Pride (Christianity)

When self-love excludes love of others, clouding knowledge and isolating self from others and from God, then humanity is either ignored or used for the achievement of the individual's private wishes. This inordinate desire to excel is referred to as pride. In Church teaching, pride is said to be a capital sin in that it is the foundation for other sins. At its worst it not only breeds contempt for authority and incites the individual to ignore or reject commands from superiors, it also aims to withdraw himself from subjection to God.

As one of the six root afflictions referred to in Tibetan Buddhism, pride views the transitory as the real "I", puffing up the mind as it regards its own wealth and qualities, thus encouraging the generation of disrespect and of suffering. It may be in thinking of one's self as superior to inferior persons, to persons of an equal standing to one's self, or even to persons superior to one's self. Or it may be in thinking of one's self as only slightly inferior to persons far superior. It may be in thinking of the body and mind as "I"; or in thinking one has attained what in fact one has not; or even that one has attained a quality when one has actually deviated from the path.

In Hinayana Buddhism, pride or conceit is one of the formations aggregate (mental coefficients), being listed among the inconstant states which are immutable by nature, and as unprofitable secondary (sometimes present in any unprofitable or unprofitable-resultant consciousness). It is looked on as being like madness. Pride has the characteristic of haughtiness. Its function is arrogance, praising the self; it manifests as desire for self-advertisement, as vaingloriousness. The proximate cause is greed unassociated with wrong views.

One of the six root afflictions referred to in Buddhist teaching, also one of the seven tendencies or latent passions; also the eighth of the ten fetters of Hinayana Buddhism said to bind a being to samsara, the cycle of birth, death and rebirth; also one of the four passions – kasaya – of Jainism, hindering the soul on its journey to liberation.