Who is a Christian?

I don’t want to waste time on the above. I believe I have stated enough to justify who is a Christian, i.e.

Whoever is a Christian would have complied with the following;

  1. A Christian is a person who has been baptized within the specific Church the Christian belonged to. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism

  2. A Christian is a person who had surrendered his will to God.

  3. A Christian is a person who had entered into a covenant with God to obey the words of God via a believe in Jesus Christ and the Gospels of the NT.

Re “Surrender” I have already provided the justification.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_(religion#In_Christianity

I have read loads of article on this topic which is very common in relation to Christians; e.g.
allaboutfollowingjesus.org/ … to-god.htm

utmost.org/total-surrender/

and many others.

To me accepting people’s claim at face value is an epistemological issue, and a social one. ON what grounds to I tell someone who says they have Jesus in their heart and are Christian that they are not a Christian. I can point out that some religious authorities would disagree. But then most authorities disagreed with Jesus in his time. And how do I know which authority is correct. And then on the social side, I see no loss. As a side effect it allows in quite the opposite from what you are saying Hitchen’s ‘openness’ did. To me it lets in a lot of people who are even less likely to commit atrocities or go along with them.

And then the Quakers and Unitarians open the playing field up for beliefs incredibly.

Prismatic,

I don’t know if its a good or bad thing, but I wouldn’t sign off from a discussion/debate in that spirit, with a sting in the tail, maybe in the past, but not now.

You’ve tweaked your argument to add “via a believe in Jesus Christ”. My responses were in relation to what you stated before doing so. You don’t want to discuss this any more so I’ll leave it at that.

However I will say, I think that the qualifier missing from your argument (even though it has been tweaked) is “In my opinion”. :laughing:

You’ve worked hard to present your argument as objective or a fact (please correct me if I’m wrong in saying that), and I think it describes a paradigm of what some (conservative) Christians may well conform to or believe they are constituted as Christians by. But, in my view, even though you’ve supported it, it is reducible to interpretation, which means that it is subjective or your opinion, even if that opinion is educated. Some of the problems I see in what you’re proposing here, are (a) that you would exclude people as not being Christians who do not meet those criteria and (b) that it may not define all Christians in all cases as you intend to do. The one point you tweaked it to include, of which I’m not entirely sure of the meaning, but you appear to acknowledge the importance of belief in Jesus is, I think, the only aspect of your argument/criteria which cannot be disputed.

I don’t want to waste time repeating my same arguments as presented since the beginning.

That “via a believe in Jesus Christ” is so obvious [you agreed] that I left it out. But since you kept mentioning it, I included it so you don’t have to bring it up again.

I could have added more on who is a Christian, i.e. is a person,

  1. Who believes God exists as real to answer prayers and grant eternal life.
  2. Believes Jesus Christ is the son of God and in Christ’s teachings in the gospel
  3. Surrender to God via faith
  4. Is baptized accordingly
  5. Entered into a covenant with God

To me what is most critical as a matter of principle is the ‘covenant’ which established and enabled the connection and a two-ways relation between God and the Christian.

“Belief in Jesus Christ” [note the “Christ” in “Christian”] is the most obvious and I had mentioned it many times.

My definition is based on the philosophical-epistemological perspective which I believe is the most credible among all the other perspectives I have listed earlier.

The covenant is implied [re Law of Contract] upon believing in Jesus Christ’s teachings.
If someone insist there is no covenant with a God, then he has no essential relationship with Jesus and God. In this case, the person cannot expect God to grant him/her eternity life in heaven.

I understand there are many who claimed to be Christians, i.e. social, cultural, marriage, political, etc. but technically they are at best pseudo-Christians from an epistemological perspective.

A sincere genuine Christian is more likely to agree with my views since they will be in a position to defend Christianity against any accusation Christianity is at fault re the crusades, inquisition, salem, etc.

For a Christian, it would be a good refresh to focus on the covenant with God via Christ to feel more closer and stronger relationship to Christ and God.

Btw, I have joined a mainly Christian forum to get their views which so far many had agreed with my position on ‘who is a Christian’.
I have enough discussion [ideas exhausted] with non- and ex-Christians here i.e. no point more wasting time on this particular topic.

Prismatic,

OK, I thought that some Christians would agree with you, maybe even many, but as I’ve stated and regarding the issues that KT raised, because of the authorities you’re appealing to, your non-theist status, and because you believe your argument is QED, the problems will arise when people disagree with you, or when people claim to be Christians, but don’t fulfil the criteria.

It has been an interesting discussion, thanks.

My non-theistic status is not relevant.
What is relevant is whether I am talking sense, whether my argument of ‘who is a Christian’ [not whether god exists?] is rational and logical.

Prismatic,

Perhaps its not, I’m not 100% sure, but it seems to me that it would be. As you say, these issues have been discussed so there’s no point in going over them again. I think that your argument makes sense, is rational and logical as according to Christian beliefs, and your view about surrendering one’s will to God is well supported. I also don’t see any problems with you as a non-theist defining what you think a Christian should be like or what they are like, but if you claim that those who don’t meet your criteria are not true Christians or “pseudo-Christians”, then your non-theism can possibly become an issue in my view.

As far as I’m aware the Bible doesn’t provide an explicit definition of a Christian, and you can only claim “who is a Christian” according to what you interpret, not what you actually believe in an ontological sense, because for you the Bible is not a genuine authority. You have to rely on logic and reasoning to make your points valid, but they can only take you so far, because they don’t strictly apply to faith, which is a whole other entity.

What if someone argues that they feel they’re a Christian, which by faith is acceptable to some or maybe even many. Are you going to tell them/argue that they aren’t one? On what grounds as a non-theist - that Jesus doesn’t really exist, that the Bible doesn’t say that, that their feelings do not constitute evidence? Christians and preachers may argue that they are based upon their feelings and inclinations, are you going to hold up the Bible or your criteria to them, why as a non-theist would they listen to you?

You are diverting to an irrelevant point which I has no concerns and is not reflected in my and posts.

It is approximated there are nearly 2 billion Christians around the world and I am not interested nor it is relevant at all for me to convince every ‘someone’ within that 2 billion Christians.

Even with Science the most credible and objective theories on hand do not rely on convincing every one or every scientist to accept each scientific theory. Rather each scientific theory is accepted based on the intersubjective consensus of the majority of scientists who has authority on the theory contested.
Note Einstein and many other scientists then did not accept many of the theories from Quantum Mechanics [reinforced as true via repeated testings and is practiced in the present].

My definition of ‘who is a Christian’ is based on the majority of the 2 billion Christians and the rational and reasonable non-Christians. The Muslims [95%] will definitely agree with the covenant [re who is a Muslim, thus those of the Abrahamic family] because its requirement is explicitly stated in the Quran.

My main objective of the imperative of the covenant re ‘Who is a Christian’ is related to resolving the terrible evils and violent from SOME* Islamists. [some but very significant in quantum, i.e. appx 300 million].

I am highlighting the imperative of the covenant [contract] with God that compel Muslims to comply all of God’s command in the immutable holy texts which contains loads of evil laden elements.

It is a side benefit for Christians who can rely on the imperativeness of a covenant to defend themselves against accusation of Christianity being evil and violent because of the crusades, inquisition, Salem, pedophile priests, etc.
The counter for the Christians is, the Christians are covenanted [contracted] with God with an overriding pacifist maxim to love everyone, even their enemies, give the other cheeks, and the likes, thus in no way the Christians and exhorted to kill non-believers and others as a Christian [as defined].

Note my highlighting of a the imperativeness of a covenant [out of empathy and compassion] is critical, necessary and effective for a great cause to reduce terrible evils and violent within humanity.

I welcome counter views, but yours are too flimsy as restricted to requiring me to be a Christian to have authority and that I need to convince every ‘someone’ of all appx. 2 billion Christians.
Btw, what are the pros of your counter views? I don’t see anything significantly worthwhile except to some fringe cults of hundreds within 2 billion of Christians.

He was not saying that your point has problems because you cannot convince everyone. That is a beneficial to you misinterpretation. He is saying that that situation, with the specific kind of theist he described, shows the problem with you, in particular, defining what a Christian is.

Get it?

It was not saying that a proper epistemological criterion is that your argument should convince everyone - an iambiguous type of criterion. He was saying that you have no ground to call on any authority in that situation, as a non-theist. Even if you convince that person, you are calling on authorities you do not respect, who you think are delusional.

It would be like me saying to someone who believe aliens are among us but they are tall and very hair with small eyes, that they are not a true alien believer because most believers in aliens see them as short, grey with big eyes and no hair. Despite the fact that you think all of these people are deluded.

Thanks for weighing in KT. You are right in what you say, I don’t really understand why he doesn’t get it, but I have some ideas… I wasn’t going to respond to his post, as I was going to resist highlighting where I thought he was incorrect, due to his overbearing attitude.

One of the points I was going to make, is that if his argument constitutes the not a QED definition of Christians, fulfilling as he has claimed “all the necessary epistemological and philosophical requirements", wouldn’t that mean that his argument/criteria are universal? He is, after all, claiming that his argument defines/constitutes a Christian, in the all inclusive sense, otherwise he would of made it clear that he only meant some Christians. And I believe that he thinks that anyone outside of his criteria is not a Christian or not a true Christian, otherwise he doesn’t agree with his own “QED” argument.

As if to say: “This […] is the conclusive definition of a Christian (I think he also used the term conclusive), thus it has been demonstrated.”

Which doesn’t leave room for deviations or alterations unless new variables arise, he’s locked himself in it, so to speak. However, conversely, he’s now arguing that his goal is not to convince everyone, and referencing empirical science as a comparison to make that point as if they are related. Epistemologically and philosophically science and Christianity are completely different, but to him they are seemingly analogous because he feels that he has achieved a “proof” (again!)

From my perspective, a sound a posteriori argument need not be agreed upon by the majority for validity, because it is obviously correct, but perhaps I’m not entirely right in saying that? There are areas of his argument/criteria (if not the whole thing) that can reasonably be disputed, which they have been in my view - yet he also believes that in this topic, only his arguments are reasonable/sound, not any of the counter-views. As I stated, I think his argument will be viewed as valid depending on how someone views the whole nature of Christianity, but I do not believe that it defines all Christians in all cases, as he doesn’t have that authority, I don’t think anyone does and the Bible is not 100% clear, which seem to be points that he both accepts and rejects simultaneously. Prismatic is not making much sense to me at the moment.

Your point is too shallow.
I am not arguing whether Jesus is tall or short, dark or light skin, etc.
I am not even arguing which is the standard methods of baptism and I did not insist all must be baptized [which I stated is merely a ritual and form].

I am arguing the critical variable of ‘who is a Christian’ is the imperative covenant, explicit or implied.

Example; A schizo was “told” by a “real” Super Being promising him/her super power if s/he kill 20 people. The schizo then went on to kill more than 10 people and he was caught. The schizo gave the reason why he had to kill.
Now I would argue the schizo had entered into contract [implied] with that Super Being and he had to carry out the terms of the contract to receive what was promised by the Super Being.

There are many cases where deluded people are deemed to have entered into an implicit contract with the greater Being that promised them whatever power if they were to kill or commit some evil acts.

My emphasis here is the implicit or explicit contract or covenant and the real consequences that follow, regardless of whether the people involved are sane or deluded.

In the case of ‘who is a Christian’, yes I believe theism is based on a delusion, but the fact is there is an implicit contract between their God [illusory] and themselves [held in their mind] with prescribed covenanted terms to be complied which does have consequences in the real world.
In the case of ‘who is a Christian’ there are explicit terms of the covenant as represented the Gospels and the relevant supporting texts. The Christians are covenanted [contracted] to comply to terms of the covenant to the best of their abilities and that God will have the final say.

It would be very stupid and fatal [no eternal life] for a Christian to insist there is no covenant [contract or agreement] between him and God or he will not enter into a covenant with his God. If there is no agreement and relationship, there is no way - in principle - God can exercise any promise to him of salvation and eternal life. Any sane Christian will accept this principle if the point is explained clearly to him.

Therefore the covenant is the primary and ultimate factor in deciding ‘who is a Christian’ regardless of whether they are conscious of it or not.

Your point is too shallow.

As I had stated above;

It would be very stupid and fatal [no eternal life] for a Christian to insist there is no covenant [contract or agreement] between him and God or he will not enter into a covenant with his God.
If there is no agreement and relationship, there is no way - in principle - God can exercise any promise to him of salvation and eternal life. Any sane Christian will accept this principle if the point is explained clearly to him.

Therefore the covenant is the primary and ultimate factor in deciding ‘who is a Christian’ regardless of whether they are conscious of it or not.

Note God offered and promised to any person salvation and eternal life in exchange for believing Jesus Christ is the son of God and to comply with God’s word via Christ.
How can any person expect to gain eternal life in heaven if s/he had not entered into a mutual agreement, i.e. covenant, with God by accepting God’s term in the covenant?

A person can claim to be a Christian by all sorts of means but what counts ultimately is the essence of the covenant must be effected by the Christian. If no covenant is effected, then it is a non-starter for the person to be a Christian to gain salvation and eternal life, thus, on Judgment Day;

God to pseudo Christian: WTF, you did not enter into a covenant with me and you demand I grant you eternal life in heaven. Shut the F up and be prepared for HELL!

Prismatic,

In Law of Contract, can there be a legal agreement between a person and an illusory being?

Also, if the Christian dies and doesn’t receive eternal life as promised, can they sue the illusory being for breach of contract?

What’s the precedent?

And, of course, believing in God and Jesus and asserting that - since those are the criteria you accept, also has real world effects.

This is not the Law of Contract in the conventional sense.
This is in the divine sense, thus we call that a covenant [divine contract or agreement] with God.

The covenant [divine contract] is between God and the Christian.
God is the all powerful, omniscient, omnipresent, Perfect, etc. As such God will not break its promise. In principle there will be no precedents to it.

In this case of the covenant with God, it is more likely the fallible human who will break his promise to comply with the covenanted terms to the best of his abilities. However there are always degrees to the sins committed. It is thus up to God to judge and forgive sins [when begged] which are not serious.
Surely if the Christian, thereafter had agreed to the covenant, committed genocides on Christians and others in millions, s/he is not likely to be forgiven by God despite the pleading, else others psychopaths could do the same.

What is critical here is the real implied covenant that is in the minds of Christians [note Muslims as well] who would carry out the terms of the covenant which has real empirical impact [good and evil] on themselves and humanity.

Humanity need not be too overly concerned with the covenanted terms Christians have with the Christian God since its overriding maxim is a pacifist one, i.e. love even one’s enemies, etc.

What is a greater threat to humanity is the covenant [loaded with evil terms] which Muslims entered into with Allah. The evil consequences in the zealous compliance by SOME Muslims zealots is so evidently evil and violent as justified empirically. The compliance of the covenanted terms by SOME Muslims zealots has the potential to exterminate the human species. You are not bother by this potential?

Thus the solution to the above very terrible threats from SOME Islamist zealots is to prove “God is an impossibility to be real”, as such, there cannot be any covenant with any real God.
If there is no covenant with any god is possible, then there will be ZERO God-covenanted evil and violence EVER.
QED.

Prismatic,

I’m not aware of an area of Law of Contract that covers divine contracts?

It is propounded by Christian preachers that God will forgive any sin if the person genuinely repents and believes in Jesus. I have seen programmes where people who commit heinous crimes repent and become Christians. As far as I’m aware, the New Covenant doesn’t exclude anyone who genuinely comes to Jesus for forgiveness, no matter what they’ve done. This is not my personal opinion, it is the general view propounded within Christianity, the concept of being “saved”.

Just google: “Can Jesus forgive any sin?”

Prismatic,

Does the fact that there are no precedents mean that what you say about God in the above is true?

I think another take on the issue is also:

Of course organized Christian churches say that you need organized Christian churches - if not adding that it should be their kind of church (for ex. Catholic) to be a true Christian. If one does not need them, what are they? Possible motivations include money, status, authority, the continuation of traditions - ones that were made up quite long after Jesus - and competition with other churches and authority figures. These likely were motivations, for example, underlying some of the terrible decisions the Catholic church made when it discovered, no doubt again in history, that sexual abuse was widespread amongst its priests. Can we really take, for example, the Catholic Church as an authority on what a Christian should be? Did it gain this authority after it dropped the Inquistion? Which year? And what do we do with the trend to no longer ruling out, for example, Muslims getting into Heaven or that they worship the true God`?

We have the human habit of giving away power and of taking on power in organizations, often at the expense of the people who actually inspired the original purpose of the organization.

Appeals to the Bible are also problematic. Not just because it is incredibly complicated to determine things like: the metaphoric or literal intention of a particular section, why this or that section was included or excluded from the Bible by this or that committee, accounts of Jesus were written long after Jesus was alive at times when organizations saying they represent Jesus’ teachings were already struggling for power and authority, there are contradictions in the Bible and not just between the NT and the OT, there are external texts like the Gnostic gospels that have a very different idea about what Jesus meant which has implicatoins related to ‘being a true Christian’, and we have a religion based on a mystical figure who himself

broke with tradition.

All the churches considered major by Prismatic and in general have shifted their positions on core issues and it is precisely these kinds of organizations that decided what was the Bible and then how we should interpret it. A fairly confused set of texts, written by fallible humans, those relating to Jesus not during his lifetime, has hardened by these people into rules.

IOW fallible power hungry organizations generally with incredible sins in their history are being granted authority to decide who is a follower of Christ, despite their histories, and despite the fact that their policies are determined, in large part, based on differing interpretations of texts written by a wide range of fallible individuals, who did not have direct knowledge of Jesus, and even if they did, this does not mean they would be right.

As a non-Christian, I am being told that I can determine, via this mess, that what I need to take a poll so to speak of these fallible people in organizations with horrible histories and the most common answer they produce is the one I, a non-Christian, should use to

deny someone claiming to be Christian is one, if they do not meet the criteria of these people.

Regardless of whether Jesus was in fact the deity or just a very spiritual guy,

I have no way of knowing…

let me repeat that…

I have no way of knowing if in fact Jesus would have thought that the only people who are actually following his path are not participants in the organized religions, and are those who do not think this or that ritual is essential or even necessary to being his follower. Nor can I weigh in about who will be getting into Heaven or whom Jesus would think is the kind of believer who should - be there a heaven or not.

The Churches have considered all kinds of monstrous behavior Christian. They have all blessed horrific enterprises, except perhaps the Quakers and a few other smaller denominations. The Bible has been used to justify monstrous behavior against children, native americans, other nations and peoples, the earth.

I find absolutely no ground to stand on to say, I a non-christian, think we should see if most Christian organizations would consider you, Shirly, as a Christian and if not, then you are not. Or I, a non-Christian, think I can use the Bible - given what I know about the history of that set of texts - to determine if you are a Christian.

I can’t.

If I were a Christian, I could then refer to whatever Christian authority I believe is the right one and their interpetation of the issue, Jesus, the Bible and so on.

I might be wrong, but that act of referring to an authority would be consistent with my belief that they are a valid authority. I would be consistent, though perhaps wrong. It would make sense for me to refer to that authority. I might be wrong, but the act fits with my other beliefs and assertions.

A non-Christian cannot know if the popular idea in Christianity is the right one. And he or she cannot turn to any of the extremely tainted authorities out there and say, I will listen to this one or the most popular rules they make up as a whole. He or she cannot know if a minority position is the right one or not. But more than he or she not being able to know if it is right, he or she has already asserted that none of these authorities can be trusted. So appealing to them makes no sense, especially given the evolution of these organizations postions on many important issues. Who knows where they will weigh in on the issue in a hundred years.

And let me make that more precise. The non-theist knows that these organizations are more than just fallible, but that non-theist does not know if an individual outside of the churches, with their own take on what it is to be Christian is fallible or has a bad history and a history with shifting position on important issues.

The non-christian can tell that the various churches have supported horrible activities and changed their minds on important issues.

The non-christian generally does not know if this is the case with the independent non-affiliated person asserting they are a Christian.

So not only can the non-theist have no good grounds to weigh in on the latter’s status,

but…

the non-theist has better grounds for ignoring the so called church authorities on any issue at all.

And perhaps the God the organized Christians worship is actually the demiurge.

You don’t get the point.
If you refer to 'Law of Contract" within the secular perspective, obviously you cannot conflate it with a covenant, i.e. divine contract.

Note I have been explaining all along, it is the universal principles of contract that exist in both secular and divine contracts.

God is omnipresent and all powerful, Christian preachers are not God-liked.

It is possible for the worst sinners to be forgiven by the all-knowing God who would have taken every thing into consideration.
However such forgiveness will not be reflected as a permission for every psychopaths who plan to commit genocide then plan to ask for forgiveness thereafter. No Christian preacher would agree with that.

It would be a stupid God [in the mind of reasonable believers] for a psychopath to continuously commit evil, ask for forgiveness, then commit evil again, ask for forgiveness, and repeat such a cycle till his last day.

I have to admit I am not an expert on the Bible as I am with the Quran.
I believe there must be a verse or context that do not allow repeated sinners of the worst kind, e.g. genocides, to be forgiven thus be saved.
The ‘worst sinners’ like Paul, Moses were listed as forgiven one time for previous worst sins, after repenting and without any mentioned of future sins.

Here is one verse I noted, [there may be others];

Titus 3:5 New King James Version (NKJV)
5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,

I believe God and Jesus will not exercise their mercy so stupidly for a sinner who committed genocide, asked for forgiveness the first time, then repeated genocides [every time ask for forgiveness] till his/last day then ask for a final forgiveness.