labingi

Sorry for going off on a tangent, but „traditional Christianity“? It‘s one of the core elements in almost all versions of Christianity I am familiar with - which admittedly do not include some American Protestant branches like Methodists or Baptists - , that if you sincerely repent and confess, emphasis on sincerely, and you do this before you die, then God can and will forgive you. Traditional Christians are encouraged to follow this example and forgive as well. Matthew 18:21 being the quote used most often. („Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" 22Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.“) Now it‘s been a few years, but as far as I recall the one unforgivable sin in theological terms wasn‘t murder or rape etc. but suicide, because there is by definition no more possibility to repent this sin before death. Anything else, as long as the repentance is genuine, can be forgiven, with Catholics and Lutheran Protestant differing since the Reformation whether faith alone (P) or faith and good deeds (C) are the method to atone and seek God‘s grace.

The idea of hell does not negate this, as one of the traditional conditions for hell is to not repent and seek forgiveness. (Even much later, one of the reasons why Milton‘s version of Satan in Paradise Lost doesn‘t get redeemed is because he does not believe God could forgive him, i.e. to question God‘s capacity for forgiveness in Milton‘s 17th century Protestant ethos is to commit another sin.) My very vague recollections of Calvinism tell me that Calvin thought there were those chosen and those damned from the get go, but then Calvin is hardly a traditional Christian in the grand scheme of things, showing up as he did after Christianity was already over 1500 years old. :)

Going back to the actual subject of your entry: I thought B5 did a great job differentiating between different types of forgiveness in the fantastic scene that presents the climax of Londo‘s and G‘Kar‘s separate arcs and their shared storyline, when G‘kar tells Londo „you know my people can never forgive your people - but I can forgive you“. It‘s not up to G‘Kar - or anyone else, for that matter - to forgive the Centauri as a whole, or to forgive Londo his war crimes in the name of the Narn. (And Londo doesn‘t ask for that, either.) But he, G‘Kar, can forgive Londo what Londo has done towards him. (It‘s also important that several episodes earlier that same final season, Londo apologized to G‘Kar. For all that he‘s an atheist, you can tell JMS is very familiar with the concept of repentance, confession, forgiveness.) And while the Centauri were mostly coded as Space Romans, they spent seasons 2 and 3 coded as Space Nazis as well.

In terms of DS9, I always thought the Cardassians were a far better written way to actually tackle the subject of fascism and the aftermath than many of those operetta Nazis very common in US media. If this vidder says in rl Garak would not be redeemable because Nazi, does he argue this is true specifically for 1933- 1945 Germans or for all war criminals of all nations?