one would expect them to adhere to their holy book.
What makes it their holy book and how is that not arbitrary.
It makes it their holy book because they claim it to be. So they are then judged and viewed upon by the words of their writ. If someone claims to adhere to the Vedas, then it is only reasonable for me to look at that as a source of their theology and beliefs.
By that metric, interpretted strictly, there are about 4 Christians in the whole world. I don't think that this is the line you want to push if you want to avoid arbitrary assumptions.
We have historical evidence in Ithica, Troy, and Egypt. The evidence on the surface give credence to all of their mythologies. It's probably just a historical quirk that we don't worship RA or Zeus.
It makes it their holy book because they claim it to be.
What if they don't claim it to be, or claim that it shares authority with another scripture? I mean, Mormons go off both the bible and the Book of Mormon. Protestants go off both the Old and New Testaments. Muslims go off both the Bible and the Koran.
In terms of Christianity and your question - the Bible itself disallows that which is why Mormonism, JW's are considered non-Christian by age old Christian groups. The Bible plainly comes against another set of writings to be as authoritative as they are, especially when they contradict the core teachings of the Bible, as the writings of Mormons, etc in fact do.
I mean, let's say tommorrow someone claims to have had a vision of Jesus describing to them new teachings which are to supercede/clarify previous scripture. God wants to make a new covenant. The person calls themself a Christian. By what authority do you judge him to not be a Christian? It's your word against his on what the prerequisites of being a Christian are.
By the authority of the Bible. Especially when it states that Jesus will not be seen/return that way until the last day. It's not a matter of my word against his, it's a matter of what the foundation, the Bible for the sake of this argument, says.
With no litmus test, with no absolute in the discussion, you have chaos and nonsense. Which is why I kept harping on how for any said religious group - what they hold to be their holy writings - is what dictates (should) their beliefs, if they are going to continue claiming to be said religion.
One question I did ask Cat in the other thread.. was not answered.. and it was perfectly along the lines of the one point I am trying to make here. It was, "do you then accept Wahabism/Taliban to be Muslims?"
To people seriously interested in the question asked by the OP, I'd recommend picking up Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. The book precisely addresses the question (what christianity is, at it's core, not specific to any given sect) in a readable and relatively non-preachy way. Lewis' logic is not without its nagging flaws (I winced at the many false dichotomies he presents) but he did a thorough and respectable job of laying out the basic, core ideas that Christianity is based on. I really couldn't begin to paraphrase a simple answer though, so anyone expecting a one paragraph blurb is SOL.
I know a great deal of people who call themselves catholic that absolutely are not. as well, a great many people who call themselves christian who (arguably) are not. this is bad for two reasons.
first of all, assumptions are made about your beliefs. Obviously, under current circumstances this is not fair, as there is not or may not be an absolute defnition. however, it is to be expected that a given person has a mindset of what each of these groups of people believe and will thus assume that you grouping yourself with these people means you share those beliefs.
second, I think it weakens people's faith in whatever they personally believe. they don't ever really need to think about it, because "hey... I'm christian". because what that actually means is never brought up, they never question how they actually feel about things. This is the much greater problem. (This is not an anti-religious point... some people believe thigns that fit them into different religions, but still call themselves christian because it's what they are used to.
As an extension of the second point, I've noticed a lot of people in my family, even, who though they greatly alter their stance/beliefs, refuse to acknowledge that they are no longer christian. it's as though to not be a christian is so abhorrent that no matter what they actually believe, they still hold onto that word.
this is why it ought to be defined. people should more accurately know what they are, compared to how they are defining themselves.
for what it's worth, all I think it should require is agreement and following of the teachings of jesus christ.
First of all, I'm not sure why catering to people's assumptions is a priority, except maybe in terms of ease of communication, but the confusion created here is easily dispelled with explanation. And even this is more of a pragmatic convention and not something which could be literally used to tell someone they aren't christian.
Second of all, I'm not sure why catering to the strenght of people's religious faith is a priority.
If our goal is to come up with a definition that include all the different Christian Churches and sects, and this is the rationale Richy has offered for his argument, then it would seem to me simpler to define a Christian as anyone who claims to be a Christian.
I know it is a little off-topic, but this is a problem, just because someone claims to be a Christian does not mean he or she even tries to obey the teachings of Jesus. So therefore some of the more aggressive Atheists who witness or see poor behavior accuse "Christians" of believing "X" or they do "Y".
Sometimes it turns pretty ugly, so I as a Christian feel like I need to defend or explain my faith and how I practice it to show that there are Christians who don't believe "X" or do "Y". I kind of see parallels to being a black man sticking up for the "black community."
It is not right for the media to look for the "black communities" reaction every time there is a upturn in violent crime, and it is not fair to blame "Christians" for the actions of individual (self proclaimed) Christians.
They say, "There is no such thing as a "black community" that I am responsible for", and I say "there is no such thing as a "Christian community" that I am responsible for explaining". There are individuals that are responsible for their actions, and in both of the described cases the individuals have rational (to them) reasons for their actions.
Anyone have any thoughts on this important aspect?
"Some of you have correctly stated that the definition, at it's most basic level, is someone who follows Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
BUT
We need to be mindful of the fact that we are either going to accept, for the sake of this argument, what the Bible says Jesus said he was, etc..
And if so, then we must reject those that use the word Jesus, but the person they're describing is completely different than the Jesus seen in the Bible. And by "reject", I mean not accept their claims of being just another Christian like someone that holds to the Jesus of the Bible."
The whole idea of using a word but pouring a whole other meaning into it than the supposed word's definition. That wouldn't be accepted in a court of law, yet we want to ignore that when it comes to this topic.
I would suggest that it is a sign that your premise is incorrect that the yawning mouth of this slippery slope is presenting itself.
My definition leads to no such unfortunate pass.
Shinto on
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
First of all, I'm not sure why catering to people's assumptions is a priority, except maybe in terms of ease of communication, but the confusion created here is easily dispelled with explanation. And even this is more of a pragmatic convention and not something which could be literally used to tell someone they aren't christian.
Second of all, I'm not sure why catering to the strenght of people's religious faith is a priority.
it was simply for ease of communication. this is why we have words, and whyy said words have solid defnitions.
and for point two, I wouldn't say it's a priority, simply a benefit of defining a word.
I pointed out two benefits of having a more concrete defnition, and I'm not sure exactly what benefits there are to having it be ambiguous... but I'm sure tha twas covered so if it was, don't feel you need to respond to this, I'll reread the thread.
First of all, I'm not sure why catering to people's assumptions is a priority, except maybe in terms of ease of communication, but the confusion created here is easily dispelled with explanation. And even this is more of a pragmatic convention and not something which could be literally used to tell someone they aren't christian.
Second of all, I'm not sure why catering to the strenght of people's religious faith is a priority.
it was simply for ease of communication. this is why we have words, and whyy said words have solid defnitions.
and for point two, I wouldn't say it's a priority, simply a benefit of defining a word.
I pointed out two benefits of having a more concrete defnition, and I'm not sure exactly what benefits there are to having it be ambiguous... but I'm sure tha twas covered so if it was, don't feel you need to respond to this, I'll reread the thread.
Well, I feel my definition is more accurate. Accuracy seems to be a fairly important qualification in any definition.
I don't think the ease of communication is all that cramped by it. Perhaps you say "almost all Christians XYZ" instead of "Christians XYZ."
Anyone have any thoughts on this important aspect?
"Some of you have correctly stated that the definition, at it's most basic level, is someone who follows Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
BUT
We need to be mindful of the fact that we are either going to accept, for the sake of this argument, what the Bible says Jesus said he was, etc..
And if so, then we must reject those that use the word Jesus, but the person they're describing is completely different than the Jesus seen in the Bible. And by "reject", I mean not accept their claims of being just another Christian like someone that holds to the Jesus of the Bible."
The whole idea of using a word but pouring a whole other meaning into it than the supposed word's definition. That wouldn't be accepted in a court of law, yet we want to ignore that when it comes to this topic.
I would suggest that it is a sign that your premise is incorrect that the yawning mouth of this slippery slope is presenting itself.
My definition leads to no such unfortunate pass.
How exactly can it even be anywhere near incorrect when it is the crux of our entire discussion. If I say that I follow Jesus. And you then think, "ah, cool.. the Jesus of the Bible!" But I say, yeah, bro.. the Jesus I follow was born in India and said we should kill everyone that has blue eyes..." You wouldn't continue on with your thoughts thinking, "yeah.. that earthless is a Christian. He follows the Jesus of the Bible."
No matter how much I kept screaming out that I am indeed a Christian and follow the Jesus of the Bible.
You wouldn't buy the bullshit I was giving you.
Perhaps, but you should realize three things:
1. One can believe in the Jesus the bible references without believing in the bible's account of him or holding it as the sole authority on him.
2. The logical conclusion of your argument is that no two people can ever possibly believe in the same Jesus because even if they use the same words to describe him their mental images will always be in some detail different.
Shinto on
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
edited October 2007
I think it's time for a separate Biblical Historicity thread. Which I would make but it is bed time for me. Perhaps the next response to my last post can instead be put into a new thread where the magic will occur.
Apothe0sis on
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Anyone have any thoughts on this important aspect?
"Some of you have correctly stated that the definition, at it's most basic level, is someone who follows Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
BUT
We need to be mindful of the fact that we are either going to accept, for the sake of this argument, what the Bible says Jesus said he was, etc..
And if so, then we must reject those that use the word Jesus, but the person they're describing is completely different than the Jesus seen in the Bible. And by "reject", I mean not accept their claims of being just another Christian like someone that holds to the Jesus of the Bible."
The whole idea of using a word but pouring a whole other meaning into it than the supposed word's definition. That wouldn't be accepted in a court of law, yet we want to ignore that when it comes to this topic.
I would suggest that it is a sign that your premise is incorrect that the yawning mouth of this slippery slope is presenting itself.
My definition leads to no such unfortunate pass.
How exactly can it even be anywhere near incorrect when it is the crux of our entire discussion. If I say that I follow Jesus. And you then think, "ah, cool.. the Jesus of the Bible!" But I say, yeah, bro.. the Jesus I follow was born in India and said we should kill everyone that has blue eyes..." You wouldn't continue on with your thoughts thinking, "yeah.. that earthless is a Christian. He follows the Jesus of the Bible."
No matter how much I kept screaming out that I am indeed a Christian and follow the Jesus of the Bible.
You wouldn't buy the bullshit I was giving you.
Perhaps, but you should realize three things:
1. One can believe in the Jesus the bible references without believing in the bible's account of him or holding it as the sole authority on him.
2. The logical conclusion of your argument is that no two people can ever possibly believe in the same Jesus because even if they use the same words to describe him their mental images will always be in some detail different.
God dammit, I can't go to bed until you tell me what the third thing is.
Not trying to derail the thread, but would a Ba'hai be considered a Christian?
They wouldn't be according to the Bible. Because they deny the very basic truth claims of Jesus contained in Scripture.
I meant to ask you something before the previous thread was put back on track:
What do you consider those basic claims to be? If possible, would you also be able to give specific verses? I'd also like to know what leads you to single those specific claims out.
Not trying to derail the thread, but would a Ba'hai be considered a Christian? In my fairly limited knowledge of their religion, I know that they think several messianic or holy individuals have been incarnations of Ba'ha'ula. If that's true, then they do worship Jesus.
I'm pretty sure I spelled both the religion's name and the namesake incorrectly.
They certainly don't consider themselves Christian, nor do Muslims. Both groups acknowledge that Jesus (or Isa, whatever you want to call him) existed, and that he was a prophet. But they reject the notion that he was actually an avatar of god, or god himself, or whatever. Both groups consider their respective prophets to have finished the revelation, as it were. Moses -> Jesus -> Muhammad -> Baha'ullah.
Earthless, you're drawing this thread more and more off-topic by discussing the validity and historicity of the Bible. Please stop now.
ElJeffe on
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1. One can believe in the Jesus the bible references without believing in the bible's account of him or holding it as the sole authority on him.
That makes absolutely no sense. Perhaps you just need to explain that a bit more, I may not be able to understand your point fully without more info. Based on just that sentence though, it's a bit of an insult in an age of enlightenment that we can swallow the idea that you can believe in Person X but not believe the accounts of Person X by those that were around Person X.
I'm sorry, were any of the writers of the gospels first hand acquaintances of Jesus? And also there are accounts of Jesus given in books that were ultimately rejected for inclusion in the bible.
Why does Joseph Smith have an inferior claim to understanding Jesus than, say, St. Paul? Neither was Jesus's contemporary and both received their information through supernatural revelation. George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, Loyola who founded the Jesuits, St. Francis of that order - all these men claimed a special understanding or revelation independent of scripture. Their revelation became an alternate or complimentary authority to scripture. Even the Apostles used supernatural revelation to supliment their understanding of their first hand physical experiences with Jesus. This is, in fact, an incredibly common occurance in all religions.
2. The logical conclusion of your argument is that no two people can ever possibly believe in the same Jesus because even if they use the same words to describe him their mental images will always be in some detail different.
The important is not about the words used, but the definition(s) poured into them. I refer you back to my example of the two Jesus'.
And my point is that no two people can ever have exactly matching ideas of Jesus.
There isn't a definition of christian. It's just an affiliation, a label. Every christian I've ever met has a different idea of what it means to be christian. Almost all of those ideas contradict scripture, and very rarely do they not contradict eachother. The only constants are Jesus as Christ, virgin-birth, and that you shouldn't worship golden cows.
Even the Jesus as Christ and virgin-birth (especially that) "requirements" you mentioned were not doctrine for many different groups that existed prior to the 4th century. Take a gander at some of the texts they dug up at Nag Hamaddi for example.
Damnit Shinto, why couldn't you have created this thread a few hours later?
There's already 4 pages of extreme stupid going on here and I really don't feel up to correcting all of it.
RiemannLives on
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Secondly, anyone who actually studies religions for a living places them squarely in the Christian corner. The only people who have a problem with this are certain fundamentalist and orthodox groups.
I guess my secular university professors (who were not Christians) were wrong in saying that they are sects/cults of orthodox Christianity.
How can someone have an entirely different and contradicting set of definitions for core essentials of a religion and still be considered members of said religion?
Do you consider Wahabism, the Taliban/etc to be practitioners of Islam?
The bolded portion indicates that your secular professors who form the basis of your argument from authority agree with The Cat. I'm tickled.
Good example, but allow me to explain my point a bit more. The historical reliability of the bible has been dramatically confirmed particularly in this century through archaeological discoveries. All sorts of details have been confirmed through the discovery of ancient documents, through the examination of artifacts, and in some cases through excavations of entire ancient cities.
Let's be clear here.
By "dramatically confirmed," you mean only that we have discovered evidence of civilizations mentioned in the Bible, correct?
I.e. people used to believe that the Chaldeans did not exist and Jericho was a myth, but we've found evidence of both of these things and they're mentioned in the Bible so therefore the Bible is true.
These finding have consistently supported the historicity of the Bible.
Except, of course, when the Bible makes claims that contradict known archaeology (or physics).
For example, we know that the Sumerians existed and were busy making glue .... a few centuries before the Bible says the flood wiped out all civilizations on earth. Exodus claims that Moses left Egypt with a million or more Hebrews; this was far more than the total population in Egypt and this number of people could not have physically been supported where the Bible says they are.
Like I said in an earlier post, it’s save to say that with every turn of the archaeologist’s spade, the historicity and accuracy of the Bible is further confirmed.
Except for its mythological and obviously exaggerated claims; i.e. Solomon's temple, the Exodus, the army of zombie saints who rose from their graves and "appeared to many" in Jerusalem in Matthew 28:50. Luke reports that Jesus had to return to Nazareth for the census, which is contradicted by our records of how censuses were actually conducted. Shall I go on?
However, it would be somewhat of an overstatement to claim that archaeology has proven that everything the Bible says is true. For one thing, there are some historical matters which are discussed in the bible that archaeologists still don’t quite know how to correlate with Scripture.
You see while archaeology has not produced any certain examples of error in the Bible, it has produced questions which are still debated by scholars.
That's exactly what my Hindu friend said when I asked him "Why haven't archaeologists found a magical floating demon city on Sri Lanka, as reported in the Ramayana?"
Let's talk some more about Solomon's temple.
• 1KI 6:2, 2CH 3:3—Solomon's temple was only about ninety feet long by thirty feet wide, yet:
• 1KI 5:15-16 153,300 persons were employed to build it.
• 1KI 6:38 It took seven years to build.
• 1CH 22:14 ~7,500,000 lbs. of gold and ~75,000,000 lbs. of silver were used.
• 1CH 23:4 24,000 supervisors and 6,000 officials and judges were employed to manage it.
You'd think that other contemporary sources might remark on such a magnificent temple. You'd also think we'd be able to find some evidence of its splendor, even assuming that people later plundered it. Why nothing?
Is your excuse going to sound exactly like my Hindu friend's excuse about the failure of archaeology to confirm Ravana's magical city in Sri Lanka?
All we can legitimately expect form archaeology in matters like this is to show that the events described in the Bible make sense in context. And that, of course, has been done in a very spectacular manner.
No more spectacular than the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Oddyssey, which also mention real places and structures that have been confirmed by archaeology.
In fact, the skeptics laughed at the bible for asserting that Ninevah was a real city that the Assyrians were, in fact, a real people. Perhaps you know the story
I'm familiar with this claim—though I haven't ever heard of all these laughing skeptics. And I thought it was the Chaldeans, not the Assyrians.
— someone discovered a brick on the Tigris River. The brick had the name of “Sargon†on it which, of course, was one of Syria’s great kings. It was sent to a Paris museum and was forthwith declared a fraud. Not long afterward, Laird, the great Assyriologist, had the temerity to dig up the entire city with its temples and palaces. And once again, the critics were proved wrong and the Bible reliable.
Sargon of Akkad? He predates the Bible by a thousand years.
And "laughing skeptics" used to think the city of Troy was a myth. It wasn't, we've dug up whole cities where Troy was supposed to stand. Thus the Illiad was proven reliable?
Do you use this standard of what constitutes "reliability" for all ancient texts? Or just your religion's ancient text?
A) Believes that the son of God died for his sins on a big hunk of wood, or
Says he's a Christian.
Thus we can bypass the argument on who's a Christian and let people bicker about who are the good Christians. It's basically my approach to the "What is art?" question, only with 50% more god.
ElJeffe on
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Not trying to derail the thread, but would a Ba'hai be considered a Christian?
They wouldn't be according to the Bible. Because they deny the very basic truth claims of Jesus contained in Scripture.
I meant to ask you something before the previous thread was put back on track:
What do you consider those basic claims to be? If possible, would you also be able to give specific verses? I'd also like to know what leads you to single those specific claims out.
Sure thing, great question!
And a question that can take up several pages and I am a bit weary to try to do it any form of justice in a short blurb. In summary, the essential doctrines of the Christian faith emerge from a historical approach are those contained in the Apostles Creed and unfolded in subsequent creeds of the first five centuries.
These include (1) human depravity, (2) Christs virgin birth, (3) Christs sinlessness, (4) Christs deity, (5) Christs humanity, (6) Gods unity, (7) Gods triunity, (8) the necessity of Gods grace, (9) the necessity of faith, (10) Christs atoning death, (11) Christs bodily resurrection, (12) Christs bodily ascension, (13) Christs present High Priestly service, and (14) Christs second coming, final judgment, and reign. Heaven and hell are implied in the final judgment and are explicated in later creeds.
We often hear the words "heresy" and "aberration" used in reference to unbiblical doctrines. But what exactly is the difference between a doctrine that is aberrational and one that is heretical?
The word "heresy," in its most common usage, refers to false teachings that destroy. They are destructive because they overturn the basic elements which make up the historic Christian faith, substituting in their place doctrines which distort or contradict the teachings found in the Bible.
The doctrines of the Trinity, the unique deity of Jesus Christ, and the resurrection are among the essentials of Christianity. They represent the core of Christian belief as contained within the pages of Scripture, and they compose what is commonly called "orthodox theology." And thus, heresies are teachings which openly deny any one of these fundamental doctrines. Examples of heresies include the Mormon doctrine that there are many gods, and that you may become one, as well as the Jehovah's Witnesses, who clearly deny the Trinity.
It may be the case, however, that a particular teaching does not overtly deny basic biblical theology, but is nevertheless dangerously inconsistent with an orthodox confession of faith. A good example of this would be the "prosperity" teachers who are growing like wildfire within Christian denominations -- doctrines of this variety are referred to as aberrations. Thus, a group may be orthodox in its central theology while at the same time maintain teachings and practices that are clearly at odds with essential Christian theology.
Once we realize that doctrines never function in isolation but, instead, work together to form the structure of a belief system, it becomes easy to understand how one doctrinal error can eventually lead to the corruption of other doctrines as well. Error begets error - and heresy begets heresy.
Christians are responsible, therefore, to make sure that the precious doctrines that God has given them remain sound (1 Timothy 4:16; 2 Timothy 4:2-5).
Secondly, anyone who actually studies religions for a living places them squarely in the Christian corner. The only people who have a problem with this are certain fundamentalist and orthodox groups.
I guess my secular university professors (who were not Christians) were wrong in saying that they are sects/cults of orthodox Christianity.
How can someone have an entirely different and contradicting set of definitions for core essentials of a religion and still be considered members of said religion?
Do you consider Wahabism, the Taliban/etc to be practitioners of Islam?
The bolded portion indicates that your secular professors who form the basis of your argument from authority agree with The Cat. I'm tickled.
Regarding the question that remained untouched - what say you?
Do you consider Wahabism, the Taliban/etc to be practitioners of Islam?
Just because William Shakespeare wrote stuff that took place in actual real-life physical locations doesn't mean it actually occurred. for that matter, even if he wrote about real people, it doesn't mean the stories about them are necessarily true.
I'm going to give a shout out to Shinto's argument re: definition of Christian. I missed it earlier. I agree.
One thing is Shakespeare made fictional plays - I don't think he ran around England proclaiming the events in Julius Caesar were accurate to a tee.
Two, there are historians and Bible scholars who make their living checking over facts and inconsistencies - hundreds of thousands of educated, non-biased people must have looked over the Bible over the centuries and the Bible is still here today. That's gotta say something.
Three, while there have been several apocryphal books in the whole canon, you can't just toss out the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and that Greek Septuagint - we still have those and they kinda show a lot of people after Pentecost believed the Bible to be true. Throw in Eramus' translation that Martin Luther used and compare all those to what we have today. I haven't taken a hard look but the summaries I've read say the OT part of the King James version isn't too far off from those other translations. It's harder to prove 'some poet made up the Bible to pay off his debts' when so many people believe in it.
Thus we can bypass the argument on who's a Christian and let people bicker about who are the good Christians. It's basically my approach to the "What is art?" question, only with 50% more god.
I tried to do that with 'atheists' and 'sensible atheists' in another thread and it got locked.
A) Believes that the son of God died for his sins on a big hunk of wood, or
Says he's a Christian.
Thus we can bypass the argument on who's a Christian and let people bicker about who are the good Christians. It's basically my approach to the "What is art?" question, only with 50% more god.
There was quite a kerfuffel in the late 2nd century over the matter of the suffering of Jesus and whether he actually died for the sins of others. Some of groups of Gnostics (who were such a wide and varied bunch it's hard to group them under one term) denied his physical suffering and a few that he even physicially died.
It was partly what we today would call a "political" argument. In that time there really was no separation of the two concepts. What was religious was political and vice versa. The particular argument here is over the obligation of Christians to undergo martyrdom. The viewpoint of several of the important bishops (including Rome) was to revere the martyrs and to hold up their faith as an example. While other groups thought getting tortured to death was pointless and stupid. Those in favor of martyrdom were very into the "Passion of the Christ" bloody torutured physical Jesus. Those who were against martyrdom (where it could be avoided) tended to be those wo looked at Jesus as a more cosmic figure.
There are many other arguments that evolved in this way: a "political" statement with it's "religious" counterpart argued together. Another example was the supremacy of the Bishop and the hierarchy it implied (Bishop, Priest, Deacon) that was tied to the notion that the only source of religious wisdom was the direct succession of the Bishops from the apostles. They really did not get along with the Valentinians for example who at their meetings would randomly choose from the entire congregation who would perform the service that day and (*gasp*) allowed women full participation in the church.
The view we have today of early Christianity is often extremely narrowed by the fact that one group eventually gained the supremacy and backing of the Roman imperial state and it's legions. There were decades of blood and supression where all contrary views were expunged. Far more Christians died for their faith at the hands of their fellows than were ever thrown to the lions by the Romans. It is only in the last century or so that new archeological finds have begun to shed some scholarly light on what the "heretical" branches of Christianity were all about.
So earthless, are theonomists (people who believe the OT laws should still be in effect per Matthew 5:17) true Christians?
Good thing scholars always say never to build a religion/doctrine off of one verse. Context, context, context. There is an old covenant and a new covenant, the new covenant is spoken about first in the book of Jeremiah. The old covenant that God had established with His people required obedience to the Old Testament Mosaic law. Because the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), the law required that people performed rituals and sacrifices in order to please God and remain in His grace. The prophet Jeremiah predicted that there would be a time when God would make a new covenant with the nation of Israel.
"'The day will come,' says the Lord, 'when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah....But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day,' says the Lord. 'I will put my law in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people" (Jeremiah 31:31,33).
Jesus Christ came to fulfill the law of Moses (Matthew 5:17) and create a new covenant between God and His people. The old covenant was written in stone, but the new covenant is written on our hearts, made possible only by faith in Christ, who shed His own blood to atone for the sins of the world. Luke 22:20 says, "After supper, Jesus took another cup of wine and said, 'This wine is the token of God's new covenant to save you – an agreement sealed with the blood I will pour out for you.'"
Now that we are under the new covenant, we are not bound by the law. We are now given the opportunity to receive salvation as a free gift, not as a reward for any of our good works (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Through the life-giving Holy Spirit who lives in all believers (Romans 8:9-11), we can now share in the inheritance of Christ and enjoy a permanent, unbroken relationship with God. Hebrews 9:15 declares, “For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance – now that He has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.â€
So are those people Christians? Only God can judge another man's heart. But one thing is for certain, under the context of Scripture - they are wholly denying what God has provided for them in Jesus.
So someone who believes that we should follow the commandments God gave us in the Old Testament is not a good Christian, according to you.
Wow! No wonder it's so hard to agree on a definition of "Christian!"
I never said there were/are not a "good" Christian. Also, let's settle something right now - there is no such thing as a "good" Christian.
But surely you believe there are certain Christians who "get it" more than others, correct? I understand that salvation is a binary state, but clearly this isn't what I was talking about.
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that someone who believes God's commandments in the Old Testament should be followed has a poor grasp of scripture compared to you. Is this correct?
...the law required that people performed rituals and sacrifices in order to please God and remain in His grace.
I'm not too clear on that. Wasn't there some kind of special temple in Israel where rituals and sacrifices could be performed but it was destroyed when Israel was overrun the first time? Why didn't they rebuild the temple somewhere else? I do know that you couldn't just sacrifice a fat calf in the streets and have it count ... for some reason.
So someone who believes that we should follow the commandments God gave us in the Old Testament is not a good Christian, according to you.
Wow! No wonder it's so hard to agree on a definition of "Christian!"
I never said there were/are not a "good" Christian. Also, let's settle something right now - there is no such thing as a "good" Christian.
But surely you believe there are certain Christians who "get it" more than others, correct? I understand that salvation is a binary state, but clearly this isn't what I was talking about.
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that someone who believes God's commandments in the Old Testament should be followed has a poor grasp of scripture compared to you. Is this correct?
Has a poor grasp of Scripture compared to nearly anyone in the evangelical circle. I am no one to be viewed as a litmus for such claims. Just one beggar telling another beggar where to find food.
The simple point is that if two people are going to claim the Bible as their Word of God - then the argument for anyone to say we're still under the law doesn't quite work unless they reject 90% of the NT.
...the law required that people performed rituals and sacrifices in order to please God and remain in His grace.
I'm not too clear on that. Wasn't there some kind of special temple in Israel where rituals and sacrifices could be performed but it was destroyed when Israel was overrun the first time? Why didn't they rebuild the temple somewhere else? I do know that you couldn't just sacrifice a fat calf in the streets and have it count ... for some reason.
Yes one temple was destroyed, and then rebuilt later to be destroyed by the romans. Where is Evander? Anyways christian (by brand at least) believe that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament Law. He is the ulitmate sacrifice for our sins, and as such there is no need for a brick and mortar temple anymore.
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By that metric, interpretted strictly, there are about 4 Christians in the whole world. I don't think that this is the line you want to push if you want to avoid arbitrary assumptions.
In terms of Christianity and your question - the Bible itself disallows that which is why Mormonism, JW's are considered non-Christian by age old Christian groups. The Bible plainly comes against another set of writings to be as authoritative as they are, especially when they contradict the core teachings of the Bible, as the writings of Mormons, etc in fact do.
By the authority of the Bible. Especially when it states that Jesus will not be seen/return that way until the last day. It's not a matter of my word against his, it's a matter of what the foundation, the Bible for the sake of this argument, says.
With no litmus test, with no absolute in the discussion, you have chaos and nonsense. Which is why I kept harping on how for any said religious group - what they hold to be their holy writings - is what dictates (should) their beliefs, if they are going to continue claiming to be said religion.
One question I did ask Cat in the other thread.. was not answered.. and it was perfectly along the lines of the one point I am trying to make here. It was, "do you then accept Wahabism/Taliban to be Muslims?"
Fucking Mormons.
Well, I offered the counter example of Shelby Spong, who seems to be little more than a pantheist who thinks the bible is neat.
First of all, I'm not sure why catering to people's assumptions is a priority, except maybe in terms of ease of communication, but the confusion created here is easily dispelled with explanation. And even this is more of a pragmatic convention and not something which could be literally used to tell someone they aren't christian.
Second of all, I'm not sure why catering to the strenght of people's religious faith is a priority.
I know it is a little off-topic, but this is a problem, just because someone claims to be a Christian does not mean he or she even tries to obey the teachings of Jesus. So therefore some of the more aggressive Atheists who witness or see poor behavior accuse "Christians" of believing "X" or they do "Y".
Sometimes it turns pretty ugly, so I as a Christian feel like I need to defend or explain my faith and how I practice it to show that there are Christians who don't believe "X" or do "Y". I kind of see parallels to being a black man sticking up for the "black community."
It is not right for the media to look for the "black communities" reaction every time there is a upturn in violent crime, and it is not fair to blame "Christians" for the actions of individual (self proclaimed) Christians.
They say, "There is no such thing as a "black community" that I am responsible for", and I say "there is no such thing as a "Christian community" that I am responsible for explaining". There are individuals that are responsible for their actions, and in both of the described cases the individuals have rational (to them) reasons for their actions.
Let's not derail the thread here. It's too easy.
Making fun of Mormons is like shooting fish that are stuffed into the barrels of shotguns.
Or sort of like shooting that cat in the glass of your avatar.
I would suggest that it is a sign that your premise is incorrect that the yawning mouth of this slippery slope is presenting itself.
My definition leads to no such unfortunate pass.
it was simply for ease of communication. this is why we have words, and whyy said words have solid defnitions.
and for point two, I wouldn't say it's a priority, simply a benefit of defining a word.
I pointed out two benefits of having a more concrete defnition, and I'm not sure exactly what benefits there are to having it be ambiguous... but I'm sure tha twas covered so if it was, don't feel you need to respond to this, I'll reread the thread.
Well, I feel my definition is more accurate. Accuracy seems to be a fairly important qualification in any definition.
I don't think the ease of communication is all that cramped by it. Perhaps you say "almost all Christians XYZ" instead of "Christians XYZ."
Perhaps, but you should realize three things:
1. One can believe in the Jesus the bible references without believing in the bible's account of him or holding it as the sole authority on him.
2. The logical conclusion of your argument is that no two people can ever possibly believe in the same Jesus because even if they use the same words to describe him their mental images will always be in some detail different.
God dammit, I can't go to bed until you tell me what the third thing is.
It's hidden, like the thirteenth imam.
Someday it will be revealed to the rightly guided faithful.
I meant to ask you something before the previous thread was put back on track:
What do you consider those basic claims to be? If possible, would you also be able to give specific verses? I'd also like to know what leads you to single those specific claims out.
They certainly don't consider themselves Christian, nor do Muslims. Both groups acknowledge that Jesus (or Isa, whatever you want to call him) existed, and that he was a prophet. But they reject the notion that he was actually an avatar of god, or god himself, or whatever. Both groups consider their respective prophets to have finished the revelation, as it were. Moses -> Jesus -> Muhammad -> Baha'ullah.
I'm sorry, were any of the writers of the gospels first hand acquaintances of Jesus? And also there are accounts of Jesus given in books that were ultimately rejected for inclusion in the bible.
Why does Joseph Smith have an inferior claim to understanding Jesus than, say, St. Paul? Neither was Jesus's contemporary and both received their information through supernatural revelation. George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, Loyola who founded the Jesuits, St. Francis of that order - all these men claimed a special understanding or revelation independent of scripture. Their revelation became an alternate or complimentary authority to scripture. Even the Apostles used supernatural revelation to supliment their understanding of their first hand physical experiences with Jesus. This is, in fact, an incredibly common occurance in all religions.
And my point is that no two people can ever have exactly matching ideas of Jesus.
Even the Jesus as Christ and virgin-birth (especially that) "requirements" you mentioned were not doctrine for many different groups that existed prior to the 4th century. Take a gander at some of the texts they dug up at Nag Hamaddi for example.
Damnit Shinto, why couldn't you have created this thread a few hours later?
There's already 4 pages of extreme stupid going on here and I really don't feel up to correcting all of it.
Also, from the other thread -
The bolded portion indicates that your secular professors who form the basis of your argument from authority agree with The Cat. I'm tickled.
By "dramatically confirmed," you mean only that we have discovered evidence of civilizations mentioned in the Bible, correct?
I.e. people used to believe that the Chaldeans did not exist and Jericho was a myth, but we've found evidence of both of these things and they're mentioned in the Bible so therefore the Bible is true.
Except, of course, when the Bible makes claims that contradict known archaeology (or physics).
For example, we know that the Sumerians existed and were busy making glue .... a few centuries before the Bible says the flood wiped out all civilizations on earth. Exodus claims that Moses left Egypt with a million or more Hebrews; this was far more than the total population in Egypt and this number of people could not have physically been supported where the Bible says they are.
Except for its mythological and obviously exaggerated claims; i.e. Solomon's temple, the Exodus, the army of zombie saints who rose from their graves and "appeared to many" in Jerusalem in Matthew 28:50. Luke reports that Jesus had to return to Nazareth for the census, which is contradicted by our records of how censuses were actually conducted. Shall I go on?
That's exactly what my Hindu friend said when I asked him "Why haven't archaeologists found a magical floating demon city on Sri Lanka, as reported in the Ramayana?"
Let's talk some more about Solomon's temple.
• 1KI 6:2, 2CH 3:3—Solomon's temple was only about ninety feet long by thirty feet wide, yet:
• 1KI 5:15-16 153,300 persons were employed to build it.
• 1KI 6:38 It took seven years to build.
• 1CH 22:14 ~7,500,000 lbs. of gold and ~75,000,000 lbs. of silver were used.
• 1CH 23:4 24,000 supervisors and 6,000 officials and judges were employed to manage it.
You'd think that other contemporary sources might remark on such a magnificent temple. You'd also think we'd be able to find some evidence of its splendor, even assuming that people later plundered it. Why nothing?
Is your excuse going to sound exactly like my Hindu friend's excuse about the failure of archaeology to confirm Ravana's magical city in Sri Lanka?
No more spectacular than the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Oddyssey, which also mention real places and structures that have been confirmed by archaeology.
I'm familiar with this claim—though I haven't ever heard of all these laughing skeptics. And I thought it was the Chaldeans, not the Assyrians.
Sargon of Akkad? He predates the Bible by a thousand years.
And "laughing skeptics" used to think the city of Troy was a myth. It wasn't, we've dug up whole cities where Troy was supposed to stand. Thus the Illiad was proven reliable?
Do you use this standard of what constitutes "reliability" for all ancient texts? Or just your religion's ancient text?
A Christian is someone who:
A) Believes that the son of God died for his sins on a big hunk of wood, or
Thus we can bypass the argument on who's a Christian and let people bicker about who are the good Christians. It's basically my approach to the "What is art?" question, only with 50% more god.
Sure thing, great question!
And a question that can take up several pages and I am a bit weary to try to do it any form of justice in a short blurb. In summary, the essential doctrines of the Christian faith emerge from a historical approach are those contained in the Apostles Creed and unfolded in subsequent creeds of the first five centuries.
These include (1) human depravity, (2) Christs virgin birth, (3) Christs sinlessness, (4) Christs deity, (5) Christs humanity, (6) Gods unity, (7) Gods triunity, (8) the necessity of Gods grace, (9) the necessity of faith, (10) Christs atoning death, (11) Christs bodily resurrection, (12) Christs bodily ascension, (13) Christs present High Priestly service, and (14) Christs second coming, final judgment, and reign. Heaven and hell are implied in the final judgment and are explicated in later creeds.
We often hear the words "heresy" and "aberration" used in reference to unbiblical doctrines. But what exactly is the difference between a doctrine that is aberrational and one that is heretical?
The word "heresy," in its most common usage, refers to false teachings that destroy. They are destructive because they overturn the basic elements which make up the historic Christian faith, substituting in their place doctrines which distort or contradict the teachings found in the Bible.
The doctrines of the Trinity, the unique deity of Jesus Christ, and the resurrection are among the essentials of Christianity. They represent the core of Christian belief as contained within the pages of Scripture, and they compose what is commonly called "orthodox theology." And thus, heresies are teachings which openly deny any one of these fundamental doctrines. Examples of heresies include the Mormon doctrine that there are many gods, and that you may become one, as well as the Jehovah's Witnesses, who clearly deny the Trinity.
It may be the case, however, that a particular teaching does not overtly deny basic biblical theology, but is nevertheless dangerously inconsistent with an orthodox confession of faith. A good example of this would be the "prosperity" teachers who are growing like wildfire within Christian denominations -- doctrines of this variety are referred to as aberrations. Thus, a group may be orthodox in its central theology while at the same time maintain teachings and practices that are clearly at odds with essential Christian theology.
Once we realize that doctrines never function in isolation but, instead, work together to form the structure of a belief system, it becomes easy to understand how one doctrinal error can eventually lead to the corruption of other doctrines as well. Error begets error - and heresy begets heresy.
Christians are responsible, therefore, to make sure that the precious doctrines that God has given them remain sound (1 Timothy 4:16; 2 Timothy 4:2-5).
Regarding the question that remained untouched - what say you?
Do you consider Wahabism, the Taliban/etc to be practitioners of Islam?
One thing is Shakespeare made fictional plays - I don't think he ran around England proclaiming the events in Julius Caesar were accurate to a tee.
Two, there are historians and Bible scholars who make their living checking over facts and inconsistencies - hundreds of thousands of educated, non-biased people must have looked over the Bible over the centuries and the Bible is still here today. That's gotta say something.
Three, while there have been several apocryphal books in the whole canon, you can't just toss out the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and that Greek Septuagint - we still have those and they kinda show a lot of people after Pentecost believed the Bible to be true. Throw in Eramus' translation that Martin Luther used and compare all those to what we have today. I haven't taken a hard look but the summaries I've read say the OT part of the King James version isn't too far off from those other translations. It's harder to prove 'some poet made up the Bible to pay off his debts' when so many people believe in it.
I tried to do that with 'atheists' and 'sensible atheists' in another thread and it got locked.
I am just answering people's questions.
There was quite a kerfuffel in the late 2nd century over the matter of the suffering of Jesus and whether he actually died for the sins of others. Some of groups of Gnostics (who were such a wide and varied bunch it's hard to group them under one term) denied his physical suffering and a few that he even physicially died.
It was partly what we today would call a "political" argument. In that time there really was no separation of the two concepts. What was religious was political and vice versa. The particular argument here is over the obligation of Christians to undergo martyrdom. The viewpoint of several of the important bishops (including Rome) was to revere the martyrs and to hold up their faith as an example. While other groups thought getting tortured to death was pointless and stupid. Those in favor of martyrdom were very into the "Passion of the Christ" bloody torutured physical Jesus. Those who were against martyrdom (where it could be avoided) tended to be those wo looked at Jesus as a more cosmic figure.
There are many other arguments that evolved in this way: a "political" statement with it's "religious" counterpart argued together. Another example was the supremacy of the Bishop and the hierarchy it implied (Bishop, Priest, Deacon) that was tied to the notion that the only source of religious wisdom was the direct succession of the Bishops from the apostles. They really did not get along with the Valentinians for example who at their meetings would randomly choose from the entire congregation who would perform the service that day and (*gasp*) allowed women full participation in the church.
The view we have today of early Christianity is often extremely narrowed by the fact that one group eventually gained the supremacy and backing of the Roman imperial state and it's legions. There were decades of blood and supression where all contrary views were expunged. Far more Christians died for their faith at the hands of their fellows than were ever thrown to the lions by the Romans. It is only in the last century or so that new archeological finds have begun to shed some scholarly light on what the "heretical" branches of Christianity were all about.
Good thing scholars always say never to build a religion/doctrine off of one verse. Context, context, context. There is an old covenant and a new covenant, the new covenant is spoken about first in the book of Jeremiah. The old covenant that God had established with His people required obedience to the Old Testament Mosaic law. Because the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), the law required that people performed rituals and sacrifices in order to please God and remain in His grace. The prophet Jeremiah predicted that there would be a time when God would make a new covenant with the nation of Israel.
"'The day will come,' says the Lord, 'when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah....But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day,' says the Lord. 'I will put my law in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people" (Jeremiah 31:31,33).
Jesus Christ came to fulfill the law of Moses (Matthew 5:17) and create a new covenant between God and His people. The old covenant was written in stone, but the new covenant is written on our hearts, made possible only by faith in Christ, who shed His own blood to atone for the sins of the world. Luke 22:20 says, "After supper, Jesus took another cup of wine and said, 'This wine is the token of God's new covenant to save you – an agreement sealed with the blood I will pour out for you.'"
Now that we are under the new covenant, we are not bound by the law. We are now given the opportunity to receive salvation as a free gift, not as a reward for any of our good works (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Through the life-giving Holy Spirit who lives in all believers (Romans 8:9-11), we can now share in the inheritance of Christ and enjoy a permanent, unbroken relationship with God. Hebrews 9:15 declares, “For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance – now that He has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.â€
So are those people Christians? Only God can judge another man's heart. But one thing is for certain, under the context of Scripture - they are wholly denying what God has provided for them in Jesus.
Wow! No wonder it's so hard to agree on a definition of "Christian!"
I never said there were/are not a "good" Christian. Also, let's settle something right now - there is no such thing as a "good" Christian.
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that someone who believes God's commandments in the Old Testament should be followed has a poor grasp of scripture compared to you. Is this correct?
I'm not too clear on that. Wasn't there some kind of special temple in Israel where rituals and sacrifices could be performed but it was destroyed when Israel was overrun the first time? Why didn't they rebuild the temple somewhere else? I do know that you couldn't just sacrifice a fat calf in the streets and have it count ... for some reason.
Has a poor grasp of Scripture compared to nearly anyone in the evangelical circle. I am no one to be viewed as a litmus for such claims. Just one beggar telling another beggar where to find food.
The simple point is that if two people are going to claim the Bible as their Word of God - then the argument for anyone to say we're still under the law doesn't quite work unless they reject 90% of the NT.
Yes one temple was destroyed, and then rebuilt later to be destroyed by the romans. Where is Evander? Anyways christian (by brand at least) believe that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament Law. He is the ulitmate sacrifice for our sins, and as such there is no need for a brick and mortar temple anymore.
I mean, I had to break up the bible study and all. What with beggars finding soup kitchens or something.