-forgiveness is the appropriate response in many of these situations, where the caretaker feels guilty about not doing enough. I say this because we always can do more…..and more…..and more.  When is it sufficient to say, “I have tried hard. I have done my best as an imperfect person. It is time to accept my limitations”?

If we move too quickly to self-forgiveness, then we are not giving ourselves sufficient time to ask this: Maybe I have false guilt here. Maybe I was expecting the person whom I am serving to get much better and that did not happen. Maybe I am tying my efforts to the other’s biological challenges, with the incorrect view that I have not done enough if the other does not get better. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, people do not become physically healthy. Sometimes the other does pass away.

It seems to me that many people, who do courageous care-taking of others, need to see this and not self-forgive, but instead challenge their own view that their care-taking was not enough.

Yes, at times, people missed an opportunity to serve well. At these times self-forgiveness is appropriate. Yet, I think this is more prevalent: At even more times, people have done the best they can. The healthy response then is to humbly accept one’s limitations, refrain from self-forgiving, and to say, “I have done enough. It is sufficient.”

Robert

  Editor’s Note: Learn more about self-forgiveness in either of Dr. Enright’s books             8 Keys to Forgiveness or Forgiveness Is a Choice.

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Why We Need Forgiveness Education…….NOW

“I was too busy trying to survive.  I did not have room to bring forgiveness into my world.”

These two sentences, spoken by someone who lived with an abusive partner for decades, is one of the strongest rationales I have ever read for forgiveness education, starting with 4-year-olds or 5-year-olds.
Do you see that the person, as an adult, did not have the energy and focus to add something new to her arsenal of survival?

What if forgiveness was a natural part of her survival arsenal starting at an early age?

We do this for learning how to speak and write coherent sentences.

We do this for learning how to add so that a budget can be maintained.

We do this for learning how to be just or fair as corrections and punishments are swift to come once one enters the school door and then misbehaves in the school setting.

I think it is tragic that educational institutions and societies fail to make forgiveness a natural part of life through early education. Isn’t a central point about education to help people make their way in society?  And isn’t a central point of making one’s way in society having the capacity to confront grave injustices and not be defeated by them?  And isn’t a central point of confronting grave injustices the knowledge of how to forgive?  And isn’t a central point of knowing how to forgive the thinking about forgiveness and the practice of it in safety, before the storm of evil hits?

And isn’t a central point of knowing forgiveness and practicing forgiveness to aid in the  survival of people who could be crushed by others’ cruelty?

Why do we spend time helping children learn to speak and write, learn essential mathematic skills, and be just…….but completely neglect teaching them how to overcome gHoly Family School-Belfastrave injustices?

Education in its essence will be fundamentally incomplete until educators fold into it the basic strategies for overcoming grave injustice and cruelty so that students, once they are adults, never have to say, “I was too busy trying to survive. I did not have room to bring forgiveness into my world.”

And the tragedy of this incompleteness is this: We now know scientifically-supported pathways to forgive. We have scientifically-tested forgiveness curricula for children and adolescents.

It is time to make “room to bring forgiveness into my world.”

Robert

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How Evil Works

There seems to be a pattern with evil that is so patient, so long-term that many people will miss just how it works. The short-range effects of evil seem to take on two patterns.  First, many people freeze when evil comes. They are numbed by the contrast between living life without that evil and now dealing with its stark contrast. Evil can so shake people to their core that they deny evil’s existence.

A case in point: I recently saw a photograph of workers at a German concentration camp of World War II. The workers were all sitting together smiling as a musician entertained them with his accordion, fun times being had by all….except by those experiencing the brunt of the evil. Even in the more recent evil of the mass shootings in Paris, many people in the theater froze when the gunmen entered. It was as if the freezing is showing us that those affected are not really sure that the horror is happening. The people at first do not react and this freezing and denial allow evil to have its way in the short-run.

After the initial denial by those who are indirectly affected (as in the accordion playing within the concentration camp example) or directly affected (as in the Paris murders), many people see and react to the evil by calling it by its name, by labeling it, understanding it, and trying to defeat it. This can take a long time, even decades. An example of this is people’s awakening to human trafficking, the using of others for the more powerful people’s own selfish ends. I still am not convinced that the world is seeing this evil in all of its fullness and ferocity. It sometimes takes great lengths of time to see and to act, yet act some people do.

Once the current evil is contained or even defeated (as in the Nazi example or the Paris shooting example), I have come to realize that the defeat is only a first-wave of the war on evil. Hitler’s Third Reich demise was not the end of that evil because the poison of that evil took up residence within those affected and within their loved ones born after the first-wave of evil was gone. Here is where the subtlety of evil is missed by so many. The evil itself, the killings, the exploitation, the hatred, may die, but the effects of these live on in those directly affected and those now affected by those who were directly affected. And this kind of evil—the secondary effects, or second-wave, of the first-wave—-are just as dangerous or even more so because they are unseen, missed. If we do not see that the evil lives on in this second-wave, then we cannot defeat it.

Yet, we must begin to see that the second-wave of evil can lead to discouragement, hopelessness, hatred, depression, substance abuse, child and spousal abuse, indifference and even hatred toward the divine (because the problem of evil cannot be fully comprehended), and the passing on to generations to come of a cynicism that robs people of inner vitality and thriving.

Beware of the second-wave of evil. See it. Know it. Defeat it through the practice of forgiving—within hearts, within families, and within communities.  Physical combat is the recourse to defeating some kinds of physically-present first-wave evils. Seeking help is another. Forgiveness-combat is the recourse to defeating the psychologically-present second-wave evils. Forgiveness-combat gives the gift to new generations of reduced skepticism, reduced hopelessness, and an increase in psychologically thriving. Forgiveness gives people their lives back.

If we are to defeat this second-wave of evil, wherever it is, then we need forgiveness education………..now.

Robert

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