A Christian would recognize this as a perfectly reasonable definition.
Are you aware that I am a former Christian? I don't need you to tell what Christianity is. I know how the Christians I encountered think and speak.
once we understand what Christianity is saying about pride we can examine why Christians approach pride the way they do and I think they generally have it correct.
Once again, I don't need anybody to tell me what Christians mean by pride. Their description of pride is the sin of thinking that you know better than Jesus or God, or more correctly, those speaking for them.
Freethinking is not discouraged by Jesus.
Great, because I believe he died like any other mortal man. I would have thought that were Jesus who Christians claim he is, he might disapprove of that idea. Just kidding. As I explained, I don't need help understanding Christian doctrine. Freethinking is discouraged by every aspect of the religion except its apologetics, where creativity is a must.
Christians but scripture encourages Christians to meditate upon what has been said and to be prepared to defend your faith with reason.
You can't defend faith-based beliefs with reason. Reason wasn't used to arrive at them, which is why they are irrational.
Christianity embraces faith in God but it is a faith supplemented by rationality.
Those are empty words. There is no sound argument that ends, "Therefore God." One must begin with that as a faith-based premise.
Actually the scientific method (a bastion of freethinkers ) was birthed from Christian thinkers.
The scientific method was not derived from any Christian principle. It is based in skepticism and empiricism, which is the application of valid reason to evidence to arrive at sound conclusions.
Newton was one of those Christians to which you refer. In Principia, Newton gives a mathematical formulation of the celestial mechanics of the solar system that could have been written by any atheist and contains zero insights from Christianity. Where his faith did enter the picture was when his mathematics, which were incomplete, suggested that the large planets ought to toss planets like earth out of the solar system or into the sun.
Here's where Newton went to his religion and suggested that God occasionally nudges the planets back into orbit around the sun. Here was the part n atheist could have written. It's also the part that needed to be excised, which occurred a century later when LaPlace created the necessary mathematics, and yet another job once assigned to a god was shown to not require one.
Yes, Christians can do good science, but only if they leave their religion outside of the laboratory or observatory door. So Christian thinkers, yes, but Christian thought, no.
How did you ensure you were in a position to have choices to make in the first place? How did you ensure that you could have a coherent mind and enough knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence to make any decisions?
I didn't. I merely navigated the playing field I was born onto skillfully, and take pride in that. I was given a multitude of gifts through no action of my own, and use them in the pursuit of happiness as I understood it. And guess what? I found it. I lived life my way, and as a result, enjoy a life of love, beauty, leisure, and peace of mind absent shame, guilt, or remorse. I don't go to any religion to tell me how I should feel about that or anything else.
I understand that the believer is not allowed to feel that way, and apparently in your case, doesn't want others to feel that way either, but that is because he has allowed others to tell him how to be, others whose agenda is not the pursuit of their happiness, but rather, their compliance with the faith, which finds like the military that that is accomplished by diminishing independent thought and by convincing the recruit or supplicant that he is the functional equivalent of a maggot. It requires destroying one's sense of autonomy or of having anything to contribute beyond obedience. How many Christian hymns and prayers depict man as an unworthy worm lucky to not automatically be cast into fire but for grace? How is that different from the psychology of basic training or a prison or POW camp regarding self-worth?
I reject ideologies of despair - of human incompetence and dependence on a god. I'm a humanist. Humanists celebrate the potential of man and encourage its development through education and social opportunity as was done for me, and which includes a strong sense of self to accomplish goals and assume positions of leadership in society promoting the humanist vision of tolerance and reason in the face of backlash from the religions and other authoritarian isms.
The "self" doesn't accomplish anything of its own accord.
Disagree. Human beings accomplish much. I have accomplished much. I guess you have no sense of pride of accomplishment. That's unfortunate. There is no reason not to take satisfaction in a life lived intelligently and uprightly. It's the opposite of the regret that follows a life lived badly.
I use the word how Christianity uses the word.
I know how Christianity uses the word meek. It changes it to humble, because meekness is certainly not a blessing or a virtue.
The terms are related in Christianity.
No, they are synonyms in Christianity, but not outside of it. Look at the context in which the word appears in scripture - the Sermon on the Mount - to understand what the word means. What is the message there? It is to stand down rather than rise up and assert oneself when exploited or oppressed. Be meek and don't assert yourself. Be longsuffering. If stricken, meekly offer the other cheek like fraternity hazing where one is asked to request additional abuse. Why? God commands it and will reward you when you're dead if you'll just not assert yourself in life, where at last you will be an equal living in a celestial mansion. This is what they mean by pie-in-the-sky. If you want desert later, you'll have to choke down you Brussels sprouts now.
A humble person need not be meek, and generally is not. One can have a tremendous amount of justified confidence in one's abilities yet be bold, assertive, and courageous
Speaking of changing the meanings of words, how about turn the other cheek being changed into something else. What Christian will agree that those words mean that if stricken, rather than walk away or try to negotiate a peace or at a minimum covering one's face, one should offer another cheek to be stricken? It's terrible advice to give one you love, but exactly what might sell a religion to an Emperor who intends to exploit to people. It worked. Constantine loved it, and not because he believed meekness wasn't meekness or turning the other cheek wasn't instruction to never resist authority.
I never thought this way as a believer. As you know, we don't permit ourselves to have such thoughts. But as a humanist, I was able to go back and look at these things more objectively and free to identify the warts. That's why you and I see these things so differently, and always will as long as one of us is a Christian and the other a humanist.
