Today is September 11th 2011, the tenth anniversary of the plane crash that took out the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, as well as United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in a Pennsylvanian field with an unknown critical destination.
Forgiveness is an interesting philosophy. While forgiveness is a two way street, you need only do your part to forgive or be forgiven, after that it is on the other's shoulders. Many religions talk about forgiveness, Jesus Christ is often quoted in the bible in saying that a person can not achieve happiness, or heaven, unless they are forgiven of their sins, and forgive others of sins done unto themselves. In the Bible, Matthew 18:23-35, we learn the parable of the unforgiving servant (you can go here: http://www.bcbsr.com/survey/pbl14.html for reference), in this parable we learn that God forgives everyone of all their sins but, if you do not forgive others who ask for forgiveness you will go to Hell until your debt (sin) has been paid for in full. Now while this may not be entirely serious word for word as it is a parable, like a story to show you how to behave, it still has an important message: forgive others or you will be tortured by your hate and be forced to live a pitiful life. In Buddhism Buddha is quoted as saying that "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned", stating that hatred only hurts the one harboring resentment. The Qur'an states "The reward of the evil is the evil thereof, but whosoever forgives and makes amends, his reward is upon Allah" (Qur'an 42:40) these three examples from three different religions show that forgiveness is an important foundation to life, important enough that if you aren't religious you still have to recognize that forgiveness of others is important enough to have made it into the foundations of faith based ideas and has lasted for thousands of years making it more of a moral basis than a religious law.
With this out of the way I can now get to want i intended to discuss. I went to my church today thinking there would be a silent memorial service for the victims of the 9/11 attack, instead I got a face full of philosophy. During the sermon my pastor discussed several spiritual things that had happened and were in some way connected to the attack on the World Trade Center, such as the two ton Ground Zero Cross (more about that and the story behind it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_cross). After a while and a couple of tangents we returned to today's gospel (or main reading from the bible) which happened to be the parable of the unforgiving servant. My pastor asked the congregation this difficult, surprising, and philosophical question:
We are asked by God to forgive anyone who has committed a sin against us, but does that mean that we have to forgive terrorists?
Forgiving a terrorist...
Has anyone ever really forgiven a terrorist? Well, why would you? Terrorists are people who commit unspeakable acts against our loved ones, our friends, our countrymen, and our fellow human beings. Wouldn't forgiving a terrorist let them win?
No, a terrorist can only win if they can instill terror and cause a shift in their enemy, in this case the West and America, towards the terrorists view, in a way to be either submissive or to cause the terrorists cause to strengthen. Well, i that case, we have already lost; haven't we? We strengthened their cause by terrorizing people we suspected to be terrorists and were not we only enforced the view that our country is, as the Afghans used to call us, the greater Satan.
But there's always the the second wave.
We still can purge our selves of our hatred, as many of the ancient religious philosophers charged us to. We may not be able to forgive a terrorists' cause but maybe we can start by forgiving those we blame. Some people blame Islam, Islam has extremists just like Christianity and Judaism, as well as Atheists. The only difference is that the fringe group Al Qaeda managed to make a huge impact; while the most recent Christian extremists were snuffed out before they managed to detonate a dirty nuke at a policeman's funeral, trying to kill hundreds of service men and women. Islam and Christianity cannot be put to blame, neither can the Middle East or other areas, nor people descendant from any particular area.
To forgive we needn't open our arms to the next suicide bomber or freely let terrorists have control of a plane. We only need to let go of our hatred for those who hate America, because holding a hot coal as a weapon only hurts those who hold onto it. We should continue to protect ourselves from another attack, but our efforts should not be fueled by hatred for those who despise us, but we should fuel our efforts with hope that no one else will have to suffer anymore tragedy from the hatred of another person.
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