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.  To argue that you should abandon your wish for justice or to punish the evil person just because that poor soul cannot change anything that was done is clearly sympathy for the devil.  The victim is attacked all over again.  Their terrifying memory that sears into their souls does not matter.

Also as soon as six million people are killed by Hitler do you say, "What is done is done!" then?  Surely if you really believe it you should spend the energy forgiving the person who has done the worst harm rather than the one who has done less?  Surely the Hitler is more pitiable?

Do this test.  If it has to be one or the other, do you bless the poor person who cannot change the evil they did or do you bless the person who is still hurt by what they did?  Clearly it would have to be the first person for you can argue that the second won't leave it in the past and is hurting themselves and deserves nothing.

And Christianity has come up with a God who forgives for even God cannot change what evil a person has done. All he can do now is see the person not the evil.

God used to be seen as a being that was angry at you and hated you but if you repented he met you with welcome and love.  He forgave but not because you could not return to the past and do it differently.  Today you hear about a God who forgives before we even ask or want it.  We are told that if we go to Hell it is because we are defiant and won't go to him.  The problem then is, "Defiance not sin puts you in Hell."  Your sin is not the problem for it is forgiven.  The problem is your attitude.

The "What is done is done" 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.

We have biological weak spots.  We are vulnerable.  We have many weak spots psychologically too and socially. People who harm us willingly attack us for they know they will damage us.  So we cannot let something go just because it is in the past.  It takes time to feel safe enough with a person who has harmed us and they need to earn our trust.  God however is not vulnerable so he can simply let things go and forgive on tap.  For a person who thinks God alone ultimately matters, this can be dangerous.  Why? It is his forgiving that counts the most.  He after all makes everything 100%.  Us forgiving is said to be a fruit of the forgiving he has done and is his work so ultimately God's pardon ALONE matters.  We are mere instruments who forgive and are instruments of his forgiving.

A second reason why his mercy alone ultimately matters is that his forgiving allows him to heal your problems with others.  Religion rationalises that if this is not happening then you or they [or both] are not responding to his prompts and grace.  And then it says that things are never how they seem so the thief you forgave and who is still stealing may be having an inner battle as grace works invisibly for change.  So you are told that you have no right to think improvement isn't happening for you only see a bit.  So if it is not happening the victims are blamed for keeping God out and if you see it is not happening you are condemned for judging or being cynical.

Now what if God hypothetically for some reason did not heal the problems?  Say it would violate our free will or something?  Should we forgive others because what is done cannot be undone?  Or should it be about the future, moving forward, as well?  Well letting something go for the bad person cannot change it anymore is about the past.  It can be about the future in the sense that if the evil is ignored it may be easier to be happier in the future.  So it can be one or the other or both.

What if it had to be one or the other?  If both matter, which one matters most?  And how much would that one matter most?  51%?  Is it one mattering 99% and the other 1%?  Clearly as the past is known and the future is not and is a mystery the past would have to come first.  The real reason to forgive is that the miscreant can't go back and reverse it.  The hope for a good future is a hope in luck.  Apart from that it is irrelevant.

All you get from all this is a person doing harm and then acting as if nothing happened.  They may act nice now but they are laughing at you inside.  A forgiveness that leads to such arrogance is an amnesty.  Only a person who does not truly care what they have done seeks it or welcomes it or preaches that it should be granted.  It is something selfish masked as forgiveness.  It calls itself forgiveness and looks like it but it is anything but.

“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. It is suffering with them.  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.  He is not saying no to it.

Most of us would feel that the spiritual and inner work done to leave what Paul has done in the past is based on favouritism and religious prejudice.  Fr Paul is getting your attention for he is your Catholic priest and you know him.  If he were ordinary Paul down the road that did something equally horrific you would give him a lot less. What if he were the Presbyterian minister?

The suggestion that we are all bad so we should work up compassion for Paul offends those of us who would never hurt children or let them be thrown to predators. It shows how fake the merciful often are.
 
Yet in some way most people believe in free will and hold that nobody is innocent and that punishment is for your own good.  They hold that you can still have compassion for another.  This is on the basis that everybody is bad and so everybody needs mercy from others. 

 Compassion that is granted for the toxic evil past you have made cannot be amended is clearly saying the suffering and degradation caused 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 or at least questionable. 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 is all about compassion and forgiving.  This principle as taught by God, Moses and Jesus is just a call to be false and two-faced and self-deceiving.  

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