Responsibility, forgiveness and traumas?

[roger]

I agree that "all is as God/love/Self wills it."

 

Our divine nature creates the totality of our experience, which is why everything is exactly as it should be, why it's all the highest good.

 

"Bad" isn't real. Attack is an illusion.

 

We just don't see the good in everything, we don't see the reasons for things.

 

I think the divine plan is for us to experience EVERYTHING, to fully experience life, love, and truth.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that suffering is temporary, after we die we'll be free of suffering.

 

Another thing is, I like to think of the song by Peter Cetera that goes, "We're gonna live forever, knowing together, that we, did it all, for the glory of love."

[roger]

JUSTICE, Justice.   Punishment.  hurting the perpetrator and taking away an appropriate amount of there goods and freedom. 

 

Forgiveness is great,  it can great help the person victimized heal, but I give equal time and effort to Justice; and if when that means retribution and punishment, I can live with that. 

 

Justice and punishment help the healing and forgiveness process.  When a perpetrator gets off scot free or lightly, it creates another festering wandering wound. 

 

My brother (who introduced me to this website) shared with me once that there are two different views of justice- utilitarian, and retributivist.

 

Utilitarian is the view that justice should be what's the highest good for all- in other words, "what works".

 

Retributivist is, of course, retribution, vengeance.

 

If you combine these, you could say, punishment IS what works.

 

I believe that what we give, we receive, multiplied. That's the law of karma, what ACIM calls "the law of love".

 

So if somebody does something like kill another person, the pain they're causing everybody, they might end up receiving, multiplied.

 

On the other hand, I feel that we can nullify our negative karma to a great degree if we learn from our mistakes, don't repeat them, apologize when appropriate, confess what we've done, and so on.

[Shad282]

JUSTICE, Justice.   Punishment.  hurting the perpetrator and taking away an appropriate amount of there goods and freedom. 

 

Forgiveness is great,  it can great help the person victimized heal, but I give equal time and effort to Justice; and if when that means retribution and punishment, I can live with that. 

 

Justice and punishment help the healing and forgiveness process.  When a perpetrator gets off scot free or lightly, it creates another festering wandering wound. 

 

My brother (who introduced me to this website) shared with me once that there are two different views of justice- utilitarian, and retributivist.

 

Utilitarian is the view that justice should be what's the highest good for all- in other words, "what works".

 

Retributivist is, of course, retribution, vengeance.

 

If you combine these, you could say, punishment IS what works.

 

 

In my opinion, punishment is not the solution and never was. punishment would cause the perpetrator to be hurt even more and would not make him a better person. in the first place, the perpetrator, received pain and was hurt as kid and was acting out of his pain that resulted in doing a harmful or illegal thing.

 

Punishing him for being in pain and acting on it, would just add more to that pain. what is required rehabilitation from the pain to help that person not do the same harm again. and teaching the people who received the pain and such to forgive and such.

[roger]

I agree that punishment isn't the answer.

 

The law of karma is utilitarian imo, not retributivist.

 

But on earth, we have to keep people from engaging in acts of violence, and I feel that, in the case of man-made justice, punishment (prison) is appropriate.

[thelerner]

We need our saints, they protect our humanity.

We need our warriors, they protect our saints,

who'd otherwise be slaughtered or taken advantage of.. eventually

 

I acknowledge both forces within me. 

I am willing to forgive

and I'm willing to punish and in extremity kill.