I tend to believe that forgiveness is essential when it comes to interactions with people. Nobody is perfect, everybody makes mistakes. To refuse to forgive a person for doing harm, in essence, seems hypocritical to me.
Although, I also tend to agree that there are levels of forgiveness, making some things harder to forgive than others.
Basically, I believe in forgiving, but not forgetting. If someone hurts me, I'm going to forgive them, but not forget that they did it. If they keep doing it, then I have a basis for believing the person is no good to be around, so I will remove myself from their presence.
As for mercy, I completely agree with Kon-Tiki. Mercy is a form of compassion, which does not necessarily have anything to do with a harmful action against yourself, in my opinion.
I also think forgiveness is a form of compassion, but in the sense that you would want to be forgiven in the same situation, so you should do your best to forgive.
I think compassion and empathy are two of the most important principles in human interaction. You can only understand someone if you can imagine yourself walking a mile in his shoes, imho.
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