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Does trauma increase or decrease empathy for others?

Lark

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Secular human service and charity work is extremely important. Faith-based work can show preference to clients who are part of their religious organization. My mother is in a nursing home run by one specific religion and we are always afraid of her getting kicked out if they need the bed for a baptized member. People also come in and try to convert her. I saw it one time when they tried to give her religious literature to read, and she has dementia! She lives in a world where her stuffed animals are alive and have personalities and relationships. They want her to agree with their fundamental doctrines? Anyway, faith-based charities almost always feel a need to convert people when they are at their most sick and vulnerable. It is a moral violation to do that. Secular charitable organizations are necessary for any hope for equal rights within vulnerable populations.

That is unfortunate, religion is almost always most well known by religion at its worst rather than religion at its best.

This is something I think is regretful and leads people to believe that religion per se has nothing to offer anyone which is of any good.
 

Siúil a Rúin

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That is unfortunate, religion is almost always most well known by religion at its worst rather than religion at its best.

This is something I think is regretful and leads people to believe that religion per se has nothing to offer anyone which is of any good.
That is a good point. There is tendency to discuss parts that are the problem. I don't have conclusions about religion as a concept because the issue is complex, and there is a reason these structures evolved. It does have to do with group cohesion which is part of human survival and the basic way that humans function. Social cohesion does involve both charity (mutual support) and social controls. Some can be argued to be necessary for social functioning.

Sometimes vulnerable populations do attract individuals and structures that rely on control to function. It is also related to parenting instincts, I think. Working with some special needs populations has introduced me to charitable, but highly controlling individuals. It also has to do with attempting to protect people. The converting mindset can be an attempt to protect the person's eternal life. Sometimes these can also be charitable, but there are always degrees of both elements.

Our society really needs a better sense of boundaries, especially today when we share the world with so many groups and individuals.
 

Lark

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That is a good point. There is tendency to discuss parts that are the problem. I don't have conclusions about religion as a concept because the issue is complex, and there is a reason these structures evolved. It does have to do with group cohesion which is part of human survival and the basic way that humans function. Social cohesion does involve both charity (mutual support) and social controls. Some can be argued to be necessary for social functioning.

Sometimes vulnerable populations do attract individuals and structures that rely on control to function. It is also related to parenting instincts, I think. Working with some special needs populations has introduced me to charitable, but highly controlling individuals. It also has to do with attempting to protect people. The converting mindset can be an attempt to protect the person's eternal life. Sometimes these can also be charitable, but there are always degrees of both elements.

Our society really needs a better sense of boundaries, especially today when we share the world with so many groups and individuals.

The exploitation of avenues for care by control freaks is definitely a thing, not just among religiously motivated individuals, sometimes its even an unconscious thing.

I personally do not espouse an evangelical mindset, in terms of religion or any of my other opinions, most people that I do find who do it is about a sort of need to have others share their opinions and some how they trust their opinions more when others do share them. I've never really felt like that.

It could be to do with protective inclinations, I find this strange as most of the individuals I have encountered who have espoused the evangelical mindset have, when I've probed them about their beliefs, told me that they believe in predestination, election of exclusive groups on individuals, fatalism about life, death and eternity. The professing of any opinion then, whether its private conscience, personal conviction/witness or evidenced through motivation, words and deeds, it is really all besides the point anyway.

There was one individual I met who told me that their attempts to convert others where a product of their anxiety about abiding by instruction from their scriptures, it told them to spread their word and they felt if they were remiss then they would be punished by God. These sorts of things I dont believe matter to God, they are human all to human and a result of conscious and unconscious human drives or contexts for the most part.

Sociological, anthropological, naturalistic or psychological explanations of religion are interesting, I dont think they are the whole story personally but I dont need anyone else to share my opinion either. As I understand it religion should provide relief from avoidable suffering and help with coping with the unavoidable suffering of life. It should. I know people use it as a flag of convenience to satisfy drives to control too. It happens.
 

Obfuscate

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This is really fucking complicated and needs to be unpacked, but I don't feel like doing it atm...

the reason i said sort of is that it isn't entirely straight forward...
 

Quick

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Fine...

Our conscious mind merges with our unconscious mind and when it comes out the other side through our ego we receive our free will.

That's how I see it at least :shrug:
 

The Cat

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It depends. On a lot of things. I do think most folk confuse empathy and sympathy, for one.

But in my experience trauma is subjective. It is also universal. Everyone experiences it someplace sometime somehow. Empathy isnt an emotionl it's a skill like any other, if you don't hone it with practice, it dulls. And that's saying nothing about all the different emotions to which it leads. There is no accounting for taste. The same thing happens to two different people, they both experience empathy for the other, but does one laugh and one cry about it? Should the one who feels joy at the realization that they do not suffer alone be put off in favor of the one who bemoans the fate of another along side them? In a perfect world, empathy leads everyone down the path of the Good Samaritan. But it is, as you humans put it, an imperfect universe. :shrug:
 

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It depends. On a lot of things. I do think most folk confuse empathy and sympathy, for one.

But in my experience trauma is subjective. It is also universal. Everyone experiences it someplace sometime somehow. Empathy isnt an emotionl it's a skill like any other, if you don't hone it with practice, it dulls. And that's saying nothing about all the different emotions to which it leads. There is no accounting for taste. The same thing happens to two different people, they both experience empathy for the other, but does one laugh and one cry about it? Should the one who feels joy at the realization that they do not suffer alone be put off in favor of the one who bemoans the fate of another along side them? In a perfect world, empathy leads everyone down the path of the Good Samaritan. But it is, as you humans put it, an imperfect universe. :shrug:

Do you think the world is beautiful? Y/N

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it comes down to the specifics...

How so?
 

The Cat

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The question that arises is choice. How do you choose something like that?

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It might.

Think about it and let me know.
 

Obfuscate

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Quick

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The Neuroscience of Making a Decision | Psychology Today

the rest comes back to the specifics i initially listed... undoubtedly there are other factors beyond my education... what i said is based upon personal experience... nothing you are asking is not contained in my initial statement...

Basically, if you are told you have a choice, you have a choice. If you don't believe you have a choice, then you don't.
 

rav3n

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Look into RNA AND environmental triggers for behavioral genetics. It's not as simplistic as 'choice'.
 

Yuurei

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For me personally? No, I’m just a bad enough person to think “ I just deal with it. Why can’t you?”

I also realize that I have horribly skewed perspective on these things so I keep these thoughts to myself, stay out of the way and let someone more suited deal with it.
 

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Look into RNA AND environmental triggers for behavioral genetics. It's not as simplistic as 'choice'.

That's why I gave an alternate explanation.
 
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