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You know, i was reading this answer on Quora which went like this:

It is surprising how difficult this passage is for Christians to understand, although it is straightforward when you read it with an open mind. Paul is saying not to seek revenge against your enemies. Paul makes a vague allusion to Deuteronomy 32:35, saying that any revenge should be left to God. He then says that if we go out of our way to be good to those we consider enemies, helping them in any way possible, we will cause them to suffer burning shame (“coals of fire”) with greater effect than any revenge is likely to achieve. He summarises: Do not let evil overcome you, but overcome evil with good.

Tried to leave a comment, but as usual, comments were disabled, so i thought to post my thoughts on it here.

The part that made it hilarious was where it said that “any revenge should be left to god” – So let me get this straight, you’re asking god – someone that had nothing to do with you or your argument with someone, to enact revenge on your behalf. Are you being serious?

You can definitely choose not to punish for various reasons, like for instance if it’s someone who made an honest mistake, out of stupidity and not knowing, without malicious intent, just from lack of knowledge. But if you’re not punishing someone because you’re expecting that punishment to be done by a god, that has nothing to do with you or your situation, or your actions, i think you’re retarded.

i mean, think about it. You believe you’re a good person by “leaving punishment to god”, but are you really? You haven’t made a choice to forgive or erase the debt. You still have expectation for a punishment, for retribution, to be made whole. You haven’t made a conscious choice to let it go just because you can, you still carry the hate in you, but now they are surrounded by expectations that someone else will enact punishment on your behalf. Someone completely unrelated to the problem.

Now … in a twist of events, we can consider this other case for which “ah leave punishment to god, you be a good man and let those bad men go, because god will deal with them” to be a pretty phrase issued by people using religion to be the bad men in question, but are pacifying everyone in order that action to not be taken against them.

After all, we all know that gods don’t need anyone to sit on their knees and pray to them, but men, often do.

Asking for someone else to deal judgment and punishment and execution on your behalf, for a thing they were not involved in, is a stupid thing to do or to expect.

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