Vinnie

That depends on what sense you define Christian. You appear to come from a black and white hell || heaven perspective. A Christian is one who experiences God within the Christian tradition started by Jesus of Nazareth back in the day. God presumably is not as concerned with petty labels and titular reductionist fallacies as we are.

Now, all that one needs to tell if they are a "Christian" or not is to tell if they have a relationship with God. Since virtually all Christians claim to have such a relationship this is the yardstick they use.

Are they decieved? Is the relationship real? A good question to ask but those in the "relationship" would say their experiences suggest no.

Vinnie

Don Alhambra

Treaty of Paris?

*Note to self: read more history...*

Starboy

Not at all Vinnie. Christians maintain that one or more of god, sin, soul, heaven, hell, demons, devils and so forth exist. This frames the Christian reality. If none of this is real then what is called Christianity becomes just another story, nothing special. At a minimum they got to have god, and if so then it is the final authority as regards Christian reality. Without god there is no more significance to calling oneself a Christian than calling oneself a Trekkie.

Sorry Vinnie, don't ask crazy people if they are crazy.

Starboy

Lonely_Road_Of_Faith

Yeah, that's about the size of it.

Someone once said that Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen, this probably doesn't make much sense to you...but it works for me. I have faith that I know God, I believe I talk to God, and that he does answer in various ways...to me, the fact that I will not know the answers to some of my greatest questions, or meet God face to face, until I am dead, is simply a fact of life, but I also believe that death is simply another part of life, and that I am simply a traveler in this world, on my way to somewhere else.

At one time in my life, I questioned my faith, and even my Theistic belief, I guess I just came up with different answers then a lot of people here did, and that's OK, we can certainly all get along, or at least I think so.

Lonely_Road_Of_Faith

Bark Bark!

I am not antisocial, damn it!

*LROF Runs back to his cave in the wilderness, and greets the rest of the wolf pack*

OK, maybe I'm crazy, but I'm not antisocial.

Rhea

Please pardon while I clean my keyboard after the image of LROF "running back to his cave in the Wildernesse" caused me to spit water all over it.


Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Starboy

It's okay with me as long as you don't try to give it to anyone else or force it on anyone.

You have to admit that its all pretty goofy. You live in two worlds, a world of quarks, neurons, bits, DNA, electrons, galaxies and so forth and then the world of good, evil, sin, soul, god, devil, heaven, hell and so forth. As much as you would like to think they are the same reality they have nothing to do with one another. It may have made sense to think such things when we didn't know much about reality but in this day and age it is just whacked.

Starboy

Magus55

God also told us we will know who people are by their fruits, and to beware of false prophets. The Physical ressurection of Christ, who is God in the flesh and died on the cross, is the most basic and important concept with in Christianity. Christianity wouldn't exist without the ressurection. If Christ isn't God, He can't forgive and couldn't have fullfilled the law perfectly to be the flawless sacrifice. If Jesus wasn't ressurected, then your sins aren't paid for, spiritual death wasn't conquered, and everyone will be in Hell.


1Cr 15:12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?

1Cr 15:13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:

1Cr 15:14 And if Christ be not risen, then [is] our preaching vain, and your faith [is] also vain.

1Cr 15:15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.

1Cr 15:16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:

1Cr 15:17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith [is] vain; ye are yet in your sins.

sharon45

Lonely_Road_Of_Faith, not to really get even further off the topic as it has been for awhile now, I just wanted to point this out:

You keep droping in quotes from the NT as though they were obvious wisdom. While some are, some really instead are very unwise. Even though these were also said by the as written version of jesus, he didn't do that great of a job following his own words.

Please try to be more selective with quotes attributed to real wisdom when making a point, thank you.

Rhea

Indeed.
I love this passage.


Modern English translation:
"We HAVE to be right! Because we'd look gullible if it turned out we were just gullible!"

Well there you go. Can't argue with that logic.