Yesterday's Sunday School lesson...

[_Drifting]

So, yesterday the lesson is about the 'Pride Cycle'.
You know the one that goes

----->Righteous & Prosperous------->Pride & Arrogance------->War & Famine------->Humble & Repentant------>Righteous & Prosperous (repeat)


A number of lesson contributions centred around why Dawkins and Bill Cox were wrong in what they espoused as facts and that we were righteous because we had'the ignored their facts and focussed on the truth of feelings instead. My hand goes up:
"Yes Drifting?"
"Where on the pride cycle do you think we are, based on those derogatory comments about what Dawkins and Cox have written?"
*crickets*

[Guest]

...

[_PrickKicker]

Where on the Pride Cycle was the city of Enoch?
Or am I mistaking a non literal parable as an actual occurrence?
Oh so your saying that there was no cycle?

How about the Nephite nation?
Oh they got wiped out what a shame, well that stopped the cycle!

Opp's there goes another crazy Mormon teaching - Debunked.

I'd best just keep my mouth shut.

[Guest]

...

[_Dcharle]

Drifting, are you stil a weekly attending Mormon? I would enjoy GD class again with you in their debating the finer points of polyandry! :-)

[Guest]

...

[_AJP]

Where on the Pride Cycle was the city of Enoch?
Or am I mistaking a non literal parable as an actual occurrence?
Oh so your saying that there was no cycle?

How about the Nephite nation?
Oh they got wiped out what a shame, well that stopped the cycle!

Opp's there goes another crazy Mormon teaching - Debunked.

I'd best just keep my mouth shut.

The pride cycle does exist. The people of Enoch managed to rise above it. And the Nephite nation fell so far that it resulted in their destruction.

[_PrickKicker]

The pride cycle does exist. The people of Enoch managed to rise above it. And the Nephite nation fell so far that it resulted in their destruction.

That makes no sense what so ever, when you cut a loop it is no longer a loop. I would like to see a constant revolving pattern based on real events in history, not made up from a book of tall tales.

Please provide a better explanation for your belief.

[_Drifting]

The pride cycle does exist. The people of Enoch managed to rise above it. And the Nephite nation fell so far that it resulted in their destruction.

*ahem*

News Just In:
Nephites...never happened...

[_AJP]

The pride cycle does exist. The people of Enoch managed to rise above it. And the Nephite nation fell so far that it resulted in their destruction.

That makes no sense what so ever, when you cut a loop it is no longer a loop. I would like to see a constant revolving pattern based on real events in history, not made up from a book of tall tales.

Please provide a better explanation for your belief.

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.