Abstract
Recent studies in the field of cognitive science of religion have proposed a connection between religious beliefs, theory of mind, and prosocial behaviour. Theory of mind appears to be related to empathy and compassion, and both to a special sensitivity towards unjust suffering, which could trigger a religious crisis, as has often happened and is revealed in the “theodicy question”. To test such relationships, adolescents were surveyed by an exploratory questionnaire. The collected data point to a more complex, less linear interaction, which depends more on cultural factors and reflexive elaboration than cognitive structures. In general, compassion and outrage before unjust suffering appear to be quite related; compassion is related to religious practice and even more to spiritual perception.
Highlights
Introduction and State of the ArtA widely assumed tendency links compassion with a sharper sensitivity before unjust suffering and evil
The rationale is quite clear: Religion is related to theory of mind, or to the ability to grasp other people’s mental states (Caldwell-Harris et al 2011; Norenzayan et al 2012), or even to prosocial coordination and enhancement (Bloom 2012); we could expect that religious people would be more sensitive towards others, and especially towards their sufferings or hardship
The last outcomes indicated quite clearly that the sense of compassion appeared to be unrelated to religious beliefs for those in the same cultural background, and increased only in Muslim youngsters; the sense of scandal was disconnected from religion for the Catholic majority and 17% of unbelievers, but made a difference among Muslim students, who appeared to be less scandalised in their religious beliefs by unjust suffering
Summary
A widely assumed tendency links compassion with a sharper sensitivity before unjust suffering and evil It is less clear how both feelings are related to a more religious or spiritual sense, but intuitively, we presume that religious believers should be more affected by the scandal than unjust pain could elicit. Several questions arise in those cases, and the relationship between compassion/empathy, religion/spiritual sensitivity, and scandal before evil probably follows different paths and is rendered in more models. The relationship between religious/spiritual beliefs, compassion, and the scandal of evil is far from clear and unproblematic This relationship is possibly much more complex, and it depends on more factors and variables. The available data point to a greater complexity in the way religion, spirituality, empathy, and theodicy scandal interact or are perceived by those young cohorts, opening new questions and deeper research on such an intriguing interaction
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