What are the Characteristics of a NT Christian?

[SteveII]

That just shows that you don't even understand what it is you argue about. 

That's your whole schtick when coming up against reasoned argument, isn't it? Cover your ears and shout "No, you're wrong!" without giving anything to support your assertions.

Glad I'm not that thick.

It is not my job to educate you on your own argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inerrancy. Beginning of third paragraph:

Some equate inerrancy with infallibility; others do not.[5][6] Biblical inerrancy should not be confused with biblical literalism.

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And guess what, the apostles (the people he was talking to) were able to do those things . Read Acts.

Evidence needed. You cannot cite the claim to prove the claim.

You have got to be kidding? You cite a scripture and then deny that I can use a different scripture to illustrate the result? Really? 

You are not looking for a discussion to better yourself. You enjoy criticizing Christianity to what end: build your self-esteem? fuel a hatred? reinforce your doubts? Anger issues? There is a difference between thoughtful criticism/discussion--trying to understand the question/issue/belief and copy and pasting ideas from a bullet list from a wehatechristianity.com. 

The hallmark of a good debater is to interpret his/her opponent's position with as much understanding and charity as possible.

[Brian37]

They only need to be in lockstep about things they're claim they are consistent on. If you say cellular biologists agree on X and X isn't settled at all, then you can't really say that agreeing on X is a characteristic of cellular biologists, can you? In fact, there are very few things 90% of Christians agree on, and that's fine, until you start saying things like 'true Christians do or believe X' and it knocks out a significant portion of people who are counted as Christians on the census. It's reasonable to question how representative that 'Christians do this' statement is.

Someone up thread said something to the effect that Christianity is the Bible. That isn't actually the case. Like every other religion, Christianity is the people its composed of. Christians determine what Christianity is, and if they have a big change of heart about something concerning their religion en masse, Christianity changes with them.

And here I think you are nit-picking. The only place I hear people talking about True Christian is AF. It's a kind of boogeyman you've invented around internecine debates over secondary doctrines. While it is true that some groups like Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses call themselves Christian, no one else outside their numbers accept them as such. If you look at the 3 main divisions - Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and mainline Protestants -  not one of these groups considers the other two non-Christian. And within Protestantism, the biggest divisions, it seems, are over things like infant- versus believer-baptism. I don't know any significant group that claims those on opposite sides of that debate are not Christians.

I grew up in a UCC congregation that was so small we had to share a minister with the local Methodists. Half of the year he or she preached in our building while the other half of the year he or she preached in the Methodist's building. We had one youth group and one Sunday school and they were both mixed. It was never a problem. There's barely any difference between the vast majority of denominations. You're making a mountain over a mole hill.

No you call it nit picking. We rightfully call it cherry picking. Nobody is inventing a boogieman here. 

"You are contradicting yourself" does not make us creating an emotional argument against your claim. It merely and really means "You are contradicting yourself", nothing more.

Nope sorry, now you want to claim the different sects don't point at each other and say the other are not interpreting it right? BULLSHIT. You got called out and you don't want to face that those conflicts and divisions DO exist between those camps.

My own biological brother when I first met him as adult grew up and never left his conservative evangelical baptist views. When he knew I was an atheist and told him I was ex Catholic his words were, "See there's your problem, they don't use the right version".  For you to lie and say all the competing sects agree and never have disagreements is flat out intellectually dishonest.

[SteveII]

And guess what, the apostles (the people he was talking to) were able to do those things . Read Acts.

Because it said so in a book?  Guess what...?

Well, if you are going to invent all these people, events, and conversations, at least the conspirators who wrote the NT had the decency to close the loop on this issue.

[Harry Nevis]

That's your whole schtick when coming up against reasoned argument, isn't it? Cover your ears and shout "No, you're wrong!" without giving anything to support your assertions.

Glad I'm not that thick.

It is not my job to educate you on your own argument: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inerrancy. Beginning of third paragraph:

Some equate inerrancy with infallibility; others do not.[5][6] Biblical inerrancy should not be confused with biblical literalism.

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Evidence needed. You cannot cite the claim to prove the claim.

You have got to be kidding? You cite a scripture and then deny that I can use a different scripture to illustrate the result? Really? 

You are not looking for a discussion to better yourself. You enjoy criticizing Christianity to what end: build your self-esteem? fuel a hatred? reinforce your doubts? Anger issues? There is a difference between thoughtful criticism/discussion--trying to understand the question/issue/belief and copy and pasting ideas from a bullet list from a wehatechristianity.com. 

The hallmark of a good debater is to interpret his/her opponent's position with as much understanding and charity as possible.

Better ourselves?!  More like entertain ourselves.  And as far as your definition of a good debater, I guess that means there are no good christian debaters.  I think that we can understand why you believe what you believe (inundated since birth, good feelies, etc.). I just don't understand HOW you can believe this crap. There is no thoughtful criticism or discussion when we're told that, in order to understand the bible, you have to believe it's god's word first.  But it is fun watching the gyrations of apologists.

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Because it said so in a book?  Guess what...?

Well, if you are going to invent all these people, events, and conversations, at least the conspirators who wrote the NT had the decency to close the loop on this issue.

I don't even know what that means.

[Brian37]

Utter bullshit to claim all the different sects agree. If that were the case you would not have some using the bible to condemn homosexuality while having others use it to justify giving rights to LGBT. 

I can tell you even outside my brother having lived in Jerry Falwell's city for 10 years, having seen the reaction of other religious Christians and having attended a Unitarian Church myself, NO there is no 100% perfect agreement between the sects. No complete agreement even under the same sects. I was Catholic and have seen plenty of times over the years hear a conservative Catholic fight with a liberal Catholic. Now if you want to claim those are the followers and not the leaders, please explain to me where the individual gets their ideas from? Who sells the individual one thing while another leader sells them something else?

Even the Pope himself has contradicted himself and pissed off his own church leaders by saying one thing about marriage to the west only to visit Asia and tell them the opposite. 

Don't hand me any bullshit that all the sub sects agree. You have conservative and liberals under every sub sect and the DONT agree as to how to interpret or follow all the different versions of the bible.

[Mister Agenda]

Regarding your last sentence, do you have any examples of that?

Acceptance of divorce has done a 180 among the majority of American Christians in my lifetime.

[Crunchy]

Yes, it really is cherry picking as you leave out the parts you don't like but that Jesus himself did like. See below.


I attended private Catholic school until I was 19 years old and some of my instructors were priests. I know the bible and below you will find the justification as stated by Jesus.



You, like every other apologist, are redacting the bible in your mind and expecting that to "prove" your version is the correct version. As I told you already, this mental redaction you engage in does not mean that we can all safely ignore the murderous parts and murderous past of Christianity.

LOL, of course you are a Bible scholar--you went to Catholic school--until you were 19! I don't feel like debating someone of your stature so I am going to give you a link that explains my position good enough. http://www.ukapologetics.net/Jesusandthelaw.html

Nice appeal to authority but it won't work. For your information, there is much disagreement from actual biblical scholars so once again all your left with is your own cherry picked interpretation of which scholar you choose to believe. 

Bart Ehrman is a well respected biblical scholar and thinks much of the new testament was forged. Since he is a biblical scholar, I'm sure you'll agree with him right? Right?
http://www.bartdehrman.com/forged-writin...me-of-god/


So, the truth remains the same: The mental redaction you engage in does not mean that we can all safely ignore the murderous parts and murderous past of Christianity.

[Mister Agenda]

A quarter of the US population is Evangelical Protestant, and that Catholics (and Orthodox) aren't actually Christians is a common belief among those 80 or so million people. It was certainly what I was raised to believe. Distinguishing mainline Protestants as believing Catholics (and Orthodox) are Christians is basically saying Protestants believe Catholics (and Orthodox) are Christians except for the tens of millions who don't.

[Brian37]

Because it said so in a book?  Guess what...?

Well, if you are going to invent all these people, events, and conversations, at least the conspirators who wrote the NT had the decency to close the loop on this issue.

Funny how people of other religions fell for it but you didn't. That was a bullshit dodge still amounting to "I am right and everyone else is wrong".

Yes, we do think Jesus was invented after the fact. Yes we do know babies don't have magic powers or rise from the dead. Just like you accept there is no elephant god with multiple arms. 

There is no "conspiracy". There were simply humans who either didn't know better, or didn't care and simply took part in mass marketing. That is how all religions start. In  antiquity it was tribal and political both in polytheism and monotheism. Some truly believed the crap they were peddling, others saw it as an opportunity to be part of a new movement and gain attention. 

There is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine, but if you really want to believe that, you will end up selling the idea as soon as it is sold to you. But at the same time you can be conned by someone who is doing just that, conning you to get attention. In all of religious history in our species history, those falsehoods are nether all con or all genuine, but a combo of both mostly due to the buyers selling it to the youth and in turn competing for social attention.

Now please don't accuse me of singling Christianity out. The Jamaica Rasta religion is a spin off of a mix of African Jewish/Catholic motifs. The Jews are a spin off of Canaanite polytheism. Buddhism is a spin off of older Hinduism. Islam is simply the third version of the God of Abraham.

[SteveII]

A quarter of the US population is Evangelical Protestant, and that Catholics (and Orthodox) aren't actually Christians is a common belief among those 80 or so million people. It was certainly what I was raised to believe. Distinguishing mainline Protestants as believing Catholics (and Orthodox) are Christians is basically saying Protestants believe Catholics (and Orthodox) are Christians except for the tens of millions who don't.

I agree, many protestants do not think that Catholics are Christians.  I also think that tens of millions of people who claim to be protestant Christians are not either. But I think it comes back to my distinction earlier between nominal Christians and practicing NT Christians.