Depends on your flavor of Christianity. To paraphrase Thomas Paine, 'Belief in a cruel god, makes a cruel man '. The problem is, that they, those that believe this garbage, see themselves astrue believers and that their cruelty is the will of God. Which makes it worse.
It seems inevitable for them to lose empathy or suppress it.
They believe you get what you deserve based on your “free will” choices in a system driven by “God’s will”.
This is the same religion that has criminal followers seek forgiveness for their crimes by praying for forgiveness from their invisible cosmic overlord, but has no requirement that the criminal make amends or seek forgiveness from the actual victims here in the real world.
Empathy and compassion are often found in people more emotionally mature and significantly more self aware. Religion doesn’t approve of either. Emotional maturity requires people to learn to consider other people’s perspective and how they are impacted by one’s behavior and the fallout of your actions. It requires you to hold yourself accountable for your choices. Awareness means learning how to cope and manage your own emotional reactions in a situation and not let them drive or impact your judgement.
Religion gives its followers an out allowing them to say that god will forgive their sins or the devil is responsible for their transgressions. They never have to hold themselves accountable thus never having to grow or develop emotionally. It’s why most of them behave like children and throw tantrums as adults.
Low level by what standard of measurement? Some arbitrary bullshit he and his buddies made up to fit their narratives as to why they’re still man-babies no doubt.
Exactly. How do you measure virtues?
It’s been a while since I heard the bit, but I think his overall point was that virtues like integrity, courage, and conviction are superior when it comes to determining how one should act with other people and how social policy should be informed. So, typical right-wing punditry probably.
Yes but their definitions for their own values are pretty vague as well. Those just words they use to make them sound “strong” to their audience. It takes much more strength to show someone you disagree compassion instead hatred. It takes more courage to do that as well, knowing you’re opening yourself up to being hurt. But people like him are simple minded and more instinct driven.
It seems to me that integrity, courage and conviction all have empathy at their root. Like, integrity means that you mean what you say, you don't lie or cheat people. The main reasons why you don't want to lie or cheat is because you wouldn't want it done to you, and because it's wrong. Why is it wrong? Because empathy.
One of the guys doing this is a twat named Pastor Mark Driscoll. He seems to have recently stirred-up some shit at another church:
https://www.christianpost.com/news/pastor-john-lindell-says-mark-driscoll-tried-to-divide-his-church.html
As a side note, apparently they now have sword-swallowers at a christian conference. The jokes just write themselves...
They're just using the word "cult" because we've been pointing out their cult-like behavior. It's the same old "I know you are, but what am I?" dipshittery they've been reduced to since purging the last of their *bona fide* thinkers.
I mean, this is why what the religion itself is almost beside the point, be it Christianity, Islam, etc. The religious want the chain of power and subjugation O’Brien talked to Winston Smith about.
I guess they forgot what Jesus said in Mathew 7:12
*"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this*
*sums up the Law and the Prophets."*
>Now This was the sin of you sister Sodom. She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, **and lacked empathy**, refusing to help the poor and those in need. They were haughty and did detestable things before me, therefore I destroyed them as you have seen.
Ezekiel 16:49-50.
Christians don't read their Bibles.
Empathy is how it was explained by Dr. Kingdon at Houghton College when I was a student there taking his Old Testament Prophets classes, noting that there often are not 1:1 correlations between many Hebrew words and English words (e.g. the word in Isaiah often translated as "Virgin" in Isaiah 7:14 also means "Young Woman" which is closer to the context of it being Isaiah's wife that it was written about)
The context of Ezekiel 16:49-50 makes it pretty clear that empathy is what the word in that verse (often translated as "lacking concern") actually means.
yup, agree. "refusing to help the poor and the needy" particularly when paired with their other attributes (pride, wealth, idleness, etc) is evidence of a lack of empathy.
I'm always amazed by this passage.
"Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. ^(50) They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen."
Because all they see is the "did detestable things before me" and quickly go to homosexuality.
They willfully ignore the sentence above that
These people have taken Christianity and turned it into blasphemy. First creating their prosperity gospel,so they feel it's holy to scam others to enrich themselves so long as they believe. Now even empathy and caring for others is being thrown out the door..
This is why the Abrahamic religions are insidious and resilient at the same time. They sell you on this idea that you have to worship this god they made up. The unconditional subservience they sell their flock is a big reason why they can’t respect the fact that all humans are independent sentient beings that have inalienable rights. We are not just pawns of some invisible sky daddy with a long record of abusive behavior. That is a recipe for social control, and their adherents are programmed to comply.
American Christianity is national tribalism. They are united around white supremacy and their perceived cultural identity. The cross and Bible are just tribal symbols. Jesus and his actual teachings are secondary to that. Since empathy contradicts their current political goal to demonize people are not in their tribe, they have to make people forget about what Jesus actually said about neighbors and enemies.
Funny story: my dad had this job with a lot of old nearly retired conservative programmers. When he left he said he wished some of them had a little more empathy to someone. The guy was like “ah okay”. Then the next day he came into work FUMING that empathy was this liberal woke garbage yada yada. We suspect that good ol Facebook misinformation got the better of him that evening before.
the problem is that these people are NOT christians. christianity is based on empathy; the whole "do into others" thing. these clowns prioritize judgement and control and afford empathy only within their group.
Actually its not really turning their empathy off. Its more a case of they turn it up to 11 but only for their group. This is a issue with empathy. As with anything when you do not moderate it problems can happen. When empathy gets wound up too tightly within a community it can turn toxic. It turns overly protective towards the group and starts cutting itself off from outsiders. Fear and paranoia creep in and eventually they become exclusionary and even hostile to outsiders.
Enlightenment tends to be when people extend their empathy to a wider selection of people. The more you realize how you are connected to everyone the more enlightened you tend to be. And thus closing yourself off like this is very contrary to enlightened thinking.
What you're describing is collective narcissism, not empathy. Empathy isn't empathy if it's only for an in-group and dehumanizes everyone else. That's narcissism, the absence of empathy.
It does resemble narcissism. But you can't really dismiss the empathy they have within the community. It comes from real functional empathy rather than cognitive empathy. A narcissist really can't feel empathy for anyone other than themselves. You also see this sort of thing within rural communities or other isolated social groups where due to lack of familiarity they bond together and develop fear of outsiders. This is basically how the aggressive form starts. It just ramps everything up in scale.
I love how my first response to this is "jeese, lord have mercy, oh for christ's sake". But yeah, in the case where their supposed god exists, that would be the beginning of the prayer for people using religion as a means to be an asshole.
Interesting, thanks for sharing your thoughts. It's my belief church attendance and bible study turn off introspection: all their answers are found in their religious book, so they don't look within themselves. An authority tells them something: that something cannot be questioned because "God". In other words, don't think for yourselves.
Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous.
[1 Peter 3:8](moz-extension://94d50c69-1536-4f32-956b-84bafc0e384a/1-peter/3/8/kjv)
Empathy as a word is not in the Bible. But commands to be compassionate are.
The bible teaches us that Jesus actually only ever gave a shit about the people who flattered him, or had a lot of money. He wanted to execute everyone else.
"In Catholic School, vicious as Roman Rule
I got my knickles bruised, by a Lady In Black
I held my tongue, as she told me son,
'Fear is the Heart of Love,' and I never looked back."
Death Cab For Cutie
What about empathy for Christians? Most of them were just raised that way and they can't escape it because they're brainwashed and insulated - they don't know any better.
We live in a harsh reality/universe. Empathy is a luxury. Sometimes, empathy is what it takes to progress in society. Sometimes, lacking empathy is the survival trait. I'm not any happier about that truth than anyone else is. Any predator species that became empathic without a different food source will go exinct.
False. We are animals who happen to have evolved slightly higher intelligence. Other species evolved empathy in order to socialize. Look at the state of society and at most humans, then look me in the eye and tell me we aren't still barbaric.
Oh we are. But empathy makes us human. When we lose empathy we are just animals. And I think the better word rather than empathy should be altruism. Babies may not know empathy, but they have altruism.
Babies have altruism? They leech off their parents, they are the most selfish and least altruistic people on the planet.
The fact that we are biologically human is what makes us human, not some feelings that aren't even unique to our species.
I stand corrected.
Why do you assume I'm grumpy? Are you one of those "empaths" who says they can detect feelings through screens? That would explain your obsession with feelings.
Omnivores can still be predators (how do you think we got the meat? We ain't vultures).
We evolved to run long distance so we could chase our prey to death. Evolved to build weapons to help with hunting. Evolved forward facing eyes (a key indicator of a predator) to help with hunting. Evolved the instinct to hunt.
Denying this is denying science.
Strange when they also say their god created the Golden Rule.
Matthew 7:12
It was in King Hammorabi Code FIRST.
It's okay if it's in a threeway?
Empathy is lost on most Christians because empathy is nearly impossible when you hate yourself.
Depends on your flavor of Christianity. To paraphrase Thomas Paine, 'Belief in a cruel god, makes a cruel man '. The problem is, that they, those that believe this garbage, see themselves astrue believers and that their cruelty is the will of God. Which makes it worse.
True, more moderate more better, compare to how Indonesia which is majority Muslim is better than Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan in freedom and quality
It seems inevitable for them to lose empathy or suppress it. They believe you get what you deserve based on your “free will” choices in a system driven by “God’s will”.
Just more fascism disguised as religion, which is itself generally fascist.
This is the same religion that has criminal followers seek forgiveness for their crimes by praying for forgiveness from their invisible cosmic overlord, but has no requirement that the criminal make amends or seek forgiveness from the actual victims here in the real world.
Christians have to demonize empathy. You can't love and also condone torture for everyone who doesn't find your threats scary.
Empathy and compassion are often found in people more emotionally mature and significantly more self aware. Religion doesn’t approve of either. Emotional maturity requires people to learn to consider other people’s perspective and how they are impacted by one’s behavior and the fallout of your actions. It requires you to hold yourself accountable for your choices. Awareness means learning how to cope and manage your own emotional reactions in a situation and not let them drive or impact your judgement. Religion gives its followers an out allowing them to say that god will forgive their sins or the devil is responsible for their transgressions. They never have to hold themselves accountable thus never having to grow or develop emotionally. It’s why most of them behave like children and throw tantrums as adults.
And then have people like Jordan Peterson saying that “compassion is a low-level virtue.” I mean, WTF?
Low level by what standard of measurement? Some arbitrary bullshit he and his buddies made up to fit their narratives as to why they’re still man-babies no doubt.
Exactly. How do you measure virtues? It’s been a while since I heard the bit, but I think his overall point was that virtues like integrity, courage, and conviction are superior when it comes to determining how one should act with other people and how social policy should be informed. So, typical right-wing punditry probably.
Yes but their definitions for their own values are pretty vague as well. Those just words they use to make them sound “strong” to their audience. It takes much more strength to show someone you disagree compassion instead hatred. It takes more courage to do that as well, knowing you’re opening yourself up to being hurt. But people like him are simple minded and more instinct driven.
It seems to me that integrity, courage and conviction all have empathy at their root. Like, integrity means that you mean what you say, you don't lie or cheat people. The main reasons why you don't want to lie or cheat is because you wouldn't want it done to you, and because it's wrong. Why is it wrong? Because empathy.
Axiology is the study of values. It is a whole field itself. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiology)
Peterson is a rather low level philosopher.
Right wing Christians hate empathy. According to them, Jesus is too woke.
One of the guys doing this is a twat named Pastor Mark Driscoll. He seems to have recently stirred-up some shit at another church: https://www.christianpost.com/news/pastor-john-lindell-says-mark-driscoll-tried-to-divide-his-church.html As a side note, apparently they now have sword-swallowers at a christian conference. The jokes just write themselves...
To be fair, it was an all men's conference.
Driscoll got bounced from Mars Hill church years ago for his shitty abusive ways. I'm amazed any xtian takes him seriously after that.
anti woke has been their catchphrase for a few years now... same as anti lgbtq+
They're just using the word "cult" because we've been pointing out their cult-like behavior. It's the same old "I know you are, but what am I?" dipshittery they've been reduced to since purging the last of their *bona fide* thinkers.
I mean, this is why what the religion itself is almost beside the point, be it Christianity, Islam, etc. The religious want the chain of power and subjugation O’Brien talked to Winston Smith about.
I guess they forgot what Jesus said in Mathew 7:12 *"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this* *sums up the Law and the Prophets."*
>Now This was the sin of you sister Sodom. She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, **and lacked empathy**, refusing to help the poor and those in need. They were haughty and did detestable things before me, therefore I destroyed them as you have seen. Ezekiel 16:49-50. Christians don't read their Bibles.
They lack empathy themselves and deride empathy in others, but continue to think the sin of Sodom is homosexuality. The irony is real.
what version is this?
Memory. Feel free to look it up.
i wondered. i couldn't find the word "empathy" in any of the major bible versions. nevertheless, the concept is there; matt 7:12 as others have noted
Empathy is how it was explained by Dr. Kingdon at Houghton College when I was a student there taking his Old Testament Prophets classes, noting that there often are not 1:1 correlations between many Hebrew words and English words (e.g. the word in Isaiah often translated as "Virgin" in Isaiah 7:14 also means "Young Woman" which is closer to the context of it being Isaiah's wife that it was written about) The context of Ezekiel 16:49-50 makes it pretty clear that empathy is what the word in that verse (often translated as "lacking concern") actually means.
yup, agree. "refusing to help the poor and the needy" particularly when paired with their other attributes (pride, wealth, idleness, etc) is evidence of a lack of empathy.
I'm always amazed by this passage. "Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. ^(50) They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen." Because all they see is the "did detestable things before me" and quickly go to homosexuality. They willfully ignore the sentence above that
These people have taken Christianity and turned it into blasphemy. First creating their prosperity gospel,so they feel it's holy to scam others to enrich themselves so long as they believe. Now even empathy and caring for others is being thrown out the door..
wow we are fucked as a species arent we?
Empathy a cult? I swear those guys haven't read the Jesus bits of the Bible. Jesus was all about empathy. Edit
Empathy is the root of morality. It comes as no surprise that it’s lost on Christians.
This is why the Abrahamic religions are insidious and resilient at the same time. They sell you on this idea that you have to worship this god they made up. The unconditional subservience they sell their flock is a big reason why they can’t respect the fact that all humans are independent sentient beings that have inalienable rights. We are not just pawns of some invisible sky daddy with a long record of abusive behavior. That is a recipe for social control, and their adherents are programmed to comply.
If any religious person believes that empathy is a cult, then they are rejecting a large portion of their religion/ belief system.
The irony being that christians are supposed to actually use empathy. For the poor, the sick, the disabled, and so on, and so few of them actually do.
American Christianity is national tribalism. They are united around white supremacy and their perceived cultural identity. The cross and Bible are just tribal symbols. Jesus and his actual teachings are secondary to that. Since empathy contradicts their current political goal to demonize people are not in their tribe, they have to make people forget about what Jesus actually said about neighbors and enemies.
EVERYTHING becomes a cult if a christian hates it.
Funny story: my dad had this job with a lot of old nearly retired conservative programmers. When he left he said he wished some of them had a little more empathy to someone. The guy was like “ah okay”. Then the next day he came into work FUMING that empathy was this liberal woke garbage yada yada. We suspect that good ol Facebook misinformation got the better of him that evening before.
I won’t have empathy for them, that’s for sure!
the problem is that these people are NOT christians. christianity is based on empathy; the whole "do into others" thing. these clowns prioritize judgement and control and afford empathy only within their group.
Until they need some.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/jesus-is-now-too-woke-evangelicals-are-now-rejecting-liberal-teachings-of-jesus.752047/
What Sermon on the Mount?
Empathy is dangerous to any ideology that wants to dominate others. Can't risk human kindness putting into question fascist ideals.
Christ less Christians
Actually its not really turning their empathy off. Its more a case of they turn it up to 11 but only for their group. This is a issue with empathy. As with anything when you do not moderate it problems can happen. When empathy gets wound up too tightly within a community it can turn toxic. It turns overly protective towards the group and starts cutting itself off from outsiders. Fear and paranoia creep in and eventually they become exclusionary and even hostile to outsiders. Enlightenment tends to be when people extend their empathy to a wider selection of people. The more you realize how you are connected to everyone the more enlightened you tend to be. And thus closing yourself off like this is very contrary to enlightened thinking.
What you're describing is collective narcissism, not empathy. Empathy isn't empathy if it's only for an in-group and dehumanizes everyone else. That's narcissism, the absence of empathy.
It does resemble narcissism. But you can't really dismiss the empathy they have within the community. It comes from real functional empathy rather than cognitive empathy. A narcissist really can't feel empathy for anyone other than themselves. You also see this sort of thing within rural communities or other isolated social groups where due to lack of familiarity they bond together and develop fear of outsiders. This is basically how the aggressive form starts. It just ramps everything up in scale.
Maybe they only have empathy for themselves and therefore are only able to superficially extend it to their tribe.
It’s best to just ignore anything in regard to this.
I love how my first response to this is "jeese, lord have mercy, oh for christ's sake". But yeah, in the case where their supposed god exists, that would be the beginning of the prayer for people using religion as a means to be an asshole.
Interesting, thanks for sharing your thoughts. It's my belief church attendance and bible study turn off introspection: all their answers are found in their religious book, so they don't look within themselves. An authority tells them something: that something cannot be questioned because "God". In other words, don't think for yourselves.
They've already made "woke" a slur for doing exactly what they claim their Jesus calls them to do.
Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous. [1 Peter 3:8](moz-extension://94d50c69-1536-4f32-956b-84bafc0e384a/1-peter/3/8/kjv) Empathy as a word is not in the Bible. But commands to be compassionate are.
The bible teaches us that Jesus actually only ever gave a shit about the people who flattered him, or had a lot of money. He wanted to execute everyone else.
"In Catholic School, vicious as Roman Rule I got my knickles bruised, by a Lady In Black I held my tongue, as she told me son, 'Fear is the Heart of Love,' and I never looked back." Death Cab For Cutie
What about empathy for Christians? Most of them were just raised that way and they can't escape it because they're brainwashed and insulated - they don't know any better.
I empathize with everyone up until they start purposefully hurting people, at that point they start losing empathy points.
[удалено]
James White. Joe Rigney. Kevin DeYoung. Doug Wilson. John F. MacArthur. Any given Huckabee. Bill Gothard.
We live in a harsh reality/universe. Empathy is a luxury. Sometimes, empathy is what it takes to progress in society. Sometimes, lacking empathy is the survival trait. I'm not any happier about that truth than anyone else is. Any predator species that became empathic without a different food source will go exinct.
It sounds like the Christians should be the first to go then.
Empathy makes us human. Without it we are just barbaric animals.
False. We are animals who happen to have evolved slightly higher intelligence. Other species evolved empathy in order to socialize. Look at the state of society and at most humans, then look me in the eye and tell me we aren't still barbaric.
Oh we are. But empathy makes us human. When we lose empathy we are just animals. And I think the better word rather than empathy should be altruism. Babies may not know empathy, but they have altruism.
Babies have altruism? They leech off their parents, they are the most selfish and least altruistic people on the planet. The fact that we are biologically human is what makes us human, not some feelings that aren't even unique to our species.
Google baby altruism. Your assumptions are not the same as observable science. Why are you so grumpy?
I stand corrected. Why do you assume I'm grumpy? Are you one of those "empaths" who says they can detect feelings through screens? That would explain your obsession with feelings.
That’s not what empathy is. I can pity your grumpiness though. I hope you feel better soon.
You really need to stop projecting, you're clearly getting heated over this.
Yep totally
[удалено]
Omnivores can still be predators (how do you think we got the meat? We ain't vultures). We evolved to run long distance so we could chase our prey to death. Evolved to build weapons to help with hunting. Evolved forward facing eyes (a key indicator of a predator) to help with hunting. Evolved the instinct to hunt. Denying this is denying science.
[удалено]
?
I think this comment is against reddits rules….
I sadly agree.