If a sin hurts another person, is forgiveness from God all that is necessary?

[RagnarDanneskjold]

Or should some attempt to reconcile or repair the damage with the harmed person also be made?

If a Christian performs some Behavior which deeply hurts another person, perhaps even to the point where it drives that other person away from the church as they now associate that pain with christianity, would that be a sin? And if so, is asking God for forgiveness for that sin all that is necessary, or should it also be expected that they attempt to reconcile or repair the damage they caused the other person?

 

[dev553344]

Or should some attempt to reconcile or repair the damage with the harmed person also be made?

If a Christian performs some Behavior which deeply hurts another person, perhaps even to the point where it drives that other person away from the church as they now associate that pain with christianity, would that be a sin? And if so, is asking God for forgiveness for that sin all that is necessary, or should it also be expected that they attempt to reconcile or repair the damage they caused the other person?

I have been injured by a church member in authority in the past. It is up to me to forgive their trespass. But I still don't trust that church.

That said, the 12 step programs sets up and important technique for making amends for trespasses. You are supposed to do so except when to do that will injure them or others. Sometimes trying to make amends for doing something wrong can injure that person or others in some way.

 

[quietthinker]

Or should some attempt to reconcile or repair the damage with the harmed person also be made?

If a Christian performs some Behavior which deeply hurts another person, perhaps even to the point where it drives that other person away from the church as they now associate that pain with christianity, would that be a sin? And if so, is asking God for forgiveness for that sin all that is necessary, or should it also be expected that they attempt to reconcile or repair the damage they caused the other person?

23Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Matthew 5:23-24

 

[sheariah07]

Or should some attempt to reconcile or repair the damage with the harmed person also be made?

If a Christian performs some Behavior which deeply hurts another person, perhaps even to the point where it drives that other person away from the church as they now associate that pain with christianity, would that be a sin? And if so, is asking God for forgiveness for that sin all that is necessary, or should it also be expected that they attempt to reconcile or repair the damage they caused the other person?

If a Christian performs some Behavior which deeply hurts another person, perhaps even to the point where it drives that other person away from the church as they now associate that pain with christianity, would that be a sin?

1 Corinthians 8:12 KJV
But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ.

And if so, is asking God for forgiveness for that sin all that is necessary, or should it also be expected that they attempt to reconcile or repair the damage they caused the other person?

James 5:16 KJV
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

1 John 1:9 - If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

 

[Lapidem]

Or should some attempt to reconcile or repair the damage with the harmed person also be made?

If a Christian performs some Behavior which deeply hurts another person, perhaps even to the point where it drives that other person away from the church as they now associate that pain with christianity, would that be a sin? And if so, is asking God for forgiveness for that sin all that is necessary, or should it also be expected that they attempt to reconcile or repair the damage they caused the other person?

Tell me, if a star explodes in the universe and the impact destroys a nearby planet killing all life forms on that planet . . . is that a sin?

Do you really think the universe has any concept of good or bad, right and wrong or sin?

When a lion chases and takes down an antelope and eats it, is that a sin? Is the lion simply unaware that he is sinning?

The concept of sin is a primary psychological aspect of mainstream religion and is needed to put any newcomer into an immediate state of submission and dependence. They have to be told that they already have an problem in order that religion can then be the thing that fixes it. This problem has to be something you can't fix yourself otherwise religion wouldn't have the monopoly to be the fixer. Hence the concept of sin is marketed as something that occurred 1000s of years ago by someone else entirely but which through genetics or other means you have been born with as if it's some kind of genetic defect you can't rid yourself of. Why people buy into this psychological trick I don't know but I guess it's kind of clever as people are wanting to fill gaps in their lives and this kind of self-punishment helps make it all more real.

But all you have to do is look around you. Look at the countless millions killed by viruses, diseases, earthquakes, wars etc. These atrocities are literally happening every day now. There is no benevolent divine being preventing it from happening. The universe is just doing what it does. The sooner we all realise that the better.

What one person says to another is meaningless in the grand scheme of the universe of which you are a part. A billion years ago religion didn't exist. No-one talked about Gods or sinning. There was likely no-one to talk about it anyway. Do you think that out of the gazillion stars and planets out there and out of the infinite different forms of life out there, that humans somehow really matter in this universe??? We've only been here about 2-3 thousand Earth years. The universe has been here billions of years. IN that time countless life forms have come and gone. It is the very nature of the universe to keep recycling things. To make something that persists for a short while, and then decays and disintegrates back to its primary matter at which point Nature forms it into something else. This process has been going on for billions of years and is still going on. You are a part of it. Nothing any of us do really has any cosmic significance. Nothing whatsoever. Even if as a species we completely destroy this planet to nothing but dust and rubble through say nuclear holocaust, that isn't going to make any significant impact in a universe this size.

At some point you have to put aside the false ego and realise that you, me and everyone else just don't matter. We are nothing. We can not possibly persist in this universe as we are now. We have already been recycled millions of times, every one of us. We will continue to be recycled. The universe does what it wants or what it's laws make it do.

Humans, like every life form on this prison planet, will continue to squabble and bounce off each other, vying for space, vying for control of resources, vying for power and importance but the reality is it's all just utterly pointless. We simply don't matter and we are all of us going to be recycled. Religion and the concept of sin are simply ways in which silly humans try to empower themselves over other humans in order to dominate, control and make people behave in certain ways. So imo I would stop worrying about sin and stop persecuting yourself over it. Don't allow others to chain you with their indoctrinations and psychological techniques.

It's a totally free universe. You can do whatever you want to do unless proven otherwise.

 

[RagnarDanneskjold]

Thanks for all that mate, but I'm on a Christian forum to ask questions of Christians. If I wanted the atheist answer I could just go to Reddit.

 

[Lapidem]

James 5:16 KJV
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Like so much of the Bible, when taken literally, it just doesn't stack up at all. The Bible tells us that God is in total control, that he has everything planned down to the most finite detail and that nothing, absolutely nothing can sway that purpose and plan.
I could cite all the Bible verses that confirm this but I can see you are quite capable of doing this yourself.

There is very simple logic that follows from those foundational principles.

For example, if it is God's plan that your mother is going to get terminal cancer and die from it then that IS his plan. According to the Bible nothing you can say or do is going to change that plan. Hence praying for your mother to be healed and not die of cancer is in fact direct opposition to what God wants. Actually it's pretty much blasphemy.

This is critical thinking logic that most Christians just seem to miss and fail to understand in their blinkered indoctrination.

In one breath they say that God controls everything and nothing happens without his will (which therefore must include wars, sexual abuses, pandemics and so on) and in the next breath they're all telling us that we should pray that these things don't happen.
They haven't the basic reasoning to see how hypocritical and juxtapositioned that thinking is.

If God did not want the mother to have terminal cancer then he would have willed it not to be. If she has cancer then God HAS willed it. He has either made it happen himself or deliberately allowed the universe to do it. If not he would not be an Omnipotent God.
If he has willed it then nothing anyone else says or does can change that will. Trying to undo that will is to act against God's plan, to obstruct his plan which wouldn't go down well in Christianity.

Thus on the concept of praying there can really only every be ONE THING that Christians should pray for. That is to understand God's will and to understand what he wants you to do.

You can't pray to stop something because it's God's will that it is happening.

No point praying to find a living survivor buried under the rubble in Turkey's earthquake because God clearly allowed the earthquake and it was part of his plan that it happened. That needs to sink in for all Christians. God is in control, God is Omnipotent and so he IS responsible for all these things happening. He has permitted it to happen whether he directly caused it to happen or not. It amounts to the same thing.

The Lord's Prayer iterates this simple logic.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thine name
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven

Anyone who prays this prayer and then later prays for things that have happened to not happen or to cease happening is simply a hypocrite that is deluding themselves. You have to accept Gods will or not. It's a binary choice. Yes or no.

That is. . . . if you are going to allow yourself to believe all of this doctrine which frankly just doesn't stand up to scrutiny or hold water.

The idea that God would be so sick and twisted and inherently evil as to make a mother sick with terminal cancer just to see if other humans would beg for her to be healed is the stuff of utter delusional fantasy. That would not be the behaviour of an all-powerful all-loving deity. That would be the sick and degrading behaviour of an absolutely despotic tyrant.

So Christians really should be asking themselves what are they really allowing themselves to believe in? Do they truly accept that God is in control and that all the sick atrocities we see, all the innocent kids getting sexually abused, all the awful deaths from pandemics, wars, diseases, all the women being caught and sold into sexual slavery, all the murders etc are all just part of God's wonderful plan? Really?

Does that really sound like the plan of an all-loving entity to you? Why have you believed that? Who convinced you to think that way?

Have the strength and courage to confront the universe that you are a part of. Accept it for what it is. Understand your place in it. Realise that humans love to dupe and exploit other more vulnerable humans for their own benefit. Question the religious indoctrination you have been given. Exercise critical thinking and reasoning.

 

[sheariah07]

Like so much of the Bible, when taken literally, it just doesn't stack up at all. The Bible tells us that God is in total control, that he has everything planned down to the most finite detail and that nothing, absolutely nothing can sway that purpose and plan.
I could cite all the Bible verses that confirm this but I can see you are quite capable of doing this yourself.

Hello! You are right that we should only ask for God's will. With your example, a Christian who walks in Spirit would submit to God's will even though it's against the Christian's will and even though that would cause him grief and suffering. He could ask God to cure his mother, but in the end, ask that his will be done. Like Jesus did the night when he was betrayed prayed that he would not suffer, but still asked the Father's will to be done. Even Jesus called Peter Satan when he wanted his will over God's will when he rebuked Jesus when he told them that he needed to die. But that was when he was still not filled with the Holy Spirit. He acted in ignorance.

A Christian who walks in the Spirit always obeys God's will, he dies daily of his own self-will so that Christ's life would manifest in his life. That is what Jesus meant when he said whoever wants to be my disciple must take up their cross, deny himself, and follow me. Whoever wants to save his life shall lose it. Whoever loses his life for Christ's sake shall save it. Because man's will is always contrary to God's will. So a man must die to self if he wants to obey God.

For those who long for righteousness, they take the sufferings as God's chastening so that we can live together with him. But the wicked and those who hate God will get angry when they are reproved.

Proverbs 15:10 KJV
Correction is grievous unto him that forsaketh the way: and he that hateth reproof shall die.

Do you have children? When a parent does not discipline his children, he is called an irresponsible and unloving parent.

Also, Jesus said that he is the Light and he could heal us of our wickedness if we let him, but he said that people loved darkness more than the light. So we don't blame God when people have the freedom to choose if he will come to the Light or stay in darkness. Now, you have heard about Jesus, it's up to you if you will come to the Light or not. It seems like you hate the evil that happens in this world, but you wouldn't come to the Light, do you love darkness then?

It is true that the world is full of darkness and evil. However, God is called The Judge, he is just and holy and he hates the wicked everyday, and there will come one day when he will judge everyone according to his deeds. Every injustice that you see in this world will God punish. But he is longsuffering and gives every man a chance to repent and turn to him. Also, those who walk with God do not take revenge when they are wronged but commit everything to God because God said Vengeance is mine; I will repay. But those who disobey God and repay for the evil that was done to them have made themselves their own gods.

See, the world is full of evil because of the selfishness of men. What makes a man commit sin? His own lust. Why would you blame God for it?

One thing to note too is that not all who profess they are Christians are real Christians or followers of Christ. But only those who obey him. You can know them by their fruits. Those who obey Christ do not cause anyone to stumble because he always wants to please God and God empowers him to not commit sin because, like I said, he dies of his self-will everyday and became the servant of righteousness. Jesus said that not everyone who calls him Lord, Lord shall enter his kingdom but only those who obey him.

 

[Lapidem]

Thanks for all that mate, but I'm on a Christian forum to ask questions of Christians. If I wanted the atheist answer I could just go to Reddit.

Ah ok. This is a forum section for other faiths and atheists, agnostics and non-Christians which is an umbrella I fall under. It's possible I think for a non-Christian or past/lapsed Christian to provide their insights into Christian related questions but happy if you only want the various Christian perspectives.

 

[Lapidem]

Hello! You are right that we should only ask for God's will. With your example, a Christian who walks in Spirit would submit to God's will even though it's against the Christian's will and even though that would cause him grief and suffering. He could ask God to cure his mother, but in the end, ask that his will be done.

Yeah you see the bit in bold is where the problem is. If God does have a plan and that plan is immovable then NO you can not pray for your mother to be healed or rather you could but you would be both wasting your time and breath and at the same time acting against God's will, desiring for God's will to be changed.

Job 42:2
“I know that You can do all things,
And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted."

Isaiah 14:27
"For the Lord of hosts has planned, and who can frustrate it? And as for His stretched-out hand, who can turn it back?”

Yet you see in religious services the world over, elders and leaders leading their flocks in group prayer to end things like suffering, pandemics, wars or prayers to heal people and so on. It doesn't add up. They should simply be saying "Lord I accept that you have allowed millions to die horribly from a virus and that this is your will" or "Lord I accept that you have allowed countries to be bombed and destroyed and millions of people to have to flee into the countryside where they will die of exposure, or Cholera or Typhoid or starvation and that this is all part of your Great Plan it's your will, it's what you want to happen, so help me understand that plan and know how to play my part in it".

Because man's will is always contrary to God's will. So a man must die to self if he wants to obey God.

Kind of odd wouldn't you say for an all-powerful all-knowing and all-loving God to create a human with a will that will always be contrary to his own will and then hit him with a proposition that if he doesn't submit and obey and give himself up he's headed for the fiery pit !!

Proverbs 15:10 KJV
Correction is grievous unto him that forsaketh the way: and he that hateth reproof shall die.

This just speaks to tyranny and despotic tendencies. Do as I say or else die. It is however an empty threat because everyone dies regardless. Even if you follow Jesus as per your previous citation, you die.

Do you have children? When a parent does not discipline his children, he is called an irresponsible and unloving parent.

This is an absolutely terrible attempt to justify the awful atrocities and suffering in the world.

If you can't see the difference between sending a child to their room, giving them a stern talking to and having a child forcibly pinned down and sexually abused by the likes of Jimmy Savile then you really need to question your ethics. What possible good is there in allowing a 5 yr old child to be sexually abused? What life lesson is being taught to such a child who will be psychologically damaged for the rest of their life? If you truly think that there exists an all-loving God that is happy to sit and watch such children be abused somehow for the greater good then you've left the path of wisdom and allowed yourself to be horribly duped imo.

Also, Jesus said that he is the Light and he could heal us of our wickedness if we let him, but he said that people loved darkness more than the light. So we don't blame God when people have the freedom to choose if he will come to the Light or stay in darkness. Now, you have heard about Jesus, it's up to you if you will come to the Light or not. It seems like you hate the evil that happens in this world, but you wouldn't come to the Light, do you love darkness then?

This is standard religious psychological technique and mumbo jumbo designed to make a person feel guilty and inherently bad. You should know I am immune to it and I consider it a form of assault that you attempt to use such techniques on people. I have been through the Christian religious indoctrination from childhood to adulthood and come through the other side. I had the courage to exercise critical thinking and reasoning and thus see the truth and realise that mainstream religion is a wicked control system that has little to do with the truths recounted in the Bible.

It is true that the world is full of darkness and evil. However, God is called The Judge, he is just and holy and he hates the wicked everyday, and there will come one day when he will judge everyone according to his deeds.

He must first judge himself for he is only a worthy ruler if his own works and behaviours stand up to the same moral compass that he would judge us by. Imaging if we were to elect a universal ruler and Hitler and Pol Pot were candidates for the job. What traits and behaviours would be expect of any such candidate? If a candidate would wilfully murder and slaughter millions of humans would we deem them suitable for the job? No of course not. Why then do people even give a moments consideration to an entity that wilfully watches innocent children get sexually abused, that idly sits by whilst women are kidnapped, forcibly addicted to drugs and sold into sexual slavery for the rest of their now very limited lives? The notion is absurd. You'd have to have very questionable ethics to even give such a candidate an interview for the position of universal ruler! The God of mainstream religion is an absolute tyrant. Guilty of murder, genocide, ethnic cleansing, child killing, murder of as yet unborn babies and much more. In what possible world do you see that as acceptable behaviour for a universal ruler?

 

[The Learner]

Or should some attempt to reconcile or repair the damage with the harmed person also be made?

If a Christian performs some Behavior which deeply hurts another person, perhaps even to the point where it drives that other person away from the church as they now associate that pain with christianity, would that be a sin? And if so, is asking God for forgiveness for that sin all that is necessary, or should it also be expected that they attempt to reconcile or repair the damage they caused the other person?

I forget the advice of Alchoholics AYmonous, google this my wife will kick me off soon. Talk with them and ask for forgiveness. Visit them on Sunday, and both can watch on your phone. This will allow you to discuss the sermon with them.