Stereotyping and Overgeneralizing People and Institutions

[JohnH]

I would add to Ernie's list the possibility of misguided or insufficient doctrine of sin, forgiveness, restoration and redemption.

Misguided. Or intentionally misapplied?

Why does forgiveness and condemnation for not being forgiving enough seem to so easily apply to victims?

Yet for a perpetrator, endless second chances to re-offend?

We have a situation where:

1. A person molested boys in Ohio. His family / church family / leadership knew about it. They sent him off to CAM anyway.

2. The person molests boys in Haiti. Fearful of being caught there, his family helps bring him back here.

3. His dad / minister accompany him to pressure his Ohio victims not to talk to police, citing that doing so would be being unforgiving.

So… victims have to forgive, or else.

But a perpetrator can molest hundreds of boys and its chalked up to… being naive?

None of the above is naive.

[barnhart]

I would add to Ernie's list the possibility of misguided or insufficient doctrine of sin, forgiveness, restoration and redemption.

Isn't that naivete?

What list? You aren't saying that the above is evil, correct?

I don't know the situation that well so I would be slow to attribute evil motives.

[Neto]

I suppose that I am just fueling the off-topic direction this has taken, but I'll just say this about 'forgiveness':
I do not think anyone should ask for forgiveness from anyone (except perhaps from God). Forgiveness is for the victim to offer freely, if and when they wish to do so. What the guilty person should communicate to their victim is to confess and repent. No request or pressure to receive forgiveness. To my thinking, asking for forgiveness is selfish, because it is done to 'feel better'. (Perhaps it would be more acceptable to others if I'd say 'too often done to feel better', but my opinion is as I wrote it first.)

[joshuabgood]

I suppose that I am just fueling the off-topic direction this has taken, but I'll just say this about 'forgiveness':
I do not think anyone should ask for forgiveness from anyone (except perhaps from God). Forgiveness is for the victim to offer freely, if and when they wish to do so. What the guilty person should communicate to their victim is to confess and repent. No request or pressure to receive forgiveness. To my thinking, asking for forgiveness is selfish, because it is done to 'feel better'. (Perhaps it would be more acceptable to others if I'd say 'too often done to feel better', but my opinion is as I wrote it first.)

I agree. The offender hopefully can voice genuine remorse, sorrow, and regret. And to name and acknowledge the harm done. It is the offendeds choice to respond to that...Hopefully with genuine forgiveness. But I wouldnt counsel the offender to ask for it...

[Bootstrap]

Covering these things up, I think, was clearly evil. Thinking Our People would never do such a thing clearly permitted evil to occur, but perhaps more naive than evil. Leadership must not be this naive.

The guilty parties may well have repented deeply. I certainly hope so. So I am hesitant to call them evil people.

It must be nice to be able to have such a high degree of certainty about how to respond to such cases.

I don't know exactly how to respond to these cases, but the principles above seem straightforward to me. Which part of this do you think is morally fuzzy, and why?

[ken_sylvania]

Covering these things up, I think, was clearly evil. Thinking Our People would never do such a thing clearly permitted evil to occur, but perhaps more naive than evil. Leadership must not be this naive.

The guilty parties may well have repented deeply. I certainly hope so. So I am hesitant to call them evil people.

It must be nice to be able to have such a high degree of certainty about how to respond to such cases.

I don't know exactly how to respond to these cases, but the principles above seem straightforward to me. Which part of this do you think is morally fuzzy, and why?

It's not at all clear to me that it was evil for people who knew about his early transgressions to keep their knowledge to themselves if they thought he was not a threat to others. I'm not even certain that this was wrong given what they knew.

It is not at all clear to me that it was evil for people to offer his victims money to try to limit the outcry afterwards. Based on reports I have heard, I do think this was wrong, but I do not currently have any reason to think it was evil.

What Jeriah did was evil, but I don't know for a fact that anyone's response was evil.

[Szdfan]

It must be nice to be able to have such a high degree of certainty about how to respond to such cases.

I don't know exactly how to respond to these cases, but the principles above seem straightforward to me. Which part of this do you think is morally fuzzy, and why?

It's not at all clear to me that it was evil for people who knew about his early transgressions to keep their knowledge to themselves if they thought he was not a threat to others. I'm not even certain that this was wrong given what they knew.

It is not at all clear to me that it was evil for people to offer his victims money to try to limit the outcry afterwards. Based on reports I have heard, I do think this was wrong, but I do not currently have any reason to think it was evil.

What Jeriah did was evil, but I don't know for a fact that anyone's response was evil.

How are we defining evil?

[ken_sylvania]

I don't know exactly how to respond to these cases, but the principles above seem straightforward to me. Which part of this do you think is morally fuzzy, and why?

It's not at all clear to me that it was evil for people who knew about his early transgressions to keep their knowledge to themselves if they thought he was not a threat to others. I'm not even certain that this was wrong given what they knew.

It is not at all clear to me that it was evil for people to offer his victims money to try to limit the outcry afterwards. Based on reports I have heard, I do think this was wrong, but I do not currently have any reason to think it was evil.

What Jeriah did was evil, but I don't know for a fact that anyone's response was evil.

How are we defining evil?

Profound immorality, wickedness, or conduct that intentionally causes harm, pain, and suffering to others. Morally bad, cruel, wicked or malicious.

[Szdfan]

It's not at all clear to me that it was evil for people who knew about his early transgressions to keep their knowledge to themselves if they thought he was not a threat to others. I'm not even certain that this was wrong given what they knew.

It is not at all clear to me that it was evil for people to offer his victims money to try to limit the outcry afterwards. Based on reports I have heard, I do think this was wrong, but I do not currently have any reason to think it was evil.

What Jeriah did was evil, but I don't know for a fact that anyone's response was evil.

How are we defining evil?

Profound immorality, wickedness, or conduct that intentionally causes harm, pain, and suffering to others. Morally bad, cruel, wicked or malicious.

I think we might agree this describes Jeriah. Does it describe the institutions and individuals that enabled him?

[ken_sylvania]

How are we defining evil?

Profound immorality, wickedness, or conduct that intentionally causes harm, pain, and suffering to others. Morally bad, cruel, wicked or malicious.

I think we might agree this describes Jeriah. Does it describe the institutions and individuals that enabled him?

None that I know of.