Why The Church Doesn’t Teach Empathy

This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.

Guest post by Aluminati

The scriptures consistently teach people to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is the basis of the philosophy of empathy, a term was coined in the 19th century by a few German philosophers. It became a basis of modern psychology and is constantly invoked to overcome mental issues. The FBI has found empathy to be the most helpful tool for negotiation. Yet I noticed that I never heard the term used in scriptures, General Conference, or in general church publications. The only speakers in sacrament meeting I have heard used the term studied psychology. The red flag for me was noticing that the Spirit never uses that term. Instead, I hear the term “charity.” Like other philosophies of men we are warned to avoid, empathy is a poisoned form of charity.

Empathy is defined as understanding peoples’ thoughts, feelings, knowledge, points-of-view, etc. and knowing that they are different from yours. The philosophy is that their ideas are just as valid as yours as long as they are logically sound and respectful of others. Well, sounds good so far! We even hear scriptures say things such as you don’t know the trials others struggle with. Yep that’s true. So we’ve got scripture mingled with philosophies of man. But let’s consider where it leads.

Empathy Vs. Charity

The problem is empathy doesn’t go as far as charity. Nowhere with empathy are we told to be like Heavenly Father. With charity, God provides a standard of morality. Charity teaches us so many things that only the Spirit of God can fully teach, such as Isaiah’s teaching that the word of God comes from Heaven. Charity is unconditional love we should feel for each and every living thing. Is empathy one ingredient for this? Either we’re endowed with discernment and feel their feelings or we can try to understand and respect their feelings. We relate similar experiences of ours with what we see or feel they’re experiencing. In this way empathy can help. But unlike empathy, charity still expects people to make good choices instead of justifying bad choices. Empathy will tell you why you’ve sinned whereas charity will tell you how to no longer sin.

Progmos tell me they have charity. I feel they honestly think they are empathetic and that this makes them charitable. However, with our eyes the reality I see is combativeness on Twitter. What I read are reddit comments condemning their “enemies”. They seek to damage their enemies. Yet they wonder why we’re so “mean.” They accuse us of being judgemental, though they are being recursively judgemental just by doing this. They don’t understand that de-escalation is the proper method, and de-escalation is the opposite of what they do. When we passively dismiss their impotent attacks, we do so because we understand they are simply lost. We set a good example of frank forgiveness and hope that they can understand.

Emotion

Charity is stoic. We may feel emotion, but it is always mild and charity isn’t from emotion. Secondary emotions caused after charity are always positive, unlike with the philosophy of empathy. We may get disgusted at someone’s offensive conduct but we quickly move on to expect that they will find a better way. “Empathetic” people, meanwhile, have strong emotions that they seem to think makes them loving people. They think their motive of emotion is always love. Since we’re cooler, they mistake our coldness for “hate.”

This leads empathetic people to psychologically project. They compare their enemies’ actions with their own similar actions. Since our minds are mortal and infinite, our brains can’t possibly go over all the sensations and possible explanations of events. That’s why progmos cherry-pick words and actions of their “enemies” and twist them into something toxic. They subconsciously choose their toxic view of events from this limited set of data because toxicity is what their minds are most familiar with. Their next step is retaliation. In their highly emotional, perhaps hormonal state, they are no longer to reason correctly, and Latter-day Saints become a kind of voodoo doll for everything they hate about themselves. They don’t consider that we are so “hateful” because we understand their choices lead to suffering. The gold rule leads us to treat them as we would want to be treated in order to recover and heal, which isn’t always pleasant. But in our charity, we are actually directing them towards joy. This joy is so much better that any instantaneous pain suffered along the way. Actually, charitable empathy teaches de-escalation, to maintain your cool, to keep a rational mind and seek practical, mutual solutions. Committing arson on our meetinghouses is not empathy, for example.

Just like some other certain philosophies that came out of the 19th century, empathy has an uncanny resemblance to Satan’s methods. Satan’s methods can be summarized by the Communist philosophy of the Dialectic: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. They find a central pillar of God’s doctrine in someones faith, and they find another pillar in their identity from the natural man. They compare these two pillars so that the person purges the true pillar of God to maintain their identity, deconstructing anything that contradicts Satan’s counterfeit. They construct a new pillar different from God’s teaching based on pride. Often Satan does a pincer attack with two opposite pillars on a society so that everyone has a corrupt pillar for their identity. This attack’s strength is doubled as the other pillar can be a strawman “enemy.”

For example, everybody believes in providing support and acceptance in society. Families are the best system to raise children and support and acceptance, yet Satan’s philosophy attacks family. What if Satan makes a child feel that they’re of a different identity? Satan presents two antithesis ideas: that this alternative identity is OK and that it’s not-my-problem. One person (person A) will chose to support their friend during this difficult time. Two other persons gets disgusted by their friend’s new identity. One of them (person B) listens to their friend while the third person (person C) will shun him. Person A rejects the teaching of the family and accepts the new pillar of “tolerance” in the name of empathy. They reject the second antithesis given by Satan while the third person accepts disliking the person and rejects the first antithesis. They see each others actions and call each other “filthy” or “hateful”. But what the second person has done is reject both of Satan’s antithesis and continues to spend time with the friend while not accepting their new identity. Only he has followed God’s commandments and the two others have become hurtful. One fights against the church and the other poisons the church. Person A accuses the two other people of being wicked for rejecting the person as a child of God. They see that the other two people no longer let their kids be friends with the friend and see it as hate. Person B actually lets their children remain friends but informs them honestly and boldly about their choices. Person C doesn’t hate him but forbids any friendship in order to prevent bad influences. Hopefully, sometime later God will teach him/her to be charitable through person B. Person A unfortunately has little chance to be truly charitable with this behavior, though they may pat themselves on the back for their “empathy.” A traumatic event may make him/her reconsider, but not if they are offended by person B and project person C’s actions onto person B–which happens all the time.

Pride

At the core, “empathy” alone is a form of pride. Progmos constantly attempt to leverage people into their methods through shaming, pressure, threats, and popular propaganda. They seek to “correct” the revelations from God given by our leaders because they seem cold and not empathetic.

Charity is the pure love of Christ. Every thought and action should be as His. They should support God’s work to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man.