• Addiction to Forgiveness

  • May 17 2022
  • Duración: 17 m
  • Podcast

Addiction to Forgiveness

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  • Forgiveness is addictive. There, I said it and I don't feel bad about it. That used to be so wild to me, the notion that anyone would criticize the idea of forgiveness. Unlike many, I wasn't indoctrinated very heavily with the value system that we call Christianity. It was really never talked about in our home. The closest thing my family had to church was gathering around the table to eat dinner and watch Seinfeld, which was my Dad's favorite TV show after Cheers was taken off the air. I vaguely remember my mother talking to me about forgiveness, but only rarely. Besides, right after that she would go on some tirade about Bush Jr. and how much of a moron he was. So, I never really even took her that seriously. But, years later, as I became heavily indoctrinated in the Christian faith by various fundamentalist Christian You Tube videos, forgiveness became extremely important to me. Forgiveness is a big deal in Christianity. You always have to be willing to take in those who are in need. You don't ever really do it that much because you're scared someone might kill your or something. But I did actually help people when I was a Christian, mostly through direct food donations. I fed several of my LGBTQIA castmates willingly even though I had just been watching a sermon about how they were possessed by demons. They never were, but that's what I believed. I thought that, by showing kindness and forgiving the sinner, that they would become a member of my faith, and that, when that happened, I would grow even closer to Jesus. Then maybe, finally, he would make my epilepsy go away so I could be healthy and happy like other Christians I knew. Unfortunately for me, and luckily for my LGBTQIA friends, that never happened. I was never healed or "made whole" as I believe the bible refers to it. No demon was cast out of me because there never was demon inside of me. I have epilepsy. That's a part of who I am. But I refused to accept that back then. I believed in miracles. So, I stopped taking my medication and kept doing these good deeds to try to win god's favor, to get him to notice me. I really believed that would work. Now, of course, it all seems silly, even a bit suicidal, and maybe it was. Maybe the very concept of forgiveness is a bit suicidal. I've done the research on this. Nations that worship an all "forgiving" god have the highest crime rates in the entire world, even higher than nations who worship an unforgiving god, and that's after taking into considerations things like economic hardship. Now, I'm not saying that the punishments we have developed work either. I still support defund the police for example. I know The Young Turks and Tucker Carlson alike told you to shit on me for believing that we can do more with less police, but the recent murder of an elderly woman with dementia by a New Mexico police officer should put that fear to rest. I don't think the answer is more punishment. We need to become more gentle, but we can be gentle in mental health facilities or rehab centers or even prisons. Unlike most people who talk about defund the police, I have ideas to replace them. Firefighters being deployed for non-violent mental health crises works, for example. I've seen it in action and they are far more likely to use non-violent persuasion than the police. You could also follow the German model, and make prison a nice place. It does not have to be a dystopian rape cage. It could be a place where people go to get job training. You could have mentors working there. You could teach criminals the skills they need to have careers. So this episode is not about throwing the police at every little problem either. It is about valuing life and admitting that we have made mistakes that we can rectify. Today I am a huge advocate for my LGBTQIA friends because I owe it to them. But I also owe it to everyone to make sure that they do not end up harmed by this reckless ideology that says to forgive and forget the ills of the past

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