Atheist wrote:Get Real, that kind of forgiveness counts for nothing to anybody else apart from yourself. If you have harmed another person the only one in position to actually forgive your is that other person.
Having (in your imagination) your own God forgiving you is essentially the same as forgiving yourself for the harm that you caused to somebody else. This is a selfish and cheap way to go about it. It is not about forgiveness at all. It is just about making yourself feel better.
According to the bible, one cannot start asking God for forgiveness for a specific sin out of the blue without first repenting their ways and turning their life around 180 degrees.
Upon doing that it is said that a spiritual communication is established between the person genuinely repenting and God who then somehow reminds the person of each of the bad deeds he had committed so as to correct each in turn.
This may involve the person going back to some shop where they had stolen a bar of chocolate when they were say 15 and just paying for it if the shop is still there, as an example, etc.
That’s why I said that “forgiveness is only granted when genuine remorse exists”.