Franklin Evans in commenting on the last post suggested I host a
discussion of what these words mean because he says they are often
confused by people.

Perhaps they are.  Let’s see,

My own perspective, put somehwat briefly is this:

EMPATHY is the
ability to put oneself in another’s shoes, either other people or
myself at a future date because that future ‘me’ is different from ‘me’
right now.  This means one cannot act in one’s long term self-interest
without the ability to epathize – to foresee future effects of our
actions and to care abut them.  We care when we empathize. 

In my view empathy is the foundation for moral action – as was seen by Hume and
Adam Smith – and its lack is the defining characteristic of sociopaths.  Our
ability to empathize with others  different from ourselves, as well as how deeply we empathize, comprise sliding
scales towards of our ability to enter into “Thou” relationships. 

It has a lot to do with some kinds of understanding and nothing much to do with agreement.

UNDERSTANDING
– ‘Understanding’ is very complex. In our society this usually this
refers to a logical process by which we can see what a claim means and
the reasons behind it or it can take a more ‘gestalt’ form of seeing
the meaning of a situation.  Understanding the message of a deity takes
this form in my experience. 

Understanding can bleed over into
relying on empathy as well, for to understand another’s motives we
often need empathy. Thus, understanding is very contextual as to how it
is applied.

I can understand an argument and not agree with it. 

AGREEMENT – seems to me obvious, and there are degrees of it.  I hope you agree.