Originally Posted by paulmh

I'm afraid they do.

You're a fan of David Hume. He also said "any man who makes a study of religion, regardless of his conclusions, is a religious man".

Pride - defined as "putting one's self on a level with God" - is a medieval way of describing an egotistical condition. This condition has many manifestations - grandiosity or self-pity, self-righteousness or chronic uncertainty, excesses of fear or of anger - the list goes on and on. What they have in common is an overinlfated sense of self. Self-obssession. The individual ceases to remember the functional truth - the universe doesn't need us to endure, but we need the universe.

To believe that you know the nature of the universe is to believe as a God. That's Pride.