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At a minimum a dispassionate evidence approach would require that you at least acknowledge that downplaying sexual assault by a friend is extremely common. So if we “must” acknowledge her text thread we “must” also acknowledge her realization later. We “must” also acknowledge how common it is for this exact thing to happen. Since you view me as an emotional wreck and you love chat bots here is Claude: “When rape or sexual abuse is perpetrated by a friend how common is it that the victim initially downplays the assault” Claude: “ It's very common. Researchers call it "unacknowledged rape": the person's experience meets the legal definition, but they don't label it rape. Prevalence: A 2016 meta-analysis (Wilson & Miller) found roughly 60% of people who experienced rape didn't initially call it that. Earlier work by Mary Koss found around 70% in college samples. Exact figures vary by study and how questions are worded. Friends and acquaintances: Downplaying is more common when the perpetrator is someone known and trusted than when it's a stranger. It's also more common when there was alcohol, no visible physical violence, or no physical resistance, because those cases don't match the "stereotypical rape" many people picture. Why it happens: Common factors include wanting to preserve the friendship or social group, self-blame, fear of not being believed, and not wanting to see a trusted person as someone who would do this. Calling it "a bad night" or "a misunderstanding" can be a way to cope. Over time: Many people re-label the experience later, sometimes months or years afterward, often after hearing others' stories or learning more about consent. Downplaying isn't a sign the assault was less serious or that someone is lying. If this is about you or someone close to you, I'm happy to talk it through or help find support.”

So am I. The challenge is when "empathy" is portrayed as "And so it is your job to, in the name of 'empathy,' support and validate my decision to electively abort my baby." It is this sort of weaponized / coercive strain of "empathy" that I find problematic. Frankly, I think "empathy" is often used more for its imputed embellished connotations than for its normative meaning. Thanks, -Smac

That depends on what "empathy" means, or its connotations. As I asked previously: "{D}oes 'empathy' require, in your view, not merely the 'the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the emotions, thoughts, or attitudes of another,' but also the acquiescence to and endorsement and validation of those emotions/thoughts/attitudes?" For example, Let's go with your proffered definition: "Empathy is the ability to understand, share, and experience another person's feelings, thoughts, or point of view. It allows you to see the world from someone else's perspective rather than just your own." I think in the reckoning of some, to "empathize" with a woman who wants to electively abort her baby means to endorse and validate that desire. Do you think that sort of "empathy" might be seen as "lead{ing} people way from God's truth" (assuming the individual believes "God's truth" to include rejection of elective abortions)? So was I. But understanding and endorsement/validation are two different things. I think some folks collapse them into each other. Yes. I think plenty of people opposed to elective abortion do so out of empathy with and for the unborn. I think plenty of people who want strong and secured borders do so in part out of empathy with and for the untold millions of women and children who have been physically and sexually abused during and after illegal border crossings. Sex trafficking relies heavily on porous borders. And yet people who oppose elective abortion and/or open/unsecured borders are often accused of lacking "empathy," presumably for the mothers of aborted babies and those who have entered the U.S. illegally, respectively. Thanks, -Smac

I am cooking waffles right now and then having to do other chores, so can’t dive into this. How many questions actually dealt with empathy on the survey? Was that its primary purpose or only a section of it with one or two questions? If the latter, I see drawing any conclusions from it about actual empathy as highly problematic even while I find the framing of empathy by Republican leadership at this time horrendous. While I disagree with those who might broaden empathy to include requiring agreement in every way (though I don’t believe this is as widespread as claimed by some on the right, I have seen this type of acceptance being demanded by some or they will cut off contact, which is justified in some cases for sure, but not all that I have seen), I would prefer to see errors in that direction than the other. While I believe empathy can be involved in the rejection of abortion, it naturally follows that if one is empathetic to the unborn, one needs to care for it in more than just saying no to abortion. Not stepping in to ensure the healthiest pregnancy as possible, removing reasons for abortion being the best option is a rejection of empathy for the unborn as is not ensuring the children are fed no matter what their parents are like as children are not accountable for their parents’ mistakes or sins.

Navidad differentiates (probably correctly imo in terms of scholarly categories…spacing on the right word now for that, but I don’t believe that is how most people use “evangelical”) between Evangelical and Fundamentalist. If I understand him correctly, one can’t be both. OTOH, there can be evangelical or fundamentalists LDS, Catholics, Muslims, etc. In his view, my guess that the groups of political or religious “extremists” that see empathy as highly dangerous are more likely Fundamentalist than Evangelical. He will hopefully correct me if I have misunderstood him. You both will end up talking past each other if you don’t agree on a definition for Evangelical here and given his past comments, I don’t think Navidad will budge on this. It concerns him greatly. I can understand that as it can cause great confusion as it is doing here (there are many liberal white evangelicals, but they are getting clumped in with white fundamentalists in this survey).

Are you sure you want to use “deceiving” (it’s phrased as he is deceiving, which is intentional behaviour) here when he is referencing a survey?

Yes, I think people are likely inserting some form of ‘false empathy’, performative empathy perhaps here rather than “godly empathy”? But that needs its own survey to tease out.

I disagree strongly with your two ‘examples’ of the meaning of empathy as I think those are caricatures while agreeing with your comment about it being an inappropriate forced choice. I would also like to see how the survey was tested for its actual correspondence to valuing empathy and how it did.

I too dislike the question set up. I can’t understand the second viewing, though with the definition of empathy like the following: How can empathy lead people away from God’s truth? I was taught that God perfectly understood shared and experienced all through the atonement. Wasn’t it empathy that led religious abolitionists to reinterpret the Bible when it comes to slavery? Empathy is the ability to understand, share, and experience another person's feelings, thoughts, or point of view. It allows you to see the world from someone else's perspective rather than just your own.

The woman allegedly replied, “Non[e] of the sexual stuff was illegal,” although noting that her memory was “super clouded too.” I don't understand. Would changing "must" to "should" make the observation more palatable to you? By what principle do you sift out relevant evidence? What pieces of evidence merit attention and evaluation, and which do not? For me, I think we start with questions about indicia of reliability, authentication, hearsay, inculpatory and exculpatory, and so on. A near-contemporaneous statement from Jane Doe that "{none} of the sexual stuff was illegal" surely seems relevant. Its authenticity does not appear to be in dispute. Hearsay is not an issue. It's facially exculpatory. So what grounds do we have for not taking the text at face value? There is certainly a fair argument which could be made about delayed processing, trauma, and so on. There are also fair arguments which could be made about how she was telling the truth then, but changed the narrative. Also, I said nothing about Jane Doe's statement "exonerating" the accused. Reading and interpreting text messages in context and in relation to other communications is an entirely legitimate exercise that both sides will do. Whether that results in exoneration or conviction is yet to be seen. Thanks, -Smac

I have a problem with this phrasing because it’s very black and white if they require one or the other. You can be highly invested in both or very concerned about the latter while it doesn’t affect your own effective empathetic efforts that much. I can see that they are trying to see which is more prioritized, but not sure this is a valid way to frame importance of empathy to someone. “About half side with the statement that empathy is a foundational moral value (49%), and nearly as many believe empathy can be dangerous (48%).” This frames it as ‘either or’, at least the last one…as if believing empathy can be dangerous excludes empathy being a foundational value for them. I hate the way this gets framed in politics, but I was concerned about people believing that empathy for others justified mistreatment of themselves and those they had committed to care already long before it became major dog whistles (if that’s the right term) in politics. Such as those who adopted many children without considering how their current children felt or adapted to it or too often assumed sympathy was the same as actual empathy.

This is not remotely accurate. It is a substantial falsehood and mischaracterization.

I agree, I don’t believe one can truly love another unless there is some basic understanding of them (we may love our image of them, but that’s not the reality). There is also the commandment to mourn with those who mourn. To truly do that takes empathy. But not everyone uses “empathy” in that way. Hopefully someone has pulled out all the ways it is framed in the survey so we can discuss the different perspectives it is using…at least that is what I see as most useful in this discussion. There are unhealthy forms of empathy, such as losing oneself in another’s needs, especially in regards to one’s own. And oh so many people think they are being empathetic while still substituting their own thoughts, feelings, and values on to the other in my experience (and this includes LDS as well as nonLDS).

Eschaton, hi. Accept my heartiest best wishes. The idea you raise is truly important! It is quite likely that I do not know what is meant by the word empathy. It is because Christians seemed more wary of empathy than those with no religion, it made me think that there is perhaps a misunderstanding on the part of participants in the poll as well. I am all in favor of "weeping with those who weep and rejoicing with those who rejoice." We should try to understand and appreciate the joys and pains of people who aren't Christians too. My Church teaches that "through the Incarnation of Christ as man, He has in a certain sense, united Himself with every human person". That is a paraphrase of a document from the Second Vatican Council called Gaudium et spes. It is in ch. 22. I have it partly memorized because that certain sense, spoken of, must be maximized. It is a radical recognition that He who our religion is named for, Christ, doesn't identify persons as what they have done, but as His, Who came to deliver all of the sons and daughters of Adam into the liberty and freedom to renounce the ties that bind them to that which is not God. He identifies with all of us together, through His most Sacred and Loving Heart in willing the best for everyone. Of course, He will not violate anyone's freedom to reject His love. Everyone we encounter in any way is a brother or sister in Jesus. They may not have faith. They might be unbaptized. This isn't to say that they enjoy God's peace in a life indifferent to God's laws or in the next life. But it should mean that in justice, Christians should have the deepest compassion, (or empathy?), for everyone in this world of restlessness and sorrows, without ever ourselves being indifferent or triumphalist because of some self-imagined superiority. We have to want the best for those who might appear to be the farthest away from our beliefs. They are ever so close because Jesus is the God-Man. I suppose this is a truth that will be even more obvious to the Latter-day Saint who believes we are all God's spirit children. Coming at it differently, with a transcendent God, we join you, perhaps with more wonder, because of the belief that a God who is wholly content, who does not need us, would sacrifice that contentment for a time, to enter Creation, and become one of us. It is stupendous; faith alone makes it credible. Thanks for the post. Regards, Rory

In terms of LDS people, it may be the word itself that people are rejecting to due to their political affiliations, but not (yet) the concept itself in their every day life. Hard to say.

This seems to be an exercise in excuse-making. We all know certain extremists have come out against empathy in recent years, and the slow poison has worked its way into the two most conservative religious populations, white evangelicals and Latter-Day Saints. White evangelicals are probably a lost cause at this point, but I don't think the same is true of LDS people.

That’s strange to me. While charity does not require empathy, LDS have the highest rate of both volunteer hours and financial donations (outside their own community as well if iirc) They also send their kids out to serve in communities for different from their own and encouraging seniors to go as well. Then there is how we view other religious groups in the most favorable light even while being low ourselves. I wonder about the wording and whether they measured it as a principle or a behavior. It is possible we have a hard time relating to others while still caring a lot. Known lots of LDS like that including my dad, the most charitable man I have run across when it came to helping out.

Your original post is more than a little deceiving. Answering both statements in what you consider to be the negative is not determinative of "not valuing empathy." Furthermore, nowhere does it define what they mean by Evangelical. As an Evangelical, I value empathy, but perhaps also not highly enough to respond positively to both statements, especially number 2. I am very uncertain as to what it means by "a society guided by God's truth." You would have to tell me a lot more before I would affirm that statement. What does the author of the statement deem to be God's truth? Do you believe that everyone in society should be guided by "God's truth" as determined by Fundamentalists? By the doctrine of the LDS Church? By non-Christian concepts of God's truth? All society? Everyone?

"Calumny" is the act of making a false, malicious, or unverified statement about someone with the explicit intent to damage their reputation. People who go around announcing "All Muslims are 'potential' terrorists" or "All gays are 'potential' pedophiles" or "All Black men are 'potential' rapists" are making a per se prejudiced statement. Hence there is no falsity or lack of verification. And since I am attempting to persuade others to abandon this terrible sentiment, my critique of it has not been malicious. My objection to "all men are potential rapists" is based on reasoning, not on emotion. I object on similar grounds to "All Muslims are 'potential' terrorists" or "All gays are 'potential' pedophiles" or "All Black men are 'potential' rapists" and such. Would you endorse these categorical denigrations? Or, if you disagree with them, does that make you "emotionally defensive" about them? I do understand that. I just haven't seen much in the way of "a reasoned and evidence-based" approach to this topic. As it is, all you and yours have done in terms of "disagree{ing}" with my assessment is to label me a rape apologist. That is neither reasoned nor evidence-based. It's just ad hominem. “All men are potential rapists”-style claims are prejudiced because they attribute a serious moral failing or criminal propensity to an entire demographic category on the basis of sex alone. That framing treats men as a homogeneous group defined by risk rather than as individuals whose actual conduct, character, and choices vary widely. It substitutes group membership for evidence about particular people, which is the same logical structure used in other forms of stereotyping that are routinely recognized as unfair (e.g., treating members of any other large group as inherently dangerous or untrustworthy because of the actions of some subset). Most men do not commit sexual assault; the claim therefore overgeneralizes from the behavior of a minority and applies a presumption of potential guilt that would not be accepted if directed at other groups (such as Muslims, gay men, black men, etc.). The result is a collective characterization that is both factually overbroad and ethically inconsistent with judging people by their own actions. While at BYU I dated a woman who had served her mission in Marseilles. She told me that she harbored a strong and pervasive distrust and dislike of all Muslim men because she had had numerous unpleasant experiences with some Muslim men while serving as a missionary. I appreciated the impact of her - as you call it - "lived experiences and exposure to" some Muslim men in Marseille in the early 90s, but I don't think she was justified in harboring prejudiced sentiments against the entire category of all Muslim men everywhere. Different lived experiences and base-rate information are worth discussing. The difficulty is when that discussion collapses into a collective characterization of “all men” as potential rapists. That framing is not simply a heightened individual caution based on evidence about particular people or situations; it is a group-level presumption. Treating an entire demographic as inherently risky on the basis of sex is the same structure of stereotyping that is recognized as prejudiced in other contexts. Statistics about sexual assault, false reports, underreporting, or post-incident behavior can and should be examined carefully; they do not require or justify assigning potential criminality to every member of a sex. The presumption of innocence is a legal rule that governs the state’s power to punish. Outside that setting, people routinely make risk-based decisions about association, business, and trust on incomplete information. That is ordinary prudence. What is not ordinary prudence is converting incomplete information into a standing presumption that applies to an entire class of people. One can decline to associate with someone who seems sketchy without treating half the population as sketchy by default. This is not remotely accurate. It is a substantial falsehood and mischaracterization. I did nothing of the sort. The language in those disgusting texts is ambiguous, hence not "plain language." On the texts and the group chat, the request was not that they “must” be read as fully exonerating. The point was that they are relevant evidence that undercuts the narrative in the civil complaint and that they should not be set aside or reinterpreted solely to preserve the accusation. Applying ordinary evidentiary standards—looking at what was said, when, and whether it is consistent with the later account—is not “calumny.” Calling a group-level presumption about all men “prejudiced” is an evaluation of the logical structure of the claim. Those are different exercises. One can acknowledge patterns, risk, and imperfect information without adopting a categorical rule that men, as a class, are to be regarded as potential rapists. Thanks, -Smac

Lorena wrote, "We were taught in those days that there was no way to get to the highest degree in the Celestial Kingdom, only by plural marriage." Sure, small southern Utah towns during the 1870s and 1880s (St. George, Monroe, Orderville), leaders heavily emphasized plural marriage as the pinnacle of devotion, local speakers simplified the message down, and many Saints may have believed plural marriage was necessary for the highest exaltation, because that was the dominant local cultural narrative preached from the rural pulpits. However, official clarifications by the Church, even Brigham Young himself, Joseph F. Smith and Wilford Woodruff, at that time affirmed that faithful monogamous couples inherit exaltation. Once, Apostle John Holman argued that no one could achieve Celestial glory without taking multiple wives and Brigham Young directly corrected him and shut the debate down (Recorded in Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Sept 25, 1869). Brigham did feel it was sin to entertain feelings against the doctrine, meaning rebellion against God's revelations, or refusing a priesthood calling for selfish reasons. A monogamous man who lived faithfully and accepted the restoration, including the revelation "in his heart" was completely acceptable, a man who rejected the revelation or refused an assignment out of rebellion was the one under condemnation. The Discourse by Joseph F. Smith July 1878, "We are not under the necessity of practicing polygamy because God gave laws and commandments for its observance and regulation in ancient times... [I think referring to Section 132]" Let's not conflate what local Utah Saints felt and understood in 1880 with either Section 132 nor what 1880 official doctrine of the Church actually required. Lorena Washburn Larsen’s autobiography is an incredible historical document. Lorena’s accounts do actually demonstrate the historical dynamics I have been outlining. Lorena repeatedly turned down proposals, and her father supported her right to do so. Lorena didn't seem obligated into sealings. The men proposing to Lorena were prominent local figures, a bishop, a Co-op store president, a merchant who had plenty of means, and a future county judge. This fits the precise pattern of established, financially stable men who weren't necessarily proposing spontaneously, someone was suggesting specific women to men in the ward whom they believed could provide for them.

Politicians trying to control the narrative….where have I heard that before

Are you saying people that talk about "all men are potential racists" are bigoted? I thought you were above such calumnies. If you weren't so emotionally defensive about this issue, you *might, just might be able to understand that people can look at the same facts on the ground in a reasoned and evidence-based manner and disagree with your assessment. This disagreement might stem from different lived experiences and exposure to other information that they feel is more important here. Things like the likelihood of made up allegations vs the likelihood of sexual assault. Studies and personal experience with how perpetrators reach out and do damage control immediately after knowingly violating boundaries and how victims often downplay their own victimhood. These are all reasoned and evidence based things that can be studied. If you weren't so overwrought with emotion here, you would actually be able to acknowledge this. The presumption of innocence is important to you, and it is very important feature of legal system. When adjudicating social behavior and how we judge and interact with others, it's not the only useful and rational way to interact with the world. This has been explained to you over and over. If I think someone is sketchy, I'm not going to do business with them or associate with them. I'm not going to wait until they are convicted of a crime. Your first post here instructed us as to how me "must" read the victim's texts as exonerating the accusers ignoring other reasonable interpretations. Your first post here asked us to set aside the plain language of the snapchat group chat and read it in a more charitable light. Why are you allowed to call the women here bigoted for explaining that they must view all men as potential rapists, but pointing out your strong preference in reading the facts here in support of the men a "calumny?"

Ah. So it's a political poll, more than a religious one. "Empathy" might well have been seen by respondents as being used in a political context, more than a religious one. "Empathy" = open borders, lax-to-non-existent enforcement of immigration law. "Empathy" = full-throated endorsement of elective abortion, on demand, for any reason or no reason at all. And so on. The framing of the questions, then, do seem to be questionable. I find this to be substantively unhelpful. The two statements are not logical opposites. Someone can hold that empathy is generally foundational and that it can become dangerous or distorting when it pulls people away from other moral commitments (truth, justice, long-term goods, etc.). A forced choice between them collapses that possibility and turns a continuum into a binary. Asking the two items separately (with standard agree/disagree scales) would almost certainly have produced substantial overlap—people strongly endorsing both. Thanks, -Smac

Why is being dispassionate on a social media website important?

I too was curious. See here for analysis: https://prri.org/research/darkening-mood-and-shifting-political-loyalties-ahead-of-midterm-elections-findings-from-the-2026-american-values-survey/#_ftnref6 And here for the apparent source question: https://prri.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/2026-AVS-W3-Topline-V4.pdf