Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - The Ethics of Christian Forgiveness! Twitter/X Space

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Sept. 23, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

03:18:48

The Ethics of Christian Forgiveness! Twitter/X Space

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	Well, good afternoon, my friends in reason, thought, virtue, and consideration.
	We are here.
	We are gathered here today to get through this thing called life.
	And we're going to talk about forgiveness.
	Now, of course, forgiveness is a Christian concept.
	It's treated singularly in Christianity as a whole.
	And it's a different, obviously, than most other religions and so on, but it is a philosophical question.
	It's a philosophical question about forgiveness.
	When is it appropriate?
	When is it excessive?
	Is it subject to the Aristotelian mean?
	Too little forgiveness and your hard-hearted, too much forgiveness and your pathologically altruistic, and your entire society caves in from excessive sympathy.
	And I'm gonna chat for a little while, and then I'd love to take your questions and corrections.
	Of course, you know, it's a perfectly reasonable questi reasonable question to say, why on earth would I listen to Steph?
	You know, that's a it's a good question.
	And I mean, hopefully because I make good arguments.
	Just for those of you who are looking for more specific background.
	Uh I was raised uh in uh England as a Christian.
	I went to a Christian boarding school for a number of years, and I've read the Bible cover to cover.
	When I worked up north, I had a lot of time in a tent, and I read the Bible cover to cover.
	And I've also taken theology at the graduate school level, so obviously I'm not any kind of groundbreaking or earth-shaking expert, but I have studied this stuff quite a bit.
	And I've wrestled, I think as most of us have, you know, it's impossible really to get through this life without wronging others or being wronged in return.
	And when do we forgive and how do we forgive?
	These are all very powerful, essential questions.
	So this was prompted by uh poor Erica Kirk.
	I mean, listen, everything that I say here is not specific to the absolutely heartrending and appalling evil that she was subjected to as her husband was gunned down in front of her, uh, a truly spectacular and singular man of great intellect and virtue,
	and none of this is any kind of criticism towards her grieving process, but it has sparked a sort of interesting debate and uh blowback and examination of the question of forgiveness.
	Now, I don't think if we broadly divide forgiveness into two categories.
	I d I really want to say where I think the issue is.
	So the first category is the little shafings and wrongs and slights that we all do over the course of the day, right?
	So if I say to my wife, uh, oh, I'll make you a coffee, and then for some reason I don't make her a coffee, I forget to make her a coffee, or I make it and don't bring it to her and it's cold.
	These are just little slights that happen.
	We kind of had have running gags in my household about these kinds of things.
	My wife can ask me, are there any cups to be put into the dishwasher?
	I can literally be sitting in an entire fort made out of mugs and cups, look around, see nothing, and say, why no?
	And then she'll come in later and like there's three cups in the room that I was in, all visible.
	They're not hidden behind potted plants or other dimensions, and she'll be like, Why can't you see these?
	You know, the inevitable thing that happens when you can't see something in the fridge.
	Yeah.
	Wife's hand reaches in and it spawns.
	It literally spawns and materializes where she reaches.
	So I couldn't I can't see these things.
	Husband eyes.
	I can spot uh a bird in a tree 400 yards away, but I cannot spot a giant jar of ketchup right in front of me.
	It's just, you know, it's just one of the burdens that men have to bear.
	Uh my wife makes wonderful meals, very healthy, very tasty, and she in twenty-three years, uh uh she almost never brings me anything to drink.
	So of course I make a big show of crawling to the kitchen to try and get uh water like I'm dying in the desert.
	And so on.
	Uh my wife, when she has the car keys, will put them in any one of infinity purses, and then if I'm in a rush to go somewhere, I have to try and find them.
	It's in my purse.
	It's like, first of all, the purse has n-dimensional pockets that again go into the the backrooms, the nether, The new amenal realm, the Plato's realm of forms, I can't find them.
	Even if I know which purse it is, I'm unlikely to be able to find it.
	If it's more than one purse, uh, it might as well have been a needle in a haystack.
	So these are just little shapy nonsense things that happen when you live with people.
	And you you've probably seen these videos of a woman complaining that her husband has not put the toothpaste back, the toothpaste cap back on the tube, and he's left his toothbrush by the sink, not in the toothbrush holder, and then she quickly pans past her like 4,000 creams and bottles and lotions and crowding the entire thing, right?
	So if we we have the little shafy things, the little, you know, could be vaguely annoying, but you know, it's important to have a sense of humor about it.
	And so forgiving things like that is, I mean, essential.
	You really can't have a relationship.
	And it has to do with humility.
	I can be annoying from time to time.
	I mean, if you're an ex, maybe more than from time to time, but in general, in a personal way, I can be annoying from time to time.
	And my wife, heaven help her, uh, is occasionally annoying.
	And we all have to kind of live with that stuff, right?
	And there's nothing wrong with that.
	That's inevitable.
	That's, you know, it's it's a completely inconsequential price to pay for having a loving uh relationship.
	And uh I mean, it was just last night, just last night, I forgot to turn off the Wi-Fi on my tablet.
	And so a couple of times over the night there was a little chime of some email coming in or some message coming in or something like that.
	And I don't I mean, fortunately it did not wake my wife up.
	I just happen to be awake when it I heard the chime.
	But if it had woken my wife up, she might be it's annoying, right?
	To have a chime go off when you're sleeping and so on, right?
	Every now and then, you know, like everyone, I have a coughing fit or I sneeze or something like that, and it startles my wife awake.
	These are just the natural little shafy things to do with living together.
	And to me, when, you know, forgiveness is a virtue, I think it's really, really important to recognize that occasionally you will be annoyed by other people's actions in your life.
	Hopefully they're minor, hopefully they're not, you know, bringing home a severed head in a bag or something, but you will be annoyed by other people's reactions and other people's actions in your life.
	Why do you forgive them?
	Because it's not important.
	It can be amusing, and also because other people annoy you.
	Guess what?
	You also annoy other people from time to time.
	And being bigger than those things and not holding grudges, you know, like uh the sort of nightmare scenario for men in particular, where your wife or your girlfriend is like, and another thing, it's all the tsunami, it all comes kind of pouring out all the things you've done and that she's been bottling up and so on, and and that's not healthy.
	That's not good.
	We have to have a certain amount of grace and peace and humility and uh love and going past these things, living over these things and being bigger than these little things.
	And so I think for forgiveness, absolutely.
	And this does not need to be apologize for, this does not need to be uh there's no struggle sessions here, there's no, well, I'm gonna need you to make restitution.
	And like these are just you, you you step over the little shapy things that happen in life because you don't want your life to add up to a whole bunch of minor annoyances and endless grievances.
	Like that's just petty and silly and uh it's beneath us as rational creatures to live at that level.
	So I I think that stuff is important.
	And I I think we we would all agree with that.
	Uh I don't think that's particularly controversial to say that forgiveness for minor injuries, minor slights, minor inconsiderations, minor this, minor that, right?
	Um the number of times my uh daughter has uh borrowed something, uh like a credit card out of my wallet and then not returned it, and I'm out there uh holding my air in my hand trying to pay for something, it's like whatever.
	It's it's just not it's not important, not a huge deal, doesn't matter, bigger fish to fry in the world.
	So I think at that level, we can all deal with that.
	You have to find ways to forgive people who lie about you.
	I mean, if you are susceptible to upset because people lie about you, it's gonna be very tough to have a happy life because to happy have a happy life means To do good in the world, to do good in the world means bad people will lie about you.
	So it's to me, is it is it forgiveness?
	I mean, I've had people, and I I've even done shows where people who've been real haters on me for years, have an epiphany, they have a revelation, they realize I'm not the bad guy and that they were the bad guy, and I get, you know, probably once or twice a year messages from people who were like, I thought you were bad, I badmouthed you, I lied about you, I did this, I did that.
	And you know, they say, I'm sorry.
	And for me, it's like, and I've I've even done entire shows with this where I'm asking people like what happened and how did it go and so on.
	And I don't think, I don't think, I mean, maybe it has happened, but I don't think I've ever not forgiven someone for that sort of stuff.
	So minor annoyances, people lying about you, and so on.
	I think we have to find ways to not have it consume us, to not obsess about it, to not have that, you know, eat eat us up, and you wake up every morning, it's like, I can't sleep.
	Someone said something false about me on the internet.
	You know, you you would just lose your mind and you wouldn't be able to do any good at all.
	So even if it's not just a minor annoyance, but actually a falsehood about you, a lie about you, uh a besmirching of your character, or you know, I mean, this is constant if you're any kind of public figure, particularly if you're working in the realm of virtue, then you're gonna get lied about.
	You are just going to get lied about and finding some way to not have it eat you up and and you've got to move on, and you have to know that the people who love you will give you good feedback, and you have to have a good relationship with your own conscience, and you know, outside of defamation and libel, uh, free speech includes the ability to I mean, sadly, to lie about people.
	And lying about people is a sin.
	So I'm not just talking about minor annoyances like uh you forgot to leave the toilet seat up again or whatever it is, it's sort of cliche things.
	But I'm talking about like people who've actually done offensive things and sinned against you and truth by uh lying about you.
	Now, if you're in the public square, this happens on a continual basis.
	But if you're not in the public square, I mean, obviously there are still going to be people who lie about you.
	So when we are told in the Bible, we are told to forgive those who trespass against us.
	Now, trespass is an interesting word because a trespass, again, I'm sort of looking at the modern word, uh I know it's a Greek word and so on, that it came from, which means more around offense, but trespass would be somebody walked across your property.
	I mean, that would be a techn- that technically would be a trespass.
	Now, if somebody walks across your property, some hiker gets lost, or somebody's taking a shortcut, or whatever it is.
	So somebody walks across your property.
	Do you get to haul them in front of a magistrate, throw them in jail for trespass?
	Can you shoot them?
	Like a of course not, right?
	I mean, technically, they've done something wrong, they're on your property without permission.
	Or, you know, somebody comes, knocks on the door and wants to sell you a vacuum cleaner or something like that, right?
	So uh trespasses are when people do things that are technically wrong, but we should not overreact to them, right?
	If you uh come back from lunch and somebody's uh leaning up against your car, you know, uh uh uh do they technically have the right to lean up against your car?
	I mean, I don't know the law, but they're kind of using your property without your permission.
	Does it really matter that much?
	You know, if your neighbor, we talked about this in a show not too long ago, if your neighbor, his house is burning down and he needs to grab your ladder, which you've left by your house, he needs to grab your ladder to rescue his mother, and he grabs your ladder without your permission.
	I mean, is he technically taking stuff without your permission?
	Well, he's taken your stuff with the assumption that you would give permission after the fact, which is totally fine.
	But there are technically wrong things that people do that we should not get our panties in a twist about too much, right?
	I mean, we should save our moral outrage and upset and anger for absolutely egregious moral violations.
	Now I think that this is a little bit male-female divide.
	And of course, we saw this in the Charlie Kirk Memorial yesterday, where the women were all about the forgiveness to generalize.
	The women were all about the forgiveness, and the men were all about their punishment, vengeance, and uh and so on.
	Death penalty, life in prison, that kind of stuff for the murderer of Charlie Kirk.
	And I I found that really interesting.
	And none of this is negative towards women, none of this is negative towards men, saying that men and women have different pressures in how we live is far from original and far from controversial to anybody with any knowledge of the world, so hopefully you'll uh uh it's about forgiveness, right?
	So hopefully you'll forgive me as I go down uh this road and hopefully make this uh clear.
	So for women, how do women fight?
	Women fight, women have disagreement with uh words, right?
	I think that's that's fairly clear, right?
	Women have disagreement with words.
	Uh women tend to find uh words uh that that's how they sort of have their conflicts and their disagreements and so on.
	Now, women, of course, should not be beating each other up for words.
	And so for women, I think it makes sense that you don't use violence for words, that you have to find some way to forgive those who malign you, right?
	I think that makes sense.
	So men, on the other hand, tend to have disagreements around violence, right?
	You'll beat some guy up, you'll get into some sort of- I mean, talking sort of evolutionarily speaking, there were duels and uh pistols at dawn and uh fist fights and occasionally like real escalations, there are uh uh wars uh with with combatants uh squaring off with every kind of weapon known to man, God and devil.
	And so women tend to fight with words and words should be forgiven.
	Men tend to fight with weapons and violence, and that's more specific and judicial.
	So I don't know if you've ever gone down this rabbit hole or this path.
	But if somebody's ever told a lie about you in a social circle, right?
	Trying to find out who said it, who repeated it, where it originated from is most times kind of impossible.
	I mean, maybe with recording devices, people could record or something like that.
	But most times throughout our evolution, trying to find the origin of uh gossip was kind of impossible.
	And because you can't find who did it, and even if you find who did it, they'll just lie about it, and you have no way of proving, oh, I heard it from so and so, oh, I told them, but I I told them to keep it quiet.
	If they broke confidence, that's on them.
	Like people would just lie about that kind of stuff.
	Whereas if you've been in a schoolyard fight and you've got, you know, 20 kids around all watching you wailing on each other if you're boys, then I mean you have witnesses, you have physical evidence, uh, you know, you got a black eye, you got a split lip, you got whatever, right?
	You know, hurt knuckles.
	And so it's more objective, it's more provable.
	Violence is more juridical or judicial than uh whisper campaigns, which are very hard to source and track down.
	And even if you do get someone to admit it, what should the punishment be?
	It's kind of hard to say, right?
	I mean, if it's defamation, maybe restitution of the money that you objectively lost as a result of the lies, but so if you look at sort of the Charlie Kirk thing yesterday, say, well, the women seem to be more about forgiveness and the men seem to be more about vengeance.
	I think that's why.
	I think that's why.
	Now the other aspect I think that is really important is there are offenses and slights and lies and irritants that you should step over.
	You should be bigger than.
	And I think that the minor irritants of, oh, you asked me to pick up milk on the way home, I completely forgot.
	Right.
	And of course, you know, generally you'd say sorry, but this is not something where you need a struggle session, and the person needs to formally apologize and make restitution and you know, in some more formal manner.
	It is, oh, so sorry, I forgot that.
	I mean I'm completely distracted and whatever it was, right?
	So those are minor things.
	Don't need apologies.
	That's just part of the minor shapes of living.
	Stuff that is more serious, like spreading lies and slander about you.
	I if like if I found out for sure that somebody was spreading lies and slander about me, I would need an apology.
	And apologies, which are very much tied into forgiveness are really fascinating things when you sort of unpack it.
	Why Why is it important?
	And I used to call them BNAPs, like bull crap non-apologies, you know.
	Well, I'm sorry you were upset by what I did.
	I'm sorry that you were you were so triggered by my opinion, you know, that sort of snarky smuggin' stuff where then people aren't really sorry, they're just gonna they're adding insult to injury by putting you down, but I'm sorry you're just so thin skinned and sensitive that you can't handle the truth, you know, that kind of nonsense.
	So why are apologies important?
	Because if someone has harmed you in in a significant way, you need to know that they know it was wrong so that they will put effort into not doing it again.
	Right?
	So if uh if a friend of yours, you know, publicly publicly humiliates you in for some reason, right?
	You're at some dinner and he uh he he throws a drink in your face and and calls you an a-hole or something like that, right?
	Okay, well, he he has to understand that it's wrong to do that.
	And how do you know that he understands that it's wrong to do that?
	Well, his face is his eyes are wide and his face is ashen or whatever.
	It's like, oh my God, I'm so sorry that I I mean I don't know what came over me.
	I've been thinking about it all day.
	This is just terrible.
	I'm I'm dying.
	I I it was awful what I did.
	I'm so sorry.
	And you have a good conversation about that.
	So he recognizes that it's wrong.
	As you know, you cannot get people to change behavior, they will not they will not admit is wrong.
	And especially if they think the behavior is good.
	If he's like, well, you know, you looked at me funny, and I, hey man, you do that, you you get what's coming to you.
	I'm gonna throw my drink in your face and storm out of the place, and you know, I'm gonna try and shove half the breadbasket up your left nostril, right?
	So if the person approves of what they did, no behavior change is incoming, and you either put up with such wretched behavior or you don't.
	But if they apologize and if they make restitution, you know, like I'm so sorry, I spread that rumor.
	I was consumed with jealousy, I was having a bad day, I had a migraine, I, you know, uh my my dog had just died, or whatever, whatever, right?
	Then they can they say, Look, I'm I'm really sorry.
	I spread that rumor.
	And and it was wrong, I knew it was wrong, but I was just in a foul mood, and I really I'm having enrolled in anger management course, I've gone to therapy, I'm gonna figure out how to rein in my temper.
	And so here's what I'm gonna do.
	Uh A, I'm gonna take you for a great dinner wherever you want to go to say sorry, and also I'm going to uh tell everyone who might have heard this.
	You you give me a list, and everyone I told, I will go back and say, I lied, I was wrong, it was bad, this was false.
	You know, that's the kind of thing where somebody's willingness to endure discomfort to make amends is a sign that they know what they did was wrong, and that they're willing to endure discomfort to make it right.
	And so if it if it's just a natural shafing, whatever you forgot to pick up milk, no biggie, you can probably say sorry, but it's not some big, you know, and uh because people can turn that kind of stuff into struggle sessions, right?
	You always forget to break.
	Every time I ask you to do something for me, you just won't do it.
	You're so selfish, you never think about anyone but yourself.
	I needed the milk, you didn't care about it, you only ever think about yourself, you know, just like you can really just thermo nuke your entire relationship based upon a minor inconvenience, almost always based on carelessness rather than some sort of malign narcissism or something like that.
	It just doesn't really work that way.
	So, yes, we should absolutely forgive without requiring any big struggle sessions or restitution, you know, the minor inconveniences, things that are more morally serious, we should have apologies for sure.
	And you know, like if if if if you you're supposed to meet someone at seven o'clock and they don't show up till eight, it's kind of rude.
	Now, every now and then, look, things just go wrong.
	Your car breaks down, there's bad traffic, that you get stuck, there's some train crossing in a place that never crosses, you know, just things happen, right?
	You're gonna be late.
	If it happens on a regular basis, you have a problem.
	Because that does indicate a kind of thoughtlessness.
	You know, if you've ever had friends who are late a lot, uh it's really it's a difficult situation.
	Uh I've certainly had it in my life.
	It's a it's a difficult situation.
	Uh because why?
	Like if it was a job interview, you'd be there on time.
	If it was an airplane, you'd be there on time.
	But me, you're always late, right?
	So that's kind of a power play or saying you're not that important or you don't really matter.
	And you know, that is a little negative in the relationship, right?
	But, you know, and so if you say, Man, you you said you'd be here at seven, I've been waiting.
	It's cold, like waiting on the street corner for an hour, like this is terrible, right?
	And this is sort of back in the days before cell phones and all.
	And if the person's like, ah, you know, you gotta just learn how to relax, it's not a big deal, we're on island time or something like that, you know, then it becomes you have a problem for being so uptight that you expect people to be on time.
	Power trip, man.
	So that's not gonna resolve itself.
	Now, as you start to scale into more serious things, the question of forgiveness becomes really, really interesting.
	So let's say that someone asks to borrow your car, you lend them your car keys, they get into your car totally drunk and back over your dog.
	That's pretty bad.
	I mean, they killed your dog, you know, then I'm not saying go full John Wick, but you know, that's that's pretty bad.
	So what should they do?
	Should you just forgive them?
	Well, I think, and I really do believe this, which doesn't mean I'm right, does not mean I'm right.
	I'm just saying that I really believe this.
	And the fact that I put a lot of thought into this also does not mean that I'm right.
	I can I can, like anyone, we can put a whack load of thought into things and be completely wrong.
	So I'm just but I'm just telling you, I've dug in.
	So I'm happy to be argued against, but I've thought about this a lot, and unless I've missed something obvious, which is always possible.
	I think that if the person who borrowed your car, got into it drunk, backed over your dog, and killed your dog, if you don't get angry, and if you don't demand that they admit fault and work to change their behavior, I think you're sinning.
	I think you're acting really badly, because by withholding negative stimuli, by withholding criticism, by withholding correction, you are actually putting them on a soft, slidey path down to further danger in hell.
	Like so if somebody backs over your dog, kills your dog, and you say, I forgive you, no problem, off you go, right?
	You are withhold that to me, that's enabling.
	Like the sort of classical situation of a woman whose husband is an alcoholic, and she covers for him.
	She works extra shifts to pay the bills, and and she phones his boss when he's got a hangover and said, Oh no, he's got the flu, he'll be in tomorrow, he's sick, right?
	So she's covering for him.
	She goes out to pick up drinks when he really wants drinks and all that.
	So she's enabling him.
	Uh so she's part of the addiction, and it's really bad for him.
	In a sense, she's half killing him by not demanding that he stop drinking and do whatever it takes to get him into rehab or whatever he needs to do, by ensuring the continual flow of alcohol into his body, she's destroying his liver.
	She's destroying his health.
	She's destroying his mind.
	And so you you gotta stop these things.
	How do you stop these things?
	Well, you say this is unacceptable, and you need to change.
	You must change.
	This is unacceptable.
	Now, how do you do that?
	Well, usually you do that because you get angry.
	Anger is a very healthy emotion.
	Even hatred can be a very healthy emotion.
	It's not pleasant, I get that, but it is a healthy emotion.
	I mean, you want your immune system to be angry at viruses and bacteria, right?
	And take them down.
	So withholding correction from people, withholding your anger, is just greasing that slippery slope to worse and worse and worse behavior.
	And to get angry at people who've lied to you, mistreated you, harmed you in some significant manner, is healthy.
	It gives them passionate feedback on the negativity of their actions.
	Now, of course, if your friend quote, borrows your car, he borrows your car, gets your keys.
	He gets into the car drunk, backs over your dog, do you just say, yeah, no problem, keep driving.
	No, you'd say, give me the keys, get out of the car.
	You just killed my dog.
	You could be angry, right?
	You wouldn't just tell him to keep driving.
	You'd put a stop to it.
	You take the keys away because you're angry.
	Now, your friend, how does he earn your forgiveness?
	I mean, that's that's a tough call, right?
	That's a tough call.
	Obviously, he should repair the damage to your car.
	Obviously, he should pay for whatever needs to happen with your pet, if your pet is just wounded or whatever should pay for it to get better.
	Uh, Obviously, he should pay to get you a new pet, and he should do whatever he can to make it right.
	He should be shocked at what he did, and he should work to change.
	I think we can all agree on that.
	But if you just forgive the person when they have not sought any kind of they have not apologized, they have not made restitution, they have not made reason they've not taken reasonable steps to ensure it's not going to happen again.
	You are harming people.
	You are you are harming people by withholding your anger from them and by giving them forgiveness without requiring repentance.
	So the question of repentance is really interesting.
	And there are two I know that there's more than two, but there are generally two poles in Christianity.
	I was raised on the poll on Christianity, which is forgiveness requires repentance.
	Repent, sinner, you have to accept that you did wrong, you have to rededicate your life to Jesus, you have to make amends, you have to make restitution, you have to apologize, you have to make good.
	You have to make whole what you broke.
	You have to make good.
	That's how I was raised.
	Look, doesn't mean that I was right.
	It doesn't mean that the way that I was raised was right, but it was consistent everywhere I went.
	I went to school in England, I went to a Christian boarding school for a number of years, I went to school in I went to church in Ireland, I went to church in England, I went to church in Scotland, and a couple of different churches in England, it was always the same.
	Sin causes harm.
	Harm requires repentance.
	When repentance is provided, you can forgive.
	So it's not unchristian the way that I was raised in three or four different churches in an entire Christian boarding school, uh, Sunday school sermons, I was in the church choir, like I absorbed a lot.
	I absorbed a lot.
	So it's not crazy.
	And the people who say it's absolutely you you just provide forgiveness.
	No need for repentance.
	I mean, maybe that's valid.
	But to pretend there's no debate is nuts.
	To pretend that there's no areas or flavors or approaches to Christianity that require repentance for forgiveness is I hate to say it, like it's just shockingly ignorant.
	So what's the evidence?
	What's the evidence?
	Well, of course, the thing that is quoted the most often when you say forgiveness requires repentance is Jesus on the cross being tortured and mutilated, hung up, nails through, hands and feet, that he says, forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.
	And people think that that, I mean, I don't know, did just do people not even closely or carefully read texts anymore.
	It's just a weird thing.
	Like I did two years of an English degree where I learned how to parse out particular paragraph.
	Sometimes I remember spending two weeks in my class on Aristotle on one paragraph.
	You gotta read carefully.
	Does Jesus forgive the centurions?
	He does not.
	He does not say, all your sins are forgiven, I forgive you.
	You now have perfect entrance to heaven.
	He does not say that.
	He does not say, I forgive you.
	He puts out a plea to God saying forgive them, they know not what they do.
	Well, what does that mean?
	It's not reading tea leaves.
	He's saying they don't know what they're doing.
	Now, why do the soldiers, well, maybe the soldiers were illiterate.
	The soldiers are just nailing up, you know, thieves and and murderers and rapists and and the people who've been condemned to death, as they do, they do 20 of them a day, they've been doing it for 10 or 20 years.
	They're just executing another criminal who's been found guilty by the law, and the punishment is crucifixion.
	They don't know that they're killing the Son of God, they don't know that they're ending the divine, they don't even know that they're part of a prophecy, that this is what has to happen for humanity to be forgiven in general.
	They don't know what they're doing.
	I'm just a guy, Jesus would say, like, I'm just a guy, they're nailing them out, they don't know what they're doing.
	The fact that they're killing me, your son, remember they Don't know what they're doing, and forgive them.
	Forgive them for this because they don't know what they're doing.
	And they're doing it in public, they're doing it out in the open, they're doing it with full approval of the secular authorities.
	Not only full approval, but the mandate.
	They may have been drafted, these soldiers, they may not even be there by choice.
	And if they don't fulfill the law, maybe they'll get thrown in prison.
	They're not aware of what they're doing, they don't have free will in this situation, they don't have choice.
	We live in a dictatorship.
	Forgive them.
	They know not what they are doing.
	There was no Christianity as we currently understand it when Jesus was being nailed to a cross.
	It was just another day in the life of a Roman soldier fulfilling the law.
	But Jesus has not forgived them.
	He makes a plea to God to forgive them in the moment because of their ignorance of what they're doing.
	And I mean, I mean, there's a um I'm sorry to jump context so much.
	Hopefully you won't get whiplashed.
	But there's a funny little video of a guy trying to close the fridge door and it won't close, and he looks down and his little kid is there, right?
	And he's trying to close the fridge door on his little kid, right?
	Now that's not the same as taking your kid and slamming the fridge door in his head consciously is like, oh, my didn't realize my kid was there.
	I'm so sorry, right?
	I'm sorry, it was an accident.
	And Hamlet says to Laertes, forgive me that I have shot an arrow over a house and hit my brother.
	Didn't mean to.
	When I was a kid, I enjoyed throwing rocks.
	And I remember walking down the street in London, I was about maybe eight, and I threw a rock up in the air and it landed on the hood of a red sports car and left a dent.
	Sports car guy was enraged, enraged.
	I wasn't trying to hurt his sports car, I was just tossing a rock.
	That doesn't mean that we shouldn't give restitution him.
	I mean couldn't afford restitution, but whatever, right?
	It's an accident.
	And even in the law, of course, we have different punishments.
	In common law, we have different punishments for first degree murder and negligent homicide.
	Negligent homicide is you didn't mean to kill the person, but you just were careless and there was some reasonable expectation of harm.
	So Jesus did not forgive those who were torturing him.
	He made a plea to God that they be forgiven in the future, once they had the moral understanding of who he was and what was going on.
	Obviously, if you nail a guy to the cross and he comes back to life three days later with magical powers, then that's not just a guy, right?
	That's the son of God, or at least a very powerful being.
	So with Charlie Kirk's murderer, could we say, forgive him, father, because he doesn't know what he's doing?
	No, he knew what he was doing, assuming this is the guy, right, from what we've we've heard.
	I mean, by old reports, the alleged shooter planned the entire assassination out a week ahead, carved his little slogans into the bullets, had these, I don't know, to be somewhat dubious text message exchanges with his transitioning lover.
	He crept up, he snuck up.
	He's alleged to have, you know, calibrated his gun, locked in the sights, pulled the trigger, disassembled the gun, climbed down, moved, hidden the gun, lied about it.
	That's nothing to do with what the Roman soldiers were doing.
	The Roman soldiers were out there obeying the law, enforcing the law.
	This guy, this guy wasn't doing that.
	He knew that it was wrong because he was hiding it.
	The moment you hide the body, you're not crazy.
	I mean, in the at the Nuremberg trials after the Second World War, it was the leaders of the Nazi party, the uh the leaders of the Nazi regime who were tried, not the foot soldiers, not the common soldiers.
	They were often drafted and would be shot if they didn't obey.
	So the idea that Jesus said, forgive the soldiers they don't know what they're doing, okay.
	I mean, I think we can understand that case.
	But that's not the same as Jesus forgiving them.
	So if somebody says, I pray that God will forgive the sinner, that is very different from saying, I forgive the sinner.
	And of course, there were Two other criminals hanging with Jesus, one of whom repented.
	Jesus forgave him because he repented.
	Jesus said, Today you will be with me in paradise.
	He forgave him because he repented.
	The soldiers were not in a state of mind where they could repent or not repent because they didn't know what they were doing.
	If you see someone lie down behind your car and you back over them, you're guilty of murder.
	If somebody sneaks in and lies down behind your car and you back over them, you are not guilty of murder.
	Because you didn't know that you genuinely did not know they were there, you had no idea they were there, you had no reason to believe they would be there, you checked the car right before you got in, and they just crept out and lay down behind your car.
	They you didn't know what you were doing.
	So you wouldn't be convicted of murder.
	I mean, Jesus has the authority to forgive sins.
	Luke 520 to 24, 749, he tells people your sins are forgiven.
	So Jesus did not have the power to forgive those soldiers because they were not in a state of moral responsibility.
	If somebody is genuinely sleepwalking and is having a vivid dream and smacks some family member in the face, you don't put them in jail.
	I mean, you may get them treated for the sleepwalking thing, but they're not conscious.
	They're not in a state of moral responsibility.
	Now, if you are in a state of powerlessness, as one of the questions is why does it tend to skew more female the idea of forgiveness without restitution?
	So if you were in a state of relative powerlessness, sort of look at how women evolved.
	And I'm not a big one for like women were all oppressed and men were all patriarchs.
	I mean, everybody in society was oppressed except for like maybe five people, one of whom was divine.
	So women throughout human history had very little power in marriages, right?
	They were constantly pregnant, and they had no real rights to alimony or child support or divorce or separation or these kinds of things for a lot of our sort of evolution.
	And so if a woman was mistreated in a marriage, what choice did she really have but to forgive?
	Because men always have the capacity for violence, right?
	If a man mistreats another man, we always have the capacity for violence.
	And I don't I mean, I think it's hard for women to sort of understand this about the male mind.
	I mean, if you're a man and you're out there in the world, you are constantly scanning for danger.
	You're constantly scanning for danger.
	It's a terminate and stay resident subprogram that's just always running.
	Oh, that guy over there looks a little sketchy, maybe I'll move my family this way.
	Oh, there's an exit there just in case.
	Oh, that's where the sprinklers are.
	Oh, uh, there's a security guard there, so if we need like it's just an automatic process.
	Men are wired for violence, we expect violence.
	We are hair trigger that way.
	And then learning to master that and hopefully put it to good ends like promoting virtue and thwarting evil is really sort of the purpose of what we do.
	But women had very little capacity to fight back against their oppressions, men could.
	Now, again, most men throughout history were slaves, so I get all of that, but that's not how we're wired kind of deep down.
	We're wired to fight.
	And this is why women who want a guy beaten up don't go and beat the guy up themselves.
	Obviously, they just go and tell their brother, oh, he grabbed my ass, or you know, he said something really mean, or, you know, he hit me, uh, whatever it is, right?
	Then then the men will go beat up the other, the other man.
	So for women who could not enact their own retribution, but kind of had to submit, forgiveness then becomes all they could really do.
	And especially because it's earlier so talking about the um the verbal abuse and slander and so on that's really impossible to trace and so on.
	So men, we can we can go have a fight.
	Uh girls, they can't.
	So forgiveness is in a way, forgiveness without requiring restitution is a mark of powerlessness.
	And my sort of my concern is not only does it come out of powerlessness, but it reinforces powerlessness.
	I cannot effect retribution, therefore I must forgive.
	Right?
	So because people were telling me on X, well, you know, people forgive for their own peace of mind because it releases the desire for vengeance, it releases uh you from hostility, hatred, anger, toxicity, uh you know, revenge is like uh taking a draught of poison thinking it's gonna harm the other person and all that and it's and and that's again that's female coded.
	A female.
	I mean, you know what else makes the feeling of wanting vengeance going away?
	Getting vengeance.
	And I'm not talking about violent vengeance and and it's like funny because people were like, well, what do you mean by nonviolent vengeance?
	I mean, uh I'll give you a brief story here, sort of illustrate it.
	So uh many moons ago I had a mean boss, uh very volatile, and he kind of bullied uh people.
	I couldn't fire him because he wasn't my boss.
	So uh at a board meeting, I provoked him.
	In in positive, I was just very firm, very insistent upon my point, and he just blew up and started yelling, and he got fired.
	So that would be an example of peaceful vengeance.
	I refused to accept the bad behavior, I did not have the power to fire him.
	The board did not know about his dad's bad temper, so I provoked him in front of the board until he showed his bad temper and got fired.
	And then everybody was much happier.
	I had like 40 people, 35 or 40 people working for me at that point, and everybody was much happier with that, this guy stalking around yelling at people.
	And I gained a good degree of loyalty from also I got them a million and a half dollars worth of raises, but that's a topic for another time.
	So that would be an example of a vengeance, so to speak, based on anger that I uh achieved.
	And, you know, I mean, they say revenge is the best is a dish best served cold.
	I don't think about people who've wronged me.
	I don't sit there and say, Oh, here's my chart.
	You know, I got that all the lines on the wall and the tinfoil hat.
	I don't have this.
	I don't think about people who've wronged me.
	But if someone who's wronged me comes up, I will not defend them.
	I may even fact take digs at them, put them down, I will, whereas, you know, somebody who's been loyal and good to me, I will be loyal and good back.
	So all of these kinds of things is maybe it's a bit of a sort of male difference that way.
	Now, people have asked me too, they said, Well, what do you think Jesus meant by he who has no sin cast the first stone?
	Well, this was an adulteress, if I remember rightly.
	And they were going to stone her to death.
	And of course, in Christianity, lust in the heart is the same as lust acted in the world.
	Right?
	He who has looked at a woman in lust has already committed infidelity, and who's not his wife.
	So the woman committed a nonviolent crime, or a nonviolent action.
	Wrong, of course, but not violent.
	And so what he's saying is you can punish this woman if you've never made bad decisions based on lust.
	And everybody has made bad decisions based on lust.
	Everybody.
	Even if you take out sexual lust, lust for food, lust for status, lust for money.
	So what he's saying is, if you've never sinned in this way, if you've never made bad decisions based on greed, then you can throw stones.
	But of course, but but that's different from a murderer.
	I mean, I'm convinced, 100% convinced that everybody, and I really appreciate you guys dropping by today, everybody who's listening to this is not a murderer.
	100%.
	100%.
	I've only met one murderer in my entire life.
	So he's saying that for crimes of lust, we're all subject to censure for that.
	If you're honest with yourself, we've all made bad decisions based on lust.
	However, a murderer is a different category.
	So when people say, well, we're all sinners, it's like, sure, okay, I get that.
	I understand that.
	But we sure as surely aren't all murderers, right?
	Hopefully that's something that we can agree on.
	Have I made bad decisions based on lust?
	Yes, I have.
	Have I killed anybody?
	I have not.
	So this sort of idea that it's all the same somehow.
	And uh I I find that very strange.
	All right, I got a couple more things to say.
	I'd love to hear your thoughts about this and set me straight.
	Because I I again, if I'm getting things wrong, I always want to get things right.
	So forgive the sort of technical term to grant pardon for or remission of an offense, debt, etc., to absolve.
	So if you get a letter from your bank and say your student, they say your student loan is forgiven, let's say you owe 10 grand.
	Your student loan is forgiven.
	That means you have no debt.
	So if your bank sends you a letter saying your student loan is forgiven, can they then send a collection agency after you or threaten to take you to court for your unpaid loan?
	No.
	The whole point of the student loan is if it's forgiven, it's over, it's wiped, it's gone, it's done.
	So the idea that you can forgive someone and then still punish them, I mean, it doesn't make much sense.
	Now, you could say, well, there's two senses of the word forgive.
	There's forgive in terms of the spiritual relinquishing of vengeance, and then, but then you you don't forgive when it comes to punishing them with a death penalty, throw them in jail, whatever, right?
	Okay, but but please understand that that's confusing.
	That I mean, just understand that if you're using the same word to mean two completely opposite things, to grant pardon for and also to kill per the death penalty, completely pardoned, and we're killing you, right?
	If you're pardoned, you're supposed to be let out of jail.
	We they don't say, we've pardoned you for your crime, now we're going to kill you for your crime.
	That would be, well, contradictory, right?
	Or saying that, well, some Christians should forgive, but other Christians cannot forgive and must punish.
	It's saying that forgiveness and the opposite of forgiveness are both virtues, logically, it no worky.
	So first is to grant pardon for or remission of an offense debt, etc.
	to absolve.
	Number two, to give up all claim on account of remit a debt obligation, etc.
	Three, to grant pardon to a person.
	So when people say forgiveness does not mean freedom from punishment, yes, it does.
	Yes, it does.
	And it's wild too.
	I just by the by, this is just a personal thing, so I won't spend much time on it, but hopefully it makes sense in the general uh challenge that I have with this.
	It's a number of sort of insulting, cutting, aggressive, nasty terms that I was given for pointing out this issue with forgiveness and with full biblical support.
	I'm not saying it's 100% or there's no no ambiguity, but and I'll I'll get to the sort of the passages, but I'm I'm quoting Jesus, saying people have to repent.
	And people are just being like really kind of mean and cutting and nasty, you're autistic, you're stupid, you're an idiot, and you're blah, blah, blah, right?
	And it's like, okay, so so Christians can forgive a murderer, but not me for quoting Jesus.
	I mean, I just look, if you're a Christian and look, we have so much in common, it's nuts, and and I appreciate what Christianity has done for the world, and I appreciate the moral grounding that it gave me as a child and all of it.
	But look, if you are a Christian and you're supposed to love your enemies, I'm not your enemy, but let's say you disagree with something or you think I'm doing something wrong.
	If you're mean or nasty to me, and if you don't forgive me, and if you escalate and you're aggressive and so on, then you're you're you're failing your faith and you don't even know it.
	Because honestly, people would be like, well, Jesus tells us to come to Jesus commands us to love our enemies, you idiot.
	And I'm like, what?
	I mean, if Jesus commands you to love your enemies and you consider me an idiot or doing something wrong or bad, then you should give me love.
	And this is this is the part where people say, well, it's tough and this and that.
	So not only did not one Christian of the hundreds who responded, I posted this last night, started this topic last night, not one Christian approached me with love.
	Like, wow, that's a really great question.
	I can see where you're coming from.
	Tell me more.
	I want to make sure I understand your perspective.
	I'd love to hash this out, or I really care that you uh uh that you're passionate about these topics and so on.
	Not one.
	And this is why I I don't know where Christianity is in people's minds and hearts.
	If you're commanded to love those you disagree, I'm not even an enemy, I'm just somebody who's raising a point of morality in the Christian context and in the general philosophical moral context.
	So I'm not an enemy.
	I'm not saying, you know, hail Satan, no, come join my church of Moloch, right?
	I'm not an enemy.
	And yet there's this contempt, aggression, and hostility.
	And you could say, ah, yes, well, but there are some bad Christians.
	Well, of course I get that, and you don't judge a belief By its random adherence.
	However, it's 100% consistent, and I didn't see any other Christian saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, he's just asking a question.
	He's exploring faith.
	Don't be an a-hole to him.
	That's not biblical.
	And people didn't even say, you know, I called you an autistic a-hole.
	I prayed on it, and I realized I was failing my faith because I'm saying it's good to forgive a murderer, and I'm being aggressive to you for typing some biblical arguments on X, not one person.
	So this is what's foundationally so confusing to me, and I mean this with genuine deep gobsmacked humility.
	Is if people are mad at me for bringing this topic up, and yeah, I can be a little punchy, I get all of that, but that's fine.
	These are important topics.
	We should be passionate about it.
	You know, the the poor woman who was murdered on the light rail in August.
	Irina.
	I mean, her murderer was let out of jail, what, fourteen, eighteen times by a female judge for the most part, or female judges for the most part.
	That's excessive forgiveness.
	So people say, well, why why does it matter to you?
	It's like because if people believe that forgiveness is just the absolute ideal, then it never has to be earned, and I disagree with that.
	I have to live in the world where people don't have to earn forgiveness, it just rains down like pennies from heaven.
	That's not a good world.
	That's not a good world.
	So that's what's always wild to me is people will absolutely and actually quote, the need to forgive, to love your enemies, and so on, while insulting me.
	Now, if I am an enemy, you should love me.
	If I'm not an enemy, why are you insulting me?
	And I just would love to see that show up.
	And guys, like you're out there, you want to make your faith vivid to people, you want to make your faith real to people.
	They need to see you following your rules.
	They need to see you following forgiveness is good.
	Uh, you know, don't just call me a heretic or saying I'm committing heresy and I'm autistic and dumb and willfully misunderstanding people and like I'm a troll and I'm engagement farming, like just endless mind reading stupid insults, right?
	That's not Christian.
	That is the opposite of Christianity.
	And if you're going to defend Christianity, which I think is a great thing to do, don't do the opposite while quoting the rules.
	That is just a uh that's a wild thing, man.
	So somebody writes uh with regards to Erica and forgiving the murderer, it's for her sake, not his.
	Getting that hatred and darkness off your heart is critical for mental, physical, and spiritual health.
	Although seemingly contradictory, you can forgive and still seek justice.
	I don't make the rules.
	Well, and I'm so again, I I don't want to talk about Erica in particular because, again, the suffering that she's going through rends my heart into.
	I mean, I found it traumatic enough watching poor Charlie get murdered, and I only met him once, spent a conference with him, and was on a panel with him, and I was not close to the man at all.
	And I found it just appalling and horrendous.
	It it aroused my full Genghis Khan fight or flight war instincts.
	So what she's going through is is almost it's completely beyond imagination, and I have nothing but massive sympathy for her suffering.
	But if the reason that you forgive is it makes you feel better, that just seems like hedonism.
	And I just don't think that that's I don't think that's the right answer.
	Somebody else wrote, uh, this feels recent.
	I was always taught about the need to repent when I was a kid in the 90s.
	I was away from the church for about 20 years, but since I've returned, none have said a thing about repentance.
	And he said, I've attended six churches.
	It shouldn't be that hard.
	And I have not I have not seen that either.
	And I can I I don't obviously remember everything about the Bible, clearly, sorry, that's a sort of it's a ridiculous thing to say, so sorry about that.
	But I don't remember an instance where God forgives without repentance.
	Luke 13, 3.
	Jesus said, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
	Somebody wrote, you have a correct understanding of forgiveness, repentance, and redemption, Stefan.
	I've been a Christian my entire life, and have observed this cheap absolutism slash grace tendency.
	Unfortunately, in people close to me, it appears to be a coping mechanism that short circuits the grieving process.
	They don't want to deal With the burden of the bitterness and anger, and they let it go as quickly as they can instead of wrestling with it.
	It doesn't actually help the offender, but it definitely makes it easier in the short term to the grievant.
	Luke 17, Jesus says to forgive if and when someone repents.
	And that's what I saw, and that's how I was raised, and that's what I've read in the Bible.
	Timothy 5 20, rebuke publicly all those who commit sins so that the rest may be afraid.
	Rebuke publicly all those who commit sins so that the rest may be afraid.
	Now that's a that's a tough thing to do, to go and publicly call people out for their sins.
	I mean, I do it, and trust me, you get some blowback.
	I'll tell you that straight up, friends.
	You get some blowback, but it's worth it.
	I mean, what's the alternative?
	Just hand over the planet to the evildoers.
	Christ does not command that you hand out forgiveness like free samples at Costco.
	I mean, it's a little coarse, but it's quite funny.
	Luke 17, 3 to 4 said forgive only if a brother repents, quote, if he repents, forgive him.
	Matthew 8, 15 to 17 shows unrepentant sinners face exclusion.
	Leviticus 19, 17 to 18 and 2 Corinthians 2, 5 to 8, back rebuke and rebuke and remorse.
	Romans 12 does not call for being for forgiving unrepentant sin in the church, repentance is key.
	Forgiving evil makes the offenders more likely to offend again.
	So this is a study, the dark side of forgiveness, the tendency to forgive, predicts continued psychological and physical aggression in marriage.
	Abstract.
	This is uh Oh McNulty, isn't it the same as the guy from the wire?
	I shouldn't remember that.
	Anyway, this is from 2014.
	Despite a burgeoning literature that documents numerous positive implications of forgiveness, scholars know very little about the potential negative implications of forgiveness.
	In particular, the tendency to express forgiveness may lead offenders to feel free to offend again by removing unwanted consequences for their behavior.
	Example, anger, criticism, rejection, loneliness, that would otherwise discourage reoffending.
	Consistent with this possibility, the colour the current longitudinal study of newlywed couples revealed a positive association between spouses' reports of their tendencies to express forgiveness to their partners, and those partners' reports of psychological and physical aggression.
	Specifically, all those spouses who reported being relatively more forgiving experienced physical psychological and physical aggression that remained stable over the first four years of marriage.
	Spouses who reported being relatively less forgiving experienced declines in both forms of aggression over time.
	Yeah.
	Forgiveness without remorse, without restitution, without repentance, does not reduce aggression.
	Less forgiveness reduces aggression.
	Somebody wrote, I've read the Bible cover to cover, and I 100% agree with what Stefan is saying.
	Paul commanded the church to remove the man who was sleeping with a relative.
	Christ commands the girl, commanded the girl, be saved from stoning to sin no more.
	Go forth and sin no more.
	There's a repeated pattern that behavior must change.
	Again, Luke 17, 3 4, take heed to yourself.
	If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him, and if he repent, forgive him.
	Now some people say, of course.
	They say, Yes, but this is to your fellow Christians, and so on.
	Well, if people are ignorant of the law, as were the Romans, of the law of Christ and of his divinity, then forgive them in the moment.
	But the shooter of Charlie Kirk, whoever he was, obviously, I think it's this guy, but whatever it turns out to be, he knew what he was doing was wrong.
	He knew that he was it was illegal, and he did it.
	So it is not as simple as blanket forgiveness is everything.
	Somebody said, You are spiritually darkened if you think they know not what they do means practical planning.
	You've missed the point entirely.
	So I'm spiritually darkened.
	That's not love.
	That's not Christian love.
	My whole public career as an intellectual, as a thinker, as a reasoner and debater, as a philosopher in the Bible.
	If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you.
	If they listen to you, you have won them over.
	But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
	If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church.
	And if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
	Find that kind of funny.
	So what have I always said in my show?
	I've said, if you have an issue with someone, a parent, sibling, friend, sit down and talk about it with them.
	I said this in my speech in 2009 and again in 2011 in New Hampshire and then at Libertopia in California to say, if people advocate for the use of political violence against you just for disagreeing with them, reason with them, give them a month or two, but don't reason with them forever.
	Don't expect them to immediately change.
	you take your time, but you make the case.
	And if people are still dedicated to immorality and corruption or evil, after you have confronted them with the truth of what they believe and the morality of what they believe, if they're still dedicated to immorality, you don't have to spend time with them.
	Now in the Bible, it says, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector, ostracize them, kick them out.
	And I've never told people to kick other people out of their lives, but I'm saying you don't have to.
	And in Luke 17, 3, 4, take heed to yourself, if their brother trespass against thee, rebuke him, and if he repent, forgive him.
	And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day, turn again to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him.
	Yeah, because change is tough.
	Change is tough.
	If you have a real hound dog of a husband who keeps staring at women's jiggly butt cheeks, and then you take him out to the Hawaiian tropics sunscreen competition, uh, and he keeps looking at girls, he may have to say seven times, I'm so sorry, right?
	Yeah.
	But if he's dedicated to change and all of that kind of stuff, then I can understand that.
	But you don't keep doing it, because otherwise people just mum, oh, sorry, oh sorry, oh sorry.
	So it's not obvious.
	And all of the people who say, well, this is just basic Christianity, man.
	I repent.
	If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.
	And again, I'm happy to be corrected.
	And I've not insulted anyone.
	Yeah, I wrote, all the healthy and righteous anger that followed Charlie Kirk's murderer has been drained away by all this fake, quote, forgiveness.
	And somebody wrote, kindness is not weakness, you goofy F-U C K word, whatever, right?
	And it's hard for me to believe in Christianity, honestly.
	I'm just I'll just straight up, like I'm just telling you this.
	It's not any kind of epistemological statement.
	But it's hard for me to believe in Christianity when Christians don't.
	When they're very much in favor of forgiving a murderer and then they're cold and mean to me.
	It means that I am less forgivable than a murderer.
	That's bizarre to me.
	Uh honestly, like you need to see what you're doing from the outside.
	And not, you know, from the non-Christian perspective, but just from being on the receiving end of this.
	Why would I take seriously when people say you have to forgive everyone when they attack me?
	There's such a contradiction.
	Like honestly, there is such a contradiction between people what people are saying is the good and what they're actually doing, and they don't even notice it.
	And this is part of the reason why I did UPB and philosophy and so on, is that Christians, and you know, is this is this a scientific sample?
	No, but it's easy couple hundred people, and over the over the twenty years I've been sort of a public philosopher and moralist, thousands and thousands and thousands of Christians have responded.
	And again, I remember one guy from many years ago, sort of very kind and positive, but that's very small.
	That's a very small number.
	So if people are saying, forgiveness is a virtue and it doesn't have to be earned, and you have to love your enemies, you asshole.
	And they don't notice that contradiction, and it doesn't trouble them later, and no other Christians notice that contradiction and say, whoa, hang on, how can you say you're supposed to forgive a murderer and then verbally aggress against death?
	How can you aggressively put someone down and say, Christ commands us to love our enemies, you jerk.
	It's bizarre and disorienting.
	I'm just telling you this straight up, not because it's like, oh my gosh, I'm so thin-skinned.
	I get it.
	I mean, you know, rough and tumble, public life, promoting virtue, you're gonna, you know, you're gonna get some blows in, you're gonna get other people going to get their blows in.
	I get all of that.
	But it's I I don't know if there's a word for it.
	It's it's the blatant self-contradiction that's entirely invisible to people.
	And you you see this in philosophy, like all the time.
	In morality, all the time.
	Like people will make the argument, well, language is meaningless.
	It's like, but you're using language to communicate that.
	So it can't be meaningless.
	You have you're relying on the fact that language has meaning to convey that it has no meaning.
	Like, did you not notice that?
	So it's really vivid when people are aggressively screaming at you that you have to love your enemies and forgive murderers.
	And don't notice.
	And and if you can all help me to understand this, I would absolutely love to understand this, but I don't.
	I don't.
	I mean, if I was screaming at someone that you should never scream at someone, I mean, wouldn't I notice that?
	I mean, maybe in the heat of the moment or whatever, but wouldn't I notice that later?
	And of course, this is another issue, or and I and I'll shut up after this, and I appreciate everyone's patience for a long sort of chat, but I find this absolutely fascinating.
	Like digging around these roots and cobwebs of people's self-contradictions is kind of a gig.
	It is it is kind of the job.
	But if people don't notice these contradictions, how does the belief system activator or matter to them?
	If it is consistent that people who disagree with me tell me that they have to love their enemies and forgive murderers, but then attack me and call me names.
	Well, I assume that they have been praying their whole lives, right?
	And this is again, I I I don't have an answer to this.
	So I'm I'm an acolyte and and a humble powder puff fluff of ignorance floating across the landscape.
	Because if people have been praying their whole lives, how to act, how to interact, how to love your enemies, how to and this is the result, then I don't know who they're praying to.
	I don't think they're praying in the right direction.
	And aren't people a little bit concerned that if you forgive without repentance, that means that evildoers either get worse or get to keep being evildoers.
	Because that seems important.
	That seems like an important thing.
	You are rewarding people who don't come to the light, repent and make restitution.
	You're rewarding people who don't do any of those things equally to those who do things.
	And I assume, you know, I I posted this last night, right?
	And people were pretty aggressive about all of this, right?
	Which again is completely bizarre.
	I mean, there are aggressive religions out there, and you kind of expect them to be aggressive.
	But religions that say, forgive everyone, love your enemies.
	And again, I don't agree with the forgive without repentance.
	But people were aggressive with me last night.
	They went to bed and they did their prayers at night, and they prayed for guidance and they prayed for knowledge, and not one single person said, Steph, I said these harsh things to you last night, I prayed on it, I read the Bible, and I got guidance to do better.
	I'm really sorry for what I said.
	Beautiful.
	You know, we all make mistakes, we can all be hot-tempered, we roll with the punches, we're all big people here, but not one person.
	I mean, do you understand that from the outside?
	That is not a good look for religion because it doesn't seem to work.
	People are noticing that they're counseling love and forgiveness while attacking and condemning me.
	They don't go and pray and get better results and come back chastened and humble and willing to engage again.
	So the people who say forgive without repentance themselves are incapable of repentance.
	And my concern is that it's a self-selecting group for the most part.
	So all the people who are a-holes and don't want to change, are pushing this idea that you have to forgive A-holes without repentance, because it serves A-holes if you don't call them if you don't call upon them to repent and improve.
	So my concern is it's actually not good people as a whole who are demanding forgiveness.
	I think it is um being let it leading people astray.
	Who does it benefit to be forgiven without repentance?
	Well, people who've done wrong and don't want to repent.
	So I think it's basically people who who don't want to become better who are pushing this idea or this argument.
	And I think it comes at the great cost of Christianity as a whole.
	And that's just, you know, word to the wise about how to all right.
	So uh I appreciate your patience.
	Thank you for uh the indulgence of the fairly lengthy chat.
	And let's get to your.
	Hey, let's bring in Q for his question.
	If you are still around and have not joined the choir invisible, if you would like to set me straight, tell me how to think better, where did I get things wrong?
	I'm eager to hear.
	You may need to unmute.
	All right.
	Let's go to our good friends.
	Our good friend Jimmy James.
	What's up?
	Hey.
	Hey, hey, how's it going?
	Good, good.
	How did uh how did I do?
	What uh what did I get wrong?
	Because you you have uh as much, if not more of a history of Christianity than I do.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Uh so uh I'm just just briefly I'll touch on where I'm coming from, just so people get a sense of it.
	Um grew up uh Christian, started going to church with my father around eight years old, um, and was in Christian school through, you know, uh nine out of sixteen years of my education, you know, including two in college, um, multiple church services a week, you know.
	So I got a lot of sort of understanding like from the inside.
	And um I think the the forgiveness stuff when I was growing up was probably a little bit relaxed.
	But when I go and read the Bible, one of the big things that they say in the Bible is like, or they say about looking at the Bible and trying to understand what you should get from the Bible when you're teachings, is you don't cherry pick stuff.
	You don't just pick one thing and just ignore the other stuff you don't like.
	Right?
	And and so to answer your question, as far as which, you know, sounds like you're on point to me.
	You know, from a basic understanding of like the teachings.
	And you asked me to do research in the Bible stuff, I kind of messed that up and sort of looked at church tradition.
	But no church teaches that, like I think I think the uh sorry, I'll back up a bit.
	I think the church the churches teach this like forgiveness for your own thing, but you pointed out this there's there's kind of a hedonistic thing about uh, you know, or potentially hedonistic thing about this, you know, you know, moving past resent and all this other business.
	Well, if you can't enact any punishment, then like to take an extreme example, if you're a slave and you are getting beaten up by your slave master, well, you can't fight back, you can't run, you can't leave.
	So you might as well, and this is Nietzsche's point, right?
	Uh you might as well just make forgiveness of virtue and fantasize about how you're going to be in charge and he's going to be in hell after death.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	So if you've you can't if you're if you're trapped and you cannot enact any vengeance or standards or punishment, you can't hold anyone to account, then you might as well forgive so that you can let go of the bitterness, which is going to be negative for you because you can't do anything about it.
	Like, what's the point of having a fight or flight if you can't do anything about it?
	You might as well just forgive and try and let go of that because you're helpless.
	Right.
	Right.
	And and but no, I mean, no churches teach that anyone should be should escape earthly justice.
	No, no church churches teach you should just sort of allow uh like even like you know, like Mormons, which some people will say aren't Christians, I won't get into that.
	But like people who say Jesus Christ is my savior, that's how you get salvation.
	Like no churches teach that you shouldn't have some kind of repentance in order for the relationship to be restored.
	You know, so all of that was consistent.
	Like there wasn't one church that said, like, repentance doesn't matter.
	You know what I mean?
	Yeah, it's generally considered a plus.
	And the question is, is it a requirement?
	And Jesus says very clearly, it says you have to keep forgiving if the person is genuinely repenting.
	Sure, okay, I get that.
	Like in in the Sopranos, I don't know if people have ever seen it.
	There's a I can't remember the character's name, but he he's a guy who runs a sporting goods store, and he's a compulsive gambler, and he ends up losing everything.
	And his wife, you know, like he's really sorry, and and all of that, but his wife leaves him.
	And if let's say that he wasn't Repenting.
	He did not repent.
	Would would she, would she just stay and forgive him and forgive him and forgive him and forgive him and forgive him to the point where like mafia goons would show up at their house and and break both their kneecaps?
	Like I just cannot see that.
	And that is something that's called enabling, which is where you have no standards and you reinforce bad behavior by continuing to provide people resources despite the fact that there's no reduction in the harm they're doing.
	Yeah, yeah, for sure.
	And those of us, I mean, I know a little bit about your history, which we don't have to dig into here, but those of us who've been uh, you know, significantly harmed and mistreated and sinned against as children and as adults, uh particularly as children, what is the question of forgiveness?
	Like somebody asked me, do you forgive your mother?
	And my answer is that I understand her, and I am not in my daily life troubled by the things that she did.
	And of course, you know, it's 40 plus years ago now, right?
	But I I understand her.
	I'm not troubled by the things that she did if she were to come into my life and ask for my forgiveness and tell me what happened and her thinking, and you know, I don't know that there's any particular need for restitution, and it's sort of impossible now because I haven't been a kid for over 40 years, but I would I would listen to that with with gratitude, for sure.
	As I have listened to people who've done me some significant wrongs, called me up and apologized, and we've had good conversations, and I have forgiven them.
	But I'm not just going to hand it out like a like like candy.
	I'm not gonna hand it out like it's Halloween, and people can just come and get my forgiveness without having to do anything to earn it.
	And that's not a power thing.
	It's it's just how am I going to trust someone who's never even admitted fault?
	Right.
	Right.
	All right, shall I move on?
	Um, there was one other thing that um I don't know if we would talk about this now or do we sort of have another little round tablet later.
	But I went to uh Charlie Kirk vigil last night because I was kind of curious.
	First I was curious to see who's going to show up, because it was my local town.
	And then I was also kind of curious to see what they would say.
	And there's an awful lot of that, you know, forgive the killer kind of stuff.
	Um but there was one thing that struck me, and I was kind of hoping to hear like a follow-up on it there, and I didn't hear this.
	Um, and it was there's this passage, it's from the Old Testament, but uh it's it's from Second Chronicles, and it says, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and seek my pace and prayer.
	I'm getting a little wrong, but then I will hear from heaven, I will forgive their sins and heal their land.
	And that's like, you know, covenant of you know, with the Hebrews and everything, but Christians take this verse pretty seriously, you know.
	It's if there's a whole psalm with it.
	And um the thought that I had, you know, are Christians gonna like be called to repent for their sins?
	I'm and and and I want to be really careful and precise about this.
	I'm not trying to say they caused this horror show.
	But are they responsible for allowing us to get to this place?
	Their sin.
	Does that make sense?
	I certainly get where you're coming from.
	And the so the causality of the decay of civilization is very complex, obviously, as you know.
	And but I would say that relaxing moral standards to the point where you are enabling wrongdoers by not requiring acknowledgement, apologies, or restitution or repentance for their wrongdoing has definitely decayed the moral standards.
	And of course, we can see as a whole that uh criminals are not being kept in prison anymore.
	And uh crazy people are not being kept in asylums.
	Now, I know that a lot of that comes from the left and from the sort of destabilizing impulses of the hard leftists and so on.
	So I get all of that.
	But why has it broken?
	Why is it broken through and won?
	And I think it has a lot to do with um I mean, women, women are designed to forgive because women are designed to raise children.
	Men are designed to deal with adult criminals, wherein forgiveness is a suicidal.
	Right.
	Right.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I mean, I and you're totally right to to absolutely point out the the um you know it's a very complex, very complex thing.
	There's no just one single cause.
	Uh my thoughts were going back to, you know, it was a majority Christian nation, like very majority Christian nation.
	And this is not just the United States or anything like that.
	It's like all across, all across the West.
	And you know, is is it the greed voting in all these social programs?
	Is it, you know, I can do good with this money, you know, I can get these retirement benefits.
	You know, it's I I know I'm just sort of like picking out these little tiny things.
	I understand something you're gonna do.
	Yeah, I mean, women women were evolved to apply morality or to teach morality to children who were in the process of gaining moral understanding.
	And of course, you don't put children in jail.
	You know, about the age of four, children can determine between moral rules and social rules.
	So if if you have a library that says, well, you can talk loudly over here, they they understand that that's different, that you can change that and it doesn't change morals.
	But if you say murder is now good, then they get that that's wrong and different.
	So women are there to morally instruct and not to condemn.
	And men are there to condemn because by the time men are dealing with adults, you if you don't have moral understanding, you're not gonna get it.
	If you don't have empathy, you're not gonna get it.
	If you don't have any kind of compassion, you're not gonna get it.
	So men deal with the final products.
	Women are shaping clay, men are dealing with the final products.
	And I think women are uh, you know, women, female judges and things like that, or or you know, the the open borders advocates, they're like, no, no, no, they're still clay.
	And men are like, they're not.
	They're not, they're hardened.
	They're not soft clay now.
	They're hardened.
	And you can't shape them anymore.
	And uh I do I do think that this endless forgiveness stuff, which was just is not part of how I read the Bible, it's not part of how I grew up with the Bible.
	And it's just yeah, it's it's just wild to me.
	Um we'll move on to Alice.
	Right.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Alice, if you had a question or comments, I'd love to hear.
	Hi, thanks.
	Um I agree 100% with everything you're saying.
	Um I was thinking about the same problem and um wondering if this has any merit.
	But um so like Jesus, like he he died for um the people that he loves um most in the world.
	So um, like in the book of Revelation, it talks about like the church is the bride.
	And so I was thinking like if you know, you're you're married to the love of your life, imagine if like you had gone back in time before you had met and that person um you know, circumstances had led to them wanting to kill you,
	would you still love them would the forgiveness be genuine knowing how much you love them and knowing um kind of w uh that you that you would um that they would love you to one day.
	Um so I I don't know if um if that's I'm so sorry, that went through a few too many iterations from the brain handle.
	So you go back in time, so someone loves you and then they want to kill you, and then what?
	Uh well well, um yeah, and then uh so he says, you know, like the statement that you're going on, the the statement on the cross is um uh forgive them for they know not what they do.
	And so I was thinking like, in what circumstance could I possibly genuinely feel that kind of um forgiveness for somebody?
	Well, probably if I knew that someday they would have their eyes opened, essentially, and know um that they loved me too.
	Did that make any sense?
	Yeah, I I think I understand.
	And so, yeah, look, so uh I think that another example, and I'm I'm sorry to try and hijack and if I get it wrong, obviously let me know.
	But if you've ever known somebody who has uh Alzheimer's or some sort of brain degenerative disorder, then they don't know what they're doing after a certain period of time.
	They don't remember where they are, they don't right?
	So they might, you know, you you say, you don't cook, you gotta stay away from the stove, because you keep putting stuff on the stove and forgetting about it.
	It's dangerous, you burn the house down.
	And they get up at three o'clock in the morning and they they feel they need to boil some potatoes or whatever it is, right?
	And you would not blame them morally because they don't know what they're doing.
	Phineas Gage is sort of this very famous psychological or brain it wasn't it wasn't an experiment, but it cited quite a bit.
	He was a a railway worker on a railway spike went through his brain in an industrial accident and he went from like a super nice guy to just like a rude, abrasive horrible guy.
	And we wouldn't sit there and say, well, he got demonically possessed.
	We say, well, part of his brain has been destroyed.
	And so they know not what they do.
	Again, the sleepwalking example, uh people who are schizophrenic or psychotic and cannot determine reality from unreality, we may confine them in someone, we'd not morally blame them.
	We'd not morally hold them accountable.
	And so I can certainly see that kind of stuff.
	If if somebody uh let's say somebody beats up a guy, but it turns out that his drink was spiked with a drug that caused him to hallucinate, then we would ascribe the crime not to the person who beat up the guy, but the person who drugged the person who beat up the guy.
	So I think there's lots of instances where we'd say, yeah, it's not not morally responsible.
	If if if somebody is compelled to rob a bank, like somebody could take their kids hostage and compels them to rob a bank, we would not say that person is morally responsible because they're not choosing to do it.
	They're doing it to save their children from being being harmed.
	So I think yeah there's lots of examples I think where we would look and say yeah they they they're not morally responsible.
	They do not have the knowledge or the free will or both to be held accountable for their decisions.
	And and I I agree that um so how do you think that um a um that these people having full mental capacity could also simultaneously be um not morally responsible for their actions.
	Yeah well they were following the law of the land they had not been exposed to Christian teachings or if they had, he would just be some crazy guy on a hill.
	They did not know Jesus's divinity.
	They did not know that he was fulfilling the um prophecy and they did not know about the machinations that were going on behind the Romans among the religious communities that were offended that Jesus was saying that he was the Messiah like all of the other stuff.
	So they did not know what they were doing because who were the other people like there was a thief and I don't know some other terrible criminal who was hung up with Jesus and so he was just, hey man, this guy's a criminal I I'm not judge, I'm not jury,
	I'm just executioner and they so they wouldn't know that they were putting to death a wonderful God, perfect moral angel in in human form.
	He's it's just like okay, there's just a conveyor belt of people that we have to give the death penalty to, and they wouldn't have any particular reason to know or believe any different okay.
	And it's saying that we we cannot judge people when they do not have the knowledge.
	I mean before germ theory, we could not really blame doctors for not taking to into account germs, right?
	If people don't have knowledge, we cannot hold them accountable for a lack of knowledge.
	Now, of course, if there's if there's reasonable if there's good reason to believe that they should have that knowledge, then we can't hold them accountable.
	But you know children who were in the process of learning, you know, most children would go through a particular process of physical aggression.
	It could be hitting, it could be biting, it could be grabbing, it could be whatever, right?
	They'll go through this, hey I wonder if I can get my way through physical aggression.
	Well that's fine.
	And you know, you you work with the kids and you condition them, you get them to understand that that's not a good way to get but you don't you don't like you wouldn't get angry at them in the way that you would a 20-year-old who was using physical violence or intimidation, again, assuming no mental deficiencies to to get what he wanted, that would just be a a violent bully, and if he used aggression, you might charge him with assault or whatever.
	But you know, kids who are trying the option of physical aggression to get what they want, you know, they're just learning about ethics and virtue and and compassion and all of that.
	So it is not a um uh it's not an absolute in that way, I think.
	Okay.
	Well, I I appreciate you um answering my question.
	I'll let someone else Thank you very much.
	I Gemma, Gembo, what is on your mind?
	I hear a vague noise.
	Is that a cricket leg or is that a brain winding its way to florid execution of perfect syllables?
	Sorry, am I up?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Go ahead.
	Sorry.
	I uh didn't catch your um your talk, but as you were handing off the mic, I heard the other gentleman speak, and I wanted to point out when we pray the Our Father and we ask God to forgive us as we forgive others, um forgiveness becomes about our relationship with God and not necessarily if that person is sorry or not.
	It I heard a great explanation by Dr. Ray Garendi, and he says that forgiveness has nothing to do with reconciliation.
	So um the moment that you don't want vengeance on the person, it's not about them not paying a price, because I know you mentioned there's a lot of criminals right now that um are being they're they're not having to pay for their crimes, and that's not what I'm talking about.
	I feel everybody has to pay for their crimes and they're going to here or in the afterlife.
	But I'm just saying forgiveness is more about us ourselves being able to reconcile the fact that if we're not perfect and God is constantly forgiving us, and that's what he wants us to do, and that's what we pray as Christians in the our father.
	So we're called to more than just um that and it doesn't mean you have to stay in a in an unhealthy relationship or that you have to reconcile with the person, but I feel that um yeah, that there's that.
	That's all I wanted to share.
	Okay, I think I think I followed.
	So uh yeah, okay.
	I mean, according to Christianity, everyone is a sinner, and I can but there are, of course, there are different degrees of sin, right?
	There is uh stealing a candy bar and then there's like strangling a hobo or something like that, right?
	So there are certainly different degrees of sin.
	And to me, when it says, you know, forgive others as you want to be forgiven, it's like, sure.
	Sure.
	I mean, occasionally I'm thoughtless with my wife, occasionally she's thoughtless with me.
	So we don't hold each other to the standard of perfection because that would be vanity.
	And all standards of perfection have within them the implied perspective that you are perfect or I am perfect, right?
	So we don't want any of that because we're not.
	So I think when we say forgive others as you wish to be forgiven, it's like, well, yeah, but we're not murderers.
	And that's a whole different I mean, the venal sin, the mortal sin in the sort of Catholic doctrines is is something along those lines.
	So I think that trying to jam big crimes into the relative relatively small forgivenesses that we need for our relatively small imperfections is uh a bit of a round peg in a square hole for me, if that makes sense.
	It does.
	I understand what you're saying, but if we look back at the greatest atrocity ever committed in history, which was for us to crucify our creator, and hanging from the cross, he said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
	And he said them, meaning even um, you know, the those that were laughing at him, the soldiers, and um yeah.
	Well, sure, but they didn't.
	I mean, when Christ was being crucified, there was no Christianity as we would understand it today.
	Right.
	He was sh opening the door to that, giving us his example, because he had sent so many prophets and no one would listen, so he came to show us that love is not a feeling, love is action.
	Love um is sacrifice.
	And um and when we understand that, and well, yeah, I I just think that even going back, I'm not saying I murdered anyone, but I going back anyone 15 years, 20 years back, everyone's committed atrocities that they're um super ashamed of.
	Like none of us are.
	Hang on, hang on.
	Sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt.
	Everyone's committed atrocities.
	What do you mean?
	Well, I mean, just even let's say someone um gave someone advice and accompanied them to an abortion clinic.
	Okay, maybe they haven't picked up a gun and killed someone, but you're aiding in abortion, which is the killing of children.
	That's an atrocity.
	Um I mean, I can sit here and name a bunch of stuff, but I just feel none of us are perfect.
	We're called to that.
	It's a beautiful thing to be able to forgive a person regardless of whether they well, I already explained that part.
	So I I just I think that that's what we're called to do anything.
	Sorry, let me let me ask you this.
	So to address fine.
	Yeah.
	Sorry, sorry about that.
	So is it better for the person to repent in order to earn forgiveness?
	Is that is it preferred that the person repent or is it equal whether they repent or they got?
	Yes, yes, yes.
	I mean, to me, that's common sense.
	But and that's in the ideal um setting.
	But okay, so for example, so now you tell someone something and they say, Don't judge me.
	And judging really is when you tell a person, okay, your your soul's condemned to death.
	We can't do that.
	We're no one to judge.
	But as Christians work, hang on.
	No, no.
	No.
	No, I'm getting to a little bit.
	No, no, hang on, hang on.
	But no, I I don't I don't agree that the only judgment that's possible is your soul is condemned to hell for eternity.
	There are uh we need nudges and reminders and and exhortations to virtually.
	I'm saying that people generally think when you admonish them that you're judging them.
	I was getting to the point that that is not judging.
	If you feel that you have the authority to condemn someone to hell, that's true judgment.
	But of course, you have to judge good and bad.
	That should be in every action and movement that we do.
	But um I lost my train of thought, give me a second.
	Okay, so let me let me ask you another question.
	So let's say that you have an ugly job to do around your house.
	Like I don't know, like something replacing a clogged toilet or just something really unpleasant, right?
	And let's say there's your your neighbors, your teenager some comes over and you're gonna pay him uh 50 bucks to do this horrible ghastly task or something like that.
	Now, if you just say, you know what, here's the 50 bucks, you don't have to do the task.
	Is he more likely or less likely to clean your toilet?
	Yes, I get I get your point.
	But the problem is No, no, hang on, because mm the fact that you get it doesn't mean that everyone else gets it.
	So what's my point?
	Okay, so um less likely.
	I'm sorry?
	Less likely.
	Right, so he's less likely.
	So if you give him the reward, he's less less likely to do the difficult thing, right?
	Of course, but that's why I said reconciliation isn't necessary.
	No, no, no, my no, hang on, hang on.
	No, no, no, no.
	My my point is that if you give someone forgiveness, you are actually blocking them from seeking restitution.
	Sorry, from from from enacting repentance.
	Some people never even get to know that you forgave them.
	Okay, but for the most part, for the most part, I mean, I think I'm pretty sure that Charlie Kirk's murderer knows that he's forgiven, right?
	So for the most part, people know.
	So my point is that repentance is a difficult thing because it goes against our pride.
	So repentance is difficult.
	And if you give the reward of forgiveness without the requirement of repentance, you are actually preventing people from repenting.
	So if repentance is better than non-repentance, but you give forgiveness without requiring repentance, you're actually blocking people from doing the right thing.
	I think you're assuming and you're and you're um one thing to me, one thing has nothing to do with the other, because the fact that that person um has to pay a crime, you never know if that forgiveness that you're offering the person.
	There's a great quote that says, a single act of love can um can bring a soul back to life or something like that.
	There's a great story of this girl, her name was uh Maria Garetti, and she was stabbed to death trying to protect her purity.
	And as she was getting stabbed, you guys can look up this story.
	It's a beautiful story.
	As she was getting stabbed, each time she got stabbed, she told this kid that she forgave him.
	By the time she got to the hospital, she ended up losing her life.
	I'm not sure if it was before or after surgery.
	And um and and the killer went to jail, and he spent many years in jail.
	She appeared to him.
	And to make a long story short, if you look up Maria Garetti, you will hear you will see what a beautiful outcome that story was that in her canonization, for those that are not Catholic, for someone to become a saint, um, many doctors and scientists um have to research.
	Okay, I'm I'm sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
	So this is a little frustrating for me, just to be honest with you.
	Oh, then I'll just drop off.
	It's not a good thing.
	No, no, no, no, don't, don't, don't drop off.
	It's totally fine.
	Don't you think?
	No, I meant I I I I meant I muted the mic, I'm not gonna leave.
	But if it's true, I don't want to frustrate you.
	No, it's a it's uh it's a little frustrating because I'm sort of trying to make a moral argument or a generalized argument and you have retreated into anecdotes.
	Right.
	So the general argument is if you have an unpleasant task to do that you're gonna pay some teenager 50 bucks to do, and then you give him the 50 bucks and say you don't have to do the unpleasant task, most likely he'll just take the 50 bucks and not do the unpleasant task.
	And so if you give people forgiveness without requiring repentance, you are actually making it far less likely that they will go through the challenging but soul-improving task of repenting.
	And that's my concern.
	And then you said, well, sometimes people don't even know.
	But I said, Well, yes, but often they do.
	And then you went on a story about a woman who forgave someone every time he's dead.
	You think forgiveness is the same as punishment.
	I have no problem with Wait, wait, wait, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	But you have to if we're gonna have a conversation, you have to address my point.
	So if you agree that the teenager hang on, if you hang on, hang on.
	If you if you agree that the teenager is less likely to clean your toilet, which is an unpleasant task, if you give him the reward anyway, then the analogy is people are less likely to repent if you forgive them without requiring repentance, and you said that repentance is better.
	So by giving by be giving forgiveness without requiring repentance, you are making the world a worse place because repentance is better.
	The repentance is his to deal with with God.
	I think forgiveness is something that we owe other people.
	I don't think that that is going to I don't think it's a reward for the person because a person still would have to pay for what they did here and on earth.
	I'm just not it's not the same thing to me.
	I feel that I've been wronged many times.
	And I I feel that me being able to forgive that person allows me not only um peace of mind, but that whatever wrong everyone does, they have to live with that themselves.
	You don't know how that forgiveness that Charlie Kirk's wife is offering, imitating Jesus, how much fruit that brings to me in my faith is much bigger than whatever little thing you feel that that forgiveness might hinder the person from repentance.
	I don't.
	I don't think that that if I just I don't feel that that's how Christianity works.
	I mean Well, but the argument that you're making is sort of an argument from what if?
	Well, you never know how this is going to affect.
	I mean, yeah, but but we do have some knowledge, and I read that you weren't here for this, so that's totally fine.
	But I was reading out a study that said they uh studied a bunch of uh married couples, and over the first four year newly married couples, over the first couple of years of marriage, there were people who forgave each other more and people who required repentance in order to forgive.
	And the people who required repentance in order to forgive ended up with less aggression, less uh violence in their marriage.
	Whereas the people who handed out forgiveness without requiring anything in return, the uh amount of aggression and violence in the relationship did not diminish.
	And so when you say, well, I I hand out forgiveness without requiring repentance, and I continually get wronged in my life, I would say that those two things are related.
	No, I never do that.
	sorry, but if you if you have a it's hang on.
	So if you have a standard that says, if you wrong me, you have to apologize, you have to make restitution, you have to give me some reasonable assurances that you're not gonna do wrong or bad again, by the therapy or prayer or anger management courses or something like that,
	then the likelihood of you continuing to be wronged goes down considerably because you're helping to bring consequences to people and ask them to improve before you give them uh forgiveness, which is what God does.
	God requires that people uh make repentance or have repentance and then work to improve in order to forgive them.
	And I try not to do the opposite of what God does.
	I agree a hundred percent.
	That is a beautiful thing.
	That's the way that it should work.
	And usually you're gonna attract the type of partner where you're at in life.
	So if you're both looking to be moral, upright people, to live virtuous life, to be trying to live in love, which is outdoing each other in generosity, and continue to try and not hurt the other person, absolutely repent and apologize as soon as you see something wrong.
	But I, for example, for this woman, that the example that you um brought up about Charlie Kirk, I can if she would have not forgiven her husband's killer, she would not be experiencing the amount of peace she's feeling now by having forgiven him.
	What that kid decides to do with that, we will never know.
	That's a movement of the soul.
	He can choose to be moved by having seen that act of after having done such an atrocious thing to have been able to receive that forgiveness, or he's just gonna spend his time in jail.
	But Jesus requires repentance.
	A hundred percent.
	But what I'm saying.
	Okay, so Jesus says forgive people.
	Ah, hang on.
	Jesus says repent, like forgive people after they repent.
	They must repent in order for you to forgive them.
	Help me understand if you're a Christian, how you bypass that.
	Well, that's a story I was trying to tell you.
	We have examples in the lives of the saints.
	Because Jesus specifically says that if somebody wrongs you and they repent, forgive them.
	Yes.
	So they have to repent.
	No, she didn't say they had to.
	He said, if they were talking about that that that those are the questions that Peter was asking.
	But in the Our Father, it doesn't say forgive us our trespasses that we repent and if the other person repents.
	Let me just ask you one question, and I'm gonna leave you with this.
	Do you think Charlie Kirk's wife, peace of mind, is better her having forgiven and offered it up to God, or for her to sit there and resent and harbor that bad feeling?
	And I just feel she chose the better way.
	Um but I don't think that we should make moral decisions on what makes us feel better in the moment.
	That's hedonism.
	And I'm not accusing her of being a hedonist and all.
	I'm just talking about hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	I'm still I'm still talking here.
	Let me finish.
	Sorry, sorry.
	So I don't think that we should try and bribe people to forgive by saying, well, you'll feel really good.
	It'll feel good, you'll feel better.
	I mean, the woman, I mean, the the poor woman, I mean, her her husband was, you know, slaughtered a week ago Wednesday in front of her and her children.
	So I don't think that she's gonna get anywhere close to peace of mind or or joy or like for a I mean the amount of grieving is gonna be intense and lengthy.
	And I think honestly, I think it's kind of dishonorable to just say, well, she'll feel a whole lot better.
	It's it's it'll it'll give her relief.
	It'll it'll make her feel better and so on, because Christianity is not about what feels good.
	It's not about what feels better.
	Uh it is about uh justice and it is about virtue.
	And that is a tough road.
	And I don't think that we should just bypass the requirement for repentance uh based upon the bribery of feeling good, because there's this false dichotomy, which is well, you either forgive or you're tormented for the rest of time with you know horrible feelings of of hatred and vengeance.
	Like these are not the only two options.
	These are not the only two options that exist in the world.
	But I really do appreciate your comments and I I was not trying to be an honorable by trying to talk about feelings because I know that we have to be in control of our feelings.
	I was it's not just a feeling.
	Jesus is the Prince of Peace and I um having led so many youth groups and having led marriage groups and and different groups in church, I've seen people that have carried unforgiveness.
	I'm not talking about repentance, unforgiveness, and because of that unforgiveness, the dragging with miserable consequences of it, I feel that it's important for us to learn that there's a certain moment where we should forgive the people that wrong us and let God take care of it.
	But thanks so much.
	I appreciate that.
	And of course, uh, you know, I don't think that people should wake up every day and brood and ruminate on all the wrongs that have ever accrued to them over the course of their life.
	I get all of that.
	But that's not the only other option uh for for these kinds of things.
	So all right.
	We got lots of people who want to chat, and I appreciate that.
	Bowden, what's on your mind?
	Bowdoin.
	Bowden.
	Okay.
	I just unmuted myself.
	I didn't realize I'd unmute myself.
	Go ahead.
	It's a real pleasure to take or talk to you.
	I appreciate all of you've done, and I'm very happy to see you back here on X. So having said all that, the preamble, um, I'm I think you and I are in in I'm more like-minded to you, because I believe this whole issue, people talking about and as the previous speaker was saying, um there, and and I am I am a Christian, I'm a theist, uh, saying that well, we are to to forgive our and to to forgive those, forgive people, you know, just as we've been forgiven.
	But the key, I what I keep hearing left out of that equation, um, and in the and and she was citing the our father, is that there's there's the assumption and the the understanding that we are repentant toward God.
	God is forgiving us because we have repented.
	We have we have turned from our sins and we have chosen to we we we're now aligning our allegiance with with him through Christ.
	And uh just real quick, that the the other thing, um a couple of things.
	Oh, you don't you don't have to be quick.
	It's a huge issue, and we're here for the duration.
	So it's okay.
	Okay, okay.
	I I just don't I just I know you're you're you're pre- you you have there's pr probably many people behind me.
	Um the other thing is that it talks about in Luke, it talks there's a scrip there's a scripture that people were talking to Jesus and talking about um about how Pilate had killed some people and mixed their blood with the sacrifice, and Jesus answered them and said, Do you think these Galileans were worse sinners than you than all other Galileans because they suffered this way, he says, I tell you no, but unless you repent, you too will all perish.
	The idea is we will all, we're all justly condemned because of our own sins.
	And so the idea that we that there's a there has been over the last number of but probably the last three or four three decades that I've been around the church, there's this idea, you know, just come to Jesus and your life's gonna be great, and it's it's all you know, unicone uh uh unicorns and rainbows.
	And there's this it's it's a phrase that that talks about cheap grace.
	That there's that people are given this invitation to follow Christ, but they're never said, look, you need to repent.
	And there's other scriptures where Paul specifically uh specifically says that those who practice, and I'm gonna I'm I'm coming off the top of my head, talks about you know idolatry and adultery and and drunkenness and all these other he names numbers since he said be don't be deceived.
	Those people, people who practice those things will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.
	The idea again is that if I use myself an example, if I'm a drunkard and I continue continually, you know, engage in that behavior and don't turn from it, I will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.
	Um and then one last thing is I the this again, there's I don't see the the the idea that you just forgive people willy-nilly without their repentance.
	Um because one thing is that the the whole idea, if if that is if you want to take that that that logic and that that mindset to its conclusion, then everybody goes to heaven.
	You know, because God, God is, you know, through Christ, He is reconciling the world to Himself.
	Jesus went on the cross, he paid the price for sin.
	So if that's the case, if just I just forgive everybody regardless of whether they're repentant or not, then then God, I mean, we're talking about God.
	Why would he not give, you know, forgive and I know there are those people out there, there are universalists, but universalists.
	I'm not one of those.
	Um and the last thing is is that justice is, you know, is an absolute um it's absolutely in keeping with I mean, and and and it's important that we talk about justice because it's, you know, in Romans it talks about Romans 13, 4 says, for the one in authority is God's servant for your good, but if you do wrong, be afraid.
	For rulers do not bear the sword for no reason.
	They are God's servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
	And so the whole idea of, you know, people being held accountable for their actions is absolutely in in keeping with with uh with the Christian ethos.
	Well, and and you can see, I think that the men are gen are generally more along the side of you you need repentance, and the women are like, no, no, no, you you should say I forgive you every time the man stabs you.
	And honestly, I mean, the the positions almost could not be more foreign to each other.
	And we sort of need to recognize and understand that these two perspectives are the way.
	And you know, just frankly, and this is just a personal perspective or opinion.
	Men have not been flocking to the church.
	And I think it's because the male spirit of provision and protection has been kind of hamstrung by this uh forgiveness fetish, which is you gotta forgive everyone, and even if someone's stabbing you and poor Irina, you know, as she gasped out her last bubble breath on that horrible train that she should have spent the last minute forgiving her uh murderer and so on,
	like again, uh maybe this is just me, but that that as a male, it revolts my very soul to have that perspective.
	And again, if you're dealing with children, yes, forgiveness and they don't need to provide a lot of um uh restitution or anything like that, because you know they're still in the process of learning, and I appreciate that forgiveness and all of that.
	But out here in the sort of big brutal Hobbesian cold-hearted world, uh forgiveness is kind of suicidal uh when you have And so I think a lot of times the women, well, I'll forgive you go kill the guy.
	And that's sort of like then this is what we're seeing with with um uh the the sort of services yesterday, which is and I got these comments, you know, like Erica can forgive Hegeth is going to go punish.
	It's like, okay, well So then you have forgiveness and then the opposite of forgiveness and both are good.
	But I think that as male leadership has largely evaporated from some of the Western churches that men have less and less of a home for this, because this uh endless forgiveness uh is uh without requiring any repentance is um it it honestly I'm just straight up telling you it feels unmanly.
	It feels castrated, it feels like a eunuch.
	It feels like, well, you you gotta just forgive because you got no power.
	And it's like, but why would men want to be in a place where you're told you have no power and you just have to forgive and let everyone like let God do all of the stuff after death.
	And it's like I don't think that works very well in a in a harsh world.
	No, I don't think it does either.
	And and I'm and I'll be the f if people that know me, I'm I want to be, I want be everybody's friend.
	I'm just that's my you know, I I'm looking to make to make friends.
	But I do I um I mean I have, and I've also been in law enforcement, so I do have a h a very keen sense of aughtness, a sense of justice.
	So I want to be your friend, but at the same time, truth matters, justice matters.
	You know, I I've I've said this before uh to people when I get into in discussions about Um, you know, whether theism or materialism or what what's you know ultimate truth.
	And I say I would if you gave me a choice, um because let me say this.
	I d there's there's things about atheism.
	I'm like, okay, I can deal with it.
	I could I can roll with that because if God isn't, I am.
	And so I can if that's if it if that in fact is what it turns out to be true, then so be it.
	But I don't believe that.
	I think there's there's, you know, incredible there's very large amounts of evidence that uh point to design and and intelligence and so on.
	But anyway, point where I'm going is is that if you gave me the choice and said, okay, you can have theism be true, but you have to be eternally damned.
	You have to go to hell for eternity, or you can have atheism.
	I would choose the theism, because at least even if I'm condemned and I'm spending eternity in hell, I will feel a sense of satisfaction knowing that justice is ultimately served.
	Because I, you know, I I'm very I'm keenly aware of of my shortcomings and my failings.
	So the idea and I th and I think again, this goes back to this this thing about cheap grace.
	There's this you know, in it, and there's there's there's the whole, you know, intramural debate within Christianity of the soteriology, you know, how how does one say you have on one end you have uh uh Arminianism and free will, and then you have, you know, on the other side of the end, you know, determinism and Calvinism and all that.
	But the this idea we we've in the church, and it started back with, I believe it was Charles Finney, is that we're we're we're making the we're trying to sell Christianity.
	Instead of just presenting the facts and presenting them with compassion, we're we're looking to, you know, we're looking for numbers.
	You know, we're looking, hey, I gotta fill the, I want to fill these these seats that keep the pews full.
	And so it's just uh and it and and then it goes back, I think it ties, it has a lot of tie into the to the culture, the the capitalistic um society that we live in.
	Not the I'm not bagging on capitalism, mind you.
	Um, but it just uh it, you know, there's it kind of things feed each other.
	So but I do know, I do know of women in the church who very have a very high sense of aughtness and and and understand there's justice is required.
	But you're right.
	I mean, there's just the the dynamics, the the the basic difference, biological differences that make up men and women.
	Yes, w, you know, men are, you know, over here, we need some justice and you know, protect people and provide, whereas women are the nurturers and the caregivers and so on and so forth.
	So I think that women can help soften our hearts, but also women need to be guided by men as well.
	I mean, uh in a good marriage, you know, my wife teaches me a lot of things.
	I teach my wife a lot of things, and we meet in the middle.
	But for me, the intransigence of women on the forgiveness issue means that there's not a respect for the male perspective of provision and protection.
	And I think that's thrown a lot of the West uh significantly out of balance.
	All right.
	I appreciate your thoughts.
	Thank you.
	Uh the you know, we'll I'll tell you what, we'll do another couple of calls and I'll just throw everyone in and we can have a uh a screech fest of of vocal dominance.
	So uh Raven Colles.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	Um I'm not Christian.
	I hope it's okay for me to opine on this.
	Uh of course, yeah, yeah.
	I'll just say that um this business about forgiveness is one of the things that repulses me from that religion, and it is hard for me not to condemn Christianity as utterly contemptible.
	And um, I know I'm happy to hear the case.
	So make sure that's the same.
	Well, I'm not sure what is theologically sound because like you know, the devil quoting the Bible, there's some things that seem to say that forgiveness is a categorical imperative.
	And then the passages from Luke and uh other books that people have cited where it's predicated on repentance.
	Um my own history, I come from a broken family.
	I had to leave.
	I don't even call her my mother, I call her Unwutter.
	I won't divulge her first name uh for obsequies.
	I had to leave that woman I was 14, and my grandparents encouraged me to forgive her.
	And after she came back to town after a year and a half, I tried to build relationship.
	And long short of it was is I finally cut off contact decades too late because I was under this delusion about forgiveness.
	Her second husband was abusive, and after they divorced and everything, I forgave him.
	And then when I was 17, uh something happened on a road trip to California that taught me about the importance of what I call the first law, and that is you don't forgive.
	Um and if you do forgive, you forgive only with actual repentance and a demonstration that there's remorse and there's demonstration both that the person won't do it again, and that the relationship in question is important enough for you to give that person a second chance.
	And I don't see any sort of talk about those considerations with most mainstream Christians.
	They may be theologically unsound, I don't know.
	But what I observe in modern American Christianity is that this is the majority view.
	I mean, there was standing applause when Erica Kirk uh made that comment about loving your enemies.
	And I I just I find it repulsive.
	Devin Stack pointed out that with the Witch Caw massacre, where um these two black criminals uh raped and then murdered uh four white people the day after it happened, churches were talking about how one of the victims was probably praying for her her uh tormentors as she was naked, getting ready to receive an execution shot in the back of the head.
	It's contemptible, it's path it's pathological, and it is it it begets weakness and and uh uh uh a self-destructive mentality.
	And one other thing I like to say about Nietzsche and how if you're not in a position to forgive, then it facilitates that.
	Even if a person cannot exact personal revenge by honoring and remembering the wrongs that have been done to you, you acknowledge and and and you respect your history and what's been done to you, and that helps you prevent those things from happening in the future, but it's also honoring your past.
	That's why Texas has remember the Alamo.
	I mean, even if they're not going to go to war, you know, against Mexico again, you remember that and you honor that and you in and to forgive transgressions that go beyond a certain level is in contravention to that ethos of, for example, remember the Alamo or other things that people uh do to remember what's been done to them and how they overcome it.
	So that's basically my position on forgiveness as a whole.
	And I appreciate that.
	And I I just obviously wanted to say, you know, person to person, I'm really sorry for what happened in your family and what they fam what your family did to you, the corruption and immorality that you experienced that you had to flee at 14.
	I'm also really sorry, of course, that uh the decades that you spent uh uh around corrupt or contemptible people as a result of believing in the ethos of forgiveness at all costs.
	And even after I'm really sorry about that.
	Even after I I made the decision to cut off contact, and it happened a couple times and I forgive, and then you know, within 90 minutes, she's saying I shouldn't have let my grandparents take me in when there was all sorts of bad things going on.
	Uh my grandparents were giving me a hard time because I didn't want to see that woman when I when I visited her.
	And and so, you know, it's and one also thing I want to tell you is I've had a friend, and he and I had a fallen out, and I I broke contact off after a year.
	He was mouse enough saying that I need to forgive this woman without repentance, mind you.
	I mean, I gave her opportunities for repentance, and she basically spat on my face, and he he insulted me and agitated me to the point where I insulted his religion with very sharp, blasphemous language, and I reached out to him a year and I said, you know, I'm sorry I did this, but there were provocations on your side.
	And ever since then, he has been pushing this forgiveness stuff, and I'm just not sure what I should do about it.
	And so to me, it seems like there's a I mean, you talked about it.
	I don't know if it's if it's uh uh uh a cognitive or moral dissonance where they talk about forgiveness and yet they're so militant about this forgiveness thing, but it's offensive.
	Like I've already said, no, I don't agree with you.
	I don't believe that forgiveness is a categorical imperative.
	You're not gonna convince me otherwise.
	I'm utterly and totally implacable on this.
	Why are you still pushing this?
	Like, are you trying to antagonize me to the point where I insult your religion again?
	Well, I I can give you my thoughts on that.
	And obviously, I I don't know The answer, but I'll I'll tell you what's worked for me in the past when people have tried to push this uh willed forgiveness without any uh restitution.
	Uh what I do is I say, okay, so if forgiveness is very important to you, first of all, you need to forgive me for disagreeing with you, number one.
	And number two, then the reason that I have problems with my mother is because she did not forgive me as a child, right?
	She used to beat me and so on, right?
	And so if forgiveness is very important to you, the person you need to go and lecture is my mother, not me.
	Because the reason I don't want to spend any time with her is that she was a violent and abusive and did not forgive me.
	So if forgiveness is important, you need to go to the person who is the least forgiving in this relationship, which was my mother when I was younger.
	And even now, she won't forgive me even for bringing up these topics of the past.
	So my concern with the forgiveness thing is they the people who uh are very sort of pro-forgiveness at all costs, never seem to go to the abusers.
	They always go to the victims.
	That's exactly right.
	But the abusers are the abusers because the abusers failed to forgive.
	And so if you're very concerned about forgiveness, then you should go to my mother or they should go to your parents.
	Now, if this if your friend goes to your parents and is able to convince your parents about the virtues of forgiveness, right, then they will apologize to you for not forgiving you as a child.
	And you know, maybe that would be something positive for you or whatever.
	But my concern is that they generally tend to go to the victims.
	And like if forgiveness is such a virtue, the guy who shot Charlie Kirk did not forgive.
	And so the forgiveness is a one-sided goop that tends to accumulate where the victims are, and they always step over the abusers who are infinitely less forgiving, and they say to the victims, you must forgive, but they never condemn those who failed to forgive who are the abusers.
	And that makes me very suspicious that it's more of a picking on the more sensitive rather than risking things with the more aggressive.
	Um, what do you think of the idea that this idea about forgiveness so supposedly lets people move on?
	I don't believe that.
	If you watch the movie Babaduke, certain traumas are going to be with you regardless of what you do.
	There's no getting past it entirely.
	You can mitigate it, you can do things to mitigate your damages and improve your life the best you can, but it never really goes away.
	And this idea that someone like Erica Kirk, for example, is forgiving Kyler Robinson for mental health, I don't buy that.
	I don't think it's healthy.
	I think that it is a different sort of pathology by not discerning what has happened with the respect and gravitas that it deserves.
	Um in that way I think it's dysfunctional a completely different way.
	I'm you know, that there's a uh a good theory, I think it's a good theory of mental health that says like all mental health issues stem from the avoidance of legitimate suffering.
	And with somebody, again, I don't want to pick on, you know, this this poor woman who's who's just gone through uh this unbelievable trauma.
	But as a whole, let's say that the belief is that if if someone does you great wrong and you forgive them, then your unhappiness is released, your bitterness is released, your anger is released, and you live in a state of peace.
	Like, what is it, 10 days since Charlie was murdered?
	A, I don't believe that for a second, that that's even remotely possible.
	And secondly, if it is becomes a matter of faith that if you forgive hard enough or well enough or good enough, that you live in a state of peace of mind, which is physically impossible, I think, for the mind to have been aggressed against in that horrendous and evil a manner, and then to be in peace of mind.
	My concern is that then when the inevitable feelings of anger and bitterness and hatred and hostility emerge, and they will, that's viewed now as a sin.
	Yeah.
	Because if you forgave hard enough, you wouldn't experience these negative feelings.
	And therefore, if you're experiencing these negative feelings, you've got to double down on your forgiveness.
	And I think the avoidance of the legitimate suffering through the fantasy that you can not suffer by forgiving people when the inevitable feelings arise and you just say, Oh, I gotta forgive harder now.
	And I I think it actually just is not healthy in just going through the process of the grieving and the anger and the hatred and the hostility that is just going to be part of that level of uh an evil violation.
	Absolutely.
	That's that's spot on.
	It it it you know, it's it's um modern psychology um will diagnose people with mental disorders, and there's a a counter consideration where if you're not affected by living in a dystopic, dysfunctional society, there's something wrong with you.
	You know, if you're putting in a bad environment and you aren't affected by it at all and are listening to Lawrence Walk or whatever, that that's pathological in a different way.
	And I think that's true with people who so readily forgive, particularly something with a heinous crime like murder or or rape or something like that.
	If if if you or or one of your surviving family members talks about forgiveness without even uh a showing of remorse or repentance by the by the people who have done these horrible things, I I think that that is pathological in a different way.
	And I I don't think it's healthy.
	Yeah, I I as far as I've read, and I don't know if this is true.
	I think that the person who's accused of the shooting has pled not guilty.
	Now, if he is the shooter and he's pled not guilty, then clearly there's no remorse.
	And I think a little disgust aspect of just how appalling this was of course, you know, if if this crazy murderer wanted to kill Carly uh Charlie Kirk, you could have done it in any number of ways that would not have been so graphic in public.
	But the fact that he chose to execute him in public with like 20 cameras on him in front of his wife, in front of his children, in front of 3,000 people, that is a way of radiating the evil of what was done around the world and traumatizing the probably billion people who've watched Charlie get shot through the neck.
	And this that that level of of evil where you're not just executing someone, but you're traumatizing a billion people and his wife and his kids uh is is almost beyond comprehension.
	And uh the idea that you're just gonna forgive that, I d I don't I don't fundamentally understand it and and I find it um incomprehensible is is the nicest word that I can use.
	Aaron Powell Plus we can infer from if it is true that he is ideologically driven and had a furry trans, I can't say boyfriend, can't say girlfriend, I don't know, companion or lover or whatever word you want to use.
	Um it's very unlikely that a person who is ideologically driven in that way is going to repent or or or show repentance um because they're they're an ideological um zealot and ideological zealots don't usually retract uh easily at the same time.
	Well, and there's no I for me the the w once you've committed an act for which there is no restitution, repentance becomes functionally impossible.
	Yeah, I I agree.
	Well, I really appreciate you letting uh me get off this chest.
	And I I try to be respectful of my Christian brethren, but it gets really hard um, you know, because some of them are so pushy about this.
	And there are other things too I've observed where there's just really bad behavior.
	But I someone mentioned about wanting to um make Christianity good look good.
	I don't think that this talk about forgiveness and forgiving your enemies and loving your enemies is the message, but on the other hand, it seems to have been well received by a majority of people yesterday.
	So I personally um I have a great deal of respect for the church, and I genuinely believe, which is not to say that it's true, but I genuinely believe that without male leadership and standards the church can't survive.
	And that, of course, was the opinion of the founders of the church who specifically said that male leadership and protection was necessary and essential for the church to survive.
	So people can just do all of this, forgive blanket, forgive, write checks and hand it out like candy all they want, but uh that means that the church is gonna continue to decline until this tough conversation about requiring repentance in order to be forgiven is had.
	I'm not a socialist, and I believe that all evil stems out of a thirst for the unearned, a desire for the unearned, and that includes money, that includes sexual activity if you're a rapist, uh, and that includes someone's life if you're a murderer, and that also includes a desire for forgiveness without having to earn it.
	It it does seem that this um train of thought is very, how shall I say, feminine or menstrually centered?
	It doesn't seem like masculine energy at all.
	It's it's yeah, and I I think that there is uh I think women need to learn a little bit from this, but I think again, this is you know, I appreciate the women who are calling in.
	We have Carrie up in just a second.
	Um but uh there is a so there's just a certainty that it's just the right thing to forgive without requiring repentance, and uh that very much goes against early church teachings, it goes against what Jesus said, uh it goes against what God does, uh it goes against uh, you know, I I had this whole analogy of the teenager cleaning the toilet, and it just goes right past.
	And I think this unwillingness to listen to the malperspective is not doing Christianity a lot of favors.
	Anyway, uh Kerry, if you wanted to mention it.
	Hi, I wanted to say first, I do really appreciate you having this discussion in a good faith, you know, manner.
	And I think that we are mixing up a personal forgiveness with being soft on crime or not wanting, you know, man's laws, you know, to still punish the man.
	I didn't hear Erica say she didn't want him in prison or punished, you know, for the crimes he committed, you know, but she personally wants to forgive him for her sake.
	Well, and I I've heard that, but help me understand what that means.
	So when she says she forgives him, help me so step me through what that means if she still thinks that he should be, you know, holed off to prison and if convicted, uh I think Utah still has firing squads, maybe he'd be shot.
	So what does it mean to forgive someone and then insist that he be killed?
	Well, to me, when we're talking about personal forgiveness in this way, it means you're not wishing the person goes to hell.
	You're not wishing his soul is condemned to hell.
	Just like when Jesus says, you know, please father forgive them, because he doesn't want them to go to hell.
	That's that's in my opinion, when you say I personally forgive someone, it means I hope that before you die, you repent to God, because that's the only one that really matters, right?
	You're gonna Okay, so so sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt.
	So I appreciate that, and that's a really good explanation.
	So when she says she forgives him, she's saying, I hope he repents.
	To God, because that's all that really matters.
	Him repenting to her, it might make her feel better to get an apology for him for her to say, oh, thank you for the apology, that makes me feel better.
	But it doesn't really matter in in eternity, right?
	Him saying I'm sorry to her isn't gonna get him to heaven.
	It'll get her to feel better.
	But him saying I'm sorry to God is the only thing that matters for his soul.
	And that's what she's saying is I don't need him to apologize to me.
	What m what good does it do anyway?
	I I am praying for him that he can repent to God before he dies.
	Whether man's laws are I appreciate I'm sorry to interrupt.
	I appreciate that, and that's that clarifies some things for me, as usual.
	It clarifies some and excuse a few others, so I appreciate your patience with this.
	So why wouldn't she set then say, I pray that he repents.
	I hope that he repents.
	Why say I forgive him?
	Because those are two different things in my mind.
	Well, I think when she said my husband Charlie worked to save young men like him, you know, people that are lost in degeneracy and lost in the evil.
	You know, Charlie's Charlie's whole point in going to the to the universities where a lot of that degeneracy is, you know, just rampant was to go out and save someone like that.
	And so I feel like she was saying, I'm sorry, I'm losing my trinodot.
	No, no, it's fine.
	These are tough issue, so I appreciate your patience, take your time.
	So she was saying, you know, um by saying Charlie would want to save this person means, you know, that sh that that's her goal.
	She didn't necess she didn't straight up say, I'm praying for this guy's soul, but I think that's what she was saying.
	Charlie would would have prayed for his soul.
	Charlie was trying to save that guy's soul.
	And and, you know, that horrible thing.
	Okay, so so sh he doesn't have to earn her forgiveness.
	What good would it do?
	No, no, he does but he doesn't have to repent.
	Not to her.
	For her to forgive him.
	Right, because the forgiveness isn't isn't saying sorry to her.
	No, no, but let's say that he repented and he said, I'm right with God.
	I have uh apologized, I I wish to make as much restitution as possible, blah, blah.
	Like so let's say it wasn't to her.
	Let's say he repented in some way that we could verify, and let's, you know, say that we he wasn't just faking it or whatever, right?
	So it is not required.
	Again, I don't want to this poor woman, right?
	So I don't want to pick on her at all, right?
	But is it not required that a murderer repent in order to be forgiven?
	Not not like let's say if if somebody raped me, right?
	And I I chose to not wish that person to go to hell.
	I want that person in prison.
	I want that person not to go out and hurt another person.
	I want whatever in my community's law is that the judge.
	So you want him punished.
	Yes, because I know.
	So you want him to not be forgiven by the authorities.
	Until he pays his dues, whatever man's law is.
	No, but you this is this is what's confusing, and I appreciate you your patience with me on this.
	So you want men to not forgive him and to draw guns and arrest him and take him off to prison if he's convicted and keep him there for a decade or 20 years or whatever it would be.
	So you want men to not forgive him.
	Right, because we're living in we're you're we're we're trying to make two things the same thing.
	So eternity and you're using the same word.
	So of course it's confusing.
	Right.
	I know, I know.
	But it's but is the it is the same word, but it's not the same thing because you have to take somebody off the streets.
	Like that would be insanity to have a person that's a murderer or a rapist and let them walk around in society.
	Okay, right?
	We have man's laws.
	They have to be not forgiven by the men with guns, the policemen and the jailers and so on, right?
	So that person has to be not forgiven.
	Right.
	Not by law until he serves his time.
	No, whenever man's got this.
	I understand.
	Right.
	So you want him to be both forgiven and not forgiven.
	Well, I want him to pay for his his earthly criminal crime.
	Right, which is to not be forgiven.
	I bet I don't want this tough.
	But I don't want him going to hell.
	No, I well, I I get all of that.
	But that's not up to you.
	Right.
	Which way, which is why it doesn't matter if he apologizes to me or not, right?
	Okay, so so you you want generally men with guns, you want men with guns to go and arrest this guy.
	And if he's found guilty of this terrible crime, then you want him to be incarcerated until he has served his sentence, right?
	So you want him to be not forgiven by the men with guns, but you want to forgive him in some other way.
	So both forgiveness and the opposite of forgiveness are both good.
	Well, forgiveness in a spiritual sense is different than forgiveness in a in a law sense, in a criminal sense.
	But they're opposites.
	Right?
	So you you can only forgive him if he's in prison, I would assume, right?
	So you require the man to not forgive him in order for you to forgive him in your heart or in in some manner.
	And the forgiveness, I think, is just the hope that he might repent.
	No, it doesn't require that he be arrested, because let's say some um unknown man breaks in my house and rapes me, right?
	I have a choice now, whether the law ever finds him, right?
	No, but you would go and report him in the hopes that he would be caught and not forgiven.
	Not forgiven by the law, the man's law.
	I get that.
	I get that.
	But but they're that these are Christians who are arresting him too, right?
	So you as a Christian want to forgive him, but other Christians have to do the opposite of forgiving him, which is to draw their guns and arrest him.
	But it is the Christian thing to do to make to take a criminal off the street so they don't hurt another innocent person.
	That is a Christian thing to do.
	Okay, but but that's what I'm saying.
	So some Christians forgive, other Christians do the opposite of forgiving.
	The forgiving I understand why it sounds confusing, because we're using the same words for two different things.
	But forgiving a crime versus versus like a statute on the law and serving your time is not the same as me personally saying, whether they caught that guy, whether he did his time or not, do I want to hate that man for the rest of my life and hope he goes to hell?
	Why, why why are these this is again, I'm sorry, I appreciate your patience with this.
	Why is it the only two options are to forgive him, though he makes absolutely no repentance, Or to be tormented by this weird voodoo curse of hatred and whatever pathology for the rest of your life, that seems like a false dichotomy.
	But who am I to demand an apology from a human being, right?
	Who am I?
	I'm not God.
	I I don't know what I'm saying.
	No, no, but that's salvation.
	No, the you're a Christian.
	And Jesus says, forgive after people repent.
	Right.
	One one of the verses says forgive after you repent, right?
	Yeah.
	But it also there's there's lots of places where it says, forgive as God forgives you, right?
	Like we don't deserve forgiveness.
	None of us do.
	Only because Jesus died for us and paid for our sin, our debt, or something.
	Sorry, but you would agree, you would agree that you and I are not as bad a sinner as the person who shot Charlie.
	Well, then you get into like, is all sin the same, you know, whatever.
	But if you're talking about it.
	Do you think that murder is worse than uh looking at a guy and thinking nice buns or something like that?
	Well, of course, on on earth, but when we're talking about getting into the kingdom, are you gonna get into heaven with any hate in your heart?
	And the answer is no.
	You're not no, hang on, but then hate in your heart, you it's funny because I'm asking you for a moral judgment and in a truly feminine fashion, you're going back to feelings, which I appreciate.
	I love women, but this is a bit of a gravity well here, right?
	So do you think that all sinners are equal in their sin, or are some sinners worse than others?
	Well, like Jesse Lee Peterson will say, are you better than a pedophile, right?
	Are you better than a pedophile?
	Do you think that's a good one?
	Yes, I am better than a pedophile, of course.
	Right.
	But in God's eyes, are you?
	Yeah.
	I mean, because I mean pedophilia is one of the most evil crimes imaginable.
	And um I mean, I don't even I don't even shoplift, right?
	So if you if you said if you're a pedophile and you and you repent to God truly, if you truly pre repent, right?
	If you're like, I don't know how I got into that darkness, whatever, and you truly see that your sin was so bad, and it is the worst sin, in my opinion.
	But if you truly repent, if it's if it's if it's actually you know, reality to be able to repent for any sin, right?
	To truly do that, is God gonna not let you in any less than the person that's repenting because he's shoplifted?
	Are you good are you are you absolved and clean from your sin because you repented, or are you not?
	Is God gonna still say, well, yeah, but your sin was way worse than than Carrie's sin was, even though you both repented and you're supposed to be washed clean by the blood of Jesus, right?
	Right.
	So I'm not saying in the moment of death, but there are worse sins and less worse sins, right?
	Like social lifting is less worse than pedophilia, right?
	But they both have to be washed clean before you can get into heaven, yes.
	Okay, but let's just just just stay with me for a sec.
	I I get that.
	I get that.
	Um if you are a let's say that you don't repent, right?
	Are you more likely to go to hell if you stole the candy bar when you were 12 or 18 or whatever, right?
	Or if you're a decades after decades pedophile, are you more likely to go to hell if you're a pedophile or if you're you sh you stole a candy bar once?
	Yes.
	I say so.
	Okay.
	So when it says forgive as you are forgiven, then if you have done great wrongs, you need a lot of forgiveness.
	And therefore you should also be kind to other people's great wrongs.
	But if you haven't done great wrong, you don't need as much forgiveness.
	And therefore you should not forgive those who've done great wrong because you don't need that much forgiveness compared to somebody who's done great evil.
	And so when it says forgive others as you are forgiven, okay, I mean, that makes sense.
	But that doesn't mean that everyone has to forgive everyone no matter what.
	Because if you've lived a fairly righteous life, as I think everybody here who's listening and conversing has, if you've lived a fairly righteous life, then, you know, let's say I stole a candy bar when I was 14, right?
	So then if my daughter, she didn't, but let's say she did steal a candy bar when she was 14, that would mean that I should forgive her because I also did that.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes, it's easier to see yourself in if you've if you've committed the same crime or you know, The the same slight against somebody that's getting committed to you, it's much easier to say, well, I did that same thing to my last girlfriend.
	Am I, you know, and so now someone's doing it to me, I could I should forgive that because I'm no better.
	Well, it would be to say that I have to extend forgiveness for the kinds of wrongs that I've done in the appropriate context.
	And so uh if uh it's the old thing that if if a husband has cheated on his wife, he can't just condemn her if she cheats on him.
	He also has to admit that he cheated on her.
	And if he's gonna ask for forgiveness for his cheating, he has to provide forgiveness for her cheating.
	Does that and and if he withholds forgiveness for her cheating, it's really tough for him to ask for forgiveness for his cheating.
	Is that a fair statement?
	Yes.
	And that's I think this is the parable of was it the king who um some Bob owed him money and he said, Okay, you're forgiven.
	He says, I can't pay, and he says, Okay, you're forgiven.
	But then the king finds out that Bob is demanding that someone else pay him money, and then he punishes Bob because uh he Bob demanded a forgiveness for debt that he was not willing to extend to someone else.
	So when it comes to forgive and be forgiven, it's on the level of the sins that you've committed.
	Doesn't mean that if you've just if you stole the candy bar when you were 14, you now have to forgive a mass murderer.
	Well, let's say go back to this guy that raped me, right?
	And and I hold in my heart, whether he was ever caught or not, I I hate that man.
	I want that man to burn in hell, okay?
	Then I die, I'm standing at the gate, and they're like, you know, you did this and this and this wrong in your life.
	Like there's the whole book of all the things I did, right?
	And I'm I'm saying, well, I'm sorry, right?
	And they're like, well, but you didn't forgive this person for this.
	I mean, you could say, well, it's a worse sin, but I hated that man.
	And what's the worst sin than hating someone?
	I'm not getting into heaven.
	Sorry, what is a worse sin.
	I think I think rape, pedophilia, murder, uh, grievous bodily harm, assault.
	I mean, you could go through the list, because hate all comes from kill anyone.
	But it all comes to the same thing.
	Yes, I know, but it depends whether it's enacted or not.
	I mean, some my neighbor can hate me.
	I just don't want him to set fire to my house while I'm sleeping, right?
	So that the emotion is not the action.
	And so when you say, what's the worst sin than hating someone?
	Well, it's acting on that hate in an im in evil fashion.
	But it but if like, am I better than a murderer if I want if I want any person that that was God's creation, right?
	If I want them to literally, their soul burn in hell for eternity.
	If that's in my heart, if I hate that person and I want that person, that's my wish, that's my hope, that's my prayer.
	I want them to burn in hell for eternity and not be forgiven.
	Is my heart better than the guy that actually pulled the trigger and murdered someone?
	Oh, absolutely.
	Yeah, because you're not actually harming him.
	But we're judged on our hearts, right?
	No, uh and we're not only judged on our actions, we are judged on our hearts.
	Okay, of the Ten Commandments, how many involve just feeling?
	I don't know.
	This is nervous.
	But it ain't all of them, I'll tell you that, right?
	Thou shalt not murder.
	Thou shalt not bear false witness.
	Thou shalt not steal.
	Now I get thou shalt not covet, I mean, that's an emotion, and so it's not or thou shalt not have false images before me, right?
	So it's not it it's about actions.
	Thou shalt not murder.
	It it's not thou shalt not hate, thou shalt not wish from people to be harmed.
	And listen, I get that.
	They're stewing in hatred, and I get that's not ideal.
	But I'm not a crime, and we don't have thought crimes in law.
	Well, I'm not a Bible thumper or anything, but i I think there was there's something that says if you have this thought, you are a murderer.
	Doesn't it?
	Well, no, I think it's if you look at another person with lust in your heart that's the same as committing adultery.
	Yeah, but there's one about murder.
	Like if you if you have this in your heart, it's the same as murdering someone, you know.
	Well, I mean, I I I can't sort of speak to that sort of theologically.
	And and so it is true that all evil actions begin with evil thoughts.
	Right.
	And I I certainly think that that's true.
	But not all, quote, evil thoughts lead to evil actions.
	And the evil actions are what we can judge objectively.
	Now, I think that having that internal policing system, do you think that it's natural for and I hate even this example of you being assaulted or something like that?
	But do you think that it's natural if a woman gets raped?
	Do you think it's natural for her to feel anger towards her rapist?
	Yes, initially, of course.
	Okay.
	So God put together our emotional apparatus, right?
	And so God has us feel anger and hostility towards a man who rapes us, right?
	Right.
	Okay.
	So anger is not a sin because that's how our emotional apparatus was constructed by God.
	And we would not say that that which is constructed by God is sinful, right?
	Not initially, but if you hang on to that anger and you love it, right?
	You can love your anger because it makes you feel good after a while, right?
	You don't want to let it go.
	It's it's part of you.
	If you hang on to that, then that does become a sin, right?
	If I choose to condemn that guy in my brain to eternal damnation, then I'm holding on to that for a reason.
	It must make me feel good to hate them.
	Well, I assume that if the person goes to jail, you would you would feel at least safe from that person and you would have done the good thing to get that person off the streets and so on.
	And I don't believe that the only two options are sitting and stewing in perpetual hatred or forgiving somebody who's made no steps towards repentance.
	I don't view those as the only two options.
	So I mean, I've had people who've wronged me in my life, and they have not made any move towards repentance or restitution or anything like that.
	And I don't talk to them, I don't even really think about them uh anymore.
	So uh I have not forgiven them because they haven't earned it, but I'm not sitting here stewing in this.
	It's like it's almost like a curse.
	Like you, you must forgive, I'm gonna hit you with the curse of eternal hatred and like it's just not what happens in the human heart.
	Anger or hatred is somebody has violated my virtues.
	Assuming you're a good person, right?
	I mean, evil people can hate virtue, but let's say you're a good person, uh, anger and hatred would be I'm being threatened, um, virtue is being threatened, my family's being threatened, my interests are being threatened.
	And when you deal with that threat, after you deal with that threat, whether it is confrontation, whether it is arrest if somebody is doing something illegal, whether it is simply distancing yourself from that person so they don't have any access to your social circle or your resources or something like that, then you calm down.
	The hatred goes away, the anger goes away.
	Like fight or flight doesn't last forever.
	Fight or flight is until until you're in a position of safety or security.
	And so the emotions are there to help protect you from being preyed upon.
	And after you have used those emotions to get some safety or security, and whether that could be through restitution, it could be through repentance of the person uh to rebuild trust, it could be uh sending them to jail, it could be simply not having that person in your life because they won't repent and they're untrustworthy and dangerous, then your heart and your mind calms down and you go back to your normal sunny self because you have dealt with these uh with that particular threat or danger to your interests or your virtues.
	So I don't agree, and certainly hasn't been my experience, and I think I have enough life experience.
	I'm pushing 60 next year.
	So I think I've had enough life experience of the ups and downs of good and evil to tell you that it's not the way that the heart and the mind works, that you are threatened, you get your fight or flight kicks in, which again is put there by God to help you survive and protect uh yourself, your virtues and your loved ones, and then you deal with the threat in one form or fashion or another, and then you deal with the uh uh aftermath of the emotions, and then they calm down and you go back to your regular life.
	It's like when you sprint, you pant, and then when you stop printing, uh you stop sprinting, you stop panting, and it's the same thing with sort of hatred or anger or these quote negative emotions.
	They are there to protect you.
	Once you are protected, they calm down.
	Right.
	And so I think we're but that to me what you just said is forgiveness in a way, because you like let's say my dad hurt me, okay?
	I literally said I didn't forgive them, but go ahead.
	Right, but you did kind of because you're not harboring that hate and resentment and and you're not wishing harm on them, right?
	You're you you decided to go no contact because they didn't repent to you.
	So you they didn't come to you and say look, but the idea that I wouldn't wish harm upon them is the idea that harm is negative.
	Like sometimes, as you know, people need To hit rock bottom in order to change, right?
	The alcoholic has to wake up in the ditch with no pants and whatever it is, right?
	Right.
	And so if the harm would bring them to humility and would bring them to repentance, I would wish that harm on them because it would lead them to repentance.
	So saying that I don't wish them any harm.
	You know, if they woke up one morning and was like, oh my gosh, I'm so sad, I'm so unhappy, I've done the wrong thing, I've wronged all these people, I've harmed people, I've stolen from people, I've lied, I've cheated, you know, and they were wretched, wretched, wretched, I would wish that harm on them because it would lead them to some sort of restitution.
	So uh if that may like if if my kid, if my kid had some sort of nerve damage and and didn't know if their hand was in a fire, right?
	That would be bad.
	So you want your kids, if they put their hand in a fire, you want your kids' hands to hurt.
	I mean, obviously you want to prevent them from doing that, but if they should somehow do that, you want that harm for them because that way they're safer in the future because they'll avoid the fire.
	So it to me it's not as simple as, well, I just don't wish harm on people.
	Uh if the harm would lead to some sort of personal growth or some sort of um epiphany or or some sort of um restitution or uh something like that.
	I think that the harm would be healthy and good.
	So I'm sorry to be a nitpicker, but say I don't wish harm on them.
	If the harm would lead to something good, I think that would be great.
	I wouldn't want to not have that happen to them.
	Aaron Powell No, I agree with that.
	I'm saying you don't you don't wish that their soul rots in hell.
	That's all I'm saying.
	You don't wish, like you when you even when you're saying, you know, I I'm not saying I don't wish harm on them because if harm could do them good.
	You're wishing them well, even if they have to go through some hard stuff to get there.
	You're you're you're not hating them.
	And so that is a forgiveness.
	You're not harboring the height of wanting them to go to hell.
	I'm sorry.
	I I I I'm not gonna let I'm not gonna give you a third meaning of the word because now it's turning into a complete swastika pretzel, like the word is just disintegrating under our definitions.
	So I have I no longer have the harmful people in my life, so they don't really cross my mind.
	But as far as forgiving them, no, no.
	I mean, uh they would have to earn my forgiveness.
	They would have to uh they would have to make restitution, they'd have to apologize, that have to, you know, whatever it is, right?
	Because they would have to earn my forgiveness.
	I don't particularly think of them uh, you know, like uh uh I remember many uh a couple of years ago, um, if I was swimming and I oh it's a dolphin, oh I hope it's not a shark, right?
	And my heart was pounding because I thought it might be a shark.
	And then the moment I saw it was a dolphin, my calmed down and I swam and it was kind of cool and I enjoyed it.
	And it's the same thing.
	There's danger in my life.
	Oh, I've gotten rid of the danger or the danger is no longer part of my life, so I can relax and move on with my life.
	But that's not forgiving.
	Forgiving is when people have repented, they have apologized, they've offered restitution, they have uh gotten right with God, they've gotten right with virtue, they have developed some sort of compassion or empathy, uh, and they've become better people.
	And and those people, absolutely, and I mentioned this earlier if you went around, like people have called me up after being, you know, horrible to me in the past and said, I'm really, really sorry.
	We have good conversations.
	I've even published them on my channel.
	And you can just go to FDR Podcasts.com and do a search, say for troll, and and you'll find uh the conversations I've had with people.
	So those people have done to me a noble and good thing, and they've they've made uh restitution, they've apologized, they've uh done all that stuff.
	And and that's a good thing.
	But I'm not gonna extend the same consideration to people who won't even admit that they've done anything wrong.
	And that that doesn't mean I sit and stew over them, because I just, okay, they're not somebody who's going to um the door is always open, right?
	But they're not somebody who's even admitted fault.
	So I'm not going to waste time trying to improve people who won't even admit that they've done anything wrong, even after I've sat down multiple times and stepped them through what they did and why it was wrong.
	So the the two options aren't treating people as if they've done the right thing or stew in hatred forever.
	That's a false dichotomy.
	And I think personally, I think that's set up by bad people to bully people into forgiving them without them having to earn it.
	Yeah, I see your point.
	I think it is is so complicated and people are so in this discussion because there probably is three three meanings in other in people's heads of what we're talking about.
	When we're saying forgiveness, you know, some people are saying forgiving by law, some people are saying forgiving in your own heart, some people are saying God's forgiveness.
	So that it's And some people are saying forgiveness as it's earned by people doing the right thing.
	Yes.
	All right.
	Well, listen, I I really appreciate it and and thank you for your patience.
	It's uh it's a great conversation.
	I really do appreciate the clarity that you brought to it.
	And it was a great discussion.
	I'm gonna just throw everyone else in for the last few minutes because we've had a good old jawbone about it.
	Thank you so much.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	All right, everyone's in.
	Uh If we can just uh do another sort of 10 or 15 minutes of discussion, I would really appreciate that.
	And thank you everyone so much for uh talking about this is a very essential and important topic.
	If you just want to unmute and we can just throw throw our thoughts around.
	My thoughts out.
	Me too.
	Yeah, yeah.
	We'll we'll have time.
	So yeah, if you can just uh I don't know.
	Eeny meeny money, uh, one of you start and we'll get to the others.
	I have to leave in seven minutes.
	All right, so the person has to leave in seven minutes.
	I'm gonna spend six minutes making a speech.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Right on.
	I appreciate you.
	I'll try to make this as edifying uh so that it benefits everyone listening.
	Um great conversation.
	And uh actually, Stefan, can you hear me?
	Because my user interface has muted.
	Can you hear me?
	No, it's great.
	Wonderful.
	Okay.
	First of all, sorry that you're experiencing the uh hypocrisy there with uh, you know, uh people who's saying forgive, but then they're kind of being aggressive towards you.
	Yes, that's inconsistent.
	Yes, that's a sign that they're not contemplating and actually doing the proper work.
	A prayer, so sorry for that.
	Uh, I'm going to blitz through because this has been a very powerful discussion.
	Uh so just to uh excuse me for the blitzkrieg here, but I do want to kind of throw some things and then maybe further on we can follow up at a different point.
	Uh as far as um, you know, there is the concept of the imprecatory psalms, even in the Bible, where you're praying for the punishment of the enemies.
	And I think the difference is it's not a problem to desire punishment.
	The difference is who will administer the punishment.
	And I know you you even pointed this distinction, uh, but there's a difference between drago wanting to personally uh, you know, hand out the punishment to those who hurt drago versus you know allowing public justice, so to speak, and of course, you know, what's public, what's private.
	Um, I understand that.
	Um, another framing, you know, right.
	So what we're talking about here is okay, someone hurts me, and now I have the different responses for wanting, you know, justice.
	So one reason might be you, well, you hurt me, so I want to hurt you.
	I want you to experience suffering.
	I want you to experience suffering because you cause me suffering.
	But then there's also, well, no, I want you to learn virtue via correction.
	The reason why I want you to be punished is because I want you to be corrected.
	I want to restore order.
	So those latter two things, let's say that that's perfectly valid justice.
	That is, you know, in line with the Christian teaching.
	But this other first part of, well, I just want you to suffer, you know, that that's the specific thing that's trying to be uprooted, you know, when we talk about Christian forgiveness, this desire just for others to experience pain, you know, because you they caused you pain.
	Um, so uh uh to offer the distinction here when we talk about forgiveness, uh, I think there's two dimensions here.
	And and I in the in the prior discussion here, you guys were kind of teasing that out.
	But um, one is let's say an interior phenomenon of the of the heart or let's say a subjective interior experience, right?
	Some even people talking about, you know, right, the sensations of peace and and hate and all this kind of stuff, you know, freedom of hate.
	But then the second component, which I think you're more focused on, is the kind of juridicial, more objective, multi-party act of rebalancing the scales of justice.
	You know, there's a visible transaction of you know a harmless cause, and then the other person is subdued, you know, they're handcuffed, uh, justice.
	And so I do think that um those are important distinctions.
	And um, as far as Christ on the cross, because uh let me say this.
	People should struggle with this.
	I have struggled with this.
	Uh it is uh the mystery of the of the passion, the crucifixion, it should anger somebody.
	And sometimes you can even get mad at God and Jesus, like, how in the world did you let this happen to you, right?
	If people if if no one's ever had those thoughts, they're not allowing uh the gospel story to really uh to hit them in the deep levels.
	And so I think perhaps, you know, when when Jesus said father, forgive them.
	Well, let's look at those distinctions.
	Number one, let's say if he is speaking in a uh objective multi-party sense, I don't think Christ is saying, Father, don't send them to hell uh or father, send them to heaven.
	You know, gee, I don't think Jesus is saying, Father, please send these soldiers to heaven.
	I think he is maybe making a temporal uh claim of God, you know, don't obliterate them right here and now.
	Do don't you could just destroy them literally in this moment, but please, you know, give them time to come to the realization of repentance, etc.
	eternity.
	So perhaps, perhaps that's how to read it.
	Um and then maybe even on the human dimension, maybe Jesus was also demonstrating that interior phenomenon of let's say it Christ's final temptation.
	Because any human being crucified and tortured by these people that you were sacrificing yourselves for, the natural reaction would be anger, resentment.
	I can destroy these fools.
	They are mocking me.
	They're spitting me.
	Do they know who I am?
	And they're torturing me gleefully.
	I can destroy them.
	I would think the human nature of Christ would have been dealt with that desire for wrath and instantaneous, you know, satisfaction.
	But uh I perhaps when he also did the father forgive them statement, he was kind of uh in some sense relinquishing that.
	And uh and lastly, as far as know not what they do, um, I think there's an element of the ignorance for not knowing the final end.
	So, you know, Stefan, you do mention, well, sure, we can know things.
	If I run somebody over uh on purpose, I know what I'm doing compared to the accidents.
	But I think there's always at least the Catholic teaching is there's always some ignorance with respect to ultimate ends.
	So even the person who's murdering and they know what murder is and they know what they're doing.
	The fact is they're ignorant to the ultimate ends, they're ignorant to the you know, the big story narrative, right?
	Uh, you know, the ultimate end being God and the uh right, the eternity.
	And so in that sense, they they are ignorant, even though they are more culpable than the naive accidental case.
	And anyway, I appreciate the blitzkrieg.
	I really would have loved to go a lot of back and forth with you.
	Um, and apologies for that, but um, you know, uh it is what it is.
	Thank you for having me on.
	No, listen, I appreciate the blitzkrieg, and there's a lot to talk about.
	Um hopefully we'll do it again.
	And uh, if somebody else wants to step in, I'd love to get that.
	This is Mo Bing.
	This is Mo Bing like a few different things.
	Hello, sir, sir, sir.
	This is Mo Bing.
	I was at the top.
	Were you the guy who just spoke?
	Or no, I did not.
	That was other but if you go on quick, because I have a lot of I I really wasn't gonna go quick.
	I was gonna make like a lot of points.
	Me too.
	Right.
	I'll make a few of them.
	So I'm just gonna say that like one of the things is um uh Christianity and politics, those two things are very different.
	So we're going by two different moral codes.
	Never we like judge this topic.
	Second of all, uh Christianity actually does encourage men to become eunuchs, and even teaches that you're not supposed to be like of the flesh and of this world.
	If we were to look at the Bible.
	So, what do you mean by eunuchs?
	Uh by eunuchs, I have a certain Bible quote I could probably post in the Jumbotron.
	Hold on, let's say.
	Oh, you can just read it off because people are gonna be looking at the text after.
	All right, so Matthew 19, 12.
	For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men.
	And there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.
	Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.
	And another fun fact in terms of statistics, missionaries actually have some of the lowest testosterone levels out of all careers.
	Um sorry, uh is this related to the topic of the whole of forgiveness or yes, in terms of Christianity.
	So I was also gonna say this.
	Uh taking communion with someone is different from oh, let's say like stomping a mugger out at Denny's after they tried to mug you at midnight.
	So I mean, I'm I'm not really sure what to make of that.
	Oh, yeah, and like the thing about women and forgiveness, that's another point I wanted to make, which is that um uh women, like from just the sheer Darwinistic perspective, they're attracted to guys who best their own man in combat and are more likely to forgive you for like doing something bad, like getting into a fight and being aggressive.
	Speaking of aggressive, hey, uh compared to uh Mo Bing had his hand up before you did.
	And uh let's let's hear from Mo Bing.
	Yeah, sorry, that other stuff, and I appreciate it.
	We should probably talk about that.
	We're trying to sort of focus on the forgiveness aspect, so general criticisms uh we can do another time, but for the other person who had his hand up if you'd like to mention something, I think uh yes.
	Uh one, uh uh God bless everybody in the room.
	I don't want to offend nobody for the things I say.
	I want to ask you a couple of personal questions before I answer your question, sir.
	That you the host, are you saved?
	Probably am I a Christian who's saved?
	Is that you saved?
	Yes, are you saying I am not?
	Okay.
	So you're not uh you're not a believer, you're not saved.
	Okay.
	So uh I just wanted to get that out the way.
	Uh so uh forgive us.
	So we use I don't know if it was like just you and the sister going back and forth.
	Ms. Carrier, she did kind of well.
	Uh I hope she come join me for Bible study tomorrow evening at five o'clock Pacific.
	But I would say this uh your point of making a forgiveness.
	We're talking about Sister Uh Kirk, right?
	Because I came in the room, I shared the space too as well.
	Um forgiveness, uh kind of uh uh twofold.
	Um when you when she was talking about forgiveness um as a believer, uh I don't know what she felt, but when she say I forgive him, when someone says I forgive them, um they have uh animosity, maybe hatred, maybe uh uh disdain or um uh upset or angry at the person of what they have done to them.
	Now, forgiveness is not just uh me forgiving that person that offense offended me, but it's for me to release them to as well, as well as God uh is the Lord is forgiving them.
	Also, you said you brought up the Ten Commandments.
	Uh the Ten Commandments is good, but at the as well as the believers of the New Testament church, we also uh still have to, you still can sin out of your heart too as well.
	I know you quoted uh Matthew uh chapter five, where if a man look at a woman, he already committed adultery, already committed sin and things like that.
	So you still uh because out of a man's heart soul is he think it, uh, and is well uh God uh going to judge the heart.
	He knows the mind and he judges the heart.
	And so anything you think of hatred or murder or things like that, uh you God already knows and you already condemn if you do not forgive and repent yourself.
	Now, uh I don't know what where where you were getting at.
	Maybe you can kind of um let me know the the premise or the purpose you you was at you you was asking this or the the space I know can you can you forgive me Christianity and forgiveness?
	Yes, we're all called to forgive.
	Uh just has God has forgiven us.
	And so uh I so I just wanted to Yeah, but sorry, my my issue is not the virtue of forgiveness.
	And listen, I I forgive you for not being around for the whole show.
	Yeah, so no, no, that's okay.
	I probably But so yeah, my issue is not the virtue Hey, I think I think forgiveness is a good virtue.
	I think that there are certain issues we don't need to forgive people for, like the little shafings that we have, just living together with with husband and wife and family and so on.
	And so I think that's I think that's fine.
	Uh we should forgive those things.
	I think that if somebody genuinely repents and asks for forgiveness and apologizes and makes restitution, and I think that it's a good thing to do within, you know, um within certain boundaries.
	But do we owe forgiveness to people who have not made a single move towards repentance or apology?
	If they have not owned their own sin, if they have not accepted their own evil doing, do we owe them forgiveness?
	And my argument is no, uh forgiveness has to be earned through good behavior.
	Uh through a Christian perspective in a practical IRL perspective.
	That's not me talking.
	That that's that's not mo that's not Mo Bing talking.
	That's not more.
	No, I got that.
	Go ahead.
	So um I don't know who was that talking at first, but uh yes, we sh uh uh as believers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are to forgive.
	Um if if if if my brother offended me uh as uh uh the uh Apostle Peter asked Jesus, how how how many times do I have to forgive him?
	Seven, seven times seventy, uh the number is I get that.
	Okay, but what does hang on, but what does Jesus say is required for that forgiveness?
	Uh uh far as uh I mean you're you're if my brother To remember the sins no more?
	Yes.
	So No, he says repent.
	If he if he repents, if he rep if he repents from God, not to be forgiven from man, those are two different things.
	Yes.
	If he if he were if he your brother repent to you, uh forgive him.
	But I believe still as well, you still have to forgive your brother because that's a un that's that is a un that's an issue not not not settled.
	Okay.
	If you are all you if you have an art with your brother, you go to your brother and and and and you talk that out.
	If not, then you bring other witnesses too.
	Again, people that's uh again, it are we talking about it's another thing too as well.
	Are we talking about brothers in the faith in the body of Christ?
	Or are we talking about just our actual brother on the street?
	Because it's a different uh set of engagement of rules doing that, meaning that my personal brother, uh, blood brother is not saved.
	And if I have the same position as my brother in the faith, as well as my my actual my brother in the faith, I can go to him and appeal to him.
	I apologize and I'm sorry for forgiveness.
	Now he's supposed to forgive me.
	Now, if if if if if my brother had wronged me, I forgive him because if I'm mature in the faith and things like that, I'm automatically coming to forgive.
	Uh and number two, we have to understand that our feelings, our flesh fight against the spirit.
	The spirit and the flesh is warning with each other.
	So we have to overpower the spirit with the holy spirit.
	The more you feed into the Holy Spirit, get close to God, the more much stronger you become to overpower your feelings and things.
	And so my brother, my natural blood brother, too as well, I can forgive him.
	He and he may not never come and apologize to me.
	But I still, as a believer, still had to forgive him, even though he did not know what he do.
	That's what the young uh lady was saying.
	My sister was saying where Jesus was uh uh saying that when he was dying on the cross, just like uh uh uh I'm trying to I'm thinking fast so I can go uh try to get everything out the way, but um uh Jesus still forgave them where he knew they needed forgiveness for what they do.
	Uh soon, one day, um, they're gonna come to the knowledge of truth, hopefully, and then they're gonna remember that just like when we stole, like you brought up the uh scenario as the 14-year-old uh young man that stole a candy bar.
	Whatever you did, once you come to Christ and the knowledge of truth and repentance, your sins are forgiven.
	Uh what are you done when you come to Christ?
	Now, post uh uh repentance and conversion, then you need to walk step by step but with the faith.
	But if your brother that's naturally that's not in the faith, he may not come to you, you still should forgive him.
	Your brother that's in the faith, he should know better.
	And if he don't know better, then you need to take uh uh a two members.
	So the Bible says if you go to your brother and he do he did not hear you, uh if he hears you, you want a brother.
	If he don't hear you, then come back and take two more to get things established.
	And then if he don't hear them, then you have to take him before the church.
	You have to take him before the church.
	And then if he don't he if you don't achieve to that, then he gets ostracized from the church.
	So it goes step by step by step.
	So are we talking about a brother in the faith, or are we talking about a non-believer?
	Those are two things that Well, I would, yeah.
	So I would argue that people who don't know right from wrong, like children or the mentally infirm or the Roman soldiers who were crucifying Jesus, people who don't know right from wrong are not to be held to moral account, little kids and all of that.
	But people who do know right from wrong, that's people who like to law.
	I think I guess guys, guys, guys, guys gave everyone a long time to talk about.
	It's not me.
	That's not me.
	That's not me.
	Yeah, let me just squeeze the word in edge wise.
	So uh so if people don't know right from wrong, somebody who's got brain damage or a tumor or Alzheimer's or something.
	So uh, but the the the issue with the guy who shot Charlie Kirk is he knew it was wrong.
	He knew it was immoral.
	He hid it.
	He didn't do it out in the open.
	The the people who the Roman soldiers who nailed up Jesus were doing it out in the open.
	So I do think that uh if somebody has moral capacity, uh let's suppose you're defending your private property and your front lawn with uh landmines and a kid walks over it on their own.
	Like that kid did violate the nap and you were in the right to defend it.
	Oh I'm sorry, but what's the theoretical?
	Oh, all right, like let's suppose this um you defend your land using landmines, all right?
	Your front lawn, all right?
	And you're in Like the suburbs.
	Some kid walks on your front lawn, they're violating your property rights, and they step on one of your landmines and gets blown up.
	Weren't you entirely in the right in that scenario?
	No, because uh there's proportional response, right?
	So the the Bible says, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against you.
	I mean, like I said, which is more to do, okay.
	Guy, if you're asking me for a question, definitely let me answer.
	Okay, there's no point asking me a question and then immediately talking over when I try to answer, okay.
	So the Bible says it's saying to us that if there's relatively minor issues, somebody just sets foot on your property or something like that, then that's something we should forgive.
	If some if you're dancing and somebody accidentally steps on your foot, you don't blow them away with a shotgun, right?
	So there has to be some sort of proportional response.
	So minor sins, minor problems, minor issues, yes, we should rise above, we should forgive.
	But you know, the public execution of a man of God in front of his wife and children and in front of 3,000 people, that's not a minor sin.
	That's not a trespass.
	That's a mortal sin.
	And whether we forgive someone for that if they've shown no repentance is the is the question.
	Shouldn't you forgive them out of your own liberty, not because you have to forgive them?
	Because in that case, you're not really forgiving, you're just like a weakness, that scenario.
	Yeah, go ahead.
	He knifed in on me.
	You know you knife in on me.
	Um so uh one, I want to uh clarify some things for for the Roman people.
	There's no such thing as little sin, small sin.
	Sin is sin.
	Sin is sin.
	There's no big sin or little sin.
	Sin is sin.
	And God No, no, but that's that's that's that that's not an argument.
	That's just repeating things.
	I'm making a I'm making a point.
	I'm making a point.
	I'm making a point, sir.
	Hang on.
	Height is height, that doesn't mean everyone's the same height.
	There are better and there are worse and more grievous sins.
	Uh stealing a candy bar is not the same as murder.
	Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	In our eyes, and sir, sir, sir.
	Let me sir, let me speak, sir.
	Let me speak.
	You're you're coming off your mic.
	Come on, man.
	You're coming off your mic.
	Sin is sin, sir.
	I do this for a living.
	Sin is sin.
	And the Bible teaches that.
	You can steal the candy bar or you can murder somebody.
	And guys still classify that as sin.
	And number two, the Lord wrote in the book of Proverbs, chapter six, uh, verses 19 through uh uh 16 through 19, the six things that the Lord hates.
	And yes, the seventh thing is abomination to him, a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that uh uh devised wicked plans, feet that are swift and running to evil, a false witness that speaks lies, and one that solves discourse among the brethren.
	Okay, sin is sin, and God forgives, and there's no uh like white lie or a little lie or a big lie.
	Lie is lie.
	And we have to understand that from now we we see that as still in a candy bar and somebody murder that.
	Yes, I understand that, uh, and in our eyes in that.
	But far as in God and spirit, because we we have to understand God, uh we doing things naturally, God doing things spiritually.
	And we have to understand, and uh people in just the natural state doesn't understand spiritual state.
	The Bible talks about this too as well.
	So we have to understand that we may see that, oh, I just thought it stole the candy bar, but and he just shot somebody, but that still sin is sin, and that sin needs to be forgiven.
	Okay, and we we need to understand that.
	I think uh again, our ways, our thoughts are not uh his thoughts, our ways are not his ways, his thoughts are far off.
	Two plus two is not for to the Lord like it's uh uh to us.
	And I want us to understand that.
	We we try to understand uh his logic and our finite of thinking.
	And we and we and we can't we can't we can't do that in in that way.
	And I wanted to say that to you, sir, just to clarify some things up too as well.
	Okay, I appreciate that.
	And is there anybody else who wanted to jump in?
	Uh just we close down.
	Sorry, somebody who hasn't talked yet.
	I can just say real quick that there is one sin that is for sure unforgivable and set apart from all the other sins.
	So for you that does this for a living and don't know that, yeah.
	I know what it is, it's blasphemy of the Holy Ghost.
	so i do know that i don't say that well stand is not equal no no no no no no Outside of blaspheme of the Holy Ghost, yes.
	I I understand that and I know that.
	And I and then I didn't say that, but I didn't know that.
	And I could say that just like I'm saying it now for for the room, but I'm not trying to say that to to put somebody down because you kind of seem like you have some mind in modesty because I didn't say that, but yes, I do know that.
	You said all sins the same.
	No, no, no.
	And that's a sin that is outside of blasphemy of the Holy Ghost.
	It makes a distinction in the scriptures if you go to it.
	Okay.
	Outside of blasphemy of the Holy Ghost, that's the unforgivable sin.
	Outside of that one, everything else is that sin too as well, but that is the unpartable sin.
	So I uh we can talk more, brother, you and I one on one if you want to talk about it.
	Okay, okay, sorry.
	I I I don't I okay, but we'll put the asterisk there.
	Uh so is there anybody else who wanted to mention something else?
	I would love to say speak.
	Yes, because I would okay, go ahead.
	Um thank you, Stefan, for uh for hosting this.
	Um Thank you.
	Uh I am a Christian, and um I agree it is really, really hard to comprehend um forgiveness, especially in a case like uh this one with with Erica Kirk and I don't think that wrath and forgiveness are um in exclusive.
	Uh I think you you can still have justice and forgiveness um uh uh simultaneously as well.
	Um but I think mm a lot of people have touched on this, but I think we we need to really consider that God says that He is um He is justice and He is uh the wrath that's going to punish people and um we're we're as Christians I don't think we're asking everybody to forgive.
	Um we're trying to emulate the the Christ that says take up your cross and follow us.
	But take up your cross and follow me.
	And um we can't do that as well as he does, and we never will be able to do that as well as he does.
	Um it is our attempt to try to do that.
	And just like he forgave Peter when Peter Peter denied him three times.
	Um he he asks us to forgive our best friends when they when they deny us, he asks us to forgive um murderers and and rapists, and and it's hard.
	And that doesn't mean that we don't want justice.
	That doesn't mean that we don't want those people to actually see him at the judgment seat, and um and you know, I think he's also asking us to pray for our enemies and pray for their salvation, which um, you know, if you if you believe the Bible, you believe that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess above the earth and on the earth and under the earth.
	That means that literally everybody's gonna be on their knees and on their face worshiping the most high God, the perfect God, the ruler and the CEO of the universe.
	And that's not just on the earth, that's everybody in hell because he's he rules over hell.
	It's just his dungeon.
	He rules over hell just like he rules over heaven and just like he rules over earth.
	Everybody's gonna be proclaiming his name.
	And you're either going to be doing that in in abject horror, or you're gonna be doing that in worship of the most high God that created all things through through speaking them into being.
	And he's calling us and he's asking us to live in accordance with the way in which he forgives us, the unpardonable sins that we conduct every day.
	Um he is perfect, and and we don't just sin out of out of commission and omission, but we also are born into sin, into a line of sinners, into the the birthright of Adam and Eve that that took the apple and declared war on him in that action.
	And and I think that's the perspective of of Christianity and forgiveness.
	I was often, but the question is the question is do we have to forgive those who do not repent in defiance of the world.
	If they don't you uh Christian sense that's different from if they trespass on someone else.
	Like, this is uh we don't wrestle against um with flesh and blood, we wrestle against the principalities in the air.
	So it's like sharing communion with someone isn't the same thing as let's say do I I don't know like in let's say a sense of the non-aggression principle, like that's not the same thing as you know, like the Bible, like in terms of a legal system, the kingdom of heaven isn't the same thing as like whatever the best hypothetical economic system you could have like here on earth.
	Hey, free.
	Sorry, uh if anybody wants to get in the final thoughts, I really do appreciate everyone dropping by today.
	Uh I was gonna say that uh forgiveness is really it's not a gift that you're giving to the person that is sinned against you or trespassed against you.
	Forgiveness is really about releasing the the judgmental nature of our of our of our flesh and of us trying to be above our brothers and sisters.
	So it's more about it's more about freeing yourself from this negative connection that that person has tried to tether to your soul so that you think about them and you sit in that negative thought while they're off in their world, either you know, having fun or screwing over somebody else,
	and you're you're your life is now stuck thinking about oh, this trespass, you know, and and this is something where it gets into this uh the turn the other cheek, you know, or the eye for an eye, and always give this example.
	Let's say you're walking down a pathway, and up ahead you see two people talking.
	One person's got their back to you, you know, they're facing the other person, they're talking, and you're just gonna walk right by them.
	And as you're about to pass, the guy that's got his back turned, doesn't see you coming.
	Next thing you know, he just reaches his arm right out and smacks you right in the face.
	And in the past, you know, and I for now, you're like, oh, this guy hit me, smack, you smack him right back.
	But if you take a pause and you actually turn your face and show him your other cheek and look at him, and he looks at you and he's like, Oh, I just hit this guy.
	I'm so sorry.
	You've now presented your your second cheek, he realizes he accidentally hit you, instantly apologizes, and instead of you actually hitting him before he could apologize and starting a fight, you've actually given you taken pause.
	And in that pause gives him a chance to realize his error because he didn't mean to, he didn't even see you coming.
	So it was it was in no way a sin, but he slapped you.
	And so it's like now you're giving them so basically it's like sometimes we make mistakes in life where it technically could be perceived as a sin or a slight, but you really had no intention for it.
	But if the person automatically just takes their vengeance, it's like this.
	If that person instead of slap in their cheek, let's say they took out your eye, and now you want vengeance, even though it might have been an accident, but you don't and the guy tells you it's an accident, but you know what?
	The law says an eye for an eye.
	Now you have the law take his eye.
	Now you both have one IE.
	But now because you took his eye when it was actually a mistake, now he's no longer sees you as a friend and a brother.
	He sees you as a judicial asshole that didn't listen to you him when he said it was a mistake, and you took his eye.
	So now you both walk around with one eye.
	Now let's say you forgive him because he said it was a mistake, and now he sees you as a brother.
	Well, now instead of you hit walking around this earth with two eyes, now you've been given a third eye.
	Because now not only do you have your one eye to see the world, now you have a brother with an extra two eyes.
	I'm going to say this.
	Um, the demi-urge demands like Christian blood, and he knew like what Jesus would get himself into and animated our own sins entirely like that.
	And second of all, not only like God, but Christians in general would want Christian persecution to be a thing.
	Sorry, let's see demi-urge.
	The demi-urge is uh uh a bloodthirsty God um who uh to say the least uh is not benevolent.
	It's a Gnostics believer.
	A God who is like who does like wicked stuff.
	Okay.
	So like the devil.
	Um but is God at the same time like created the whole material physical world.
	So this is why.
	Okay, so if we're gonna talk about Christianity, I don't know what this demiurge thing is.
	We're trying to talk about it.
	Oh, I feel the demiurge.
	I'm not really sure whether these including the ones that persecuted Jesus, so like when we speak about the demiurge, uh so Satan took a third of Pisces Sophia's uh stars in heaven in Revelation 12, the earlier part.
	Uh so she gives birth to time traveling Jesus in 2017 of like during the uh American eclipse.
	I'm sorry.
	Uh I I'm gonna have to ask you to hold off because I'm not sure about time traveling Jesus, but we're trying to go with sort of standard Christian theology.
	So uh I think we had a I'd like to give a lady the last word here because we've had a bit of a sausage fest and I've got a good interject.
	Hang on, hang on.
	Just hold them.
	Just hold your ground and it'll stop.
	I've had some crazy few days here.
	Just hold your ground and it stops.
	So okay, so sorry, I think there was a Mary if you wanted to tell us your thoughts uh to close us off.
	I appreciate that.
	Can you hear me?
	Yes, go ahead, ma'am.
	Yeah, I I just want to cite something from the scripture.
	Am I allowed to do that?
	Please do.
	Okay, it is, you know, like in a church setting.
	Well, first I want to say in Romans 7, if you go to verse 14 all the way down to the end, it's going to tell you you've got two natures about you.
	So if I in my flesh mind, I'm going to react a different way than I do in my spiritual part.
	The more I stay in the Word of God, the more I'm raised a new creature.
	I can be more merciful now because I know what I was at one time.
	But this is a sin in the church.
	And it's how Paul dealt with it in 1 Corinthians 5 1.
	It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as it is not so much as named among the Gentiles that one should have his father's wife.
	And are you puffed up and not rather mourned that he had done this deed might be taken away from among you?
	For I I barely, as absent body, but present in spirit have judged already as though I was present concerning him that have done this deed.
	In this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together in my spirit with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
	In other words, put them, you know, aside until there is a repentance.
	So it kind of applies to you also physically.
	You know, if the strong man is not not around, then the state's going to come in.
	That tells you we can we can protect ourselves.
	But at the same time, if you're one that has been in the word, I know what I was at one time.
	I know how I would react when I was flesh-minded.
	Now that I'm spirit-minded, I'm going to deal with it in a different way.
	There's nothing wrong with a Christian defending themselves.
	But we also have to keep in mind who we're dealing with.
	If you're dealing with someone that is, you know, the way you were, I always disview myself as I have I have just as much an ability to be evil as I do good.
	I just choose to do the good.
	And when I'm dealing with people that don't know the Father, then I'm going, I've got to approach it in a way that will glorify him.
	And sometimes I fail, and then sometimes I don't fail.
	But I thought that that chapter might be of some help.
	I hope it did.
	But doesn't the demi- No, I appreciate that.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Oh, yeah, a few different things.
	Doesn't the demiurge like harden people's hearts and know what the Okay, bro, grow, you gotta you gotta hold off on the demiurge thing.
	So if we have a Satan round table, you can be front and center for that.
	But this demi-urge stuff we're talking about sort of Christian Christianity and and Jesus and forgiveness.
	So if you could just hold off on that stuff and uh listen, Mary, what I really appreciate there is to have your recognition of when you are uh acting out there in the world, you are a representative of your belief system.
	You are a representative of your faith, of Jesus, of Christianity, of virtue uh on the side of the angels.
	And that's a beautiful thing.
	And I I just really want to remind people, and listen, I mean, I say this with all humility, I have to remind myself because I can be a little punchy from time to time.
	Don't blame me, I'm bold, I have too much testosterone.
	It's not my fault.
	It's God's plan.
	But uh no, so all joking aside, like when you are out there in the world, you are a representative of your belief system.
	And one of the things that I have to remind myself of, and I probably should do it more often, is that to subsume the ego for the purpose of transmitting greater virtues is a very powerful thing.
	And I would remind Christians, just as I remind myself, as I remind people who are philosophically minded, that people will judge you before they judge your ideas.
	In other words, if you're gonna buy a diet book, the first thing you're gonna look at is is the guy who wrote the diet book fat or not.
	And if the guy who wrote the diet book is fat, you're just not gonna open the book.
	And it is a reminder to all of us.
	And again, I say this with deep humility.
	I'm sure you guys do a better job of this than I do in general.
	But let's remember that as we are out there in the world pushing virtue, pushing integrity, honesty, and hopefully aspects of peace and the non-aggression principle and forgiveness where appropriate that we remember that people are gonna judge us by how we interact with them more so than at least initially than our fundamental ideas.
	So listen, I really thank you guys so much for, you know, wait a three and a half hour chat about forgiveness, and I really do appreciate that.
	The feedback that people have given is fantastic, and I hope that we can do this again soon.
	And thank you, brother.
	Uh I pray that you come over to the uh to the Lord Jesus Christ and repent for your sins and and be a brother in Christ one day.
	I pray for you, Brother Freedom.
	Thank you for the space.
	Uh to as well, Sister Mary.
	Uh, God bless you.
	That was a good vr verse.
	I always tell people as believers walk in the spirit to not fulfill the lusts of our flesh.
	And uh always know that we're here to win souls.
	Whoever wins souls for the Lord is wise.
	That's scripture.
	And so that our goal is to be saved, to win souls to get saved.
	And so uh I say that and I think and and pray for everyone, God bless you.
	And uh yes.
	Beautifully put.
	I can't do better than that, brother.
	So thanks everyone so much.
	And I will be doing uh Wednesday night, 7 p.m., Friday night, 7 p.m., Sundays, 11 a.m. for subscribers.
	If you'd like to subscribe on X, you can just go to FDRURL.com slash X or just click on my um uh my header and subscribe there, or there's a very bunch of other places if you'd like to support philosophy, support theology, support these kinds of conversations.
	Free domain.com slash donate, and that's the one last question of the material ads.
	Well, let's say my main account back.
	Hey, free, can I get one last question?
	Go for it.
	All right, so when you're asking about like the what to do if someone isn't repentant to the sins that they've done against you.
	And I wanted to just say that I wonder, do you think it's a good idea to like say, say someone shows they're unrepentant, isn't it the best thing to do is to like just separate yourself from them?
	Like that's the punishment is like, all right, if you can't say you're sorry, the best thing I can do is just not be in your life anymore.
	But then what I was saying before, for yourself, forgive that person, because maybe they know not what they did.
	Maybe they know not what I mean, maybe they really did.
	No, no, but you have a conversation with them to a standard of why you did the what what why why what they did was wrong.
	And as far as uh as far as sorry, go ahead.
	I was just gonna say they still could have cognitive dissonance where like even if you point out and paint the picture, there still could be something broken in them.
	Like there could be a log in their eye.
	I don't uh I don't I don't I'm a free will guy.
	So people have the choice to choose better if it's explained to them.
	I'm a free will guy, and I I don't sort of create, in a sense, magical barriers as to whether people can or cannot be good unless there's sort of clear cognitive problems, clear mental health issues, or you know, maybe the schizophrenic or they've got a brain tumor or you know, they had a railway spike through their head.
	So you're so I don't like it.
	I don't do that.
	I will hang on, hang on.
	I so I will explain to people the issues that I have, as I hope people who have issues with me will sit down with me and explain how I may have gone astray in the thorny path to virtue.
	But it's not just about you.
	Of course, if you're a father, if you're a husband, if you're a mother, uh if you're a wife, you have to remember that it's who you expose your children to.
	And if you have negative or destructive or abusive people in your life, it has an effect on you as a parent, it has effect on your children, it has effect on your family, it has effect on the quality for your marital relations.
	So after a certain amount of time, especially if you have people dependent upon you who need your good grace and peace of mind in order to grow up well and to have a happy marriage with you.
	It's not even up to you after a while.
	Like you can choose to smoke, but you can't choose to blow smoke in your children's faces.
	And even if you're single, it's not a good idea to have malevolent people around.
	But if you have responsibility for growing hearts, minds, and souls, then you really don't have a choice, and you have to keep the bad actress out of your children's lives.
	That's a fundamental provide and protect thing that I would advocate for very strongly.
	But again, thank you guys so much.
	I'm going to close off here.
	Beautiful conversation.
	It is great to meet some new friends, and I really, really enjoy everybody's participation.
	It's been wonderful.
	Thank you guys so so much.
	Uh yes.
	Oh, yeah.
	Uh could you please uh follow my main account back?
	It's uh Will May ninety eight.
	Thank you.
	I greatly appreciate it.
	All right, thanks, man.
	Appreciate it, and we'll talk to you guys soon.

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