What are the Characteristics of a NT Christian?

[Mister Agenda]

Yes, a position of rational skepticism is more credible, in any investigation or research. It means you have a standard of evidence that must be satisfied before you'll accept something as true.

Suppose instead the ancient text in question is not part of the NT; but rather, the Epic of Gilgamesh. The primary goal of scholarship is to consider what the epic meant to the Sumerians and the role of epic poetry in the cultural context of ancient Mesopotamia. The veracity of what the epic only comes afterwards and involves attempting to uncover the circumstances that may have have prompted the creation of that flood story by looking at parallel accounts, prior source material, contemporary historical events, etc. Perhaps it came from a world-wide flood (which I doubt) or perhaps ancestral memory of vast post-Ice Age flooding of the South Pacific (my favorite) or just a symbolic extrapolation from local tragedies (not likely).  

A skeptical approach is valid for the later, but would contaminate the first. Unless you have a pretty good idea of the social and historical context of Gilgamesh speculation about what it actually describes is pointless. As it applies to NT scholarship, the first questions revolve around what the text meant to those who wrote the Gospels and Epistles. It is clear that the writers of the canonical scripture, as opposed to the Gnostic myth-makers, were trying to describe real events. Whether or not what they describe truly happened is a question that can only come after establishing the motivations of the authors and the 1st century context. Erhmann puts the cart before the horse. His skepticism taints his analysis.

Way to misrepresent reasonable skepticism.

---

Well-educated, intelligent, and overall thoughtful contributors like Little Rik, Drich, and MysticKnight; for instance.

Lil Rik is loony, yes. I don't think many people can deny that.

Drich is super conservative and takes a different approach to the bible than I do (obviously, me being Catholic). And I agree that he can be very insensitive and has terrible people skills. But I don't see him as the monster that many of you do. As different as he and I are, I do think he has has been thoughtful about his faith, and is educated.

MK is a sweet heart. I don't think he has a mean bone in his body. I must admit I can't understand most of his posts, but as Chad said, I think it's more of a cultural thing. He "writes with an accent", if you will. I don't see a reason to find him uneducated, stupid, or thoughtless.

But there are plenty of theists here that are intelligent, well educated, and thoughtful: Chad, Steve, Road Runner, Ignorant, Ryyan, KingPin (when he was active)...

I appreciate your thoughtful response. I didn't claim any were monsters, or even unkind. I didn't say that we don't have theistic contributors for whom 'well-educated, intelligent, and overall thoughtful contributors' is a good description. I claim that 'well-educated, intelligent, and overall thoughtful contributors' isn't the description that springs to my mind when I think of those three (the list could have been longer, but most of the worst ones are gone), and that it seems a little disingenuous of Neo-Scholastic to overlook them given the prodigiousness of their participation here.

---

Because being white isn't a chosen belief?

To clarify, are you saying then that it is acceptable to judge all Christians based on the Westboro Baptists?

That's what Neo-Scholastic said we think. He's wrong. Of course he's wrong.

---

I'd have to have some sort of benchmark to decern who was a true christian and who wasn't.

I'd say believing that Jesus is who He says He is, and striving to live by the teachings of Christ as depicted in the bible. 

And there goes most of the Christian population again. 'Striving to live by the teachings of Christ' would be a gross exaggeration of the effort most American Christians put into actually trying to live by the teachings of Jesus as depicted in the Bible.

I think you could start by knocking off all the ones who aren't welcoming to foreigners, are pro-war, or unsympathetic to poor people or convicts. The ones who haven't taken the time to actually read an entire Bible. Most of the ones who show up to church once a month or less.

It's a pretty long list, and that's only for 'striving', not succeeding. Most of those folks aren't even trying. They're putting in the least effort they think they can get away with to avoid hell and the anger of their neighbors, and keeping the opinions that suit them personally whenever possible, which seems to be almost always.

---

I also find a number of atheist, who seem to not be able to contemplate a Christianity that is different than what is in their mind.  This may be from experience, or perhaps there are other motivations to why they argue what they do.  It is quite annoying however being expected to defend something that you don't believe, and where not saying.   It seems like often I spend more time trying to get people to let go of there assumptions.

Maybe you need to work on your approach. There are plenty of theist contributors who don't spend nearly the amount of time you do complaining about how we don't understand you. Maybe it's you. At any rate, it seems far more reasonable to adjust how you interact with us than to try to get everyone else to interact with you the way you want.

Maybe you could start by not whinging so much about the people who's community you've chosen to involve yourself with and treat us as individuals instead of this vague 'a number of atheists' thing you do. I could go on all day long about what 'a number of Christians' do, clearly referring to members of this forum but avoiding specifics, but I don't think that would be a good use of anyone's time.

It's almost never very becoming to portray yourself as put-upon for having to deal with the people in a place you choose to be in.

---

That's about as vapid as saying that all opinions are equally valid. It's surprising how many atheists appeal to classical foundationalism when asking "evidence" then appeal to the principles of postmodern critical theory when doing comparative analysis.

No matter how idiotic or even evil an atheist is, if they don't believe any God or gods is/are real, they're an atheist, whether we like it or not.

But someone who believes Jesus is the son or incarnation of the creator and sustainer of the universe who rose from the dead to redeem humanity from the wages of sin and professes to be a follower of Christ isn't a Christian if they make Christians look bad.