Who is a Christian?

All the sources I relied upon re the critical elements for ‘Who is a Christian’ are from the Bible and the Christians.
The only extra is I highlighted the imperative and implied existence of a genuine covenant between the Christian and God, based on the universal principles of the Law of Contract. Since it is universal, no sane person [including] Christian will deny the principles of the Law of Contract.

Note:
Without any agreement or covenant established, then it is a case of coercion or compulsion from God or the other party. The Christian God is not a that cruel and besides humans are supposedly given free will.

Self-definition is always limited due to potential bias especially confirmation bias.

Epistemology?? Note,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology
Read this article for the basic understanding of what is epistemology.
Epistemology is the philosophy of knowledge, i.e. Justified True Belief [JTB].
The epistemological approach is very objective, more credible than Science, but itself is still limited in some sense [Gettier].

Science is the most credible knowledge but still limited in the philosophical sense.
For a scientist or scientists to present a definition, they cannot use Science to justify their own definition, they have to take off their scientist hat and wear a philosophical one, i.e. relying on epistemology, rationality, etc.

Yes a Christian can define ‘Who is a Christian’ based on the elements I presented. If their definition conform to the epistemological conditions, I have no problem with that.
But ALL Christians rely critically on faith, thus their definition is subjected to faith.
As such not all Christians can present a high level justified definition, i.e. a JTB.

When you insist on a looser definition, the looser ones will not likely comply with the conditions of a JTB.

Therefore what prevails must be an epistemological definition of ‘Who is a Christian.’

What I had presented in based on a rigoristic epistemological approach.
Thus those Christians who agree with my definition would imply they agree to an epistemological definition.

If ‘you’ follow and comply with the conditions and processes of what is a Justified True Belief in your definition of ‘who is a Christian’ I have no issue with it. In that case you should agree with my definition, unless you can present a justified counter to it. But you do not have an effective counter to my definition.

Note the issue here you want to define a Christian in the loosest sense and that is not complying to the requirements of a epistemological JTB.

You did agree with my definition basically.
Your issue is you want to define it more loosely.

Analogy:
Your definition of ‘Who is a Christian’ is like defining what is male and female.
In your case, a female or male can be self-defined, i.e. one can declare one to be a female based on feelings, appearance, behaviors and other subjective opinions.
On the other hand while I take into account outer appearances and feelings, the critical element that decide who is a female is based on X, Y Chromosomes and other critical properties represented in the majority of females.

Like resorting to the essence of X, Y Chromosomes on who is a female, my focus on the covenant between God and believer is defining ‘Who is the Christian’ down to the most basis essence.

You only “think” which is very subjective and not objective.
Note it is very common for SOME humans to act and pretend as if they are Christians out of convenience for various reasons but are not genuine in their intentions.

I also pointed out someone could have been sincerely be a Christian in the initial stage, but any thing can happen with his brain and mental state subsequent to the initial agreement or covenant.
Therefore a Christian can be a genocidal person or psychopath later in life and where at this point the covenant is void due to non-compliance, since the person cannot express love [a term of the covenant] anymore. Being omnipresent and omniscient, God would have known this fact that the covenant with God is null and void until the person is cured and repent to renew a new covenant.

Yes, abided!
How can one abide if there is no initial agreement [in this case a covenant, at least implied] and the agreed convenanted terms to abide to?

This is what I meant, regardless whether explicit or not, the covenant is imperative and implied to initiate the ‘contractual’ relationship between God and the Christian [or Muslim, Jew,].

In addition, the pros from the concept of the covenant outweighs the pros of your loose definition.

Alright, I am going to come at this the other way. There is absolutely no way for a human to judge objectively other humans’ claims that they are Christian according to these criteria.

We cannot possibly know if someone claiming to be a Christian is doing these things. We might be able to eliminate a few people over their behavior, but we would never be able to give the stamp of approval due to the problem of other minds
and
in addition
no way to measure how much of their hearts they are loving God with or their neighbors, even if we were psychic. Is that all of their heart, of just a lot of it? Are they thinking a bit too much about their jobs, couldn’t they squeeze in more time and fullness of focus on loving God? And so on…

Jesus internalized the commandments

Again we cannot know if people are meeting Jesus’ criteria on lust.

He says something similar about anger. His take on the commandments makes it utterly impossible to judge Christians in the positive and this would be something left to God.

And since Prismatic does nto believe in God, there is no entity that can judge this.

Me, as a non-Christian, I feel I cannot judge, but reading Jesus’ criteria, I would be willing to venture a guess that in practice Christianity is a minor religion, with very, very few followers, because I don’t think many people meet Jesus’ criteria. That’s my guess, at least.

Note it is also true no court of law can arrive at the ultimate truth whether a person is a murderer or not especially if the accused do not confess to the crime.
Even when people confessed, that may not even be the actual truth as evident in many such cases.

Even with the above, there are many who have been convicted of crimes based on what is objective within the Law of the Land.

I agree, no humans can determined the ultimate truth whether a person is truly a Christian or not.
What counts in my case is God the omnipresent and omniscient will know whether the person is a true Christian or not.

What humans especially using the epistemological approach is to research all the necessary evidence and arrive at a justified definition which can be tested. I have already listed all the necessary properties/elements to who qualify to be a Christians.
What is critical is the covenant [implied or otherwise] and you cannot deny this.

Nah, humans [God recognize as fallible] need not be perfect to be a Christian.

As I had stated in a post,
Many of the covenanted terms from God are ideals to be striven by humans to the best of their abilities.
God will not expect Christians to love their enemies in the stupid way, e.g. if the enemies attack, they are to stand there with open loving arms to hug their enemies.
And I don’t believe God literally meant giving the other cheek.

God issued the ideals [absolving God from condoning violence, etc.] but God knowing humans are exposed to various practical conditions must use their discretion wisely to Optimize any situations [threatening or otherwise].
It is then for God to judge the merit of what is performed to the best of their ability.

Note if you sign a contract with someone to provide you 1000 widgets but on delivery your testing and checking found 10% are defective, it is not 100% perfect.
In this case you can reject the whole delivery based on terms of the contract or you use your discretion to accept the 90% and pay for it while rejecting and returning the 10% of defects.

It is the same with God. God always set the highest ideal and will not compromise in his standards but God is compassionate enough to recognize human are fallible and limited, thus God will use his discretion to judge the human performance on whether s/he has performed to the best of his/her abilities or sufficient to avoid hell.

Note what is critical in my definition of who is a Christian, is the the person entering into a covenant [explicit or implied] with God to abide by the covenanted terms. To what degree the Christian perform the covenanted terms is secondary and for their God to judge. Note, to me God is an illusion but this covenant with God is real in the mind of the Christians.

What is most practical and beneficial to humanity is to recognize the imperative of such a covenant and covenanted terms within the minds of Christians and especially Muslims.
Therefore if there are serious evil consequences from either Christians or Muslims committing evil in the name of God, then the focus must be on the root cause, i.e. the covenant and the covenanted terms.
Thus getting rid of the covenant or changing the covenanted terms [impossible] would eliminate ZERO evil and violent acts in the name of a God.

What advantages does your loose definition bring to humanity in the future?

Random analogy. And you have no way of knowing if it applies or is equivalent in the least. There is a difference between being 100 per cent sure and not being able to measure at all. Jesus made it critical that the internal states be in specific ways, and we cannot look at those at all. A murder case can include all sorts of physical evidence, witness accounts, etc. And how do we know Jesus meant that this was to be measured like we measure guilt in courts. In terms of process, degree necessary to be judged OK and more. You are just making up stuff and saying it is relevent or equivalent.

OK, fine. God can tell, but we sure can’t. It’s not a definition of what a Christian is that we can use to figure out who are Christians. The phrase ultimate truth implies that we can do a pretty good job potentially. But actually, we don’t even have a way to start seeing if people meet Jesus criteria for the internal states of believers. We don’t know how much he would have considered enough. And the problem of other minds precludes measuring even if we did.

You seem to be claiming you can be a good stand in for God or Jesus. Sure, you might make a few mistakes, like the courts in murder cases, but still you’d come up with a fairly good number for the number of Christians. LOL. You would have no ideas if you had come many orders of magnitude off the actual number.

I worked with your criteria and demonstrated that no humans can determine how many Christians there are and who can be included in the set of Christians.

If you are saying that you have the correct definition, but it is one that only God can decide if it applies in some case or other, fine.

You just added a word that I did not use. Nor did Jesus. He seemed pretty clear these were strict criteria, using the words he used.

But even worse for this ‘argument’, we have no way of knowing how much love, how equivalent Jesus wanted us to love others, God, neighbors. How little anger one must have. How little lust. We have no way of measuring and even if we could measure we have no idea how much we are looking for.

And now you are raising issues, I did not raise. And doing more work as a Christian theologian on irrelevent points.

And now you are acting as if you are a Christian theologian again. Also acting as if you know how he would measure and as if this could in any way be used by us to figure out who is Christian.

An utterly irrelevent analogy. And you have no idea if this is how God, an entity you do not believe exists, thinks about sin or doing what He wants. And you have no idea how to measure 90% even if this was God’s number. Courts may have such criteria to measure physical products. But this may not be equivalent to how God does things, and even if he does, we can’t.

Here’s the underlying absurd assumption even bringing up this analogy…

God runs his evaluations like contract law does.

Utterly absurd.

Again you are writing as if you are a Christian theologian. And how fallible. And we can’t know how fallible they are. How well they are loving neighbors. certainly not by behavior. There can be people with good behavior who act this way from their egos and have little love for anyone. And all sorts of shades of grey in between. We don’t know how much God wants and we have no way to measure.

We cannot determine who is Christian

even if

your Christian theology is correct.

Sicne you are not a Christian, there is no reason to consider your interpretations relevent.

That’s it. I will ignore you. If you seriously cannot see that

  1. the murder trial analogy is irrelevent - it is a human court dealing with another issue - and further note that Jesus specificially was increasting the demands of the commandments and equated anger with murder.
  2. you made up theology and theology that does not match what Jesus said. Perhaps you have guessed correctly what a God you do not believe exists would think about what Jesus really meant, but you are just guessing
  3. it’s all irrelevent since we cannot determine which humans even meet God’s criteria if it is 90 percent, as in your business analogy. We have no way to measure how much love, how little anger, how much lust, how well someone loves their neighbors, especieally because Jesus clearly and specifically internalized the criteria.

Seriously, you just made up stuff.

Wait a week, relook at your ‘arguments’. It’s seems just you defending something because it feels like it must be correct. And notice how you did not directly interact with the parts of the Bible I brought up, nor with the arguments I made. You jumped to secular analogies as if they must apply, when it is a completely different situation with completely different epistemological problems since it has to do with internal states.

This is not honorable philosophical discussion on your part. You just created a lot of distraction and work. You’re a smart guy. You should just throw a bunch of illogic salad at people because you don’t want to re-evaluate your own position.

It’s like I startled a skunk. I’m done.
(this is not me assuming I can read your mind, by the way. It’s the experience of suddenly having a bunch of unpleasant ‘smells’ in my face, I am going at via the skunk metaphor) I think you are smarter than this kind of response on your part would lead one to believe, so it’s frustrating to find it here)

Prismatic,

There are points you’ve raised that I’d like to discuss and questions that I’d like to ask in response you latest reply to me, but I don’t think that you’re the right person to discuss them with, because (please take this as constructive criticism) I find you to be too overbearing and concerned with being right/proving your point. I would rather have a discussion than someone dictating things to me.

The last point I’d like to clarify with you is this:

Prismatic:

Me:

Prismatic:

As I said I’m not aware that I agreed with it, but maybe I did and I can’t remember correctly, where do you think I agreed with it?

Your argument is I cannot know how Jesus and God thinks.

Note I am not that ignorant, I have read the Gospels and other supporting texts to get an idea of Jesus and God views on the compliance of the covenanted terms.

There is no indication where Jesus and God insist Christians must comply 100% with the ideals set. Show me if you think there are any. Note,

The initial state to be a Christian is to believe in Jesus Christ as in John 3:16 which imply a covenant is establish to enable a personal relation with God.
Many Christians claim this is all that is needed to be a Christian regardless of how the Christian behave later.
But that is not the case, the covenanted terms do not ensure a unconditional passport for one to be a Christian and be given eternal life in heaven.
Note

  1. the case of the camel- eye of a needle - and richman
  2. Good works do not guarantee a place in heaven

In another point, Christians can repent and ask for forgiveness even if they had committed the worst sin, e.g. as with Paul and Moses, etc.
This defeat your point that Jesus and Christ expect 100% or a high degree of compliance to the ideals.

I had argued the above do not make sense and would insult God if interpreted without common sense and wisdom. The worst sin of Paul, Moses and the likes are one off and they did not commit further sins after they had repented.
Common divine sense will tell us a God cannot give absolute forgiveness if a Christian later become genocidal and commit genocides repeatedly after each repentance and forgiveness by God.

From the above we can infer the Christian God will not expect a 100% compliance to the ideal standards but rather will provide some kind of discretion.
I am an expert with the Bible but I am confident there are verses [KIV] to support my point because the Christian God who expect one to love even one enemies cannot be so rigid.

My point again;
What is critical is the implication of a covenant in defining who is a Christian. If not expressed the covenant is implied when a person declared he believed in the teachings of Jesus Christ with reference to John 3:16 and the likes.

If a person declare consciously and explicitly, he do not want to enter into a covenant with the Christian God via Jesus, he cannot be a Christian per se.

It is too tedious to read through all the posts but I noted this one which imply you do accept the covenant to be a significant element, which is my main point of the whole issue.

From here:
viewtopic.php?p=2725509#p2725509

I mentioned you deny the requirement of the covenant, but you disagreed, thus you point below;

As I had stated, you had agreed with my main requirement, i.e. the covenant, but you insist on a looser definition which is not effective and detrimental to Christianity and humanity in the long run.

Prismatic,

I thought you would present something like that rather than me actually stating that I agreed with your argument, but I was worried for a moment :laughing: . It is rather strange that you believe this:

Follows from this:

Not that I want to debate it with you, I just think its quite a leap, even if I have a more liberal view of “who is a Christian” than you, but maybe you can see the future?

For the record, I never stated that you should create a looser definition. I wouldn’t use the term “looser” in a discussion like this as it is quite vague, indeed it is you who introduced that term. I have a view of Christianity which is different from yours, but I never insisted that you should change your view to suit mine. You can try to quote me as doing so if you want to, but I wouldn’t bother if you’re only going to present which something you’ve implied, and then made an assumptive leap.

Finally, my belief that an important aspect of Christianity pertains to a covenant between God and the Christian, the New Covenant, does not mean that I agree with your argument.

That’s me done, cheers.

Prismatic,

Ok, this will DEFINITELY be my last post on this topic :laughing: .

I was trawling through my posts to see if I had actually used the term “looser” when I came across this gem in relation to your argument:

[Read in full here]

Which you then changed/tweaked to this, without indicating why:

[Read in full here]

Just out of interest, what does this mean in relation to your argument, and why have you changed your position from quod erat demonstrandum to Quite Easily Done? You had previously claimed that your argument is a proof albeit to yourself, has your position changed on that? I mean, epistemologically and philosophically, what is the difference between quod erat demonstrandum and Quite Easily Done, in how they apply to your argument?


I will also say (along with KT), as I’ve said before, that I think you’re a naturally intelligent person, but you’re far too sure of yourself. People recognising that you’re clever should not be done as a consolation.

I had stated the covenant is the most fundamental and critical in defining who is a Christian.
Note, besides your above, you said many times you agreed to the covenant between God and the Christian.

In agreement to the covenant, it is implied you recognized [regardless of your ignorance and denial] the covenant is fundamental.

To be a Christian, there must be a personal relationship established between God and the Christian. This personal relationship is initiated via an agreement, i.e. in this case a covenant [divine contract]. The terms of the contract are stipulated in the Gospels, supported by the other texts.

How can you disagree with the above fundamentals?

Your disagreement is extended to the very superficial, thus my mentioned of a ‘looser’ or wider interpretation of the term. Note a looser meaning of any term means making it less objective. Note the problems we have with the looser definition of ‘religion’ ‘spirituality’ ‘love’ and the likes.

I have also listed the dangers of insisting on a ‘looser’ definition in this case.
In addition the cons of such a looser definition is more dangerous [inviting evil] than the pros of the criticalness of the covenant.

So my point is, the concept of the covenant [agreement, divine contract] is a critical element in defining ‘who is a Christian’ or a Muslim.

Note whether QED is “quod erat demonstrandum” or “Quite Easily Done” is not a critical issue.
What is critical is whether the argument is justified rationally and philosophically with substance.

QED as “Quite Easily Done” is merely a colloquial expression on the play of the alphabets to emphasize the justification is easily done [proven or justified]. It is the same with expression like as ABC, 1+1=2, cake – cake walk – cinch – cinchy – doss – dossy – easy as pie – easy-peasy – easy peasy, lemon squeezy – gimme – gravy – low-hanging fruit – piece of cake – rinky-dink.

Whatever said, what counts is the argument and justification proper which I had provided with supporting evidences.

I had stated, I don’t believe in certainty and definite answers as in the Russell’s quote I had posted many times.

Whatever is related to the person is not critical, what counts and the currency of this philosophical forum is justified and sound arguments in accordance to the expectations of philosophy-proper.

Btw, my argument on the criticalness of the covenant in ‘who is a Christian’ is to be extended to “who is a Muslim” [where the covenant is very explicitly stated in the Quran] and this has bearing and leverage to eliminate ALL theistic-related evil and violence.

Once the Christians are educated to their own involvement and the criticalness of the covenant [fortunately with overriding pacifist terms] as being a Christian, they [especially the Pope and others] will understand why ALL genuine Muslims are contracted [with evil terms in the Quran] to kill them [Christians] and other non-Muslims.

This point itself should trigger you [if you are a responsible human being] to research more to explore deeply into the soundness of my thesis to provide more sophisticated counter views or to agree with my arguments.

That’s right Prismatic. Once everyone conforms to your way of thinking, then the world will be right and of course, be an adequate reflection of your image.

Noted the sarcasm.
Yes, if only all conform but that is only an ideal.
In practice what is needed is a critical mass which could be 40% to form the core activists to push toward the objective and striving for continuous improvements.

Prismatic,

I doubt that you’re being serious, but if you genuinely believe this, then it would make discussing things with you difficult. So much so, that I don’t think I will be attempting to again.

So far I believe I have been sticking to this maxim of philosophy;

I believe I have presented very rational and objective arguments, thus my proposals are always open to further questions, if not from you, then others.

Prismatic,

If what you claim or believe as stated above is a genuine reflection of how you’ve conducted your discussions, why are your interlocutors withdrawing from philosophical discussion with you?

Content deleted due to double post.

It’s not how he’s conducted the discussions. See the OP and the use of the word, for example, ‘must’ then also ‘objective’.

Calling Serendipper’s position crazy does not, to my mind down with what Betrand Russell says. It is the kind of speech utterly ruling out the position someone disagrees with.

An example of a response to an arguement of mine…

In response to you - who actually writes in the spirit of what Bertrand Russell said and get punished for it …

But I fear at best pointing this out will only get at they style. IOW Prismatic certainly could have posted more politely in response to arguments he disagreed with. But that is only one part of the problem. He determines what is objective, often with an appeal to an authority. Other people do not determine what is objective. One post I made with a variety of arguments he referred to as shallow - which seems very confused to me - because, it seems, I did not appeal to authorities. Which kind of misses the point of my criticism which was in part the relation of a non-theist, non-Christian to authorities, but also is part of a continual framing other people’s arguments as not appealing to authorities enough, with summations of his own positions as objective.

Fine, he doesn’t understand how idiosyncratic his ideas about objectivity are, nor does he address certain issues that are raised.

But the entire attitude is fundamentally that he is objective and would notice an argument that challenged his in some way. We have pointed out that this latter claim seems not to be the case. This has not affected him at all.

I would rather not create a more polite version of Prismatic, because the kinds of impolitenesses above actually serve as strong clues that this is someone who knows he is right in precisely the way Betrand Russell is saying is not a good idea.

One extra irony is that my position is that I don’t think I can determine who is a Christian objectively so I decide to accept other people’s self assessment. IOW I think my position is more in line with the implicit humility in BR’s idea. I am saying that since I cannot determine, given the epistemological limitations I have, I will tend to accept other people’s self-assessments. You, Fanman, also seem more flexible and have a practical and not fixed position. Serendipper was much certain, I think, as Prismatic, not that this makes his position crazy, but we approached the issue from positions that were more cautious about what one can know around this issue, especially as non-Christians. The details of that criticism – him not being Christian - never seem to be understood by Prismatic, but to find now this Bertrand Russell quote presented to you as somehow reflecting his approach is actually galling.

But also funny.

So far there only 3 you, KT and Serendipper who disagreed with me in here. The low number is one weak point to support your view but what is more critical is whether you and others have provided justified and sound steady arguments, i.e.

Serendipper’s = anyone can claim to be a Christian based on declaration.

You = covenant is an element but prefer a wider definition of who is a Christian.

KT = if not a Christian, then no authority to define a Christian.

Meanwhile I have provided an epistemological, rational, objective and philosophical based definition which should carry weight in this specific philosophy forum. Note, “In Rome, Do What the Romans Do”

Note Russell’s quote imply one had already dug deep until there is no answers in sight but yet we should not claim the current one is the definite and final answers.

Relative to most serious philosophical work, your view is obvious very shallow and narrow.
In my case, I had obviously dug deep into the issue.
Instead of focusing on the form of ‘who is a Christian’ or resigning the definition to Christian only, I dug deep into the essence, i.e. the covenant which can be extracted from the Bible and the universal principle laws of contract [agreement, relationships, covenant].
This is what I meant I had presented an argument that is objective which anyone can verify against, i.e. it is not my personal subjective opinions.

You should refute the points of my argument instead of simply insisting I or anyone who is not a Christian cannot define Who is a Christian.

I had mentioned there is a requirement to define who is a Christian in many perspectives, i.e. legal, political, social, cultural, religion, spirituality, philosophy, etc. and the only reliable definition is an epistemological and objective definition.

Btw, I have not stated it yet but we can [in the future] even use Science to assist/support in defining who is a Christian. This can be done by relating the activities of the brain when reading Biblical verses or Christian related images, i.e. isolating the brain activities to what is supposedly only a Christian would react in the brain.
Currently, based on crude brain images, neuroscientists are able to correlate them to who is a spiritual person.

As you will note, I have the strong proclivity and drive to dig deep, thus I have the sensitivity to note who is groping in the shallows.