Deconversion and some doubts

[Acrobat]

Empathy is a pretty finicky son of a bitch, it’s much easier to feel it for the homeless you rarely have to deal with, than when they’re stinking up your streets. More easier to feel towards those that look like us,  and have things in common with, than with those not like us. You show white people a video of a black person getting a needle, they feel less empathy than if it were injected into black skin, and vice versa.

Stealing your wallet, far more digestible then stealing my sisters purse.

So the idea that stealing your wallet damages my biological empathy, is perhaps not as true as you hope it would be.

The white person feeling less for a black person is because they find it harder to empathise with them.
The further a person or animal is from us the less we have in common and the more difficult it is to put ourselves in their position. Its why we feel more a cat being tormented than an alligator in a similar position.

So empathy DOES indeed cover it. And explains it better than magic whatever you believe in.

Biological empathy, accounts in part at least for why I feel less discomfort in stealing your wallet, than I do my sisters. It doesn’t account for why I ought not steal in either instance, or whatever beliefs of wrongness that might be attached to such an act.

One explanation, could be that we believe it’s wrong because society, cultural has programmed us into believing that we ought not do things that are harmful to others, like Catholics have programmed the OP into believing he ought not masterbate, or have premarital sex.

If we recognize this, it might be easier to snuff out the programmed beliefs, regardless of whether we’re talking about masterbation, or doing something pleasurable that comes at the expense of some strangers pain. I might feel guilty but if I keep reminding myself that this discomfort that I feel, is just a feeling, not much different than a tummy ache, I should be able to get over the hang ups of masterbation, as well as stealing your wallet.