dermdoc said:

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Possibly. I really like the way CS Lewis described it in the Screwtape letters. I think y'all would enjoy reading it and I do not know how to do links. Google will lead you to it.

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I've read it, though it was likely 10 years ago, now. I enjoyed it at the time. I don't remember this portion, though.

Stasco said:

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schmendeler said:

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this thread topic comes across as something a pastor who is bored would dream up as something different than the usual sermon.

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Do you ever actually contribute anything of substance. At least your puns in the Brash thread were somewhat witty.

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did I hit too close to the mark?

sorry, I can empathize with how that feels.

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Do you ever actually contribute anything of substance. At least your puns in the Brash thread were somewhat witty.

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He generally does. I am in agreement with him that your "Empathy is the devil" is very much like evangelical pastors promoting a sermon like "everything you thought about XYZ parable is wrong!"

It's been a long while since I read The screw tape Lettersso I don't know what the argument is. But I have a hard time seeing empathy as evil. In my experience empathy engenders compassion in many cases where people are disinclined to sympathy.

Texaggie7nine said:

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Frok said:

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Now some on here may think that is a bad thing because "made up book and made up man in the sky says gay is bad" but I think it is a wonderful thing.

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It's pretty ironic you tossed this in the middle of a statement about being empathetic to other views

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Empathy does not imply sympathy.

Think of a former alcoholic that has been sober for 10 years and has turned around their life.

They are able to empathize with current alcoholics but that does not mean that they are sympathetic to that as an excuse to continue to be alcoholic.

Police detectives do this all the time. They "get into the head" of murderers" and they understand how killers can act certain ways, but that doesn't mean that they sympathize with them.

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But your statement is lacking empathy to the general posters you are talking to. You called the bible a "made up" book. That immediately makes most religious people roll their eyes and not take the rest of your statement seriously. Or maybe I am missing the sarcasm?

I can fully empathize with believers, as I was one for most of my life.

The "made up" comment was injecting a personal opinion, yes, but it was to illustrate how cruelly unfair it is to hate and discriminate against people, especially your own children, for something they cannot control, and that a book written 2000 years ago told you to believe about them.

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Empathy does not imply sympathy.

Think of a former alcoholic that has been sober for 10 years and has turned around their life.

They are able to empathize with current alcoholics but that does not mean that they are sympathetic to that as an excuse to continue to be alcoholic.

Police detectives do this all the time. They "get into the head" of murderers" and they understand how killers can act certain ways, but that doesn't mean that they sympathize with them.

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I think we are running into the various alternate usage of the terms and coming at odds.

A former alcoholic is able to sympathize with an alcoholic because they have been in their shoes before. They don't need to put themselves there.

Someone who has never been an alcoholic has to empathize with someone who is, and try to "put themselves in their shoes".

Neither term has anything to do allowing one to continue being an alcoholic.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/sympathy-empathy-difference

Overtime, I think the phrase "be sympathetic towards" XYZ cause has come to mean that you approve of it...but I don't know that this was ever the intended case.

Isn't the OP just getting at emotional manipulation.

Most commonly just putting guilt trips on people. I think guilt is the problem emotion, not empathy, or sympathy.

One can feel empathy, but it's when guilt is injected, that it's used to control and manipulate. Guilt creates a sense of responsibility that stems people to act.

In my medical education, they emphasized and encouraged empathy over sympathy. In their lingo, sympathy was trying to put yourself in the place of your patient and feel what they feel. Empathy was hearing them describe their suffering, respecting that, and responding in an appropriate way. I don't think there is anything wrong with either, but empathy is a lot more versatile. I can have sympathy for someone with a mildy ill child, because my children have been mildly ill and I know that feeling. I can have empathy for someone who parent has died. Mine are still alive, but I can recognize and respect that person's feelings in their situation. So while my sympathy is limited to my experience, my empathy is not.

But then you start talking about compassion, support, and comfort and you end up with a ton of overlap.

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I don't think there is anything wrong with either, but empathy is a lot more versatile. I can have sympathy for someone with a mildy ill child, because my children have been mildly ill and I know that feeling. I can have empathy for someone who parent has died. Mine are still alive, but I can recognize and respect that person's feelings in their situation. So while my sympathy is limited to my experience, my empathy is not.

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I think you can also run into a risk of survivorship bias with the "sympathy" route. You can pass judgement on someone's situation because you encountered a similar (or even exact one) and you had a beneficial outcome that might not be predictive for their situation.

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I think you can also run into a risk of survivorship bias with the "sympathy" route. You can pass judgement on someone's situation because you encountered a similar (or even exact one) and you had a beneficial outcome that might not be predictive for their situation.

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Agreed. Also agree with the OP, in that trying to relate to someone's suffering by imagining yourself suffering in the same way is self-centered and misguided. Any imaginary pain you generate by your theoretical scenario has no relation to someone actually suffering

ramblin_ag02 said:

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I think you can also run into a risk of survivorship bias with the "sympathy" route. You can pass judgement on someone's situation because you encountered a similar (or even exact one) and you had a beneficial outcome that might not be predictive for their situation.

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Agreed. Also agree with the OP, in that trying to relate to someone's suffering by imagining yourself suffering in the same way is self-centered and misguided. Any imaginary pain you generate by your theoretical scenario has no relation to someone actually suffering

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Agree. And it is probably that my definition of empathy is wrong. But I am talking about what you are saying.