Truth & Forgiveness

When anger is better than forgiveness
Magnus Linklater

The vicar who cannot forgive her daughter's killers is taking a difficult but rewarding path

THE MOST MOVING of many moving encounters on Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s TV series on truth and reconciliation in Northern Ireland came when a Belfast woman, Mary McLarnon, found herself face to face with the British soldier who had killed her brother. The soldier, Clifford Burrage, recounted the circumstances of the attack, and then said he was sorry. He hoped that he might be forgiven. There was something just a little too glib about his apologies, and Ms McLarnon drew back. “I haven’t got the power to forgive anyone,” she said formally, “ . . . but I thank you for telling the truth.”
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Now, let us remember that you don't have to believe in Christ as God's son, nor in God at all in order to live ethical and moral lives. The church may or may not have co-opted what should be The Golden Rules. I think that the bible has (or had) stories that people can relate to. People making horrible mistakes and whatnot, some being forgiven, and so forth as EXAMPLES of proper behavior according to the times that the stories were written in. Some are of epic proportions, some are on a more personal level, and some as we've been finding out recently have been mistranslated. All stories shouldn't be taken literally either, but metaphorically - like the stories that mothers had been telling their children for generations that were then co-opted by the Brother's Grimm. Those stories were meant as examples, actions with both reactions and consequences.

More on Morality

Princes get ethics lesson: no torture and no revenge
Sandhurst cadets are taught how to overcome the desire to abuse prisoners
By Ruth Gledhill
UK Times Online

ARMY officer cadets are being given training in how to overcome the desire to abuse prisoners and inflict revenge on the enemy, The Times has been told.

Princes William and Harry are among the first to take part in the revised course, which became part of the academic curriculum at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the autumn. Prince Harry has already completed the course while Prince William, who entered Sandhurst in January, will take the course on “disordered passions” next term.
( Read more... )

~Torture was gradually abandoned from the mid-17th century onwards as it became clear that it was ineffective as a man on the rack would say anything to be released

Is there a reason we have to repeat the past in order to learn the same lessons? I think this post goes hand in hand with my last one as well, each side coming up with all sorts of things to punish the other one with because of some sort of "justified" action that one or the other originally made.

On another note maybe we should be teaching all of these things to every person on the planet from childhood:

The six core values that the princes are taught to value include selfless commitment, courage both physical and moral, loyalty, discipline, respect for others and integrity.

along with an awareness of these "disordered passions" so that people are aware of what they shouldn't be doing in extreme situations or everyday life. It isn't just about the "three r's" it never was and never should have devolved down to just these supposed basics.