What makes someone a Christan?

Shekwan said:
Proper christians send this guy angry mail.
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That's such a negative story. Attenborough is a world treasure (I was corrected recently when I said he was a national treasure) and to receive such mail from the ignorant is unfortunate, but perhaps it's all part and parcel of being a globally recognised Darwinist (and presenter of literally incredible documentaries like 'Planet Earth').

Still, well done David for being able to put these people down politely, e.g.:

David_Attenborough said:
"I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in East Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball.

"The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs.

"I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator."
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Eran of Arcadia said:
I have to say that I never got the emphasis on eternal punishment that I guess some denominations emphasize - we did talk about eternal rewards but not so much the fire and brimstone. And kids are usually going to question things anyways.
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If you search through the words of Jesus, you will see that he talked more about hell (hades and gehenna in the Gree), than he did about heaven. It shows that Jesus belived that there was eternal punishment for those who do not believe, since his wrath is abiding on those who do not Believe. (John 3:36)
IglooDude said:
Nope, they're Christian too, just really bad or misguided or badly taught ones. They are Christian, the Westboro congregation is Christian, child-molesting priests are Christian, IRA bombers were Christian, the Crusaders were Christian, and the Spanish Inquisitors were Christian. Religion is about fundamental beliefs, and for Christians it is as Ziggy said. By the same token, Muslims that fly planes into buildings, blow themselves up at weddings, or throw acid in women's faces really are all Muslims, it's just a question of whether they're really doing what Muhammed told them to do.

And this isn't just my opinion, it's my wife's as well (and she's a Christian by any standard mentioned in this thread so far).
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Well, by your works do show what type of person you are. Now are they following what Jesus says? Do they show the love of God to others? Now if they were truly Christian, then there would be a great change in their lives, and these people are not showing that, so they not really Christian, certainly their actions do not match what they say they are. Now this is a personal question that you can answer by PM if you want, but has your wife ever once told you that you are dying in your sins and that you need to put your trust in Christ? If she has not done that once, the I seriously doubt that she is a Christian. I know I am making a judgement call, but I am just following the advice if Jesus. Matthew 7:21-23 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
warpus said:
Cause "Christian" and Christianity are ideas that only arose decades (centuries?) after Jesus died.
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No, if you read what Stile says latter on in a quote of his, that right from the times of the first disciples of the 12 disciple of Jesus were quoting from what we now know as the New Testament. What you might be saying about Catholic doctrine, but not all Catholic doctrine is "Christian". Even Bill3000 admits that Catholic Doctrine contains the traditions of men, which is expressly forbidden by the Bible. Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Eran of Arcadia said:
Put "Bible" in place of "Book of Mormon" and it is just as accurate. The Bible as we know it was compiled several centuries after Christ, even the earliest books came several decades later
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But the Bible stil came before mythological telling come into play, since even with the last book of the Bible you still have eyewitnesses alive and it takes a few generations before mythological retells appear, and that is just the case with the Gnostic Gospels, since they are just so fanciful and are directly against the rest of the Bible.
Camikaze said:
Many Christians believe that resurrection is merely a metaphor for various things, such as everlasting life, or that it was made up by the writers of the gospels to fit the story (in a well intentioned way, as a tool to help the less educated understand the greatness of Jesus).



Many Christians do not take the Bible as all true, particularly the Old Testament, so having beliefs based on these sections that are not regarded as correct is the same as having beliefs based on non-biblical accounts.



The Old Testament was passed down through generations as an oral tradition, and therefore I find it very hard to believe that it is the word of God, especially when a lot of it blatantly contradicts the New Testament (not the other way around, as the New Testament was compiled in a much shorter time frame). Personally, the Old Testament hasn't been used at my church for years. Hence I don't think that it is necessary to believe it to be a Christian.



Exactly. For instance, many 'non-canonical gospels' existed that aren't part of the Bible.



No-one who wrote the Old Testament knew Jesus.

There is debate over whether the apostle, Matthew, wrote the Gospel of Matthew, or whether it was just a collection of stories passed down orally to an author in the late first century AD. Luke the Evangelist, widely accepted as the writer of the Gospel of Luke, never met Jesus, and was an apostle of Paul. Paul himself never met Jesus, but has seven books in the New Testament. Also, as mentioned above, some other gospels not included existed. For instance, the Gospel of Thomas, written by Thomas, one of Jesus' twelve apostles. As you can see, the New Testament is not a collection of works by those who knew Jesus, and does not include works that may be more fitting of your description.
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1. If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Jesus is not risen and if he is not risen, then we are very much miserable people for telling such a lie. (1 Corinthians 15:1-22)
2+3. The Old Testament correctly predicted how Jesus would, the fact that we would have a miraculous birth, the birthplace and even the time of his birth, so the Old Testament is very much an important part of the Bible. Also there are no contradictions in the bible
4. Because those who knew what the Scriptures says automatically rejected them.
5. Don't be too sure about Paul, because he was once a "Jew of the Jews" meaning that he was a very powerful person and more than likely part of the Sanhedrin, meaning that he could have been one of the men to condemn Jesus to death, or if not, he was very much a high up Pharisee, but on the road to Damascu hemet Jesus that night. Also there are many doubts on the version of higher Criticism about Matthew and the Thomas Gospel is clearly a Gnostic writings, which is why it is rejected and was written way after Thomas was dead. About Luke, he was the most highly eucated of all the followers of Christ, being a Doctor. So much so that the Gospel of Luke is compared to the Classical Greek, since it is so stately and not the Koine Greek of the day, indicating a highly educated man. Since he was so educated it would be easy for him to go those who were around Jesus at the Time and collect information from them, basically he was writing about the history, so as a good historian would he would collect facts about he person was writing about.
Stile said:
You are way off on this. The world has no shortage of philosophers. Without authority as God his teachings are not greater than his Greek contemporaries. I like the teachings of Proverbs. Does that make me a Solomonist? Plus when you start discounting his teachings where he says he and the Father are one, and such, to what extent can a person say he follows Jesus. (Also, I believe in an earlier message you implied you had a problem understanding the whole Jesus as Redeemer thing, in which case I would recommend Paul's letter to the Romans as a good place to start.)


Thanks for the history lesson; I'll try to be more precise in my posts from now on. So it seems you question Matthew, but vouch for the authenticity of Thomas. Here's something that might surprise you. If we didn't have the 4 gospels today, we could recreate them (all but a few verses) from the writings of the early church fathers who quoted them extensively. Why didn't they quote from your "more fitting" works? It is because they were written too late by Gnostics who didn't believe Jesus was actually ever a real person. That would look real odd next to the letter from James, Jesus' own (half-)brother! Paul only wrote seven books? Drop the cynicism and conspiracy theories. Maybe you'd be more convincing in the What Makes Someone a Universal Unitarian thread.


I bet you'd only have to do that once and every other child in town would get right in line.
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:goodjob:

@Much. That is an extremely rare occurrence of the worm and the vast majority of the time the worm goes out of th leg, since it would be near the leg and the person wouldcool his leg from the itchiness cause by the orm and then it releases eggs into the water, but this can be easily stopped, by simple hygene and straining the water for any eggs. Also Romans 8:18-26 talks ho the whole of creation is suffering under the wait of sin that manbrought on the earth and the whole universe.
 
classical_hero said:
@Much. That is an extremely rare occurrence of the worm and the vast majority of the time the worm goes out of th leg, since it would be near the leg and the person wouldcool his leg from the itchiness cause by the orm and then it releases eggs into the water, but this can be easily stopped, by simple hygene and straining the water for any eggs. Also Romans 8:18-26 talks ho the whole of creation is suffering under the wait of sin that manbrought on the earth and the whole universe.
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I appreciate the counterargument, however the worm example is just Attenborough's complaint and not mine. Anyway I imagine he would reply to you along the lines of 'worms burrowing into legs isn't that pleasant either', but I am also fairly sure he has a long list of other reasons for disbelieving in a creator, not least because of his lifetime of experience in studying the natural world and all its natural beauty.
 
classical_hero said:
Also Romans 8:18-26 talks ho the whole of creation is suffering under the wait of sin that manbrought on the earth and the whole universe.
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This is getting borderline OT, but part of what made me NOT a Christian is that I simply can not accept that theory of being guilty and having to suffer because of something my "ancestor" did. And the whole universe now? Come on.
This goes against all notions of personal responsibility.
 
classical_hero said:
1. If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Jesus is not risen and if he is not risen, then we are very much miserable people for telling such a lie. (1 Corinthians 15:1-22)
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So perhaps you're miserable people, then?
 
Elta said:
What counts as your definition of a Christan?

Please give us your definition in as little words as possible.

I was watching some guy get accosted by two JW and two LDS members outside of the video store today when I saw them start to argue with each other over what the definition of a Christan. I was wondering if the Christan people here would even agree.
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Baptism. ;)
 
FROM OTHER THREAD

Messianic Jews practice their faith in a way they consider to be authentically Torah-observant and culturally Jewish.
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If I pray to allah, believe in Muhammad as the prophet, but live my life according to what I interpret the Bible as meaning, and consider myself a Christian, does that make me a Christian?
 
That depends on what status you consider Christ to have. After all, "Allah" doesn't mean "the Muslim God" but rather "the Arabic word for God" in general.

Also, Christianity isn't really a distinct ethnic group.
 
A slightly more rigorous version of "belief in jesus christ" is probably belief in what is contained in the Apostles' Creed, if you want to consider non-Nicene Creed peeps to be Christians. This would only exclude Gnostics. But the radical differences in the various gnostic sects are large enough that it is probably best to consider them seperate religions from Christianity, anyway.

Again, this would be mean that heretics are Christians.
 
Elta said:
Yeah, but there is only one God.
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Yes . . . but it's the same God for Jews as well as Christians (and Muslims, but some Christians don't accept that). I am more interested in a definition in a more sociological sense, I make no claims as to the value of anyone's religious classification.
 
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