Karpel Tunnel wrote:Prismatic567 wrote:Note I am not drawing conclusions from a book I considered false and deluded.
My approach is philosophical, epistemological, etc.
My point is based on the principle and definition of who qualify to be a member of any group, in this case, Christians.
There are many criteria for a person to belong to a group, i.e. in terms biology, e.g. race, clans, or by acceptance via some initiation process.
In the case of being a member of a theistic religion, a member of a religion has to go through some sort of initiation process.
In the case of a Christian, the majority [98%??] has to be baptized mostly water-based or other forms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism#S ... ng_baptismIn the baptism initiation, the inherent implication [explicitly or otherwise] is, a Christian would have surrendered his will to God and will obey the words of God as presented by Jesus Christ in the Gospels in the NT or the gnostic gospels. There is no way a person can be a Christian if the gospels [incl gnostics] are not involved.
Note I have read up many articles [googled 'who is a Christian'] on the above on who is a Christians and their views are the same as mine.
If you disagree, show me references where it is up to anyone to claim for himself to be Christian by any means.
First, you negate your entire argument when you say that 98% go through the initiation. This means some do not. So by your own admission your criterion is not universal. Second your own link SPECIFICALLY mentions Christian groups that do not use Baptism. Third, I am not arguing who real Christians are.
I am arguing that you cannot say who are, because anything that you consider a criterion, you must accept some religious authority on.
You must argue that it is the criterion because God, this church, these religious believers believe it.
BUT since you do not think they have special knowledge, this makes no sense.
You cannot argue that these religious poeple are right, but the others who claim they are christians but did not meet your criteria are wrong, because you have no authority that you respect to base this conclusion on. You have no way to rule out individual believers in Jesus as their deity who have not met your criteria.
Is it because there are less of them? That is an ad populum fallacy. Is it because the Catholic Church and the Baptists are right and those individuals are wrong? That is saying they have special knowledge, which you do not believe since you think they are deluded.
I disagree with you that I [or a non-Christian] cannot say who is a Christian.
What I am trying to do is to arrive at an
objective definition of who is a Christian which in general is acceptable at least in a typical court of law.
As I had listed 98% [appx.] of Christians are initiated by baptism [water].
The other 2% may not use baptism-with-water but they do have some kind of initiation process which may include baptism-without-water or other formal processes.
Note I stated the above are merely formality and external processes.
But the real requirement inherent in the above formality for one to be a Christian is, one who has surrendered his will to God and will adhere and comply with God's message delivered via Jesus Christ.
Thus an individual who has not gone through an formal initiation may still be a Christian if s/he declare s/he had surrendered to God via the Jesus Christ and be obedient to the message of the NT Gospels or gnostic gospels.
Now there should be no issue if I define who is a Christian by the above requirements.
I am sure the above definition of who is a Christian is acceptable in any court of law for the relevant cases in dispute.
Note the above is not MY non-theistic definition but a definition based on common public knowledge.
And what the heck do any of us gain if we non-Christians decide we are better authorities then other people about what kind of religious person they are. I mean, setting aside the epistemological absurdity pointed out above, I can see not the slightest practical advantage.
Nope, I did not claim non-Christians are better authorities to define who is a believer of a religion.
What I have done is to base the definition on common public knowledge on a rational critical thinking epistemological basis.
Note there is the Philosophy of Science that make philosophical sense [higher order knowledge] which many actual scientists don't give a damn about. If non-scientist philosophers can have a rational and critical view of Science, why not philosophical view of who is a believer [Christian in this case].
The above definition of who is a Christian or a believer of any religion has tremendous implication for the future well being of humanity.
If the intrinsic definition of who is a theistic believer is one who had surrendered his Will to God and will adhere to the words of God [holy texts] delivered to a prophet/messenger,
then certain acts [religious based] of a believer are caused by the messages in the holy texts from God.
According to this principle, we can also determine whether certain negative and evil acts by believers are linked to the holy texts or not.
This is why I have been arguing the VERY terrible evil acts committed by "Christians" and "Buddhists" around the world cannot be due to the religion per se because their holy texts do not promote those violent and evil acts.
On the other hand, the VERY terrible acts committed by SOME [a very significant quantum] Muslims are influenced, inspired and compelled direct by the loads of evil laden verses from the Quran.
Therefore to prevent terrible evil religious based acts from SOME Muslims, the most effective approach would be to do something to the loads of evil laden verses or simply wean off Islam and replace it with benign spiritual practices for Muslims.
As such a formal definition of who is a believer [Christian, etc.] is very critical for the future of humanity.
If like you who do not bother to strive for a formal definition of who is a believer, you will be complicit in promoting vagueness and letting Islam and SOME evil prone Muslims continue to commit terrible evil and violent acts on non-Muslims around the world.
I am a progressive human being, a World Citizen, NOT-a-theist and not religious.