THOUGHTS ABOUT "WHAT IS DONE IS DONE!"
“What’s done is done”.
You cannot change the past. What is done is done but people use the cliché to
justify forgiveness. The cliché aspires towards condemning people for being
punitive but it upholds a double standard when it allows rewards for good works
which are in the past and cannot be reversed either. Forgiveness cannot be
granted on the grounds that the past is immutable and unalterable for it would
be malice to pardon a person based on such a deceitful and unfair standard.
Malicious forgiveness is a contradiction.
“I feel sorry for Fr Paul. I know he covered up for priests abusing
children but it is so hard on him and he can’t undo the past.”
Compassion is an unpleasant feeling and should be reserved for the most
deserving people. Why degrade yourself to lament for Fr Paul when there are
babies starving in the world? Transfer your energy to that cause. Paul is
stealing your compassion for he certainly wants it.
Given that most people believe in free will and hold that nobody is innocent and
that punishment is for your own good and still have compassion for one another
so that they have mercy we see that compassion in the context of saying that the
past cannot be changed no and so what? is clearly saying the sin does not
matter. If it does not matter then the criminal should be apologised to by
society for they made a fuss about laws being broken and then they turn around
and make out they never mattered. How could you have compassion on people who
deserve to suffer? People say you can’t punish everybody so you have to have
pity and forgive but why not just not punish instead of forgiving? Forgiveness
given because you can’t punish is grudging and is not forgiveness but only looks
like it. You would not be loving yourself as much as your neighbour if you let
yourself get upset or think you should get upset over somebody that deserves to
suffer. Many Humanists luckily deny free will for free will implies that
compassion is always evil. It means the criminal can take no satisfaction in
people’s compassion for he knows they are having it because they are made that
way and not because it is right. It’s false. The love your neighbour as yourself
doctrine as taught by God, Moses and Jesus is just a call to be false and
two-faced and self-deceiving.