Can the sins of history ever be forgiven??

Duty Honor Country

Duty Honor Country

Active member
I saw an article in the news wires where the US government just settled a lawsuit involving am incident during WWII. The issue at hand was the plundering by US troops of a Nazi treasure train. The riches were from Hungarian Jews.
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That article got me thinking about the sins of our past. Can they ever really be forgiven? Every now and then some stupid lawsuit comes about stemming from slavery in the US. Some group wants cash for the misery that their relatives faced 200 years ago. I hardly think that people today should be compensated for mistakes made in the 1700 and 1800's.

What do other people think?
 
Hi,

My Views Form a Slightely Different Prespective and Context Posted in a Different Thread Here

But the Moral is the SameHistory Coming in the way of the Present .

SwordFish_13 said:
Hi,

Exactly thats what i am talking about Public fear..........I mean it's been 150 years since ..........Several families can claim their ancestors once wore the bonds of slavery, and several can claim their ancestors once owned slaves... BUT ...I was not a slave ......neither i owned a slave.......why do i care about my Ancestors doings...

Ok my Ancestors killed and Ate People ..........Maybe I should apologize for that too ..............Maybe I should demand apology from all you European types for your ancestors migrating over to USA otherwise none of this School drama would have happned ? :roll:

Past is past how long are we going to hold on to it and being scared of it ?

It's just a Flag a simple flag how can it threaten someone .......Yet here we are, 150-odd years later making a case of it.

History is a good teaching tool.......... It's wonderful that we recognize the wrongs we committed so very long ago, and seek to avoid making them again in the future........... I fail, however, to see where abolishing and censoring a piece of cloth or a symbol.... will make any difference.

Now coming to Swastica .......... the pagan-celtic symbol for life .........and Hindu symbol of Good Luck ...... Hitler knew perfectly well what he was doing when taking the Symbol of Life and Good Luck and turning it Around.

Hindu's Draw it In fornt of their Houses and on every new thing they Buy consider Good Luck to be bestowed on it .........Pagan's used it in various religious Ceremonies.

Ok a Evil person made it his Symbol ......does that mean to these people ............why should these People whoe have a link a religious and Cultural link to it......suffer because of a few people being scared of the Symbol.


Flags of a country, past or present, should not be worn on a person this is my personal openion if you ask me .....But thats a different Point of Discussion
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Peace
-=SF_13=-
 
The sins of the past have not been that important in the course of human history. Beowulf teaches us that sins of the father where very important for the son, but beyond that pretty much everything was forgotten.

Think about the century before the 70s, not a whole lot of these kind of things happened.

But our present liberal society of the 90s and continuing into the new millineum emphasises regret and humillity. If you listen to the "liberal" arguments you will hear a lot of emotional attacks pushing you to feel sorry and regretfull. This has led to the exploitation of those feelings at the hands of a few individuals who want to get even when the rest of society should really just be saying "come on man, get over it"

One of the strengths of America used to be how she didn't worry about her history. Now Americans are assaulted about what happened to the indians, to the blacks, to the muslims in the middle east. The problem with all of this is that it fractures a society and makes its members confused as to whether America is good or not.

In the scope of society I feel this is a fad and that correct thinking will prevail. Because as Plato noted all those thousands of years ago, fration is the biggest threat to any society. So surely our bright scholars will bother to read "The Republic" at some point.
 
Doody said:
I saw an article in the news wires where the US government just settled a lawsuit involving am incident during WWII. The issue at hand was the plundering by US troops of a Nazi treasure train. The riches were from Hungarian Jews.
READ MORE

That article got me thinking about the sins of our past. Can they ever really be forgiven? Every now and then some stupid lawsuit comes about stemming from slavery in the US. Some group wants cash for the misery that their relatives faced 200 years ago. I hardly think that people today should be compensated for mistakes made in the 1700 and 1800's.

What do other people think?
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I agree with you, the only question is how far back do you go before you forgive and forget, 1 year, 5 years or 50 years.
 
"how far back do you go before you forgive and forget, 1 year, 5 years or 50 years"

Well, one starting point would be easily agreed upon by anyone who is willing to forgive and forget is the point at which nobody is left alive to have been directly affected by the situation. That point should be the minimum.

Another point might be when it is no longer relevant to the world as it is. That one would be very hard to have an agreement on of course.
 
Charge_7 said:
"how far back do you go before you forgive and forget, 1 year, 5 years or 50 years"

Well, one starting point would be easily agreed upon by anyone who is willing to forgive and forget is the point at which nobody is left alive to have been directly affected by the situation. That point should be the minimum.

Another point might be when it is no longer relevant to the world as it is. That one would be very hard to have an agreement on of course.
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The first option makes the most sense to me but it becomes somewhat of a problem when you take into account religious and tribal considerations ie Israel's 2000+ year old claim to land now inhabited by Palestinians, the US and its native Indian population or New Zealand and its Maori population.
These people are claiming a historical right and grievences to things that none of them ever personally faced so are their claims valid.

The problem with the second option is getting agreement as you point out, what is irrelevant to some is a major source of grief to someone else.
 
I think that the past should be remembered and taught in schools exactly as it happened. How far a people should go into the past depends on how accurately history has been recorded and agreed upon as fact. Every society on earth has evolved as a result of displacing or being displaced by different means such as war, assimilation, or reinhabiting a formerly populated area which was vacated because of natural disasters and disease.

All life is territorial including Humans and there is and always will be something or someone that will need more "elbow room". Even people such as indigenous natives, American Indians for example, have split into different and totally separate countries within countries ,tribes, and tried to destroy opposing tribes by genocide. How long should the Crow apologize to the Utes or Flathead?

I apologize for things that I am directly responsible for, I let others apologize for themselves but refuse to make apologies for them as individuals. When a group starts demanding apologies from others who were not directly responsible for the plight of their forefathers, then the society to which those groups belong becomes weakened by fractionalization and all will be destroyed as a whole either from within or by others who are intent on the destruction of all of the factions.
 
I think it is Human Nature to forgive someone. Hong Kong and Taiwanese people have already forgiven what the Japanese did in the 2 wars with China. Only mainland Chinese are still bitter over this war, because their communist government keep on reminding them the horrors of this war.
 
Red_Army said:
I think it is Human Nature to forgive someone. Hong Kong and Taiwanese people have already forgiven what the Japanese did in the 2 wars with China. Only mainland Chinese are still bitter over this war, because their communist government keep on reminding them the horrors of this war.
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although i don't agree with the forocity & hatred exibited toward the japanese by china...i can see why.

the japanese have never appologised for nanjing have they?
 
Hmmm...

I believe proper apologies towards war crime are needed in order for the victimized countries to forgive. If not, there is an anger that will never go away, soon or later, it will surface.

WWII Japan invasion of China:
It was not just a war for natural resources and strategic maneuver. It was a war of declaring supremacy. You can find plenty of atrocities agaisnt Chinese by Japanese soldiers on the web. if you want to know more, please read "RAPE of NANKING". Now, Nanking was not the only city got raped and burned, think about other cities and villages.

Well, Germany apologized. It is teaching the youth with unbiased history books. However, Japan didn't. It tried to change its history books to display Japan was the victim of war. It tried to state that Japan was the liberator of all Asian countries from Western domination, so, killings were justified. So, please tell me how can Chinese forgive Japan when truth is twisted.

Red_Army, the HK people were not really political throughout the years, business and wealth are the king of the kings, anything else are secondary. Furthermore, I bet not many HK kids and adults can share lot of political and historical views like members on this board. Politics were not HK's strong arena until British departure. Maybe, HK general public a bit numb towards History? Maybe HK never went through Rape of Nanking and alike experience because of strategic and financial values towards Japanese during WWII (sea ports)?

Taiwanese Government forgave Japan in a way because the strategic value Japan holds (balance out China's influence).

Here is an article maybe yall find interesting.
http://weekly.china-forum.org/CCF96/ccf9647/ccf9647-5.html
 
To forgive is to never do the same thing again.
I don't think there is a country in this world that haven't been formed without fighting another tribe, country you name it.
A lot of bad things happen but we have to learn never to do them again.

We can't walk around be afraid that germany will start WW3 because they lost the 1st and 2nd.
In WARS a lot of nasty things happen some so inhuman that they should have arrested and tried the master minds of the plans.

We as humans has to make sure we don't repeat what our already dead ancestors did.
Perhaps we should change some LAWS so you can't sue anyone for a crime 200 years ago that is just incredible.
 
Wait...

Do you forgive someone if they trying to justify and glorify the invasion with lies like "liberation from the west" at the present time?

So, what you suggest to the Jews to forgive Germany if German government elected to justify WWII as a liberation movement at the present time. Do you suggest the Jews to fogive if present German goverment tried to change its history recordings about WWII.

Oh, the Europeans got the right outcome but the Asians have to be men of big hearts eventhough the aggressor spewing out all kind of lies and justification for the past crime AT THE PRESENT TIME?
 
My personal opinion is that as long as there are people on this Earth there will be wrongs remembered. Many times it is convenient for a group to remember the wrongs committed against them in the past. It has a tendency of removing their responsibility for their current condition.
In that way it is used a kind of crutch. "So-and-so did this to our ancestors so that's why we behave this way" Other times past wrongs are remembered for National pride or at least a reason for National Unity - many Scots I have spoken to regard Culloden as a national calamity imposed on them by the British (they of course ignore the fact that there were as many Scots fighting against the forces of Prince Charlie as British on the field, or some simply don't know the history).

There are some sins of history that in my opinion cannot ever be forgiven.
Some sins are so great that repayment simply cannot be made. Slavery was one of these sins. Another is the destruction of the Native Americans but the US. Both of these sins can never be atoned for, nor can they ever be repaid. They can only be learned from so that steps may be taken to assure they will never occur again.
 
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