There are different levels of forgiveness or things that require forgiveness. Forgiveness should be completely up to the person who is forgiving. I personally, am bad at forgiveness. I tend to fall into the category of forgiving without actually meaning it. The small things are easy to forgive, whereas the bigger of a deal things get, it gets harder to forgive, or even impossible to forgive.
In the book The Sunflower, Simon battles with this same exact question; should I forgive and not mean it, or let him live with it for his remaining time? I believe that Simon did the right thing. Why should someone be forgiven for something that they were ordered to do? If people want to forgive people for what they were ordered to do, then I believe that the people doing the ordering should be accountable for themselves as well as the people they were ordering around.
I feel that one of the times that it would be hardest to forgive someone is if they have no remorse for what they have done. In that case it is almost as though they do not deserve forgiveness. How can you feel sorry for someone if they don’t? In order to be able to forgive someone they should seek forgiveness, after all you are doing them a favor. Through forgiveness you are relieving that person of a burden. If someone is truly seeking forgiveness that more than likely means that they have a dirty conscience about it, and forgiving that person may be giving that person satisfaction.
Personally I have a very hard time forgiving people. The people we have been reading about have been forgiving people for murdering their families, their friends, and their peers. This act would require a lot of strength. Most people would not be able to forgive someone for the murdering of a member of their family, let alone all or most of their family. Vengeance would be what most people would want, rather than the need to forgive. I believe that it is just human nature.
Through reading The Sunflower, I have learned a lot about forgiveness. I have learned a lot about how you can’t say whether or not you would be able to forgive someone unless it happened to you. I did not believe that anyone could forgive a group of people for such a thing. I personally believe that there are unforgivable act, and what the Nazis did was definitely unforgivable. There should be certain things that a person should not be able to get away with. However, for instance, a person can be sent to jail and do a life sentence, they can be forgiven but their punishment remains.
The Dalai Lama said; “I believe one should forgive the person or persons who have committed atrocities against oneself and mankind. But this does not necessarily mean one should forget about the atrocities committed. In fact, one should be aware and remember these experiences so that efforts can be made to check the reoccurrence of such atrocities in the future.” I feel this quote sums up most of the arguments that have been made about the Holocaust. People feel that it is now time to move on from the Holocaust but not ever forget it. Which is very admirable, and at least now most of the Nazis are dead and have had to live their entire lives knowing that they have done unspeakable acts, and that they are going to take that into the afterlife with them.
It is wrong to expect forgiveness from someone or to expect someone to forgive another. Forgiveness is something that should not be thrown around, it should be meaningful. Not forgiving would also be a good form of punishment, by not forgiving that person will more than likely force the person to live with their burden, and this could possibly drive them to be a better person.