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feral-toes ago

People believe in their own capacity for empathy. People who three-eighths believe in their own religion understand people with weaker faith, who quarter believe. And they understand people with stronger faith, who half believe. In this way, people who three-eighths believe in their own religion, become convinced of their own powers of empathy. They think that they can empathize with both those of weaker and of stronger faith.

They don't see the narrowly limited range of their empathy. When they encounter some-one who wholly believes in their faith, the 3/8 believer misunderstands them as some-one who 1/2 believes, because that is the strongest faith that the 3/8 believer can imagine.

That leads to anomalies. Some-one who fully believes behaves differently to some-one who half believes. The 3/8 believer can see that anomaly, but such people have no doubts about their own social skills; it never occurs to them that belief can be stronger than half belief. So the anomalies get explained some other way or just ignored.