AJP wrote:The point I am trying to make is that the Pride Cycle isn't something that we must always be caught in. It can be escaped. People in the city of Enoch learned from their mistakes and escaped the cycle. The Nephites did not. If you want to look at historical examples of the Pride Cycle you can choose just about any major civilization. Most major empires start with a time when they are a smaller but ambitious, motivated people. After they rise to power they experience a golden age of prosperity. Then they fall into pride and complacency and abandon the things that made them strong. This eventually turns to decay and the empire becomes a shadow of its former self.
If you only examine the idea of the pride cycle in the terms of nations you miss the main benefit. We experience the pride cycle in our own lives. Sometimes when things are going well we get cocky and that results in a fall. After that fall we see where we went wrong and fix the problem. Until we get cocky again. If we try to humble ourselves and learn from our mistakes we can begin to escape this cycle.
Also, you said you wanted evidence from history, not tall tales.
How then can you then use the same two stories in your supposed "debunking"?
If you use them as evidence for falsehood then you are accepting their truthfulness. If you don't believe them then they don't have any relevance on the matter.
Well, according to our GD teacher you will always be 'somewhere on the pride cycle'. You can be on different parts of it for different parts of your life, but you should be able to identify where you are on it at any given time and for any given life sector. In other words, it cannot be escaped.