Pride
Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 3:07 pm
Pride
The way I look at it, life forces us to choose an epistemological system to evaluate the world around us and come to conclusions or non-conclusions, as the case may be. Here are some options I’ve read on this board:
1- Some of us choose “reason”, which I define as approaching truth claims using logic and empirical evidence. For those of us without highly specialized knowledge, it generally entails going along with the consensus of the scientific community.
2- Some of us choose “faith”, which I define as choosing to believe something not because the evidence compels us to believe, but rather because of some desirable characteristic. For example, we might find Christianity to be a beautiful, comforting story, hence we choose to have faith in it because of the aesthetic and comforting qualities of it.
3- Some of us choose “agnosticism”, which I define as focusing on how we ultimately don’t know and ultimately can’t really know, and thus just have to wander around wondering, doing the best we can knowing that we don’t and can’t know.
4- Some of us choose “spiritual knowledge”, which entails having certain thoughts and feelings which we interpret as being reliable instructions from God on various aspects of the ultimate nature of reality.
Depending upon the question under consideration, any given individual may choose one or more epistemologies to deal with it.
What I find interesting is how we throw around the word “pride”. One person says somebody is prideful for trusting science more than God, and somebody else says somebody is prideful for being 100% sure that some particular thoughts and feelings are a lucid message from God.
Now, there can be a fruitful debate about the strengths and weaknesses of these various approaches to truth, and somebody can be too confident in their approach. But something seems a little strange that we’d call others prideful for approaching life with a different epistemology than the one we chose.
The way I look at it, life forces us to choose an epistemological system to evaluate the world around us and come to conclusions or non-conclusions, as the case may be. Here are some options I’ve read on this board:
1- Some of us choose “reason”, which I define as approaching truth claims using logic and empirical evidence. For those of us without highly specialized knowledge, it generally entails going along with the consensus of the scientific community.
2- Some of us choose “faith”, which I define as choosing to believe something not because the evidence compels us to believe, but rather because of some desirable characteristic. For example, we might find Christianity to be a beautiful, comforting story, hence we choose to have faith in it because of the aesthetic and comforting qualities of it.
3- Some of us choose “agnosticism”, which I define as focusing on how we ultimately don’t know and ultimately can’t really know, and thus just have to wander around wondering, doing the best we can knowing that we don’t and can’t know.
4- Some of us choose “spiritual knowledge”, which entails having certain thoughts and feelings which we interpret as being reliable instructions from God on various aspects of the ultimate nature of reality.
Depending upon the question under consideration, any given individual may choose one or more epistemologies to deal with it.
What I find interesting is how we throw around the word “pride”. One person says somebody is prideful for trusting science more than God, and somebody else says somebody is prideful for being 100% sure that some particular thoughts and feelings are a lucid message from God.
Now, there can be a fruitful debate about the strengths and weaknesses of these various approaches to truth, and somebody can be too confident in their approach. But something seems a little strange that we’d call others prideful for approaching life with a different epistemology than the one we chose.