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One day I usually go to church... not today this year around. Whoops. There's still hope for Christmas, though.

My parents operate under the same sort of church attendance records but consider themselves Catholic. I will, however, be damned if they're not a lot more moral than I am otherwise.

SpacemanSpiff wrote:

Well if the most basic definition of Christian was a disciple as a "follower of Christ" (Acts 11:26), then no.

I haven't seen any group of people actually following Christ for some time now.

What is your standard for following Christ?

Remember - man looks at the outward appearance ...

kb5zhh wrote:

It's pretty clear that Christian means anybody for whom Jesus forms a major/the major element of his religious beliefs.  Thus gnostics, who believed that Jesus brought the special knowledge of how to escape from this evil world, are christian.  But muslims, who regard Jesus as just another in the line of prophets, are not christian.  The ZCC church in southern africa, who believe what we'd recognize as christian beliefs plus a lot of weird ancestor worship stuff, are christian.

To say that this broad definition means that christianity is therefor meaningless seems strange.

How about "meaningless in any practical sense" then?

kb5zhh wrote:

Pariah wrote:

kb5zhh wrote:

It's pretty clear that Christian means anybody for whom Jesus forms a major/the major element of his religious beliefs.  Thus gnostics, who believed that Jesus brought the special knowledge of how to escape from this evil world, are christian.  But muslims, who regard Jesus as just another in the line of prophets, are not christian.  The ZCC church in southern africa, who believe what we'd recognize as christian beliefs plus a lot of weird ancestor worship stuff, are christian.

To say that this broad definition means that christianity is therefor meaningless seems strange.

How about "meaningless in any practical sense" then?

How so?  Is buddhist meaningless in a practical sense as well?

I dunno. I dont live in a country where practically everyone claims to be christian yet I don't see any common attributes to go along with that.
I see greedy empire builders who preach from podiums in grandiose, multi-million dollar churches a message a Ferengi would approve of  and earnest, caring folks feeding the poor and housing the homeless and strikes me the former get far more respect in the "religious" community.
But...yeah, to me knowing someone is "christian" is about as informative as knowing they are right handed. It means something but not very much.

Certainly christianity is relevent. Just because people might get their religion wrong or interpret their gospel in odd ways makes no difference. Religion is what people say it is. For another current example, I think the interpretation of Ecclisiastes in the context of war-making is sloppy, lazy, self-serving and glaringly contradictory. It may also be a perfectly sound interpretation (wouldn't that be sad). That hardly means it's irrelevent; in fact, i'd suggest right now it's very relevent.

Christianity is relevent regardless of how well or badly the faith is practised.

I find it interesting that atheists don't see the glaring irony of stating another person's god doesn't exist. It wasn't without reason that the US Supreme Court called atheism a religion - it requires just as much, and possibly more, faith than any other.

That said, I agree that the world has seen very few true "Christians" of late. Like the atheists, I have grown more and more tired of empty "religion" for the sake of everything but piety, money-grabbing con schemes that take advantage of those who can least afford it, and ridiculous political rhetoric supporting evil in the name of god.

But I haven't used that as an excuse to deny God. If anything, the more I learn of the world, and of science, convinces me that there is a god - I'm just not convinced He's found in the temples/synagogues/churches/(statehouses) as everyone claims.

I do believe in Christ; that he not only existed, but that he did what he claimed. I believe God exists, and that he is who he says he is. I also believe that what is written about God in the Bible is true, though I acknowledge that the Bible was written by many hands, over a very long period of time, and has biases that favor the Jews (they did write the Old Testament after all)

So, I consider myself a Christian - even as I disagree with much of what is done in its name.

For example:
I was ridiculously angry when a so-called "church" claimed that Matthew Shepard "deserved to die" for being gay. I was furious when abortion clinics were bombed, and doctors were maimed by so-called Christians "trying to preserve the sanctity of life". I am angry every time I hear a televangelist ask for money to buy stuff for themselves in the name of God. I get sick when I read about people who forgo medical treatment at the advice of a charlatan misquoting the Bible.

That isn't Christ-like at all. Those people are either deceived, or deceiving.

However, for each of those examples, I can think of examples of people who acted in a Christ-like way; showing mercy, charity, and love. Real Christians are the ones who band together, and help a family whose house burned down even when it means personal sacrafice. Real Christians are the ones who stand against evil, even when it isn't popular. Real Christians DO forgive, and forget, and lay the past aside. Real Christians are the ones who realize when they have wronged someone, even a non-Christian, and go ask for forgiveness themselves.

They are out there, but you have to look closely, and pay attention. Something our society no longer values.

Just watch out, they may send a crack suicide squad.

"However, for each of those examples, I can think of examples of people who acted in a Christ-like way; showing mercy, charity, and love. Real Christians are the ones who band together, and help a family whose house burned down even when it means personal sacrafice. Real Christians are the ones who stand against evil, even when it isn't popular. Real Christians DO forgive, and forget, and lay the past aside. Real Christians are the ones who realize when they have wronged someone, even a non-Christian, and go ask for forgiveness themselves."


Athiests sometimes help Christians too.

Honestly I think making wholesale judgments on what people can and can't do is pretty funny. People are much more complicated than that and to make such statements is disingenuous.

radarman wrote:

user wrote:

radarman wrote:

I find it interesting that atheists don't see the glaring irony of stating another person's god doesn't exist. It wasn't without reason that the US Supreme Court called atheism a religion - it requires just as much, and possibly more, faith than any other.

The SC called atheism a religion simply as an easy means to hand down a decision. They cannot ACTUALLY declare atheism a religion.

Could you tell us why you think atheism requires faith?

Really, you don't think that it takes a certain amount of faith to declare that there is no god? Do you really know that for sure? What empirical evidence do you stand on?

That's logic worthy of resedit there.

Or are you just having some fun there ?

radarman wrote:

In fact, most people that I've met are good people, regardless of faith.

Isn't that idea against the idea of christianity?

radarman wrote:

I find it interesting that atheists don't see the glaring irony of stating another person's god doesn't exist. It wasn't without reason that the US Supreme Court called atheism a religion - it requires just as much, and possibly more, faith than any other.

Atheism requires far less faith than religion.

The type of "faith" required by atheist are things like "matter is made up of atoms." We (humanity) have no way to detect this for ourselves with our senses, we just have to have faith that the scientific community won't lie to us.

Religious people have faith that god will give them guidance in their lives, and this is based on believing that their religious texts and religious leaders won't lie to them.

The difference is that an atheist can go through a certain amount of work to "prove" their beliefs of faith are in fact based on concrete things, where as a religious person has no means of proving their faith.

But I haven't used that as an excuse to deny God. If anything, the more I learn of the world, and of science, convinces me that there is a god - I'm just not convinced He's found in the temples/synagogues/churches/(statehouses) as everyone claims.

I do believe in Christ; that he not only existed, but that he did what he claimed. I believe God exists, and that he is who he says he is. I also believe that what is written about God in the Bible is true, though I acknowledge that the Bible was written by many hands, over a very long period of time, and has biases that favor the Jews (they did write the Old Testament after all)

Your first paragraph doesn't seem to fit with your second paragraph here. How do you reconcile the 2 beliefs with each other? How do you feel about people of non-Christian beliefs, are they going to hell? What about the idea of evolution vs. creationism? Do you feel that Genesis is mostly figurative?

For the last 2 questions particularly, you may think that you have a good, logical basis for your answer, but there are also other smart people who are Christians who disagree with you  (note: it doesn't matter how you answer those questions, there are people who disagree with you) on what they feel are more empirical grounds.

The ambiguous nature of "Christianity" is reason enough I think not to want to call yourself a Christian. This has no bearing on spirituality however.

kb5zhh wrote:

radarman wrote:

In fact, most people that I've met are good people, regardless of faith.

Isn't that idea against the idea of christianity?

How so? The good samaritan wasn't a Christian, was he? Yet he illustrated compassion.