GOD'S MERCY IS NOT GOD'S MERCY BUT YOU TELLING YOURSELF YOU HAVE RECEIVED IT

The thief wants mercy in the court. The judge then cuts his fine from £100 to £50. The thief for some reason does not make it to court. He tells people, "I sense the judge had mercy and if I had to pay a fine it would be a nominal one." She just did not get the chance to put it on paper.

Isn't that strange a strange way to think? And yet it is how believers approach the mercy of God. It is not about real mercy but wanting to feel you have got it.

If there is a God of mercy he will not be mocked with this nonsense. The best a person can do is ask for mercy and say they hope they have it. They should not treat it like a given. Saying mercy is a gift hides the fact you are taking it for granted. Your attitude shows that mercy is unlikely to be granted for you just want to abuse it.

If there is no God, or if there is a creator that does not care about what we do, then there is no forgiveness. The conscience is not healed and cleansed by divine agency. We may think it is. That has to lead to harms. It is a harm to lead people to becoming potential harms.

People will not talk about that much for it is rather private. This enables the religious to fool us.

Religion says God forgives sinners generously. God forgives when they repent as in changing his attitude to them and also uses power that forgives the sin. It happens all in the second that the person repents and opens up to divine mercy. This makes forgiveness a pile of foolishness and irresponsible and yet without forgiving there can be no divine love so divine love is suspect. Forgiveness from God seems to make you face and answer for your moral infractions. But it is done so easily that this cannot be called facing or answering.

So God cannot forgive just like that. The fault is us not him assuming he is a loving God. Instant forgiveness is evil. If man has invented this doctrine not God then man is a disgrace and needs telling.

Love rules out evil. They are seen as opposites. But love rules it out regardless of whether it is an opposite or not. The religious say that if you do harm you harm yourself in a way you cannot harm the victim - you damage your dignity and your ethical self. It is like you become bad energy that fools even you and manipulates you. Somebody sins and becomes evil or bad. It is what they are as persons. Love the sinner and hate the sin pretends that you are not your sin but then they say then that you are so how can you really want forgiveness from a God or religion that is that two-faced?

God may forgive but morality cannot forgive for it is not a person. It can only say it is fair for a person to have another chance but only if the person truly is ready and wants it.

Giving another chance is not the same thing as forgiveness. It even implies a threat. Plus many forms of forgiveness will not tell the person, "I give you another chance." Nothing is even said to the person. The person's reform means that little to these people. And they project that to God who does much the same thing supposedly.

ARGUMENT 1
If we all do wrong or sin
If God is love he wants a relationship with us
Then we need forgiveness from God

ARGUMENT 2
If we sin
Sin is a block to experiencing and accepting God as love
Then we need forgiveness so forgiveness is the top way God shows his love

But if the problem is that I am blocking God then its unblocking we should be talking about not forgiveness. The man blocked by a woman he loves needs unblocking from her not forgiveness.

ARGUMENT 3
Forgiveness from God enables reconciliation with God
God made me for himself not for me
I need forgiveness not for my sake but for his - for God who alone matters

ARGUMENT 4
God is love
God is everything and I am nothing in comparison
Therefore God loves me for he owes it to himself so the love is not really about me

Forgiveness from God in that context is hardly something we should like even if we need it!

ARGUMENT 5
God loves me
God does not have to forgive me
He generously chooses to if I repent and turn to him for deliverance from sin

God forgives not because he must or because I need it. He forgives for he promised. This makes you wonder what the attraction of divine forgiveness is. Those who see it in fact think God has to forgive them because THEY say so. It is not about him. This is just another case of people using God for favours. Your search for pardon and mercy are selfish if that is all you care about.

ARGUMENT 6
If God chooses to forgive just because he can
And it is evil not to forgive
Then God is evil for he is forgiving because he can and not because it is good

ARGUMENT 7
Does God have to forgive for not forgiving is evil?
If I sin then I need forgiveness
If I sin I need forgiveness to connect with God
Therefore God is evil is he does not forgive

This argument shows that far from being humble, I must think that God is duty-bound to forgive me. I am arrogant and proud. A speck. An ant. I am these and yet I am telling the infinite creator of all he must forgive me. That is unimaginable arrogance.

ARGUMENT 8
I need forgiveness to resume my relationship and friendship with God.
I must live without God perhaps forever in Hell unless I am forgiven.
Therefore Hell is possible.

This argument only makes sense if Hell is not that terrible. People sense that violating God is not that major and is actually largely gun which is why only a handful have worries about Hell.

Sin creates Hell not God we are told. God merely affirms the choice you have made to go to Hell. So how come God knows sin so well and has authority to save you from it by forgiving it? There is a mystery here! A doctor who has never experienced flu may still help you. But God is not the same as that.

ARGUMENT 9

Forgiveness is an approach to somebody who may abuse it and abuse you.

[Any definition of forgiveness states that forgiveness is risk. It is kindly taking a risk to be good to somebody who may betray or hurt you again.]

God cannot really risk for he is the infinitely powerful creator of all things including the past and the present and the future.

Therefore God does not forgive.

FINALLY

Forgiveness needs to be not something instant like what you get from saying a prayer of repentance or going to get God's forgiveness from the priest in confession. It needs to be a process. Human nature treats it as a process. This is how it works in communities. And God should treat it as a process too when it comes to you and him. And even more so. Instant pardon and the quest for it show that the deception we are talking about is in fact at play. Feeling forgiven is a less obvious way of being smug.