What does someone have to do that means no amount of remorse or effort to fix things will get you to forgive them? I don’t mean forgive and forget to the point where they can hurt you again. If someone repeatedly steals from you, forgiveness doesn’t mean putting them in a position where they can steal again.
I’m asking this purely out of curiosity. I’m just wondering what the attitude in my corner of the internet is.
I can forgive mistakes and bad judgment, but if you intentionally do something that makes me lose trust and respect, it’s going to be hard to earn that back. If you lie to me, for example, I don’t see it as a one-time action - it reveals something about the kind of person you are. Saying you won’t do it again doesn’t mean much after you’ve already shown it’s something you’ve been doing up to this point.
I don’t believe in free will, so when I see someone act this way, I don’t even really blame them. I don’t see it as a conscious decision, but more as a behavior they’re helplessly repeating. And people rarely change that kind of behavior unless the motivation comes from within - not from outside pressure.
I don’t believe in free will, so when I see someone act this way, I don’t even really blame them. I don’t see it as a conscious decision, but more as a behavior they’re helplessly repeating. And people rarely change that kind of behavior unless the motivation comes from within - not from outside pressure.
That’s an interesting angle. But without free will, wouldn’t it be that they could never change the behavior unless it was already preordained?
I don’t believe people can choose to change their behavior in the way we usually think. But I do believe they can be influenced to change - by new information or experiences.
Take this example: if we suddenly discovered that tomatoes are toxic, I wouldn’t say I’m actively choosing to stop eating them. What’s really happening is that my understanding of the world has changed so much that I automatically no longer want to eat them. It’s not about freedom of choice - it’s more like being compelled by truth. I didn’t decide to change; the change happened to me because of what I learned.