Naturally religion romanticizes things that have the powerless deferring to the powerful, like suffering, waiting, and forgiving.  Specifically on forgiving, once a party is wronged they shoulder the burden of the wrong either way.  If they forgive (which often doesn’t change the way the wronged party feels and sometimes makes them feel worse), they are deferring to the person who wronged them.  If they let it fester they are immobilized by the bitterness.  The important thing to remember is the aggrieved party loses either way and the more tender-hearted they are the worse the personal fallout will be.

In some cases the people who forgive are freeloaders.  Take for example the bankers that crashed our economy.  The conventional wisdom was to forgive them.  But the angry bitter people (at least the ones who weren’t immobilized by their bitterness) were the ones speaking truth to power and fighting to change things.  The bitter people shoulder the cost of change but everybody receives the benefit of it.