This is a message board,
I’d say time is sort of irrelevant.
Keep it to 5000 words and we’ll get along fine. 
My overall point is that there is more than one way to contemplate God and more than one way to contemplate Christ. A fundamentalist will view God as more anthropological, a mystic views God in a more pantheistic way. One might be more inclined to consider Christ historically, another might be more inclined to consider the Christ that is within us. One might take the Bible literally, another metaphorically.
That’s my point.
(Less than a hundred!)
There is an enormous distinction between a Christian mystic and a mistake. It takes a certain refined inner taste for self deception though to recognize it for what it is.
Oh right. Whether they would all be legitimately referred to as ‘Christians’, given the full scope of their possible disagreement on whether or not, say, Christ existed, is another point.
Does one need to accept that Christ existed as someone/something who had the interactions and relations to other Christian concepts that the Bible claims he did, in order to be Christian? If not, I think just about anyone could be Christian. Christian concepts could be interpreted so broadly that most religious people could be Christian. At some point, an interpretation must be simply wrong. Or not?
Well I think it depends on who is doing the interpreting. I don’t like the thought there is one single definition of “Christianity” or this idea that the entire religion (and by extension all of those who call themselves Christian) claims that it is the only true religion. Some Christians claim their religion is such. Other Christians do not.
OBW, there is Christianity which initiated with a conscious source and Christendom which arose from the devolvution of Christianity as a result of the philosophizing of experts thereby losing its essence. Which are you interested in?
Well in this case we’re surely referring to the former. The latter is far more interesting, as a theocracy, to me.
Jerry, I also do not like the idea that the entire religion claims itself to be the only true religion. But it does, does it not? I would have said Christianity had no desire not to be ‘exclusive’.
No. It does not. Some Christians believe it to be so. The “entire religion” does not. I’m not real sure how else to make this point. It seems obvious to me that getting away from sweeping generalizations about a group of people should make this clear. I’m probably just missing something.
Since Christendom was created and sustained by arguing over details, the best course of action in pursuit of Christendom is to continue arguing over details.
Christianity begins with the acknowledgement that it is beyond the whole of your “understanding” normally limited to argument. If this is true, approaching Christianity means becoming open to it by changing yourself. Arguing is useless since the question has become how to become open to receive it.
Jerry- I see what you’re saying with regards to there being different groups of people who come under the banner of Christianity, but that banner, regardless of these individual groups, says quite clearly on it “Our God is the only real God” or it might say “Worshipping Zeus is not Christian”. It is entirely possible that ‘modern’ christianity has me by the beard and my traditional education in christian dogma is now outdated.
Nick- edit: I get you. I don’t really have an opinion on the validity of such an endevour. It sounds dangerously amorphous.
Can someone explain what a viable alternative to “only one true religion” would be? Can God be a personal Creator, an impersonal force, a pantheon of lesser things, and nothing at all, all at the same time in the same sense? Seems to me that religions can only have common elements of truth insofar as they agree.
It would take a pretty staunch fundamentalist to say that another religion is wrong even when it claims the very same thing that is true when a Christian claims it. So, for example, Christianity claims there is only one God. Islam claims there is only one God. So, both religions ‘share a common truth’. That’s all you need for a hippy love fest, right? I have a feeling though, that people might want to take it much further than that.
I think the issue is the difference between claiming truth for oneself (“this is what I think truth is and what I believe”) and claiming truth for everybody else (“this is what truth is and anybody who believes otherwise is wrong”). The latter is a pretty bold statement and my point has been that not all Christians make claims like it, although certainly some do. That is to say, you can be a Christian and still hold to the idea that a Muslim can reach God as well. (Or vice-verse).
Jerry
Well, this is what we do in every other field but religion. And for the record, most people do it in religion too.
The trick here is in the verbiage. People will say "I believe in many truths" or "I don't believe there is only one right answer" because it makes them feel/seem a certain way to say so. I think in reality, though, what they've done is exchanged one truth for another- they have a [i]particular notion[/i] about how people 'reach God', and they believe that confilcting notions are incorrect. In other words, the pluralist believes the fundamentalist is wrong, and vica versa. The pluralist just has a little more asthetically appealing ways to say it these days.
So. Yes, a Christian can believe that Muslims can 'reach God' as well. However, they haven't 'accepted conflicting truths' or any such mental gymnastics. They simply believe a different set of propositions about spiritual matters, and the propositions they believe allow them to make statements like the above. See my example of many religions believing in one God. It is right for me to say that I have identified a "Common thread of truth through many religions". That is literally a fact. Now, I could distort that and say that I am some mystic pluralist who has embraced many paths, but that's plainly not so. There is a 'common thread of truth through many religions' only insofar as many religions agree with [i]me, me, me[/i].
And that’s how the world works.
Obw
Amorphous is an interesting choice of words. I value the Christian concept of gnosis. It is a true gift. The experience is beyond our normal capacity for comprehension so is amorphous. Yet it can be abused. Modern day channeling is such abuse. The abuse is in allowing for form derived from imagination that only leads to perversion. The key in all this is knowledge of the Holy Faculty of Attention, the importance of which is ignored by the majority.
Ucc, I sympathize with your question. I do believe there is objective reality which is equally true for all and subjective reality which is our individually created conceptions of reality normal for the limitations of our being. As we are, we are limited to subjective truths.
This is why I like Simone Weil’s explanation as to what to believe as far as God is concerned.
All these different images of God is only idolatry and the results of this practice is obvious.
I want Jerry to answer obw… !
define “god” and then we will talk- of course thats a figure of speech, we wont have to talk because youll probably figure out that what religion youre in is based on your definition of god, in fact that definition is almost entirely individual, two Protestant Christians can have a different fiew of god, even diests have a view of god.
athiests, however, have a different definition of god: he doesnt exist
What was it that I left unanswered?
To my understanding the christian God acknowledges that other gods do exist. It is in the wording of the 10 commandments. So he preaches to those that would follow him. Now, what the other Gods promise their followers is up to them. He only condemns those that claim christianity to hell if they don’t follow his rules not other god’s worshippers. I suppose if you flip flop you might get the raw end of the stick too.
If there is one omnipotent being it would stand to reason there could be more. A false god to the christian god would be one that his followers were not supposed to follow or even acknowledge.
Taken out of exodus:King James
2 I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
See it says that this god acknowledges other gods.
edited