Understanding How To Write An Essay On Atonement

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The English word ‘Atonement’ originally meant “at-one-ment”, in harmony with someone, according to the Church. When we commit a sin, we break our bond of ‘one-ness’ with God. In order to make amends with God, we need to ‘at-one’ ourselves, in Christian philosophy. Christians have been using different metaphors and examples to express how atonement might work. However this is just one way of understanding how sin is committed, and how atonement is done. If one undergoes a strong change in perspective and truly regrets their past actions, then every sin is atonable, even if it has permanent repercussions. We all commit sins in some form or fashion, even if we don’t realise it. It is just human nature; no one is perfect. What really makes us …show more content…

This little flashback of Amir’s shows that all these years, Amir never redeemed himself, therefore he had to learn to bury his sins with guilt. One may infer that in order to break free from our guilt, we need to do something to redeem ourself, may come in the form of atonement. For some, atonement may simply come in the form of forgiveness from the person we hurt. For example, in the story of Jacob and Esau, when the two brothers finally reunited, Esau hugged and kissed Jacob, and was surprised that he thought there would be any hard feelings between them. In this way, Jacob’s sins were made up for, simply by seeking forgiveness. For other people, redemption may come by doing something for the person whom we have hurt. This is shown in ‘The Kite Runner’. In an attempt to make up for what he has done to Hassan, Amir addots Hassan’s orphaned son, Sohrab. He takes Sohrab to the United States with him and saves him from the terrorist group that had been keeping him hostage,”Taliban”. In this example, Amir could not get away from his guilt without actually taking responsibility for his

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