The OED says "sympathy" is: feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune. Whereas, it defines "empathy" as: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. I have always divided them by how much intellectual versus emotional connection a person has for the other person.
Compassion, on the other hand, involves taking action on those feelings of sympathy and empathy in an effort to relieve the person.
While "thoughts and prayers" is technically an action, it is the very least action imaginable. Thoughts and prayers are really nothing more than washing one's hands of any effort beyond asking someone else to take care of it.
Praying to God to take care of something, which God has asked us to do, is rejecting God's request. How can we feel good about rejecting God's ask of us by simply handing the job back to God?
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