this seems like a strange question but i was just thinking about when people forgive someone who’s hurt them or a loved one (like some devoted Chrisitians and Catholics seem to do). i heard of this type of scenario occuring recently and as a philosophy/psychology student, and an atheist, i find that view very strange and cannot understand why someone would forgive a person who hurt them/someone they cared about.
if someone hurt you/a loved one (for example getting beaten up or getting stolen from or something like that) what you would do and how would you react? I know how i’d feel and what i’d do in a scenario like that, but what would you do and what do you think should be done in those kind of situations? and also why do you think that some people feel forgiveness for people who harm them/those they care about?
Revenge is sweet. That is all I have to say about that. Let somebody rape one of my sisters or daughter. OH MY GOD!!! I’m serving some time. No reasoning!
The older i get the more forgiving i tend to be. Although i am not a buddhist, buddhism teaches that the you is the other me. I have found the notion that everybody and everything is interrelated to be rather cool at times. Also some people do not wish to befoul their life with violence (witness Ghandi). Violence breeds violence, the path to a violence-free World begins with oneself. I know a lot of this is idealistic, but it sure beats the alternative, i saw an article on aol just yesterday where a man was wrongfully convicted (murder i think) and served 27 yrs before being released. Nevertheless, i am human, and i hope my idealism never gets tested.
I have no objection to extreme violence if it is justified correctly. Unfortunately, because “murder” is against the law, a lot of people are still alive today because I didn’t end their existence for fear of being incarcerated. I have been in many situations where I was inclined to take lives and did not do so because of the consequences, not because of whether or not killing is “right” or “wrong.” I can tolerate verbal assaults, mockery, spite, slander, or any other emotional trauma. But when another person crosses this line and administers physical pain unto me, they are as good as dead. I would not “fight” to damper or hinder an opposition, I would fight to end that opposition completely. One tactic I might use in a conflict with another is to provoke the other to take the first aggressive action, therefore my attack is justified as a defense. When he turns up dead, the court would say “he asked for it.”
If something is stolen from me, I return the action threefold. For example, one time an employer refused to pay me money that he owed me, he was intending on skipping town. I talked to him on the phone and gave him a final chance to pay me, giving threats, and I asked him one last time “are you sure you don’t want to pay me?” He didn’t take me seriously. Two days later, he came home and found his trailer emptied and pulled off its foundation blocks(I hooked a chain up and pulled it off with my truck) after taking his T.V., stereo, and other items of value. In the end I got what was owed to me…and then some.
Defending a "loved’ one is a more complicated issue. I’d have to ask, am I certain that this loved one didn’t deserve it, and would I defend this person unconditionally. The only way I’ve found to avoid this potential dilemma is to not have any loved one’s. Solved.
If there is any absolute right for an individual it is the right to defend oneself, by any means necessary, from physical pain. There are no rules in war.
Though my idea of revenge isn’t so brutal, I do believe that what goes around, comes around. Even if I have to take an active part in it. The Count of Monte Cristo is an excellent example of what kind of revenge I’m talking about, so is the motion picture named Sleepers.
if your going to talk about movies and revenge, talk about Kill Bill. i agree with marshall on this one though… Violence breeds violence. Punitive measures can be taken without destroying a person. Whether or not that person learns is another topic altogether…
What comes around goes around and i personally don’t feel the need to help it go round. “I am the World, the World is me.” Jiddu Krishnamurti. Passion is good. It just needs to be directed in the right manner.