Can you as an atheist forgive someone like this?
Gary Ridgway, notoriously known as the Green River Killer, was convicted of 49 murders, making him the deadliest convicted serial killer in U.S. history. During his two-decade spree from the 1980s to the late 1990s, he primarily targeted vulnerable women, including runaways and sex workers, in the Seattle-Tacoma area.
The Courtroom Confrontation
In November 2003, Ridgway pleaded guilty to 48 counts of first-degree murder as part of a plea deal to avoid the death penalty by helping investigators locate victims' remains. At his sentencing hearing in December 2003, dozens of victims' families confronted him with intense grief and anger. Many relatives cursed him, called him an "animal," and wished for him to "rot in hell" while Ridgway sat largely expressionless and stoic.
Robert Rule: The Act of Forgiveness
The atmosphere shifted when Robert Rule, whose 16-year-old daughter Linda Jane Rule was murdered by Ridgway in 1982, stepped forward to speak. Rule, a part-time mall Santa and a devout Christian, addressed the killer directly with words that stunned the courtroom:
"Mr. Ridgway, there are people here that hate you. I'm not one of them. You've made it difficult to live up to what I believe, and that is what God says to do, and that's to forgive. You are forgiven, sir."
This got me thinking, could I as an atheist would have been able to forgive someone like this? because in case of morality unlike religious people we just know from within what's moral and what's not but I think in a case like this, forgiving someone for something like this would not be easy if you don't believe in the religious stuff. I want to know what other people think about this?