Trekkie With a Phaser

To most Christians, pride is considered a sin. This often means both arrogance and the pride one feels after completing a difficult task are equally evil.

When I was a Christian, I never understood why pride was supposed to be a sin, only that it was the word of God and I could not question it. After becoming an atheist I began to rethink that position and I came to the conclusion that pride is not something at all immoral and that arrogance is only an annoyance, not something inherently immoral.

After I made this realization, I began wondering what other atheists think about this. I have seen, in other threads, people say that pride is a fault. So, to anyone who feels this way, why is this the case? When you say "pride" are you using it as a synonym for arrogance? Does anyone honestly feel that being proud of one's accomplishments and abilities is something immoral or distasteful?

Queen of Swords

If pride is the warm glow I feel when someone compliments me on something I did, I can't see anything immoral or distasteful about it. I'm certainly not going to apologize for my accomplishments or pretend I had nothing to do with them - which is often what people with no healthy sense of pride in themselves end up doing.

I'll tell you why pride is a sin - people with self-respect are that much harder to rule.

meritocrat

I see nothing intrinsically wrong with pride. What is so reprehensible in being proud with one's accomplishments?

As for arrogance, well I've always thought such a feeling is linked to conceit.

Adrammalech

Pride is a sin to which christians? The ones who where tall hats and bedeck themselves in gold and jewels, or the ones that build huge crystal enclosed football stadiums?

Having a feeling of accomplishment and self respect is not even in the same solar system as being morally reprehensible and arrogant people seem to end up screwing themselves in the end anyway.

Odemus

From a Christian perspective, pride is the root sin of all other sins. Lucifer fell because of pride, and all of mankind has fallen because they believe they have found sufficiency apart from god. The serpent used pride to entice Eve to eat the apple in the garden. Pride is essentially man saying "I do not need to exist within the boundaries that god created for me". So from a theistic standpoint I can certainly understand why god would be angry with mankind for outright rebellion.The issue of pride does not pose a hang up for me. If there is a god, I am more than willing to surrender my will for whatever plan he has. I would assume that being the creator, he knows what is best for me.

diana

I concur, Odemus:

That is, I concur in the sense that QueenOfSwords hit the nail on the head. Thinking for yourself and having confidence in your own conclusions is a threat to anyone who would rule you, so yes...pride would be the root of all other "sins."

So...why can't we be sufficient apart from God? Why would he set it up so we're (presumably) codependent? That suggests to me that God himself suffers from the very character flaw that we're condemned for.

Are we, then, to do what he says and not what he does? What about that "made in the image of God" stuff? How does it fit in?

Or should I simply look at the basic theological construct--that God created us for his greater glory--accept it without question or observation that any being who'd need or desire "greater glory" has a huge problem with pride, then work from there?

d

Odemus

Nature seems to work this way. I have no dependancy on my daughter, yet she is entirely dependant on me, and I didn't even create her. Although she may act like she knows just what will make her happy, parental discernment is regularly called upon to instruct her on the damage some of the things she'd love to do will cause her.For as much as she is persistently disobedient I must be equally vigilant to keep her from harm's way.I see no reason why we wouldn't share a similar relationship with a creator.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here, but I would say "yes".

If the the being in question is entirely self sufficient, I don't think pride is even an issue. Can you see how it would be?

Kenneth

Pride is, I guess, wrong if taken to the extreme. On one end, if a person takes all the crap thrown at him, his "humility" can't be considered a virtue. You are wont to say, "have a little pride in yourself, man."

On the other end, if you think that you are the greatest, handsomest, smartest, etc., then a little humility is in order, especially when you think other people as below you.

The Church's view that pride is a sin is very narrow. It is all too black and white.

kkholiday

I learned in Catholic school that pride was indeed one of the seven deadly sins. These sins aren’t called deadly because they are the worse sins you can commit or anything. These seven deadly vices (anger, pride, greed, lust, sloth, gluttony, envy) are isolated because they are the root desires that lead to all other sins. Every transgression can be traced back to one or more of these habits.

I think sin is the wrong word for them though. When we were learning about the seven deadly sins, the teachers and priests kept trying to emphasize that these particular “sins” are really just feelings and emotions that people naturally have. They aren’t really bad in their own right, and it’s completely normal for people to experience these feelings and even, in some situations, to act on them (Jesus in the temple turning over the money changers tables was acting with righteous anger).

The reason that we pay special attention to them though and call them sins is to remind us that they can lead to problems if we let them control us. The “pride” we were talking about isn’t the self esteem pride that should be a part of well-adjusted people’s everyday lives. It’s the pride that gets in the way when we need to suck it up and apologize for hurting someone’s feelings or admit that we need help with something. Pride in itself isn’t a bad thing, but if we let it, it can consume us and negatively affect our actions.

kkholiday

It does? That doesn't make any sense to me, and I can't think of any logical person, Christian or otherwise, who would believe that.

I don't mean to get off topic, but what denomination of Christianity did you follow? I have always been taught that questioning things that you don't understand, even if it is the "word of God" is beneficial and even necessary to be a good Catholic.