What are the Characteristics of a NT Christian?

[hopey]

It's not the same impact as turning against slavery and burning witches, I suppose. I doubt you think those changed anything about what it means to be a Christian either, but I regard them as vast improvements. Decade by decade, the arc of Christianity very gradually bends towards humanism.

I would say that all these "add-on" issues that we later see more clearly are a result of the culture and times each of those issues developed in. While I agree that the culture has improved, I think the development of the "add-on" issue did not originate from NT teachings so cannot be characterized as a change in Christianity--but rather of society.

The reformation of Christianity came not so much on the back of humanism, but rather the bible was printed, and the church began to realise that Jesus did not burn people at the stake, extort money from converts, or want wars to promote the faith. The bible of its self has power.

We now know Jesus taught "Love your enemies, do good to them", he pardoned those condemned to death, forgiving and merciful.

[Brian37]

Bart Ehrman is a NT skeptic with an important-to-note bias--he does not believe in God.  Am is supposed to type out a list of scholars who disagree with him? That would be an appeal to authority. 

God forbid anybody be skeptical of the supernatural.  The fact that he does not believe gives him more credibility than the scholars/apologists that do believe.

BINGO, if we never questioned religion we'd still believe stupid shit literally that theists now pass off as metaphor. "Bless you" was a literal belief long ago that when you sneezed that was your "soul" attempting to escape. Humans also stupidly thought your heart did the thinking too. It was because skeptics said "fuck you" I am going to figure out what is really going on with the human body, we now have modern medicine.

Theists have to continually take the fantastic claims of their holy writings and back peddle and relegate more and more to "that's just metaphor"....No, how about they are merely bad guesses humans made and sold because back then humans didn't know any better.

I say that about all religions though. But for our resident Christians, the two most important stories they hing their entire religion on are utter garbage. There is no such thing as a magic baby with super powers born without a second set of DNA and nobody can survive the death story as the bible would have you believe. If you do that to a human they die and stay dead.

But there are also fantastic claims in every religion, Islam, Jewish, Hindu and even Buddhism, which is also rooted in mythology and superstition.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Well-educated, intelligent, and overall thoughtful contributors like Little Rik, Drich, and MysticKnight; for instance. [?]
Well, I don't know that much about Little Rik. He or she seems like a New Age type. I consider Drich to be all that - just more conservative than me. His line-by-line responses become difficult to follow though. As for MysticKnight, there is a huge cultural gulf. I think far too many people respond without actually try to understand where he is coming from. For me, it takes a lot of work to translate his wording into familiar Western nomenclature. Consequently, I don't spend much time on his threads. Maybe I should. And maybe if I did I would agree with you. Nevertheless my general impression of MK is positive.

[quote='Mister Agenda' pid='1537617' dateline='1491572021']And unless it's believed by a vast majority, you can pretend it inconsequential and we're being irrational for not ignoring it [Chick] , eh? Like the vast majority of white people aren't members of the KKK, so it's unreasonable to spend time criticizing the KKK. I mean, why bring them up when most white people aren't like that?

Right or wrong, I do ignore street preachers and they were those from whom I collected the Chick tracts. To me they are obnoxious, not evil, and certainly not worth my time trying to have a detailed theological debate with. On the other hand if I discovered an earnest friend or associate passing them out, I would certainly try to have a heartfelt discussion with them. Secondly, I think your last sentence undercuts the previous objections. You seem to be saying that it would be inappropriate to judge all white people by the KKK. So why do you feel it is acceptable to judge all Christians by people like the Westboro Baptists?

[Mister Agenda]

I got mine from a rack at church. Why do you think I judge all Christians by people like the Westboro Baptists? All I do is refrain from subtracting them from your club.

[Brian37]

Well-educated, intelligent, and overall thoughtful contributors like Little Rik, Drich, and MysticKnight; for instance. [?]
Well, I don't know that much about Little Rik. He or she seems like a New Age type. I consider Drich to be all that - just more conservative than me. His line-by-line responses become difficult to follow though. As for MysticKnight, there is a huge cultural gulf. I think far too many people respond without actually try to understand where he is coming from. For me, it takes a lot of work to translate his wording into familiar Western nomenclature. Consequently, I don't spend much time on his threads. Maybe I should. And maybe if I did I would agree with you. Nevertheless my general impression of MK is positive.

And unless it's believed by a vast majority, you can pretend it inconsequential and we're being irrational for not ignoring it [Chick] , eh? Like the vast majority of white people aren't members of the KKK, so it's unreasonable to spend time criticizing the KKK. I mean, why bring them up when most white people aren't like that?

Right or wrong, I do ignore street preachers and they were those from whom I collected the Chick tracts. To me they are obnoxious, not evil, and certainly not worth my time trying to have a detailed theological debate with. On the other hand if I discovered an earnest friend or associate passing them out, I would certainly try to have a heartfelt discussion with them. Secondly, I think your last sentence undercuts the previous objections. You seem to be saying that it would be inappropriate to judge all white people by the KKK. So why do you feel it is acceptable to judge all Christians by people like the Westboro Baptists?

Yea well someone got to you in any case. Wanna guess the odds of you being a Christian if you had been born in Iran, how about China or Japan instead? Nope, like most of the world you swallow it because you like what you fell for. Then you say "I'm not like the others". 
Now here is where you stupidly and falsely accuse me of being mean. It's called cognitive dissonance and it can be a bitch, but when you are intellectually brave and have the ability to accept when you attached yourself to a very bad guess, you learn and grow.

[Mister Agenda]

Now if we want to talk about specific denominations, I think more or less of them according to their history and policies. I generally consider theists in the UCC, UU, and Quakers as allies on most important political and cultural matters, for instance.

[Brian37]

I would say that all these "add-on" issues that we later see more clearly are a result of the culture and times each of those issues developed in. While I agree that the culture has improved, I think the development of the "add-on" issue did not originate from NT teachings so cannot be characterized as a change in Christianity--but rather of society.

The reformation of Christianity came not so much on the back of humanism, but rather the bible was printed, and the church began to realise that Jesus did not burn people at the stake, extort money from converts, or want wars to promote the faith. The bible of its self has power.

We now know Jesus taught "Love your enemies, do good to them", he pardoned those condemned to death, forgiving and merciful.

I don't love my enemies, what a self loathing attitude. That teaches you to be a doormat. 

Now if you want a non superstitious realistic version of love. I most certainly do love my species capability to be compassionate. And no, I don't think humans should be out for revenge when someone hurts them. I am for self defense and containment when someone hurts me, nobody likes to be hurt. But no, I don't owe those who hurt me any love. I only owe my fellow humans rights even if they are accused of hurting me. 

I don't love Hitler or Stalin or Kim Jong Un. Do not expect me to love monsters. Not even on a domestic level with mundane crime. You steal my shit, I call the police. You harm my family or friends, I call the police. You get convicted it is still up to me, not a third party, as to if I forgive them one to one. No, I don't owe you love. I owe you rights, nothing more. I owe you a right to a trial if you are accused, but I don't owe you my love.

[Catholic_Lady]

Well-educated, intelligent, and overall thoughtful contributors like Little Rik, Drich, and MysticKnight; for instance. [?]
Well, I don't know that much about Little Rik. He or she seems like a New Age type. I consider Drich to be all that - just more conservative than me. His line-by-line responses become difficult to follow though. As for MysticKnight, there is a huge cultural gulf. I think far too many people respond without actually try to understand where he is coming from. For me, it takes a lot of work to translate his wording into familiar Western nomenclature. Consequently, I don't spend much time on his threads. Maybe I should. And maybe if I did I would agree with you. Nevertheless my general impression of MK is positive.

And unless it's believed by a vast majority, you can pretend it inconsequential and we're being irrational for not ignoring it [Chick] , eh? Like the vast majority of white people aren't members of the KKK, so it's unreasonable to spend time criticizing the KKK. I mean, why bring them up when most white people aren't like that?

Right or wrong, I do ignore street preachers and they were those from whom I collected the Chick tracts. To me they are obnoxious, not evil, and certainly not worth my time trying to have a detailed theological debate with. On the other hand if I discovered an earnest friend or associate passing them out, I would certainly try to have a heartfelt discussion with them. Secondly, I think your last sentence undercuts the previous objections. You seem to be saying that it would be inappropriate to judge all white people by the KKK. So why do you feel it is acceptable to judge all Christians by people like the Westboro Baptists?

Yep.
For my own part, I had never seen nor heard of those Chick tract things until an Atheist brought them up on this thread. To say they are an accurate representation of Christians, is just silly. It is true that I have heard from multiple protestants that Catholics are not real Christians and aren't "saved", but no protestant has ever treated me badly in any way because of it. 
As for the Westboro Baptists, they are a group of like, 30 people, who exist no where else in the world. To judge all the billions of Christians world wide by them makes absolutely no sense. I sure hope no one here is doing that...

[Neo-Scholastic]

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.

[Pat Mustard]

Bart Ehrman is a NT skeptic with an important-to-note bias--he does not believe in God.  Am is supposed to type out a list of scholars who disagree with him? That would be an appeal to authority.

Type out a list of theologians (not historians, as those arguing for the historical validity of the bible are sadly lacking in both historical knowledge and expertise) who disagree with him through a good grounding of the facts. I'll guarantee your list will be very short.