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Author Topic: The Value Of Compassion  (Read 2163 times)

Donal2018

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The Value Of Compassion
« on: July 26, 2019, 01:46:32 pm »
So I was raised and educated primarily by Nuns, Vatican II Nuns, and the chief value that they taught me was Compassion. I was recently talking to an old acquaintance from the local Unitarian Universalist Church about someone we both knew and who was very cruel, verbally abusive about people, talked behind other's back, etc.

The friend said something along the lines of "but he is so intelligent", to which I responded that this made things worse. An intelligent sociopath is worse than a sociopath of below average intelligence. I do not use the term "sociopath" lightly either. This is a very toxic person with a nasty, awful personality and bad behavior (if you are interested in the topic, there is a decent book on it called "The Sociopath Next Door" by Martha Stout).

Anyway, we continued talking and they came around to the fact that this guy's intelligence and bad behavior was worse because of his intelligence and his ability to manipulate others. I stated somewhere in the conversation that I would take a Compassionate person with average Intelligence over a highly intelligent person with sociopathic tendencies.

So we boiled it down to the fact that Compassion is an important spiritual value. I also value Intelligence, but not when the Intelligence is attached to a person with a nasty, unpleasant personality.

Klaw

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Re: The Value Of Compassion
« Reply #1 on: July 26, 2019, 05:26:46 pm »
So we boiled it down to the fact that Compassion is an important spiritual value. I also value Intelligence, but not when the Intelligence is attached to a person with a nasty, unpleasant personality.

I value intelligence to a certain degree. I can only have so many conversations that include stopping to define words. I do think that the most important thing is emotional intelligence. People who can communicate their own emotions clearly and are able to understand the other persons emotions and point of view. The kind of person who is effortless to talk to and a joy to converse with.

Donal2018

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Re: The Value Of Compassion
« Reply #2 on: July 26, 2019, 05:34:57 pm »
I value intelligence to a certain degree. I can only have so many conversations that include stopping to define words. I do think that the most important thing is emotional intelligence. People who can communicate their own emotions clearly and are able to understand the other persons emotions and point of view. The kind of person who is effortless to talk to and a joy to converse with.

I appreciate that. My emotional intelligence is not native, it is learned. I am undiagnosed but think I am mildly on the autism spectrum. So my ability to connect with people and be effortless is unfortunately not the greatest. I tend to put things in rational terms, not emotional terms. I do care about people, I maybe just am not very skilled at expressing it. I am not really great at clicking with people emotionally. I have learned how to do it somewhat with experience, learned social and emotional skills. Still, I try to exercise compassion and to recognize it in others. I have seen enough people without compassion to know the difference.

Donal2018

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Re: The Value Of Compassion
« Reply #3 on: July 27, 2019, 05:39:52 pm »
So I was raised and educated primarily by Nuns, Vatican II Nuns, and the chief value that they taught me was Compassion....

So we boiled it down to the fact that Compassion is an important spiritual value...

To bring the topic around to a more pagan view- the ancient Athenians had a personification of compassion called Eleos. The Romans had a corresponding goddess called Clementia.

I find myself drawn to lesser known Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. For example, I often invoke Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, and also his daughters (Hygiea, Panacea, etc.).

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