Serendipper wrote:Prismatic567 wrote:Serendipper wrote:By Prism's definition, Christians do not exist; it's an empty set.
Now with the additional baptism requirement, it's even harder to populate.
How so?
Baptism is the outer indicator and note the majority of Christian groups practice baptism.
My definition of who is a Christian is one who has surrender his will to God via Jesus Christ and this implies in principle, a Christian must comply with whatever is in the Gospels.
What is wrong with this?
It does not matter if it is the Gnostic Gospels, it is still Christ's Gospel, the basic principle is the same.
If baptism is your only requirement, then fine, you have a populated set, but if following the NT is the requirement, then you have an empty set because: 1) It can't be done. It's an impossible standard. 2) No two people agree what the NT means.
As I presented many times,
I did not state baptism [water or no-water] is the ONLY requirement to be a Christian. There are two critical criteria to qualify one as a Christian, i.e.
- 1. I highlighted 98% of Christians are initiated via the water-baptism process while the other 2% are by no-water baptism and other formal processes.
2. I asserted the baptism and other formal processes must explicitly or implicitly include the surrendering to God and complying with the Gospels in the NT.
What is critical here is the surrendering one's will to God and the intent to comply with the Gospels within the NT.
How they interpret the Gospel is not primary but secondary.
Note the Catholics interpret the Gospels differently from the various Protestant denomination but both groups are Christians without doubts.
The above objective definition is sufficient for our human purpose to determine who is a Christian for various purposes.
Whether the individual qualified Christian as determined by the above criteria actually commit themselves to the words of God in the Gospel or not is not for humans to judge but for their accepted omniscient God to judge.
If "love your enemy" is your test, then zero people fall into that category. It's impossible for any being, including god, to love anyone but itself.
Nope "love your enemy" is not a criteria of defining who is a Christian.
Rather "love your enemy" is an official requirement of being a Christian as defined.
In this case, a person who actually hated and killed his enemy is still a Christian [by definition] except s/he who did not comply to such an official requirement [maxim] from the Gospel.
As such, such a non-compliant Christian will be punished by God on Judgment Day accordingly to the circumstances of the individual.
A member of any of the theistic religion is one who has surrendered his will to God and promises via a covenant [read contract] to obey God words [the holy texts from God via agent] in exchange for God's favor to grant him eternal life in heaven.
So he's become a robot by surrendering his will. That's the first step for committing atrocities.
Like the cops (no doubt christians) hassling the stage 4 cancer patient for marijuana because "they're following orders". https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03- ... -marijuana
True all believers of theistic religions who had surrendered their Will to God are actually robots or zombies to ensure a passage to heaven with eternal life.
This is why it is important what sort of software programs [holy texts] are embedded into them as believers.
I am arguing the Gospels of Christianity are not as malignant [20%] as the Quran's 95% malignancy.
This is why it is critical to link the definition of a theistic believer to his surrendering to God and the holy texts he had agreed to abide to.
Cops? = strawman.
The acts of the cops [if Christians] has nothing to do with the Gospels, they commit the evil as being humans rather than being officially as Christians per se.
How can you make the comparison if you have not read the Quran thoroughly and research into the linking of the evil laden verses in the Quran directly to all the evil and violent acts committed by SOME evil prone Muslims?
I'm just going on what you say and what others have said and what I see on tv. Islam appears to be a vile monster practiced by uneducated people. On the other hand, the only muslim that I really knew was a guy with better integrity than most christians I've known.
You are making the wrong comparisons. Your critical thinking and analytical skills are lacking in this case.
To compare religions you need to compare their essence, i.e. the relevant holy texts, i.e. the Gospels with the Quran.
In the above case your Muslim friend happened to be a better human being than most other human being friends [you've known] who happened to be Christians.
What if your Muslim friend happened to be Osama-Bin-Laden, and your other friends are Mother Theresa and other goody Christians.
Christians [as human beings] had killed millions but has any of these killers ever justify their killing to Jesus Christ words in the Gospels?
No, I don't think so, except for Hitler.Had they shouted Jesus-u-Akbar before they kill?
lol
This is a serious point.
The question is did they kill in Jesus name?
I have argued the so-labelled Christians killed others as being human and not as Christian per-se.
On the other hand, those SOME evil prone Muslims who killed did it as directed by their God within the Quran.
I definitely get your point and have gotten your point all along. But I think the fact that islam commands killing should dissuade people from joining. It's too outwardly evil while christianity appears righteous.
Islam and the Quran are a feast for psychopaths who can divert their hobby of evil in God's name.
In most cases, Muslims only discover the killing commands after being influenced by the expert clergies [imam] or they read the Quran themselves.
With eternal life or Hell at stake many Muslims will take up the offer to kill [within vague conditions] non-Muslims to gain the highest certainty and assurance of a guaranteed direct passage to heaven.
This is why it is critical to establish an objective definition of who is a believer [Christian or otherwise] and track their acts [good or evil] to the essence [holy texts] of the respective religions.