Arken

Nuns are 'Brides of Christ.' If she has a relationship with God, does that mean God is cheating on the nuns?

Don't we get to stone him to death for that?

MortalWombat

Yes, but only with a stone so heavy that he couldn't lift it.

I ate Pascal's Wafer

I understand what you're saying. I just never did understand why they would want to redefine 'religion' such that Christianity does not apply. Besides, their definitions have their problems in some ways. If a religion is a system by which people earn their way to heaven, then any number of pagan or Earth-based belief systems could not be considered religions. If religion, as defined by some Christians on another board I visit, is man's way of working up to God, then they have the problem of establishing the case where Christianity is excluded.

I suppose the point here is that the rest of us don't have a problem with the standard definition of religion. Even most of the Christians that I know don't mind accepting that Christianity is a religion. It's this really small minority that argues otherwise, and the fact that their alternative definitions are less-accurate is not helping them.

Yeah, this is true. Within their own minds this definition makes sense to them, and they are not likely to change their understanding of reality by what I argue.

It's just that it irritates me to no end how a few Christians are so insistent on redefining words to suit their own needs, and are not even willing to admit that they have redefined words from their normal usage. So it goes...

-Nick

ranterjmc

A former work colleague of my wife came to stay Friday night to Saturday afternoon and subjected her to about an hour of evangelism before she left with all this stuff.

My wife is still going on about that and about how rude and selfish this person was.

Yet earlier on she had said that she was lonely and how sad she'll be when her daughter leaves home shortly at the tender age of 35.

Funny kind of "relationship" that doesn't alleviate loneliness isn't it?

And a funny kind of "relationship" that doesn't give one party to that relationship the slightest clue how to behave with other people - if only to make the evangelism more convincing.

Daggah

Problem is, their definition of religion isn't right and never has been.

Spaz

This might not be appropriate, but the first thing I thought when I saw this thread was "It's not sex, it's a relationship with my penis." And it makes just as much sense. If only Bill Clinton had the same propaganda skills as the churches....

HelenM

Who's to say whose definition is 'right'?

But if you want to be as dogmatic as the most dogmatic theist, sure, go ahead and assert their definition is 'wrong'

I don't even think it's the rejection of the definition per se which is the main problem; it's the way some Christians disagree with it simply to make a point. I find it irritating when people try to make their points by nitpicking what the other person said rather than going with it and then stating their own viewpoint more directly. I find it an unnecessarily confusing way to interact.

Helen

HelenM

What happens is that incorrigible Christian meets incorrigibile atheist. If either one would decide to go with the definitions of the other one, they could possibly have some sort of meaningful interaction. But, egos get in the way...

Helen

HelenM

I won't argue that it might be an over-simplification when a Christian claims "[the] Christianity [I believe is correct] is the only grace-based system; all religious systems [other than Christianity] are works-based". I suppose it is true, though, that Christianity is the only religion (how's that? ) based on a relationship with Jesus.

What do you mean? In the Bible, in Ephesians 2, it says that you are saved by grace and not by works. That establishes it, doesn't it?

It's quite common for Bible-believing Christians to argue that Christianity is not a religion but a relationship. Perhaps you'd say they are in the minority of all Christians. I don't know what the statistics are.

I think you're right. Even though James 1 uses the word "religion" in a positive sense to describe the way of life pleasing to God.

It irritates me too because I think it unnecessarily hinders communication.

But any nontheist who wants to can move beyond that hindrance easily, if they want to, simply by going with what the Christian says and asking them to explain.

Helen

I ate Pascal's Wafer

LOL, that works.

Well, on the other board they claim that religion is man's way of working up to God, and Christianity is God's way of working down to man--at that this is the distinction between Christianity and religion and what Christianity is not including under the title of religion.

From what I can gather, they are arguing that the other world religions all have this in common--it is up to the individual to search out for God and find his own way to 'salvation'. With Christianity, God does everything for you and you only have to accept the gift. Because of this difference, they feel that it is wrong to lump Christianity in with those other systems of belief.

I won't even try to justify this theologically, but that's what they think.

Well, from my experience most of them are willing to admit that Christianity is a religion, albeit different from other religions. They aren't adamently opposed to even admitting that Christianity is a religion under the general definition of the term as some of the others I have encountered are. To me those that are so insistent that Christianity is in no way a religion are in a minority, but then again my sample size isn't large enough to extrapolate this to all Christians.

Hmm, it's interesting that even in the Bible the word "religion" is used in a positive sense. I guess so many Christians are taught that religion is synonymous with organization, and that organization is not the way to earn salvation. They see that Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, and any number of religions all have strict doctrine and strict practices and they feel like this hinders the believer's walk with God. By equating religion with strict doctrine, they are too quick to state that their own beliefs are not part of any religion (i.e., that their own beliefs are not dependent on some organization's strict doctrine). I guess they are too quick to limit the definition of "religion" for this reason and are not able to see that there is more to religion than doctrine and organization.

Yeah, this is true. In my experience the only time when this issue is really important is when we are discussing this issue on its own terms. I guess the problem I have with communicating with them is that when they give their explanations, and I give my thoughts on those explanations, they simply reword those same thoughts and give them back to me. They won't consider that their definitions may be limited, and it's hard for me to progress in a discussion of this type if they won't consider my definitions and they won't consider any objections one might have to their definitions.

-Nick