Being Proud

ON FACEBOOK APPEARED THE POST: "I'm proud to be an American, proud to be a "Christian", and I'll bet everybody is scared to share this". (quotation marks placed by the author of the post). In the comment section, I responded: "I am grateful to be an American, and to have a good life, content with my religiosity, but I avoid pride, because pride is a deadly sin, and can lead to arrogance." I was happy with my comment, but probably not as proud as the proud American-Christian. Verily, pride is among the seven deadly sins, for good reason, although the seven deadly sins I would describe as "personality traits to be avoided or mitigated, as they can lead to harm." Patriotism, said Goethe, corrupts history. So it does, when it motivates large numbers of citizens to behave aggressively in nationalistic fervor, led by demagogues who stoke the passions of patriotic sycophants for their own diabolical interests. A healthier approach might be to love one's country, to appreciate what is offers one, but to not allow pride to blind one to the need and opportunity for national and personal improvement. To be proud of one's religion seems a bit more inexplicable, unless one associates one's religious beliefs with membership in good standing in a discrete, organized group or institution. We might do well to remember that all religious sentiment resides within the mind, and association within a large powerful group is not being religious, it is merely being in an organization of people with certain religious beliefs in common. When a person decides to embrace certain religious beliefs, then becomes a member of a church with similar beliefs, pride seems misplaced; isn't "pride" usually best associated with accomplishment, achievement, or endurance of great difficulty? When one merely chooses a religious belief, then seeks the company of others with similar beliefs, precisely what does one take pride in, other than fundamental mental and social exertion of the most common kind? The most puzzling part of the post is the assertion that people are likely to be "scared" to share the post. Scared of what? Reactions from other people? Oh, come now. To be an American, and to be a Christian is to be associated with two of the largest, most powerful organization sin the world, indeed in human history. Isn't that sufficient peer support to make any fear of exposure nonexistent? The person who posted this comment must think his or her fellow Americans and Christians to be extremely timid, cowardly, even paranoid. By definition, proud people do not tend to be afraid to reveal their source of pride. Rather, they tend to be all too eager to show and share it. Why would anyone be "scared" to reveal pride in American citizenship and membership in the Christian church when surrounded by American citizens and Christians? To people who post such shallow, simplistic platitudes, questions of this nature are beyond comprehension, and therefore irrelevant, and might even be construed as an act of aggression rather than mere disagreement. To find fear, they might be better served to look within.