Elen1107

33 minutes ago, Pipiripi said:

God = BELIEVE 

Evolution = KNOWING WHAT MAN'S TEACHING IS, WITHOUT WAS IN THE PASSED.  

Christians don't have nothing to do with evolution. They cannot mix. 

I live in a free country. Many Christians do mix Christianity and evolution. It's not a big problem here, or where I live

This is why many people come to 'Progressive Christianity' because they don't want to do Christianity in old fundementalistic ways.

One can mix science and Christianity. God is still God. Christ is still Christ. It's just that some of the things written about them, even in the bible, aren't all they are made up to be.

The first Christians didn't have a bible. The books of the bible weren't written until everything that happened in them had already happened and were done and over with. Many people say that the books of the New Testament weren't written till even much later than that.

You don't need a perfect book, the bible, for God and Christ to still be great and true and wonderful. They are all that and much more, with or without an absolutely  perfect book being written about them.

18 minutes ago, PaulS said:

Don't quote me on it, but I think that might be the only mention in the entire NT of Jesus interacting with a Roman (other than his arrest).  There certainly isn't much to be said in the NT about Jesus acting positively towards Romans specifically. 

 

Here's a clip I've found on centurions in the NT

An officer in the Roman army, nominally in command of one hundred soldiers. In Matthew 8:5 , a centurion who lived at Capernaum approached Jesus on behalf of his ailing servant. In Mark 15:39 , a centurion who witnessed the crucifixion identified Jesus as the Son of God. In Acts 10:1 , the conversion of the centurion Cornelius marked the beginning of the church's outreach to the Gentile world. In Acts 27:3 , the centurion Julius treated the apostle Paul with courtesy. These passages illustrate the generally favorable impression made by the centurions who appear in the New Testament. They were usually career soldiers, and they formed the real backbone of the Roman military force.

from this link https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/hbd/c/centurion.html

I don't remember what other non-Jewish people Jesus is depicted as interacting with, besides the woman at the well, and his mention of the "good Samaritan". I'd need to spend some time on that.

18 minutes ago, PaulS said:

I think he believed God would overthrow the Roman Empire and it was going to happen shortly, which is why he was warning Jews to get ready for the coming Kingdom.

I don't agree with everything that Bart Ehrman says, even though he does have a lot of great insights. Obviously I don't agree with how he understands Jesus all the time.

Seems like it took a bit longer to convert the Romans. 

The Kingdom of Heaven is about everybody living together and sharing and caring and loving one another. People just started doing this, and possibly were ignoring all the authority type people, whether they were Jewish or Roman. Ignoring some governments can be a good thing at times, I should know, I live in the US 🙂 .

They weren't waiting to do this, It started happening right away. In that sense the Kingdom of Heaven started inbreaking right then and there. Who was in authority didn't matter too much, and everyone was accepted, no matter where they came from or who or what their ancestry was.  

31 minutes ago, Burl said:

Every book is different and has its own context.  Jewish scholars sort our OT into four collections, which makes plenty of sense.

Sorting it into four collections might make plenty of sense, but that doesn't mean that everything in those four collections makes plenty of sense.

I'm not saying that God doesn't exist, or that Christ doesn't exist, or that the Holy Spirit doesn't still exist. Or that they are any less God or Christ or the Holy Spirit.

I'm just saying that parts of the books about them aren't all they could be.

Spong keeps saying, "We have got to stop worshipping a book and making an idol out of it" We shouldn't be worshipping a book instead of God. We should be worshipping and loving God directly, not a book about Em.

Spong says that Christianity has got to change or it will die. It will become useless and inoperative in our lives, and that that is already happening. He says that many of the problems and much of what is causing this is in the bible itself. I don't want to see it die. I don't want to help it die by pushing a bunch of inoperative and dysfunctional ideas that say God is something E isn't ... and more , . . . I could go on...

The Spirit of God is so wonderful! I don't want to see it lost to us because we are so attached to a book that we can't see past it or can't understand what it is and what it isn't. 

The Catholics are lucky. They were never "sola scriptoria' or what ever the phrase is,  though they have their own problems and challenges. 

Sorry for the rant . . . Thanks for reading

32 minutes ago, PaulS said:

The only thing I'd say about that is that I think Jesus didn't particularly have time for the Romans and I think he was specifically preaching a message to Jews about preparing for the kingdom, in the context of the evil the Jews had suffered at the hands of the Romans, being dominated by them and all.  I don't see Jesus as that all encompassing 'love everybody' figure that is often portrayed about him.  I think he was a Jew with very human emotions, and these affected what he thought of the Romans, in my opinion, for what it's worth.

But didn't he interact with a number of Roman soldiers and do or say good things to them during his ministry? Times I've read the NT I haven't really been paying attention to whether he was communicating to a Jew or a Roman or a Samaritan, or someone else. I've been more interested in what he was saying than who he was talking to. Him talking to a centurion  . . .  Looked it up >  In Matthew 8:5 , a centurion who lived at Capernaum approached Jesus on behalf of his ailing servant.

Holman Bible Dictionary. Centurion. An officer in the Roman army, nominally in command of one hundred soldiers. In Matthew 8:5 , a centurion who lived at Capernaum approached Jesus on behalf of his ailing servant.

centurion

[senˈt(y)o͝orēən]

NOUN

the commander of a century in the ancient Roman army.

I believe he did end up healing the centurion's servant.

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I'm thinking there might be other Roman type people that he interacted with in the NT as well.

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This might sound a little funny, but in a certain way Jesus and Peter and a number of other Christians did kind of take over the entire Roman government. They've even got a big cathedral in the middle of Rome called 'Saint Peters', they have pictures of the Jewish patriarchs and prophets all over the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, (painted by Michelangelo, of course), where the Pope gets elected, as well as many scenes from the Old Testament, and the Pope himself wears a little hat just like all the Jewish men do. 

There's more to it of course,... (just thought I'd mention it  )

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I think Jesus was more into converting  or changing people - than overthrowing, conquering, retaliating, going to war with, etc. That's the best I can understand it at this time in my life. 

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Edit, > went and found the whole verse

3 minutes ago, thormas said:

I take that as the early 'Christians' reading back into the OT to try to get a handle on and understand Jesus. 

 

I agree

3 minutes ago, thormas said:

Inspired by their discernment for insight into their experience of the Divine?

In the Old Testament, sometimes it really seems to be about insight and experience of the Devine. Other places it really seems to be something negative, harsh and unfair. Not at all what I would call God or, as Spong would say, "Not a god I would be inclined to worship" (or something like that, from his book "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism) 

5 minutes ago, thormas said:

Was this evident? Was Paul working in Jerusalem, i.e. going after the Jesus community circa 33 CE or was he working in the Dispora? The Sanhedrin and the priest were in Jerusalem, correct? If this is accurate then Saul might have been in touch with 'local' authorities but not the Sanhedrin.  Just speculation, haven't checked.

The chief priest seemingly was in 'cahoots' (btw great word) or cooperated with the Romans ...............but I don't see how that suggests that Saul was.

Just like pictures of Pilate washing his hands, the Paul paintings could also be the work of the imagination.

Paul was working in Jerusalem, but from there going as far abroad as Damascus. 

I've got this from a link I found:

"Saul was soon to arrive, with all the necessary legal machinery (that is, the authorization of the chief priests and the Sanhedrin130) to arrest and extradite131 the saints who were in the city. "

These are the notes to the above sentence:

130 In our text, we are told the Saul “went to the high priest” to ask for letters from him to the synagogues in Damascus (9:1-2), but in Acts 22:5-6 Paul indicates that the “Council” (the Sanhedrin) was also involved in providing him with letters of authorization to arrest Christians in Damascus. Furthermore, in Acts 26:10 Paul testifies that he received letters from the chief priests, not just the chief priest alone.

131 “. . . the Romans . . . required neighboring states to grant it the privileges of a sovereign state, including the right of extradition. A letter delivered at that time by a Roman ambassador to Ptolemy VIII of Egypt concludes with the demand: ‘If any pestilent men have fled to you from their own country {Judaea}, hand them over to Simon the high priest, so that he may punish them according to their law’ (1 Macc. 15:21). In 47 B.C. Julius Caesar confirmed those rights and privileges anew to the Jewish nation (although Judaea was no longer a sovereign state), and more particularly to the high-priesthood.” F. F. Bruce, The Book of Acts, Revised Edition (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988), pp. 180-181.

This is the link

https://bible.org/seriespage/14-conversion-saul-acts-91-31#P1489_574949

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"cahoots' is Burl's word. I picked it up from him earlier in this thread.

Apparently we weren't the only ones who had it in our heads that Paul/Saul was in cahoots with the Romans. A good number of painters and perhaps their patrons seem to have thought so too. I think myself, I've gotten this impression as much from art and paintings as I have from the NT. The two have combined in my mind.

4 minutes ago, Burl said:

The Sanhedrin were the Vichy government of their day.  I would look at Josephus first, then Maccabees.

What do you have from Josephus and Maccabees on this subject?

12 hours ago, thormas said:

Then again, European painters depicted Jesus with light/white skin and eyes....................and Raphael painted his face and the faces of other artist as the faces of Plato, Aristotle and others ..............so while beautiful to look at they lack in accuracy.

The one that really gets me is the blonde, blue eyed Jesus. Now how likely is that. Thing is everyone, at least most groups, depict Jesus as looking like them. In a certain way it is a complement to the man. The real thing is however, when one really thinks about it, Jesus himself wouldn't care one bit what we look like, what our race is, or whether we look like him or not. At least the Jesus that I know and understand wouldn't.

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I've been thinking about the whole Saul/Paul thing. It's evident that he was working with the authorization of the chief priests and the Sanhedrin. In Acts 12 we have Herod and Roman soldiers arresting the apostles and other Christians. Any chance that the chief priests and the Sanhedrin could have been in cahoots with Herod and the Romans? If they were, then one might surmise that Saul/Paul could have been in cahoots with them too, and that's why we get all the pictures of him looking like one or at least working with them.

I've got to read Acts again, as well as a few of Paul's letters, it's been a while since I've done that.

On 7/30/2020 at 7:03 AM, thormas said:

Rather than talk about revelation from God in the writing of the Bible, I have come to consider it the other way around: human insight or discernment regarding their 'experience of the Divine.'

Thus someone at a later date can have a different insight however if they value the Bible or, for example, Christianity they must also be mindful of previous insights. One of my favorite theologians, Gabriel Moran, wrote a book entitled 'The Present Revelation' and there is the idea that one must always have one foot 'planted' in the insights of the earliest community and Jesus as we step into the future with the other foot (our discernment). 

 

Honestly I don't really focus on the Old Testament much at all and consider much of what is written to be time/culture bound and not necessarily relevant for today.

I think that we can all be filled with Christ, the Holy Spirit, and or God. This enables us to discern and understand what are the right ideas and insights about things. I actually think that this might happen to most people, whether they are aware of it or not at sometime in their lives.

The thing is to get so it doesn't just happen once in a while or once in a rare while. I myself would like it to be a state of being for myself, but I'm def. not there yet. All things take time.

I don't focus on the Old Testament either. It does have some "testament" about the coming of Christ and some of it's saying are good, even inspired. Some other parts, they might be "inspired", but my question is, 'inspired' by what?

The first part of this video is how the state of New York is addressing the policing problems.

The rest of it is about the virus.

It was released on June 17th

I'm thinking it's really worth watching if people care about these issues and if they care about America

Thanks for watching

8 hours ago, JosephM said:

That is the definition of forgive. 

for·give

/fərˈɡiv/

verb

 

1. stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake.

    

I've looked up a few different definitions for 'forgive'. I'm thinking it's something that I will prob. focus on a bit later... what it means and how different people understand the word.

If you are right, then we both are about the same things being important. Great to find some agreement on something, somewhere, even if we have been using different word(s). 

4 minutes ago, thormas said:

I agree it looks like a uniform but it is dramatic.

This video shows several rather famous paintings of Saul/Paul's conversion. The most featured painting definitely looks like that's a roman helmet lying next to him. Most of the other paintings show him dressed in a roman uniform or surrounded by roman soldiers that he is working with. (They have painted him to look like he's in cahoots).

You don't have to watch the whole video. Just put it on pause in YouTube and then flip through the different scenes. YouTube gives one a little thumb-nail if one holds the curser over the red line at the bottom of the video.

7 hours ago, thormas said:

I have never seen anything close to this among the biblical or early Christian scholars I have read. It seemed that Saul needed no greater motivation than what he perceived as an insult on his faith. 

It looks like you are right concerning this. I've been looking it up a bit and it seems that it was only in cahoots with the Jewish authorities that he might have been working in persecuting the Christians. Perhaps though the Jewish authorities were in cahoots with the Romans however, as sometimes seems to be the case.

I'm thinking that I've gotten my idea that Saul/Paul was in cahoots with the Romans because of some of the rather famous art I've seen that depicts him in a roman uniform and or with roman soldiers around him. There is definitely art that makes him either look like he's wearing a uniform or with people who are in uniform.

Sorry about that. I had really thought I had read it that way from the NT, but perhaps my impression is mostly or only from these paintings.

Here is one such painting of this type (there are other paintings like this as well as one's where he's wearing more regular clothes)

On 8/1/2020 at 4:01 PM, JosephM said:

There are even 2 states with more cases than NY but as far as deaths per population, NY and NJ are the worst.

Yeah, but look at the death rates for just yesterday,... not the past 6 months.

Texas 268

Florida 179

California 137

New York  8

This is from your link showing the new deaths from yesterday, perhaps one needs to click on the 'yesterday' tab over the chart to get the full statistics.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

I'm still trying to find detailed information on how long it takes for death to occur after one contracts the virus. It's proving rather difficult to come by. It also might be different for different persons and different infection loads.

On 8/1/2020 at 4:01 PM, JosephM said:

Sorry to say but they probably have herd immunity by now and not because of a great job by the governor of NY. NY had 1685 deaths per million people. California had 234 per million people, Florida had 327 per million people, Texas 241 per million. The only one worse than New York was New Jersey with 1790 per million.

You can check my figures here as they are current as of yesterday.   https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

There are even 2 states with more cases than NY but as far as deaths per population, NY and NJ are the worst.

No it's not "herd immunity". Health officials have reported on this, both at the NY Governor's news briefings and else where. Herd immunity requires an infection rate of at least 60% of the population, the infection rate, even in NY City is under 25%.

I don't know everything about the death rates compared to infection rates, but it's my understanding that death most usually occurs between 10 and 20 days after infection. This may be the cause of some of the disparity. I think I'd have to research it more thoroughly though.

23 hours ago, thormas said:

Most people give incredibly high praise to Cuomo - and the Mayor(?) of Savannah has actually reached out to him for guidance in his own city. The Governor of Florida not so much.

 

There's a few other cities and locations that the Governor has been reaching out to and helping out. The names escape me right now, but I have heard reports on them.

23 hours ago, JosephM said:

Get your facts straight Thomas. NY is not the most densely populated city in the US even if it was stated by ellen.

NY city ranks 6th in density

Well, if you're talking about cities with an area of about 1 square mile or less, sometimes much much less, and populations of like between 5,000 and 66,000 then you're right, but they still are all in the New York City Metropolitan Area, even if they are in New Jersey. 

By contrast New York City covers 302.6 square miles, and has a population of 8,175,133 people. I don't know if you've ever been there, but one needs to see it to believe it. It's like no other US city, the population density is intense and tremendous.

If one discounts Staten Island from the other NYC boroughs then the population density of the city can be seen as being much higher. If one just counts Manhattan, then that borough definitely has the highest population density of the entire country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population_density

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I've watched most of Governor Cuomo's news briefings since March. What he did was implement a pretty tight shutdown, essential businesses only, and essential activities only, 6 ft. distancing, any closer and people need to be wearing masks, masks must be worn in the essential stores.... And what's amazing is that New Yorkers did it. They just up and did it - I don't know if you know anything about New Yorkers, but that really is something and really is/was amazing . . . Then he implemented a phased opening. I believe there are 4 or 5 phases. Not until each county had their infection rate down to right around 1% could they go into phase 1, and then they had to maintain that low rate for a certain time period to go into the next phase, and the same for the next and so on and so forth. 

All of his Corona-virus news briefings are available on YouTube, I encourage anyone and everyone to take a thoughtful and constructive look at them. If the rest of the country had been following such steps and measures we wouldn't be going through what we are going through right now.

This is not about politics, It's about saving American lives.

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Concerning the nursing homes, the states were ordered by the feds to readmit elderly people back into the nursing homes after hospitalization. If you want to blame someone, blame the feds, it's their guidelines and their orders. 

If the individual nursing homes couldn't isolate and properly care for their clients then they are supposed to report it, so other people and authorities could make accommodations for them.

7 minutes ago, thormas said:

Tuning to oneself has not, seemingly, always worked out too well. It would seem that one had to 'check' or measure their discernment against their community or some others of 'like mind.'.

Yes, it's nice, great and wonderful to have community agreement and to have and find people who are of a "like mind". This can also affirm and confirm what one believes in their heart themselves.

There are other times however that one truly feels and believes and understands something, and they can find no one, but no one, who agrees with them or affirms what they are saying or thinking. In fact they may find a number of people who actually affirm the opposite. Here one shouldn't just go with their own ideas or insights willy-nilly or just cause it's their own idea. They should think it over and think it over again and think it over as much as they need to. But if they truly believe that their/the  idea or insight(s) is true and even true to the true spirit of God, then they should go with it and stick with it, even if they have real, and even considerable opposition. Even if they have to stand alone in their position.  

On 7/30/2020 at 7:37 PM, PaulS said:

I disagree - Paul is the reason 'Pauline Christianity' is the foundation of western civilization.  Paul changed Jesus' version of Christianity for how he interpreted the Jesus he never met.

I'm thinking that I might well agree with you on this, at least in a good part or piece of what you are saying

On 7/30/2020 at 7:44 PM, PaulS said:

Some of the things Erhman's scholarship has to say about Paul (in no particular order):

I do see some continuities between what Jesus had to say and what Paul had to say (about which I’ll say some things in my next post), but at the end of the day, it sure seems to me that they had different understandings of “salvation.”   Jesus had an urgent message to deliver about the coming kingdom of God to be brought by the Son of Man for those who were obedient to God; and Paul had an urgent message to deliver about the return of Jesus for the “saved” – those who believed in Christ’s death and resurrection.

Paul inherited his understanding of the death and resurrection of Jesus from those who came before him, even if he understood its significance for Gentiles differently from his predecessors. But I am asking if the gospel that Paul preached is essentially the same or different from the message of Jesus. A very good case can be made, of course, that they are fundamentally different.

But it is safe to say that of all the early Christian thinkers and missionaries, Paul is the one we know best as the one who forcefully advocated this Christian message, in contradistinction to the message of Jesus. In the writings of Paul more clearly than almost anywhere else in the NT we see that the message *of* Jesus has become the message *about* Jesus: that is, the message that was preached by Jesus during his life was transformed into a message about the importance of his death.

Differences Between Jesus and Paul

• Jesus taught that the coming cosmic judge of the earth who would destroy the forces of evil and bring in God’s good kingdom was a figure that he called the Son of Man, someone other than himself, who could come on the clouds of heaven in a mighty act of judgment.   Paul taught that Jesus himself was the coming cosmic judge of the earth who would destroy the forces of evil and bring in God’s good kingdom, who would come on the clouds of heaven in a mighty act of judgment.
• Jesus taught that to escape judgment, a person must keep the central teachings of the Law as he himself interpreted them.   Paul taught that reliance on the observance of the Law in no sense would bring salvation; to escape the coming judgment a person must, instead, believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus
• Jesus taught that “faith” involves trusting God, as a good parent, to bring his future kingdom to his people; Paul taught that “faith” involves trusting in the past death and resurrection of Jesus.  It wasn’t only faith in God but faith in the death and resurrection of Christ.
• For Jesus, his own importance lay in his proclamation of the coming of the end and his correct interpretation of the Law.  For Paul, Jesus’ importance had nothing to do with Jesus’ own teachings (which Paul hardly ever quotes) but strictly in his death and resurrection.
• For Jesus, people could begin to experience what life would be like in the future kingdom if they would accept his teachings and begin to implement his understanding of the Jewish law in their lives.    For Paul, people could begin to experience life in the kingdom when they “died with Christ” by being baptized and thus overcame the power of sin.

This is all interesting and good information. One could add to and on some points disagree with Ehrman - this is perhaps best for another post thread - I'm thinking that I gotta read the New Testament all over again a few times to get into and cover all of it. Thanks for sharing this outline. 

On 7/30/2020 at 2:35 PM, thormas said:

Was Paul or Saul in cahoots with the Romans?

 

Paul/Saul persecuted the early Christians. It's my understanding that he was in cahoots with the Romans while he was doing this. He changes his name from Saul to Paul after he became a believer and falling out of the cahoots. 

On 7/30/2020 at 1:18 PM, thormas said:

Perhaps this is for a separate post but where was he not so brilliant - acknowledging of course that he was a 1st C man writing with the insights and limitations of that time and understanding Jesus in his Jewish context?

I wasn't looking for sympathy for Paul, I was just acknowledging the fact of his commitment. So too Socrates (where do you disagree with Socrates?).

Indeed 'there it is' and it seems rather obvious that some of those people have no idea what writings (as we have discussed) are actually Paul's and/or how to understand him.

 

The time spend with Peter and James is indeed a question as is when in his ministry he visited them. However, without having a definitive answer it is a bit unfair to judge and/or dismiss Paul. Paul and Acts disagree on when Paul went to Jerusalem to meet with the apostles of Jesus. 

Larry Hurtado writes that Paul (the letters, written in the 50/60s) reflects an understanding of what the earliest community was doing in the early 30s: "....Jesus-devotion reflected in Paul’s letters, including the incorporation of the exalted/resurrected Jesus into the liturgical life of believers all goes back to the earliest circles of the Jesus-movement in Jerusalem." The conclusion is that Paul did not invent but inherited the earliest community's take on Jesus. The question is then when and how often did Paul interact with either James and Peter or members of that community who traveled outside of Jerusalem. 

Did Paul receive his knowledge from Jesus directly (as he describes) or did he 'receive' it from others? And there is some interesting commentary on that from some of the scholars.

 

 

There are a number of things about Paul: One is that he seems to be on a kind of selfie in some of his (authentic) letters. He goes on like; wasn't I great, wasn't I all wonderful, wasn't I all that and then some. - - - He tells people, both men and women, how to wear their hair and whether or not to wear something on their heads. To me this is a rather personal decision, people can wear their hair and hats any way they choose to and for their own reasons. People shouldn't go around assuming that people are wearing their hair or hats for one reason or another. - - -  There are a number of challenges concerning Paul, we would really need a separate thread for this. - - -  Back about 10 years ago there were a number of people going around giving lectures and talking about problems with Paul, JS Spong was among these. It's died down some, but the words in his letters are still there so in a sense the problems are still there too.

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Concerning Socrates: He seems to believe in the Greek gods, yeah that's probably all he had to go with at the time, but I still disagree with him. - -  - A quote from Socrates: "The highest form of human excellence  is to question oneself and others". I agree that this is a good and really fine thing, and important too, but I don't know if I would call it "the highest form of human excellence", I'm thinking that there are somethings that are higher and more important.

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I like all this scholarly stuff, I really do, in fact I love it. However I don't think that a person should need to have all this intensive study of different scholars in order to have a good and inspired understanding of Christ. A person shouldn't have to be confronted with so much 'stuff' in order to be a Christian. Stuff like which Pauline letters are authentic or not, or how authentic or true are the books in the bible in the first place, or what verses could have been inserted in Paul's letters or other documents and so on...

On 7/30/2020 at 1:22 PM, thormas said:

Okay but what does that mean from (not from a theistic viewpoint) a progressive Christian perspective?

One just needs to tune into the spirit of Christ, God & or  the H Spirit within themselves to know and discern if an idea is right or wrong or not. It can be the idea that this thread is about, about female preachers, or whether the Eucharist is important or not, or whether certain ideas are really in harmony with God or not. This can touch on anything or everything, what is too much coffee to drink, what's the best way to phrase a certain idea or question, what's the best way to organize  one's day. . .  . .. We can all, God willing, tune into God's or Christ's spirit and have a light and clarity of mind in order to enter and get through life with.   

1 hour ago, JosephM said:

Elen,

We can only change ourselves. Yes, we can influence others but requiring others to apologize or repent before we forgive them is to miss the point. The other has to deal with his/her own issues which is mostly not in our power to change. Our issue is to forgive. When one truly sees that to not forgive will harbor anger and resentment unconsciously and make it difficult for us to sense our connection with God and the Oneness of being and joy and peace in our life the choice for forgiveness will come. These are some of the strongest writings to confirm it if you need biblical quotes all from the NT. 

 “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

As you measure others it will be measured unto you

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And from a non-biblical perspective of psychology Taken from berkley.edu :

Psychologists generally define forgiveness as a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness.

Just as important as defining what forgiveness is, though, is understanding what forgiveness is not. Experts who study or teach forgiveness make clear that when you forgive, you do not gloss over or deny the seriousness of an offense against you. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting, nor does it mean condoning or excusing offenses. Though forgiveness can help repair a damaged relationship, it doesn’t obligate you to reconcile with the person who harmed you, or release them from legal accountability.

Instead, forgiveness brings the forgiver peace of mind and frees him or her from corrosive anger.

 

 

I'm thinking that a person can have none of these negative effects on themselves, no resentment, hatred, vengeance, anger, etc. and what this person has done is just let it go and given it up to God.

It's on and up to God whether that person is forgiven or not. The person(s) who have been injured can elect to have nothing to do with it, and leave that decision is up to and with God. If a person wants forgiveness they can take it up with God themselves  

8 hours ago, Burl said:

You’re not wrong, but speaking precisely makes a difference here.  “Put it in God’s hands” is vague and a bit callous.

Better to teach them how to put it in God’s hands by praying for the offender.  Why use platitudes when you can be specific?

If you can teach someone else to put things in God's hands then great.

Some people will be horrid just so they can get other people's prayers and energy, and go around being other people's enemy just so they can get a one way street.

Sorry you think that's a platitude. It's a real thing that people do. It's not callous and it's better than rewarding them for being horrid, mean and awful. Some people are what they want - what they get based in their thinking. If they think they are getting a reward or something good for doing something evil they are going to keep on doing it. They really have no sense of right and wrong or of community. It doesn't help anyone, perhaps most especially them to give them what they can only perceive as a reward for being horrid. 

Sometimes it's dumped on the people who have been hurt to make things all better and alright. While the people who have done the wrong and the harm do nothing whatsoever, or just make things worse.

Sometimes it's the best these people can do just to put it up to God ... say it's not my stuff and put it up to God and keep it there, cause it's not their stuff.

29 minutes ago, Burl said:

You are conflating contrition, attrition and apology with forgiveness.  Repentance also sits in this lexical domain.

It’s often necessary to forgive people who are dead or otherwise not available for comment.

Well, Christ says, if a person says, "I repent" that one must forgive them. He doesn't say if they do nothing whatsoever then  forgive them.

Christ says, (loose quote here), "That if someone has something against you, then go back and make amends - & that no one gets out until they pay the last bit/penny'

Sometimes if someone is dead, people just need to put it in God's hands. If it comes to them spiritually that they have forgiven them, fine. Sometimes these things just come to a person, they realize one day that they have let go of it, if they realize on another day that they have forgiven, perhaps that comes from a higher place also.

What about all the things that the bible says a person should do if they have wronged someone else?

They should own-up/confess - apologize/say they are sorry - make amends/make up for it - change/repent in behavior as well as words.

If a person has done all this, and the person they've done something to can't forgive them, well, then that's on them.

If a person has done all they can to make things right and make things better, and has truly changed and is not repeating the thing they've done wrong, and is not using forgiveness as an excuse to keep repeating the behavior, and not making it the other person's responsibility to set them striate all the time or control them because they can't or don't or won't control themselves,... then they should be forgiven.

If forgiveness is just an excuse for getting away with things and passing off responsibility,... Then there's a limit to it.

On 7/31/2020 at 10:28 AM, Burl said:

She has several wonderful classes online at Great Courses.

She is great! Your video lead me to another video of her, she is really great.