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In case anyone doesn't already know, I am neither a Christian nor an atheist, but I do have some opinions about forgiveness. For day-to-day small stuff, I find that it's not worth the effort to think about it, hold it over anyone's head or hold a grudge. For the people that I know and love, I try to not assume the worst and ask for clarification if I think I am being hurt or offended. The vast majority of things that I could be mad about just aren't worth the trouble or are so insignificant compared to the relationship that I have with the "offender" that they don't even really hit the radar screen. For things that are a little more serious, after making the other person aware of how I feel about the situation, I generally move on as if it didn't happen, but file the information away in case it becomes a pattern. If it doesn't come up again then I chalk it up to a bad day, stress, toothache or whatever, and put it out of my mind, but if it keeps coming up then I take whatever action is appropriate to prevent it from happening again. For truly harmful situations I may decide to still interact with that person, but always watch out, always protect myself and those around me. For example, I have a family member with a history of anger issues, who I witnessed being abusive with a girlfriend some years ago; I have heard reliable testimony from other family of other incidents. While I still interact with him and have him in my home, I still don't fully trust him. Forgiveness is one of those concepts that mean different things to different people. To me, it's a two-way street: if you have wronged me, you vow to never wrong me in that manner again and demonstrate your sincerity by not wronging me in that manner again and I refrain from reminding you of your offense if you have truly changed. There are people from my past who, according to this definition, I have not forgiven, either because they continue to wrong me or because they refuse to acknowledge that their actions were in any way wrong. I don't spend much time thinking about these offenses, but neither do I interact with or otherwise trust these people. On the other hand I routinely act with other people as if previous offenses have not happened because they have changed their behavior toward me. Mainly, I "forgive", not because one of the gods, or a holy book tells me that I should, but because this is how I want to be treated, and because it makes life a lot less stressful. It's practical.