Empathy is jumping into deep water to save a drowning man when you don’t know how to swim or how strong the currents are.
It's Saul Alinsky Time!:
#4 "Make the enemy live up to his own book of rules"
"There should be no pity for the media personalities and academics who are now facing the consequences of their own words. For years they applauded the ruin of conservatives, convinced that the cultural battlefield was theirs to command. Now the ground has shifted. If they find the new rules intolerable, they should reflect on who created them in the first place. Conservatives have simply decided to stop playing by standards that punished only one side."
-- Lipton Matthews, Lessons from the Left
How is this in any way related to New Ageism ? The word has been around for nearly 200 years. Kirk talked a lot about things he knew little or nothing about and sadly in this case it is no different.
Where were these critics when he was around to make them sound silly with his responses?
Empathy, sure, I don't know exactly how such and such feels (losing a child, etc),
But, I have an imagination, I can put myself in others' shoes, and share their sorrow and misery, and because I believe Jesus is the "Way", and because I have a relationship with Jesus, I can share hope and joy, with other sufferers on this sin-darkened world, and point them to their hope (Jesus) as well.
When Moses asked the Lord to "show me your glory", the Lord said, I will pass my goodness before you.
The Lord's glory is His goodness!
The author's logic fails also on the point of debate, where anyone is guilty of the accusation: you don't really know what it's like!
That logic divides us, to the point where we cease communicating w/ one another.
After all, what's the point? (if no one "really understands").
Please also note: The absolute hallmark of personality disorders - the absolute "tell" - is lack of empathy.
No, empathy is real, and it's very important to healthy, functioning relationships, and healthy, functioning societies.
Empathy exists, at least with older generations. I tend to be very empathic. It’s not a very helpful ability. As one of countless examples: If my wife is angry at something, she doesn’t need her husband to get angry with her. She needs me to have sympathy for her, and to compliment her efforts; unless the solution were to go over and beat the crap out of whoever made her angry, my anger isn’t helpful. Sympathy makes me helpful and helps her know she is loved and helps both of us solve the problem; anger just makes her worried I’m going to get into trouble.
He said he believed in compassion. Compassion was an action. Empathy a feeling.
Homosexuality, fornication, adultery and bestiality are all said to be wrong behavior by God. There is no soft way to say it except for not yelling in someone's face or embarrassing a person in front of others. Those who practice such are often willing to kill others who oppose that behavior. Stealing, mugging, assaulting someone that one doesn't like and severe racial/ehtnic/cultural hatred can often produce the same result, death of the victim.
That being said, Christ (sent from God) admonishes Christians NOT to actively seek to kill someone for revenge (Romans 12). That is why there has not been a rash of killings of transgender individuals or anyone else (believe me, they are ALL accessible) who has been rationalizing/defending/supporting the political/religious assassinaton of Charlie Kirk. However all "conservatives" are not totally Biblical. When pushed to a certain point, they WILL snap. If they do, the result will be horrific. Everyone must settle down. If you're doing something wrong, don't kill whomever disagrees with you. Just go on living your life and ignore that person. Those on the "Biblical" side. Let God through the government handle it. He will.
I have asked those who think Charlie Kirk was a:
Fascist or Racist or Hateful to give me a single example of that. There is video everywhere of Charlie Kirk, plenty of available recorded time for them to prove he was any of the things they have called him.
So I will continue to challenge people who ‘hated’ Charlie Kirk to provide video evidence, in context, that he ascribed to any of the aforementioned insults. I suspect that the people saying that about him confused their image with Charlie Kirk. Democrats are so good at projection.
I always thought
- “sympathy” meant you felt for the guy and “sympathized” with his argument while I thought,
- “empathy” meant you felt for the guy but didn’t necessarily side with his argument.