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Author Topic:   What is a 'true Christian'?
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 61 of 141 (726613)
05-10-2014 12:50 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by ringo
05-10-2014 12:31 PM


ringo writes:
I'm not a Christian by my own definition but I don't self-identify as either a christian or an atheist either.
I mostly self-identify as an atheist because every human formulation of divinity is so...small; perhaps, if one could worship a vast universe becoming aware of itself and call that god, I wouldn't.
Plus, I'm stingy with belief. I've been hurt before.
When I formulated my knowingly or unknowingly clause, I imagined some legalistic contemporary of Jesus (or almost any American Christian, now) insisting that the 99% of humanity who hadn't gotten the word was damned to eternal torment, and I thought, Who is the truer Christian? That guy or Buddha? Or that guy or the Good Samaritan? Seemed like a no-brainer.
I is what I is.
Spinach much?

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 62 of 141 (726615)
05-10-2014 12:54 PM
Reply to: Message 38 by faceman
05-10-2014 1:03 AM


That would be Denying the antecedent, a logical fallacy. If P then Q. Not P therefore not Q. That doesn't work.
Which quote are you talking about? You have 3 of them up there.
Going back though the messages:
A true Christian, as Paul would have clearly been, is someone who acknowledges that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, was crucified for our sins and rose again, thereby defeating death. It's not so hard.
A person could be considered, by God, to be a Christian without fulfilling one of the qualifications you insist upon.
You tried to counter that point with this:
quote:
If you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
So let P = "declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead"
And let Q = "you will be saved" a.k.a "be a Christian"
Your quote is 'if P then Q' and you are trying to argue 'Not P therefore not Q'. That's a logical fallacy called Denying the antecedent.
I was just pointing it out and then offered a more logical quote for you to support your position with and then tried to move the discussion forward. But you didn't reply to any of that.
Where do you see Christians not being saved and non-Christians being saved? In Matthew 25:31-46, all I see are saved sheep and unsaved goats.
Jesus tells the sheep that they are saved because they helped Him. And they reply: "What? When did we help you?" And Jesus says: "whatever you did for the least of my people, you did for Me."
The sheep are people who didn't have a relationship with Jesus and didn't even realize that they were helping Him through helping others. They ask Jesus when they even saw him. These are non-Christians.
Jesus tells the goats that they are not saved because they did not help Him. And they reply: "What? When didn't we help you?" And Jesus says: "Whatever you did not do for the least of my people, you did not do for Me."
The goats are people who think that they have been helping Jesus personally and didn't realize that they were supposed to be helping Him through others instead. They ask Jesus when did they not see him. These are people that would have been following around Jesus.
The point of the story is that its not about having a personal relationship with Jesus, its about going out and helping others. Jesus was telling them that there would be non-Christians who are saved and Christians who are not saved. That is the point of the parable.
Why would you want to though?
I'm not sure, the benefits I guess, but I've seen all kinds of different people that think they are and call themselves Christians. So there must be some reason they want to do it.
I call myself Catholic more from a cultural standpoint than a doctrinal one. I went through 12 years of private Catholic school before college, so this is what they got. I'm definitely not a very good one, but there's plenty of apathetic Catholics out there that don't go to church every week.
Frankly, if you don't believe in any of that, then fine
I'm not saying that I, personally, don't believe it. This hasn't been about my own beliefs. This is about coming up with a definition. I don't think your ideas on defining it based on the particular beliefs of the individual are the best way to do it.

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Archer Opteryx
Member (Idle past 3597 days)
Posts: 1811
From: East Asia
Joined: 08-16-2006


Message 63 of 141 (726624)
05-10-2014 2:16 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Archer Opteryx
05-08-2014 7:41 AM


Wow. This really took off! I thought things were sleepier than that around here. Next
Wow. This really took off! I thought things were sleepier than that around here. Next time I'll be careful about walking away for two days after requesting a thread.
The definition quoted in the OP has two parts:
1. takes the Bible as the final authority
2. believes in salvation by faith in Christ alone through God's grace, nothing added
By this definition the early Christian communities had no true Christians.
1. Bible thumping is impossible until a canon is agreed upon, and is of little practical use afterward until a printing press is invented.
2. 'Faith alone' as a litmus test for orthodoxy is a Protestant fetish that reflects fifteenth-century European quarrels.
The catch-phrase does not appear in the canon. It was not taught as a doctrine at all by early Christians, much less made into a shibboleth.
That dispenses with the BS fundy slogans. Next, we'll take a look at what might really happen if someone were trying to resolve a question like that in ancient times.
___
Edited by Archer Opteryx, : detail
Edited by Archer Opteryx, : code

Archer O
All species are transitional.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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 Message 75 by Faith, posted 05-11-2014 4:16 AM Archer Opteryx has replied

  
Archer Opteryx
Member (Idle past 3597 days)
Posts: 1811
From: East Asia
Joined: 08-16-2006


(1)
Message 64 of 141 (726630)
05-10-2014 2:44 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by faceman
05-08-2014 11:55 PM


Catholic Scientist writes:
The best way to define a Christian is: "someone who honestly thinks they're a Christian".
faceman writes:
If I honestly think I'm Napoleon Bonaparte, does that make it so?
False analogy.
The term 'Napoleon Bonaparte' refers to a specific individual. 'Christian' refers to a belief system that any individual can hold.
You don't decide if you are Napoleon. The facts are established. The term refers to an individual who is not you.
You do decide if you are a Christian. Everyone is an expert on the subject of his or her own beliefs.
As long as the person is apparently sincere and is literate about the term's basic meaning--in this case, knows that a Christian regards Yeshua ben-Nozri as holding special moral authority--that person is the real item as far as anyone else is concerned.
It's true that fundies might have a different opinion on the matter, not to mention Paul of Tarsus or any deities looking down on the conversation. But fundies are not authorities, Paul is dead (re 'Sgt Pepper' album art), and no deity is faxing us any club membership lists. You're the final authority on the subject of your own beliefs as far as anyone else is concerned.
And just as there are good and bad athletes, there can be good and bad Christians. Why wouldn't there be?
__
Edited by Archer Opteryx, : detail
Edited by Archer Opteryx, : correction of beer typo

Archer O
All species are transitional.

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 65 of 141 (726658)
05-10-2014 7:52 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by Archer Opteryx
05-10-2014 2:16 PM


Scripture Thumping
Bible thumping is impossible until a canon is agreed upon, and is of little practical use afterward until a printing press is invented.
Faith had what I think is a good counter to this. While no canonized bible existed in the early centuties there were numerous books of scripture wandering around from church to church. The priests would read and relay to the congregants the verses. I could see where faceman and Faith could logically argue that if today's biblical literalism is a requirement for the appellation of "true christian," then pre-bible, a belief in scriptural literalism would suffice.
What I have yet to get an answer on from faceman is if this literalism of bible/scripture is such a requirement. He has hinted at such but has not outright claimed this is required.
Faceman seems to believe that if someone believes genesis is allegory then they can have no faith in the message of the bible by any part at all and thus no grounds to believe in the boy's gift. They cannot be "true christians."TM
If this is in fact his view then I have another pointy stick ... er ... argument to use on him.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by Archer Opteryx, posted 05-10-2014 2:16 PM Archer Opteryx has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 66 by Theodoric, posted 05-10-2014 8:10 PM AZPaul3 has replied
 Message 72 by NoNukes, posted 05-10-2014 11:04 PM AZPaul3 has replied

  
Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


(1)
Message 66 of 141 (726660)
05-10-2014 8:10 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by AZPaul3
05-10-2014 7:52 PM


Re: Scripture Thumping
numerous books of scripture wandering around from church to church.
Of multitudes of translations and interpretations. Also, there were a lot of christian books that never made it into any canon that were treated as scripture for hundreds of years. Some of these non canon books have been treated as scripture for almost 2000 years by some churches.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by AZPaul3, posted 05-10-2014 7:52 PM AZPaul3 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 68 by AZPaul3, posted 05-10-2014 8:55 PM Theodoric has replied
 Message 69 by Omnivorous, posted 05-10-2014 9:15 PM Theodoric has not replied

  
Archer Opteryx
Member (Idle past 3597 days)
Posts: 1811
From: East Asia
Joined: 08-16-2006


(2)
Message 67 of 141 (726663)
05-10-2014 8:36 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by faceman
05-10-2014 12:36 AM


'True Christian' - the basics
faceman writes:
yes a true Christian must - at the very least - believe that Christ died for their sins and rose again.
Let's say I believe that. I can go to church with you and break bread with you now and all is good, right?
Oh, by the way--what's a church? What's breaking bread?
Did I mention I also believe Jesus rose again without his physical body attached? I just think people who loved him sensed his energy after he died. That's enough.
I'm not sure Jesus ever had a physical body attached. Someone as pure and good as that, having intestines... it's kinda gross.
I also happen to believe Jesus was the son of a god--and that other gods include Enlil, Odin, Astarte, Zhang'O, Shiva, Kali, Mazu, and the Triple Morrigan, praise be to all of them. I pray to each one every day.
I also believe Mary was raped by a Roman soldier and think baptism is a left fielder for the Chicago White Sox.
How am I doing? Still a true Christian?

Archer O
All species are transitional.

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 68 of 141 (726664)
05-10-2014 8:55 PM
Reply to: Message 66 by Theodoric
05-10-2014 8:10 PM


Re: Scripture Thumping
Of multitudes of translations and interpretations.
True, but this does not alter the question. Is a belief in the literalness of the words required?
Let's narrow this a bit.
Genesis was around then, pretty much as it is today. Is a belief in the literal stories of genesis a requirement to be a "true christians"TM then as well as today? Better yet, just today. Is this a requirement by faceman's and Faith's understanding?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 66 by Theodoric, posted 05-10-2014 8:10 PM Theodoric has replied

Replies to this message:
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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


(1)
Message 69 of 141 (726665)
05-10-2014 9:15 PM
Reply to: Message 66 by Theodoric
05-10-2014 8:10 PM


Re: Scripture Thumping
Theodoric writes:
Of multitudes of translations and interpretations. Also, there were a lot of christian books that never made it into any canon that were treated as scripture for hundreds of years.
Which is what you might expect in the years following a teacher who emphasized the strong authority of personal spiritual experience: early Christians could testify to their understanding of what was revealed to them in prayer.
That genie got stuffed back in the bottle pretty damn quick.
It didn't take long to get from the Kingdom of Heaven is within you to sit down and shut up.

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

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Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 70 of 141 (726666)
05-10-2014 9:29 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by AZPaul3
05-10-2014 8:55 PM


Re: Scripture Thumping
Genesis was around then, pretty much as it is today.
Was it? What were the versions existing at that time?
Is a belief in the literal stories of genesis a requirement to be a "true christians"TM then as well as today?
Biblical literalism and inerrancy are fairly recent phenomenon. As a matter of fact current inerrancy beliefs date from the 1970's. Historical the vast majority of christians have accepted a lot of the bible as allegory.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by AZPaul3, posted 05-10-2014 8:55 PM AZPaul3 has replied

Replies to this message:
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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 71 of 141 (726667)
05-10-2014 9:55 PM
Reply to: Message 70 by Theodoric
05-10-2014 9:29 PM


Re: Scripture Thumping
This is a jewish book and the jews did not take kindly to differing versions floating around. My understanding is that genesis was re-written in large part during the Babylon captivity and was finalized sometime after the return from exile with the building of the second temple. That should place the book at about 500 BCE to sometime like 200 BCE, I think.
But then, I'm not sure how much stock the old ones put in the jewish books at that time. Frankly, I really don't care.
Was a belief in the biblical stories (jewish bible) a requirement to be a "true christian?". I don't think anyone knows and, again I really don't care.
Is it a requirement today? That is my question to faceman.
Edited by AZPaul3, : correction

This message is a reply to:
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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 72 of 141 (726668)
05-10-2014 11:04 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by AZPaul3
05-10-2014 7:52 PM


Re: Scripture Thumping
What I have yet to get an answer on from faceman is if this literalism of bible/scripture is such a requirement. He has hinted at such but has not outright claimed this is required.
Literalism as a distinction between what many fundamentalists believe and what an even larger number of protestants accept really only has to do with how a few passages of scripture. In other cases it is easy to demonstrate that fundies are playing fast and loose with the text.
For example, the fundamentalist reading of prophecy in Isaiah cannot possibly be defended as literalism of anything like that applied to the genealogy of Noah in Genesis.
Faceman seems to believe that if someone believes genesis is allegory then they can have no faith in the message of the bible by any part at all and thus no grounds to believe in the boy's gift
He seems to stop short of that view in Message 47
There's plenty of conflict with that argument, right in the first chapter of Genesis alone. If you can't trust the first chapter, then the rest becomes suspect, from that mindset anyways.
But you could still make it work like you say, as long as you held onto the deity of Jesus Christ - that He died for our sins and was raised again, conquering death (call it holy abiogenesis if you like).
It's risky though, because it's like building a house on very loose sand. Not recommended.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by AZPaul3, posted 05-10-2014 7:52 PM AZPaul3 has replied

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AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 73 of 141 (726671)
05-10-2014 11:36 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by NoNukes
05-10-2014 11:04 PM


Re: Scripture Thumping
He seems to stop short of that view in ...
Shhhush. Quite. He's tap dancing. I'm trying to nail his feet to the floor.
Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


(1)
Message 74 of 141 (726677)
05-11-2014 3:29 AM


How much scripture is it safe to disbelieve?
I think faceman already answered the question about whether you have to believe fully in the inerrant Bible to be a Christian -- which I read to mean "maybe not but it's risky." Which is what I'd also say. I don't think we can know how much of the word of God can be rejected and the person still be saved.
It's usually said that the questions concerning evolution are not "salvation issues," so that you can be a Christian while not taking the first chapters of Genesis literally. This may be the case, it's logical enough, but as a Christian I don't want to speculate how far a person can go with that. It may be that if you are able to believe that Jesus is God in the flesh whose death paid for your sins, then you are saved no matter what you believe about Genesis. I certainly regarded Buzsaw as a Christian though he had the belief in a few extra millions of years tucked away between the first verses in Genesis, which is not exactly a literal reading.
But you know, if the Bible IS the word of God you are taking chances whenever you reject or reinterpret any of it.
Look at it this way: all through scripture the heroes of the faith are those who believe God but reject worldly wisdom when there is a conflict, and it often gets you in trouble with the world, like thrown in the lions' den or the furnace and that sort of thing, so it's a real test of faith in God. If you do the opposite you are caving in to the world. And that's the test we face concerning evolution and the Old Earth if we believe that the way scripture reads is clearly against those views. It's true there have been those who allegorized the early parts of Genesis, such as Augustine of Hippo, and nobody's going to deny he was a Christian, so there's room for different readings up to a point, but I'd say it's a matter of being a Christian in spite of a wrong reading.
Certainly God isn't going to hold anyone guilty of a wrong reading who is sincerely trying to understand and follow Him, and it's possible to be saved just on the basis of believing a few crucial parts of scripture if more isn't available to a person (the thief on the cross who recognized his own sinfulness and that Jesus was the Messiah was certainly saved), but I don't want to be the one to judge that in any particular case.
One strong argument for the literal reading of Genesis is that it promises us a Savior to right the effects of the Fall and that's what Jesus came to do, so if you compromise a great deal of that part of scripture you also blur the meaning of the coming of the Messiah. Again, this may not be a salvation issue but God reads the heart and knows if a person is honest or not.
So my answer is you may be saved even if you reject some parts of scripture or allegorize them, but how much you can get away with isn't something I'd want to speculate about. God is merciful, but it's risky.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


(2)
Message 75 of 141 (726679)
05-11-2014 4:16 AM
Reply to: Message 63 by Archer Opteryx
05-10-2014 2:16 PM


Re: Wow. This really took off! I thought things were sleepier than that around here. Next
The definition quoted in the OP has two parts:
1. takes the Bible as the final authority
2. believes in salvation by faith in Christ alone through God's grace, nothing added
By this definition the early Christian communities had no true Christians.
But you are making "the Bible" into a literal physical object which is not the point,. The point is that the Bible is the record of historical events directed by God and intended to reveal God's nature and will, but it didn't exist in literal physical form as we have it now until the Gutenberg press came along. The Old Testament was available in NT times and was preached by the early Christians as evidence for Jesus as the Messiah. The NT interpretations were passed by word of mouth but then circulated among the churches as independent letters written by the apostles. When we talk about the Bible or scripture we're talking about what it SAYS not the form in which it has come down to us.
1. Bible thumping is impossible until a canon is agreed upon, and is of little practical use afterward until a printing press is invented.
Nonsense. You are putting in the term "Bible thumping" but such a phrase is misleading. Protestants mean by "the Bible" the teachings that are now contained in that form that were available to the early church just as they are to us though not in the same form. Since they had the teachers themselves there they would also have had the opportunity to hear them expounding the meanings of the scriptures as any preacher today would, the OT scriptures in that case.
2. 'Faith alone' as a litmus test for orthodoxy is a Protestant fetish that reflects fifteenth-century European quarrels. The catch-phrase does not appear in the canon. It was not taught as a doctrine at all by early Christians, much less made into a shibboleth.
More nonsense. Paul taught salvation by faith alone quite clearly over and over again. It would be very odd if what he wrote in Ephesians 2:8 had not been preached to the early churches time and time again:
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
The full Reformation formula taken from the scriptures is that we're saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and that the basis for this is scripture alone or "Sola Scriptura." which means the word of God in whatever form it was available to the people in any time you wish to choose. Including situations where only parts of it were available.
That dispenses with the BS fundy slogans.
Stuff and nonsense.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by Archer Opteryx, posted 05-10-2014 2:16 PM Archer Opteryx has replied

Replies to this message:
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