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Writer's pictureBible Brian

Projection of pride is pride in itself


In psychology, projection is the action of ascribing one's own negative attributes to another person as a way of coping with having those attributes one's self. A common example in apologetics is the prideful accusing others of being prideful.


This is especially common when a person genuinely has some kind of qualification, which they wield as if it was a certificate of infallibility signed by the very hand of God. "You must believe me, my Phd says so!" When this inevitably fails, tantrums are thrown. "You think you know more than me! You think you know everything! Obviously everything you believe is true, you can never be wrong!"


But looking back through the conversations preceding these outbursts, it usually comes to light that the pride is on the part of the accuser, not the accused. The accuser often boasts of their knowledge, belittles the knowledge of the accused, and makes numerous assertions which they expect to be taken without evidence. Their own authority, or their preferred authorities, are appealed to numerous times.


When I am hit with such accusations, I like to use a particular situation from my college days as an example. My biology tutor possessed a doctorate in biology, whereas obviously none of my classmates did, and neither did I. No one would dispute that she knew more about biology than us.


However, despite this, she made quite a few obvious errors. And these were not the common errors many teachers fall for, like "blood is blue when it's in the veins". I could almost understand if she'd done that. But no, she claimed that the green basilisk lizard is an amphibian.


While half of the class were willing to take her word for it, the other half of us weren't. The green basilisk lizard is a reptile, not an amphibian, and we weren't taking this mistake lying down. But our tutor, and indeed the other half of the class, expected us to. "I'm the teacher", she boasted. "She knows more than us", the more gullible students echoed.


But obviously, it wasn't about who knew more in this situation. It was about who knew the right things. I'm willing to bet that most of my readers will know that the basilisk lizard is a reptile, not an amphibian. An atheist I recently told about this situation was so sure of this fact, he actually doubted my story is true (it is). The more sceptical among you can Google this information and find that yes, the basilisk lizard is a reptile. My tutor's doctorate is irrelevant to my class's right to reject her obvious misclassification, or to whether we were right in our objection. We don't need to know more about biology than my tutor, we just need to know that amphibians are identified by their gill-breathing larval stages, which the basilisk lizard does not have.


So it's not about knowing everything. In religious debates, you can expect to find a wide range of beliefs, arguments for those beliefs, and experts on all sides. Appeal to authority (argumentum ad verecundium) is classified as a fallacy for a reason: One's qualifications says nothing about the quality of their beliefs, or the strength of the arguments they make for them. Those who most often complain about the pride of those who dissent are typically those who boast in themselves in a prideful manner, and don't like when their pride is resisted.


But the terrifying thing for all of us is that God Himself resists the proud (James 4:6), and often uses the foolish things to shame the wise (1 Corinthians 1:20-29). No mere mortal can ever claim to know everything, but the God who created and sustains this puny (compared to Him) creation certainly can. Only one being in all of eternity can claim omniscience, and it's Him. This is why the entrance of His word is said to give understanding to the simple (Psalm 119:130). Most religious debates involve pride. The question is, is it a pride that sets itself against the knowledge of God, or the humility to accept what He has declared?

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