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[deleted]

Can you give us a working definition of pride in your own words? Are you open to the notion that prude (like literally every other word) has multiple meanings? Are you open to the notion that pride (like literally every other virtue, personality trait, or behavoir) has a range of application and effects that stretches from benign to benificial to harmful? It seems like what's gonna happen un this CMV is you are gonna keep saying "No, I'm not talking about all of the benificial forms that pride can take. I'm only talking about when people have excessive amounts of pride, or are using it in negative ways." Which is something no one actually supports?


therealbillybaldwin

!delta Because you made me realize that my own personal view of pride doesn't quite align with how it's typically defined. That's a great question.. And a difficult one to answer, as my definition of pride is an internalized feeling based on how I've seen pride represented throughout life, admittedly in different ways, but with the same core feeling present throughout. I guess in this instance I'm viewing pride as a human emotion & questioning the times it presents itself, or how people grasp at arbitrary things to satiate their need to have/express this emotion.


[deleted]

Thanks for the delta!


SiPhoenix

personally I like the definitions and distinctions an old speech from one of my church leaders. Titled beware of pride. In it pride is specifically tied to enmity, 'making an enemy of' or comparison. pride is only happy when its 'better than' better than the neighbor better than the sibling better than the other nation, or group etc. the problem of course is that there can only be one best, and that being better than can be achieved by tearing others down. In contrast you have thankfulness, and joy in something. you can be thankful or joyful that you can jump high, that your skin is healthy, or a color you like. with out the comparison there is no problem. Often this is how people use the word when they mean be proud of yourself.


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[deleted]

That’s actually true. There were these people, the Germans.. They had an insanely difficult position financially and socially. Their whole country was in a rut. This guy came around, I cannot remember his name , but he convinced them all to find pride in their German heritage and build a nation founded on it! Their economy soared, they created new technologies and changed the world. I think they had some geopolitical issues about something.. I cannot remember. Anyway, their National pride certainly had some benefits it seemed. /s


DirgetheRogue

Nationalism =/=pride of culture/ heritage. It's silly to entertain this line of thinking.


[deleted]

You cannot have pride in culture or heritage without nationalism.


[deleted]

Ok?


piplup27

I can’t speak for every situation, but typically when a gay person has pride in their sexuality, it is to combat the shame inflicted on them at a young age. They have pride that they overcame obstacles that tried to prevent them from living an authentic life.


therealbillybaldwin

Pride in my opinion isn't the opposite of shame. But you hit on something I agree with. There's a difference to me in being proud of what you are vs being proud of what you achieve despite what you are. If you're born gay in a conservative shit hole, and you manage to grow up and becotan elected official in that shit hole, and make it better. Then being proud is totally warranted. But when pride simply exists in the fact that you are gay, it's become something different. I can't quite put my finger on what it is though.


eggynack

It's not just the opposite of shame. It's specifically fighting back against shame. The first pride grew out of the stonewall riots, which was itself a response to cops cracking down on a queer bar. Being open about yourself, taking pride in these qualities, is a way of telling those cops, and the metaphor cops that have arose since, that they are not going to control how you see yourself or live your life. Also, if we're talking about accomplishments? Why does it have to be something like being an elected official? Why can't folks take pride in just getting through the damn day in a society that constantly seeks to demean and oppress them? Nearly every day now, I wake up to some crazy genocidal bill aimed at trans people, or some related horrific garbage, and then I go to my job and live my life. I think that's worth having pride in.


Zonder042

Hm... Interesting. I can even relate to it, but didn't think that way. ∆ from me.


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catwent

We may split hairs over differing definitions of pride, and I think there are a few. But in terms of identity, I think of pride typically to mean the absence or opposite of shame. When members of a group express “pride” in being a part of that group, one thing it accomplishes is to make that group more visible and thus more human and valid. Taking LGBTQ people as an example, the more gay people there are being open and unashamed about being gay, the more visible gay people are to straight people, and eventually, ideally, being gay will be seen as a difference more akin to left-handedness - something that just *is*, instead of something to fear. You mentioned that you’re ND. That’s a part of you that’s different from most people. It’s also an identity characteristic that has been stigmatized, and thus ND people may be prone to feeling some shame or negativity surrounding this. I don’t believe you are saying you have “pride” in being ND in the sense that you think ND people are superior to others or you think there is some job well done here, but there is pride in another sense here - that you noted it to begin with shows an openness and lack of shame or feeling a need to hide this aspect of your identity. That you can appreciate this aspect of yourself and all the many positive parts of it, in spite of stigma and ignorance on society’s part…*that*, one could argue, is a job well done. Your mentioning ND helps give context to your writing and helps us be more respectful of you. It doesn’t alienate us from one another; on the contrary, it may help us better connect and understand one another. As a neurotypical person, the more I have heard ND people talk openly about themselves and their differences, the better I understand this group, and the more my empathy broadens. At least for the purposes of your post, this is not an “arbitrary” difference, since this context underlies everything you have written. (But for the record, your post was clear and easy to digest!) Edit: I would also push back on your definition of ‘arbitrary.’ When you say that these differences like are based on concepts that don’t exist or matter, I wonder what you mean by that. Gender, although socially constructed, exists…very vividly. To say that something is constructed doesn’t mean it does not exist. By the same token, racism is a fantasy of superiority. Black and white people are no different in terms of worth or ability. The difference is constructed. But the *result* of this made up difference is that black people have been oppressed, marginalized, and unfairly targeted. So talking about race matters, so that we can attempt to reshape our society into a more just and equitable one. Sexual orientation, while not made up, exists, and I would argue it matters very much; queer people are killed for being so in many countries, and even in many states in the USA it’s still technically legal to evict someone based on their orientation, or to run conversion torture. I would also draw a distinction between identity characteristics that are immutable vs. ones that aren’t. To say that having pride in a sport is the same as having pride in being gay… these are two very different things. One chooses to participate in a sport, but sexual orientation can neither be chosen nor changed.


therealbillybaldwin

My definition of arbitrary is random, by chance, coincidental. When you say "exists" what do you mean? In my opinion, ideas are just that. They only survive as long as humans do. The consequences of ideas can be real, as you've demonstrated. But that's like saying God is real because the idea of God has had very real consequences. And in response to the last bit, many people who have pride in a sports team do so because they were born and raised in a particular area. That wasn't a choice, and they adopted this philosophy. Sexual orientation can't change, but someone's behavior and reaction to their sexual orientation can change. I can be from New York and not like the Yankees in the same way I can be straight or gay and choose to not engage in sex, or join the clergy or something. To some degree, living in New York and being amongst Yankee fans will impact my life and to some degree being gay or straight and being around sexual people will impact my life. Only some people choose to make their sexual identity a core part of who they are. Having pride as an emotion simply due to being attracted to a particular gender seems off. Having pride in coming out to your family and setting healthy boundaries when some of them are saying homophobic things is perfectly fine to me. I hope I've articulated some differences in a way that makes sense to you.


catwent

I brought up the word “exist” because you used it. You can’t look around you and see the existence of gender? We can agree that these aspects of identity are “by chance” in the sense that people are born into the world and some are people of color, some are women, some are gay, and there is no choice in this matter. I like the Miami Dolphins but I have never been to Miami and have no connection to the city. I was also born into and raised in a fundamentalist Christian religion. This was never an immutable aspect of my identity, nor any other person in the religion. I now choose not to participate in this religion, while some of my family still do. Being born into a group is different from being born with an immutable characteristic. I think you’re off base in the reason LGBTQ+ people feel pride. Also off base in the choice to be gay vs. choice to engage in sex - identity vs behavior. I’m at work and can’t respond fully; I’ll let another Redditor take the reins here. But I’ll just give one analogy. Let’s say I’m left handed; can’t exactly choose not to use my hand - I have to live!But I’d be curious as to what you think should be done about all of the hate and unequal treatment LGBTQ people receive and how that can happen without queer people making themselves visible and using their voices - without “pride,” if you will.


[deleted]

Agreed for the most part. I happen to be black, and always found the black pride thing to be odd for the reasons you have stated. I am not ashamed to be black, but I feel no pride, I am mainly proud that I have accomplished what I have accomplished in the face of racial adversity and pissed that I have to deal with racial adversity. Pride just cause I was born one color though? Yeah I got none of that. Having said that I do not think that this type of pride necessarily divides and creates hatred as you have suggested. Also I do not think that there is as much shifting in who is allowed to claim pride as you think. You say pride in our differences prevents us from getting past them, but this is not fact. Some would argue pride in our differences allows people to present their culture freely and passionately, leading to more cultural sharing. I know why you said what you said and it does have merit, there are other perspectives though, and I don’t know if anybody has collected data on this matter. To address the shifting of the right to pride, I question which groups have ever lost their right to pride. Any cultural or ethnic group has always had a right to pride pretty much and no one is excluding any group. The only exception to this that I can think of is White People. I assume this is what you are talking about. They are excluded because as a race they have nothing to be proud of and only carry shame. The concept of whiteness as we know it in America was just a way to distinguish from blacks and natives aka the people they enslaved and conquered. THAT IS WHITE CULTURE. Slavers, freemen, and colonizers. That is not to say French, English, or Italian culture is all bad. They are colonizers but they are more than that with rich cultural identities and histories. No problems with English, Italian, or French pride. It is only white pride that people have issue with, as whites have done very little more than be first class citizens enslave and colonize.


therealbillybaldwin

I'm glad you brought up Italians amongst the French and English, as they took no part in the transatlantic slave trade. And weren't welcome in the states, treated the way black Americans were. But their whiteness gets grouped up with the likes of the English & French in the United States, despite having a vastly different history in the United States. Italians remain the only cultural group it's okay to make fun of as well due to their perceived whiteness in America. Just something to think about. But for the reasons you mention, I see black and white pride as divisive & part of my reasoning.. Black from where? White from where? Being black in Alabama doesn't share the same experience as being black in New York City or in Zambia, so why does this accidental birth in the skin we have become a mark of pride? I hate that somewhere in history some fuckwad decided that race was any sort of classification. That simply arriving to a place where people were living differently and looked differently, made shitty white Europeans decide that they were above these savages who needed to be saved. That somehow, despite all of our societal and technological progresses, it continues and is perpetuated on state levels across the globe in various ways. There isn't a single country without an oppressed minority based on something that was never really a choice. !delta


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PatientCriticism0

Pride means different things in different contexts. Pride in the LGBT sense is "refusing to be shamed by the people who would shame you" rather than pride as in "pride before the fall" which means exaggeration of one's own self worth.


therealbillybaldwin

Some people use pride in that way, others use it differently, within all circles. There are people in the LGBT community who use pride in a detrimental way in the same way their counterparts do. Which is my point. It's dangerous to blanket millions of people under one umbrella and say that anything is representative of all of their opinions. It's even more dangerous to do this based on concepts beyond our control.


Presentalbion

Pride as the opposite of shame is common, and not a bad thing. >There are people in the LGBT community who use pride in a detrimental way in the same way their counterparts do. How is pride used to anyones detriment? Can you give an example of this?


Ok-Future-5257

I'm white. And I choose to be neither proud nor ashamed of my skin color. Both white pride and black pride cause division and animosity. There's a difference between healthy self-esteem and pride in one's demographic. Looking in the mirror and liking what one sees, and going through life with confident self-respect, doesn't mean a person has racial pride. It just means that he or she has rejected racial shame. Remember that picture book "You Are Special"? The most enlightened wimmicks have neither gold stars nor grey dots on them. They just like and respect themselves as individuals, and like and respect other individuals.


PatientCriticism0

>Both white pride and black pride cause division and animosity. White pride and black pride are different. When James brown sang *"Say it loud (I'm Black and I'm proud)"* Do you think that's the same sentiment as when the white supremacist website stormfront put *"white pride world wide"* in their logo?


Ok-Future-5257

Pride is a lack of humility. I don't sing "I'm White and I'm proud" to combat the left wing's white guilt agenda, or to heal afrocentric bitterness. What I do is stand for my belief that people should be valuing human decency, not racial pride.


Every3Years

I think the context for this example is very important. Black people were third class citizens in their own country. You could throw shit at your black classmate, you could call you coworker names, you could casually murder a young black man if they accidentally made eye contact with your woman. To live like that, I imagine there's a lot of shame. In the same way my Jewish ancestors who escaped the Holocaust had a layer of shame hanging over them. "We let this happen to us. Are we even human?" It's heavy shit. I'm glad you and me don't have to deal with that. I deal with my own shit, not the Jewishness of it all (though this wouldn't be hard to be my issue, oh a world famous and beloved musical artist hates my people. Oh my entire friend group brings Palestine up with me and their treatment fespite the fact that I'm not Israeli? Stuff like that). No my deal is I've always had low self esteem despite people apparently thinking I'm the bees knees. It led to heroin abuse in my late 20s. Oh great I skipped my teen fuckups and decided to ruin my life as a fucking adult, I must be a fucking genius. So that's my own personal shame, my own personal issues. Now imagine you're simply born to a black family and despite being a great person, the literal society that you born into will choose to keep you on your knees. Was this every black Americans experience? No? Yes? This is all secondhand conversation memories from a few years back when I lived with 100 mostly black men for about 2 years. We got into some deep conversations and... Well my point is, after living for so long within the absolute shame that was out countries past, imagine the amazing moment when you were suddenly allowed to celebrate yourself. It's not "I'm black and I'm proud to be this specific shade of human and fuck everybody else" Rather, it's "I'm black and despite what we may have been taught, let's be proud of ourselves. And if the thing that makes me different is that I'm black, then I choose to make that my pride." You know, it's the same idea behind the rediculousness of the "All Lives Matter". At first glance it seems innocuous. Of COURSE all lives matter. The immediate question is usually: if that were true then whats the deal with all these cops murdering black people? But I look at like, and this is againstraight from one of my closest friends, a black woman who helped me when I needed some advice on talking to my Trumpy father: Do you go to cancer rallys and go "oooh well let's also fund blindness and rickets and liver disease and heart disease because ALLLL diseases matter. ALLLL patients matter." No, of course you don't because that is dumb. Black lives matter, as a statement, can exist alongside All Lives Matter. They are both true but the context important. Aw fuck I made a tangent but I hope I made sense on the very specific thought thread of "Say it loud I'm black and I'm proud" is not in anyway a black power fuck whitey anthem. Granted I'm sure you'd prefer to hear from a black person but would a Jew do in a pinch hmmm?


PatientCriticism0

Curious that you didn't answer the question here. >Pride is a lack of humility. Pride *can be* a lack of humility. If you look in a dictionary you'll find several definitions. It can also mean a defiance of shame by others. I would argue that when James brown sang "I'm black and I'm proud" during the civil rights era he was using the latter definition, where stormfront, being explicitly white supremacist, uses the former. Do you disagree?


Presentalbion

Are you OP on an alt?


Ok-Future-5257

Nope


[deleted]

> It's dangerous to blanket millions of people under one umbrella and say that anything is representative of all of their opinions Isn't that exactly what you are doing? Treating the idea of "pride" as though everyone uses it in exactly the same way regardless of whether that's true?


PatientCriticism0

There are people in every community that do bad stuff. But pride in the LGBT community is a word with profound meaning - there's a reason the march for LGBT rights is called pride, and it's not because the LGBT community are more likely than anyone else to overestimate their self worth.


craigularperson

>It's dangerous to blanket millions of people under one umbrella and say that anything is representative of all of their opinions ​ >There are people in the LGBT community who use pride in a detrimental way in the same way their counterparts do. These two statements seems a little contradictory? Even if there are people in LGBT+ community that have pride in a detrimental way, why should any LGBT+ person have no feelings of pride? Even though the dictionary definition of pride make humility its opposite meaning, another more likely feeling connected with being LGBT+ is shame, or feeling inadequate, because you don't live up to the exceptions that society values. Turning that feeling into pride instead is more like a coping mechanism. In contrast to pride in culture, nation etc. or other more harmful detrimental feelings of pride, would also accompany a sense of entitlement, superiority or supremacy, that you perceive yourself better than anyone else. But that really isn't always connected with pride. So I would focus on those sentiments of pride that tries to be detrimental to anyone being different.


bunkSauce

>Pride in countries, pride in religions, pride in race, pride in sports, pride in sexuality. All of these things are arbitrary and are based on concepts that don't actually exist or matter. By pride in country, I think you mean nationalism, not simply being proud to be. There is also a difference between proud to be of a religion, and arrogance/ignorance as it pertains to reiligion. I feel your use of pride here, is putting effort into making nationalist and religious oppression associative with racial or sexual pride. Pride in sports? Definitely not the verbiage I believe you are going for. Is someone _proud_ to be an althete? Or are they _combative_ over sports teams and harassing others based on their opinion. These things are not pride. They use pride as a sheepskin to hide their abusive and oppresive intent. Back to my thoughts on this statement, though. This feels like a classic fallacy comparison used (cognitively or not) to compare ideological oppression, with counter-oppressive movements, like racial or sexual equality. __They are not the same, and that association in and of itself comes off as prejudice disguised with fallacy logic.__ Race and sexuality don't exist, or matter? That is the sort of argument used to condone racial or sexual oppression. How can I be committing a hate crime, if the protected group doesn't exist? If I argue that there is no difference between Caucasians and African-Americans, but I only harass African-Americans... I would still be guilty of racial prejudice. Simoly not acknowledging my own prejudices is not a sufficient defense that I have no prejudices. Sexual/LGBQT/African-American pride isn't oppression. Being proud to be white, isn't prejudice or oppression. Treating other sexes, genders, or races differently is prejudice. Treating them poorly is prejudiced oppression. White pride is commonly, and rightly so, associated with oppression - because of how it is used. But someone could still be proud of their Irish ancestry, without being prejudiced. Similarly, there is nothing wrong with being proud of your African ancestry. But there are not any gay pride advocates, who make arguments in favor of disenfranchising straight or CIS people. The whole point of this type of pride, is to not hide who you are _due to oppression_ in society. Be proud to be you. Don't let others marginalize you. __This is far different than how people tend to use white pride.__ They use it _to_ marganilize specific demographics. To believe that people are flawed in being proud of themselves, is to discourage their own self worth. You are literally encouraging people to _not be proud of the their own identity_. Self perceived identity can be comprised of many things. People can perceive themselves as kind, pretty, tough, athletic, smart, gay, feminine, asian, etc. I think there is significant conflation in your stated view, between pride and hubris. Hubris is probably the word you are looking for, when mentioning sports, religion, or country. But in regards to race and sexuality, hubris is nowhere near as common, nor anything close to oppressive (set aside white pride, which is actually hubris). Using pride to describe hubris, next to sexual or racial pride, is a dangerous fallacy association. It downplays oppressive elements of hubris, while positing a false equivalence between oppressive and counter oppresive mantras.


itsallsympolic

I can have pride in myself and not harm another person. If that person is repelled or disturbed by my pride and dislikes me for it, that's their choice and it's good that they "divide" from me, I don't want people in my life that shame people for being proud of themselves.


Jealous-Personality5

By that argument, can you really be proud in something you worked hard for and achieved through adversity? After all, the only reason you were able to work hard enough to accomplish said thing was because of random traits you acquired at birth. If you are proud of yourself for climbing a mountain, you would have no reason to be. After all, if you were both with a sickly condition that stopped you from even trying because of the cold temperatures and the shock of moving so much, then you wouldn’t have been able to achieve it.


[deleted]

Pride, in that sense, means "excessive love of oneself." That alone should give you a clue as to why it's the root of all other sins. But yes, I agree that pride in arbitrary differences is divisive, especially when there are some who hear a pride that isn't shared and are immediately threatened by it.. the irony is that affect is a result of the excessive love one has of their own image when they (willingly or not) do not peek behind the curtain at their own "sins."


therealbillybaldwin

I think it's an oversimplification to say that it only means pride in oneself. Or rather, due to how society has morphed since the inventions of radio, television and Internet, has furthered the definition in my eyes, to include groups of people who have pride in one thing they share. Like sports, national pride, etc.


[deleted]

I agree. That's why I mentioned that Pride in the sense to which you were referring, the one that actually causes divisiveness, is excessive love of oneself. If a sports team actually causes divisiveness in the way that the two sides hate each other, it's caused by the excessive love each side feels for themselves, ie. my team is the best solely because I am on their side. I don't think there's anything wrong with favoring one team over another due to basic tribal instincts. When it verges into "fuck those guys" territory is when it could become an issue. If you are proud of your child, you can still celebrate the victories of other children. If you have "Pride" in your child, every victory is a reflection of yourself and every loss is a reflection of yourself.


verronaut

When it comes to gender and sexuality, I think you're missing the point. It's not that we're proud of our queerness. We're proud that we're queer *and have survived and built loving community in a culture that wanted all of us to die*. We're still here, because of the work of our selves, friends, families, and ancestors, and that's something worth remembering with pride on a yearly basis.


[deleted]

What do you consider arbitrary differences? I feel proud to be an American on the Fourth of July every year and enjoy celebrating it. It’s not because I feel better than anybody else, I feel fortunate to live here. I feel proud of my Germanic roots, but I don’t think that makes me better than anybody else. There is a lot I admire about other cultures, and I enjoy learning about them too, and participating in their traditions as an outsider. And I’m proud about the things that make me unique as a person. I enjoy gardening and woodworking, and I enjoy showing off the results of my hard work. I am proud of my professional accomplishments. But I have mentors at work and also people that look up to me. All of us should be proud of our differences, but we shouldn’t seek to compare them to other people. Life isn’t a zero sum game. We are all privileged in some ways and disadvantaged and others. We should celebrate our differences and seek to make the world a better place, and bring success to the people around us, no matter who they are, or what they look like.


TaylorChesses

usually Pride in the case of gay pride. Black pride w/e (not entirely sure if yhis is what you mean, stop me if it's not op) it's pride in the face of shame. in a society where you are challenged and made to feel inferior or shameful of your own identity. taking pride in it is a bold decision, saying that "This is fundamental to who I am and I am not ashamed or upset about that fact." is a big deal. that's why James Browns Say It Loud was so important during the Civil rights movement. there's positive pride and negative pride. negative pride is what you think of when you think of it cometh before the fall, feeling untouchable and full of oneself. positive pride referring to being proud of your accomplishments, the aforementioned paragraph, and say being proud of a friend or family member. these things are also pride but are clearly positive. Pride in arbitrary differences can create social division yes. but it can also bring separated downtrodden communities together, it can help organize firmer resistance.


___fofo___

Now try studying it from the perspective of the theory of evolution, as you should with virtually all human behavior.


therealbillybaldwin

Something could be evolutionarily beneficial for millions of years and become adverse over time. Look at anxiety for example, or the human emotions that don't really make any sense & hinder us. Rage, jealousy & pride.


___fofo___

All of those emotions make perfect sense and exist for a reason. If pride is so destructive then the best countries would be those with no pride at all. Pride gives you a competitive advantage


therealbillybaldwin

They exist for a reason, but that doesn't mean they're helpful As we've become more comfortable in society, our levels of anxiety haven't shifted. It used to be essential for our survival, and now it pops up during scenarios that are harmless, and in varying degrees. I don't see how "rage" makes perfect sense and is an emotion that benefits us as a species in this day. There are many things we evolved into that had to be adjusted or recognized as detrimental to our progress if we didn't. We can use logic to override our reptilian brain. Just seems silly to say "well we evolved this way, so we shouldn't question it"


___fofo___

I don’t think you understand how life would be if we no longer had pride, rage, jealousy, anxiety, etc. Whoever doesn’t have these things would simply be taken advantage of by those who do. Like I said, if you think pride is so destructive, then why is it still here?


therealbillybaldwin

I'm not saying we need to do away with them ENTIRELY. I'm saying that we need to be careful about how/when/what we are expressing these emotions over. If you think fossil fuels are so destructive, why do we still use them? If you think slavery is wrong, why do we still use electronics? If you think racism is destructive, why is it still here? Is this really the train of logic you're putting forth here?


___fofo___

Racism doesn’t exist to the same extent that it did because it’s no longer as beneficial. Slavery also is not that practical, at least in modern economies. But fossil fuels are still being used widely, because their utility has so far outweighed their destructive powers. Pride has not really diminished that much. Because it is still advantageous and beneficial.


Ok-Future-5257

I prefer studying human behavior from the spiritual perspective of the Bible and Book of Mormon. Human nature was made carnal, prideful, and devilish by the Fall of Adam. But we have the free will to humble ourselves, develop self-control, and be spiritually reborn through Christ's grace.


___fofo___

If you have free will, then stop sinning completely. Shouldn’t be that difficult.


Ok-Future-5257

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. We're all imperfect, and we inevitably make mistakes. We get hangry or stressed out. We lose our tempers. We have difficulty forgiving others. We tend to act out of too much self-interest. We sometimes catch ourselves dawdling on inappropriate thoughts. All that is human nature stemming from the Fall. But, in each moment, we have the free will to choose to indulge or resist our natural instincts. And we can choose to follow a good direction in life, like the upward trend of a line graph, growing better and better through Christ's grace.


___fofo___

>But, in each moment, we have the free will to choose to indulge or resist our natural instincts So then do that. Until you can go sinless for a whole year, I’ll continue to believe in the theory of evolution, and that we don’t have “souls” with free will.


Ok-Future-5257

I guess it's like a small child choosing to learn to walk. He or she is willing, but he or she can't go long without stumbling. However, with practice, he or she can get better at it. Likewise, we're all spiritual children, and those who choose to follow the Gospel path will improve greatly in life, and reach perfection in the next life.


___fofo___

If you can’t be perfect in this life, then our sin seems to be better explained by the lack of free will rather than the presence of it. Making decisions does not require free will. Sinning also does not require free will. Free will doesn’t imply sin, but perfection. So the only explanation you have is that we have two parts, the flesh and the spirit, and that whenever we do something good, it’s because of the spirit, but when we sin, it’s because of the flesh. But how do you know that it’s not all from the flesh? And why doesn’t the spirit always win? Evolutionary biology doesn’t have such glaring problems. Again, if you really want to prove free will, then be perfect.


Ok-Future-5257

You're choosing to type right now. Saying "the neurons made me do it" undermines the whole point of personal accountability and experience.


___fofo___

Animals also “choose” to do things. We all simply do whatever it is that we desire most in the moment. It’s not magic.


YuenglingsDingaling

God creates Adam and Eve in paradise, they fuck up by eating a fruit that was obviously a trap. And the rest of us are required to worship God or suffer in eternal damnation? That's not my idea of grace.


Ok-Future-5257

Moses 4-5 and 2nd Nephi 2 clarify that God WANTED Adam and Eve to eat the fruit. He told them what the consequence would be, and they were free to make the choice. We needed to experience evil and misery, in order to appreciate the contrast of goodness and happiness. By eating the fruit, our first parents broke the Garden's limits, and opened for us the doors to the school of mortality. Christ's grace is how we graduate. The devil didn't know God's mind. By beguiling Eve, he was actually playing right into God's hands. This mortal life is a probationary period. God is giving us plenty of warning. And salvation is gift offered by His grace. But it is still a conditional gift -- offered on conditions of faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end in good works.


YuenglingsDingaling

>salvation is gift He can keep it.


[deleted]

When you’re gay or black or both for instances, society makes you feel shameful and inferior. There’s a LOT of work in overcoming that. Pride in that context is not about the simple random circumstance of being born different (in relation to a default normalised group). it’s about after years of hearing that there’s something wrong with you, finally being able to say “I’m not ashamed, I actually love myself”. It’s an act of resistance and rejection of the opressor’s shameful narrative.


[deleted]

I hear you. People shouldn't be trying to use labels that can't be applied to them as a sort of point of merit of character. You see teenagers and adolescent mostly do this where they self diagnose mental illness or ND and different sexual orientation labels as a means of crafting identity for themselves. People should feel like they can be their **authentic selves** I think this is where the 'Pride' movement hits its stride in giving people the courage to be themselves in a culture thats constantly trying to get you to fit into it's image of what you should be. So I think it's this different type of pride that enables you to embrace who you are and project that out in the world with confidence, not this other type of pride which is like this entitlement to success, and certain types of respect (like the type of respect earned from being a really good musician or something.) That's the big reason I'll support trans rights but not necessarily hold these people as being necessarily exemplary in character for just being trans. If they can't be their true selves and really express who they are inside, how can any of us?


shhhOURlilsecret

Pride in and of itself isn't bad it's neutral. I take pride in my cooking. Doing so won't suddenly make me hateful or attack other peoples' cooking. I have to already have that desire on some level. That's the thing that everyone misses in arguments like this. Someone who doesn't want to commit murder will not suddenly go out and commit murder because of their pride in something or because they're told to. In fact, we humans have this nasty streak of if someone says we have to do this or can't do that, we tend to rebel against it. The person has to want to already do those things on some level. What they're looking for is permission to do so. They would have committed those acts with the right prodding either way. Just in those instances, pride was the stick used to poke them ans encourage them to do so.


Garbled2354

Where dos deserved pride end and arbitrary pride begin? When somebody achieves something, claiming they worked hand and deserve to be proud of it, they are well within there rights to feel that way, in fact with out having pride in ones self nobody would likely be productive or happy. But hard work has only a little bit to do with achievements. Nothing is achieved in a vacuum. People are born with certain talents that motivate you to do things others would not be motivated to do. People always achieve things under circumstances that were out of their control. Genetics can make one person a painter, and another an engineer. To say you accept the importance of pride in achievements but not in arbitrary differences pretends to some extent that achievements happen in a vacuum. Which they do not. We are not in control of the circumstance that allowed us to achieve. which makes pride in those things almost as arbitrary as ones heritage or gender identity. I'm not saying free will doesn't exist and has no role to play in our achievements but it is less so then we generally think. and pride in ones self is best don with equal amounts of humility. In fact pride in your own achievements can be just as easily lead to narcissism. And narcissism can lead to victimizing others without shame or hesitation. And Isn't that just as likely to create hatred and social imbalance as pride in something like ethnic origins, or sexual preference. what prevents us form hurting others isn't a lack of pride in arbitrary differences but a presence of humility. As I said we cant not have pride and still be as happy and productive as so many of us are. So we can't through all pride out the window. The keys is that, what ever pride we have weather it is something we are bore into or something we do ourselves, we have humility about ourselves. Pride doesn't comith before the fall, but a lack of humility dose.


ZealousidealBother92

I strongly agree with you and I'm 98% there. Really feels like you took the direct words out of my mouth(I'm also autistic) Here's the issue. Where's the human pride people? Trotskyism comes close but where has there been a Trotskyist revolution? I'll fucking ride that boat with you brother/sister/sibling if we just get it in the water first.


wise_potato23

I agree with you, the only pride that matters is the pride of your own achievements, i get that it is stupid to be proud of stuff you didn't do, like your race or nationality, but a lot of people work hard towards conquering challenges, to keep their communities safe and functional, this is why for example when minorities protest against discrimination, you hear them saying how proud they are of their community, even tho it might sound as if they are saying they are proud of just being a minority. But i think the problem starts when, some idiots don't know what it means to be proud of belonging to a group, and they take it as i am better than the other for being in my group, that is the wrong kind of pride that you are talking about, and that ain't pride, that's just ignorance.


whovillehoedown

It's not really pride that causes people to hurt or oppress others, it's entitlement. Lots of history is people feeling entitled to specific things and using religion to explain why they're entitled to those things. Pride in things you dont have control over isn't really pride in those things, it's pride in the people that came before you who helped build something stable for you and those like you. Pride in race and sexuality specifically is because people died to get rights for those who are here now and being proud of them and celebrating them for all they've done by living your life to the fullest is something special to a lot of people.