Why Religious People Really ARE Compassionate AND Why Atheists are (more likely) Codependent

Last updated on: July 2, 2013 at 9:02 pm by Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak

Why Religious People Really ARE Compassionate AND Why Atheists are (more likely) Codependent 2013-07-02T21:02:25-05:00 Rachael Popcak and Dr. Gregory Popcak

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

About a year ago, the media was all abuzz with a study that purported to show that religious people were less compassionate than non-believers.

You can imagine why the press loved this research. It showed the moral superiority of the godless against the godly. I wasn’t blogging here at the time, but I remembered the study well because I discussed on my radio program. Based on the methodology of the study–which involved participants watching an emotionally manipulative video (a’la that cloying, Sarah McLachlan stray dog commercial that even the dogs thought was over-the-top) and then being asked to give a certain number of phony dollar bills to a stranger–I surmised that there was more to the story than meets the eye.

I hypothesized that the reason non-believers gave more in the study is that they don’t have as well-developed a set of principles and are more prone to emotional giving. Believers, I guessed, would be more likely to be more consistently and reliably charitable as a matter of principle than non-believers. I suggested that the study really showed that it was easier to emotionally manipulate agnostics/atheists into giving whether it did any good or not as opposed to believers who probably tended to give to causes they actually believed in and thought mattered.

Well, a year later, Popcak’s First Law* was, once again, borne out.

Today, a new study was released showing that indiscriminate compassion is associated with poor self-control. Traditionally, psychologists believed that people’s default response was selfishness and that being “pro-social” (doing selfless things) took self-control. It turns out that we’re actually wired in such a way that compassion–not selfishness–is the natural response, but it takes self-discipline to wield compassion in a manner that is healthy instead of merely…codependent.

Codependency is a word that is thrown around a lot. It’s gotten to the point that anytime someone does something they don’t really want to do for someone else, they think they’re being co-dependent. That’s not true. Codependency is insidious compassion. It is compassion that makes bad things worse. If I am married to an alcoholic and she comes home and passes out in a pool of her own vomit I may feel the urge to clean her up and put her in a nice warm, comfy bed but if I give into that urge, I take away her ability to see the seriousness of her problem. If she wakes up covered in her own filth, she has to confront the fact that there is something seriously wrong in her life and she may actually seek help. But if I–out of misguided compassion (i.e, co-dependency)– let her wake up in a warm bed, all she remembers is partying hard and waking up in a warm bed. *What’s the problem?*Let’s party!

Being authentically compassionate take self-discipline and courage. It requires a willingness to do hard things and, sometimes, tick people off–if truly working for their best interest requires it. Codependency, by contrast, is just doing what your gut says is compassionate whether it is helpful or not. It is little more than a survival reaction. Why? Because If someone is hurting, they are more prone to lash out and behave erratically. If I behave sympathetically and deferentially–whether it actually helps anything or not–I’m less likely to get hurt.

I submit that what the original study showed was not that religious people were not compassionate, but that that religious people have a greater incentive to develop better control over all of the primal impulses, including the primal impulse to self-preserving pity.

None of that is to say that religious people are never co-dependent. That wouldn’t be true at all. But it is to say that someone, like a seriously religious person, who has good reasons to think through moral dilemmas and examine their conscience on a regular basis, is probably at least somewhat more likely to have a more sophisticated sense of compassion than someone who didn’t.

Aside from any academic interest, the takeaway from this is that co-dependency isn’t the same thing as compassion. Compassion is intentional and, sometimes, it is hard. Co-dependency is simply an unsophisticated, primal urge that employs pity as a means of self-preservation. Likewise, one’s tendency to indulge an impulse to indiscriminate, self-preserving, pity also probably runs a fairly high risk of being unable to resist other drives (anger, sex, hunger) as well.

Knowing the difference between real compassion and codependency can make all the difference between a healthy and an unhealthy relationship

*Popcak’s First Law: The tongue-firmly-in-cheek axiom that states, “Given enough time and enough information, everyone will eventually come to see that Popcak’s been right all along.”

Depression

faith

codependence

Previous Post

July 2, 2013

Radiopalooza

Next Post

July 3, 2013 Celebrating the Sacraments in the "Domestic Church"

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Anxiety atheism Attachment Church Conflict Resolution Counseling Depression faith Family forgiveness Gender Happiness Health Humor Marriage Mental Health Mental Illness Mindfulness morality More2Life Radio Parenting Personal Wellness Personality Disorder Popcak Psychology News reconciliation Relationship religion self-help Sexuality Spirituality stress theology of the body Uncategorized

Select a Month June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which of the following is NOT part of the armor of God?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Helmet of Salvation Sword of the Spirit Belt of Truth Shield of Knowledge