What exactly IS a Christian?

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Being a Christian is to trust in the will of God. His will has been expressed through the Messiah Jesus.


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

 

[pavlosmarcos]

it is not actually correct.
What you have described is a sort of moralistic humanism

no that is a insult to moralistic humanism.

with an intellectual belief in an historical figure,

who is that.

Whilst christianity requires you to believe certain things and clearly does have a moral code, neither of these are its defining characteristic.

exactly, what is moral about xianity.

Real christianity requires you to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ

?

through the Holy Spirit. Indeed most people become christians not because of intellectual argument confirming His existence

and where is this intellectual argument.

(although a few do) but because of the experience of meeting Him.

and how is that done.

As I presume you have not experienced this,

no of course not he's normal.

I suspect that you will not fully understand what this means and be rather sceptical about it.

you dont say. LOL

I can assure you however that it is very real.

oh yes, of course you can. (sarcasm)LOL

There are many manifestations of it but one of the nearest earthly equivalents to one aspect, that you may be able to relate to, is being so deeply in love with someone that there is that funny feeling which appears to come from somewhere near your stomach but which somehow fills you with great joy. I hope that that helps to relate a part of this experience.

You cannot be lonely, if you love yourself, can you.
thats the love your talking about.
those are the feelings i get when I see my wife or my children.

For my part, I did not come from a religious family. I did become a christian from philosophical and logical analysis

no you did'nt, there is absolutely no rationale for religion or god/jesus.

and for many years was an 'intellectual christian'. I am actually paid to write logical algorithms so others clearly consider me rational!

you can be rational in every other aspect of you life, but it's that one irrationality that defines you.

To get back to my own christian experience, to whatever degree I considered myself logical and well read,

see above reply.

my experience of becoming a real christian came much later and not from the reading, discussion and logic

well of course not.

but from honestly talking to God (call it 'prayer' if you like) and I can assure you that there is a very great difference between the two.

well there you go, says it all dose'nt.( just that one little irrationality.)

This is why anyone can become a christian, and a 'real one' too. You do not have to be an intellectual or a great philosopher or very moral,

most xian ar'nt, however what you asking is for him to put aside all common sense, but then again you've done it.

If you want to be really brave and are ready to do it, test out what I have said. Speak to God. You can be honest and say you do not actually believe He exists

if he has no belief in it's existence, why would he talk to it, that would be infantile. ( he's quite clearly not stupid.) your trying tell us your logical, and you make inane statements like that.

but if He does exist ask Him to send the Holy Spirit to become part of your life.

WTF, the next thing you'll want, is to have him carted away, in a straight jacket.

 

[Gordon]

no that is a insult to moralistic humanism.

Answers to your points:

no that is a insult to moralistic humanism.
Not really I have a lot of respect for moralistic humanism. If i choose to insult something I assure you I can do very much better than that!

who is that. exactly,
Jesus Christ - You obviously knew that so it's hardly a clever ploy to ask the question.

what is moral about xianity.?
If you do not understand that christainity has a high moral code and that that is different to the level to which people live up to it, you really are not quite so clever as you obviously think you are!

and where is this intellectual argument.
This is not an intellectual argument and is not meant to be. I have clearly put forward the distinction between intellecual and that which is not intellectual. If I said I liked blues music or surrealist art, neither would be intellectual statements or arguments but that make neither any less valid for that!

and how is that done.
I have tried to explain. I do not expect you to believe it. That's your choice but of course it was written in answer to someone else.

no of course not he's normal.
Stating someone is 'normal' or not is at best facile and at worst insulting. What is 'normal' in a society of people so different one to another?

you dont say. LOL oh yes, of course you can. (sarcasm)LOLYou cannot be lonely, if you love yourself, can you.
thats the love your talking about.
If you want to be thought as clever as you think yourself to be you really need to be able to use sarcasm such that the reader understands that that is what it is without a note from you to say that.

You can believe I love myself. You can believe I am deluded but just perhaps I know more about myself and any delusions I may or may not have than you. Is it just possible that you really don't know everything about everyone and everything and maybe just maybe I know more about me than you? Think for a moment. It will probably be quite liberating.

those are the feelings i get when I see my wife or my children.
no you did'nt, there is absolutely no rationale for religion or god/jesus.

You can believe what you like but I can state as a fact that I came to believe in Jesus Christ on the basis of logical analysis. You may believe that my logic was faulty but what level of arrogance enables you to say what I did or did not do?

you can be rational in every other aspect of you life, but it's that one irrationality that defines you.see above reply. well of course not. well there you go, says it all dose'nt.( just that one little irrationality.)most xian ar'nt, however what you asking is for him to put aside all common sense, but then again you've done it. if he has no belief in it's existence, why would he talk to it, that would be infantile. ( he's quite clearly not stupid.) your trying tell us your logical, and you make inane statements like that. WTF, the next thing you'll want, is to have him carted away, in a straight jacket.

It is perfectly rational to ask someone to make His presence known if He exists even if at that moment you do not believe He actually does. Tests often consist of trying to find what may or may not be there, irrespective of the percceived likely result by the tester. That is called keeping an open mind. I presume that is a rather alien concept to you as well.

I am sorry it appears to me that you are not at all rational or logical, simply arrogant, bigoted and rude. You are certainly not at all tolerant even when people do their best to explain their view to you in a reasonable manner. Perhaps you will learn more as you go through life. I do hope so.



regards,


Gordon.

 

[pavlosmarcos]

It is perfectly rational to ask someone to make His presence known if He exists even if at that moment you do not believe He actually does. Tests often consist of trying to find what may or may not be there, irrespective of the percceived likely result by the tester. That is called keeping an open mind.

well it certainly is'nt rational to anybody but the religious, I believe mr randi and one of our own geeser have offered a million dollors each, to anybody like you who can prove, the supernatural, and I know a few doctors who would like talk to people like you, who think it's rational to talk to something that ai'nt there

I presume that is a rather alien concept to you as well.

this is a strange statement to say to a clear thinker, especially coming from some.one so totally blinkered

I am sorry it appears to me that you are not at all rational or logical, simply arrogant, bigoted and rude. You are certainly not at all tolerant even when people do their best to explain their view to you in a reasonable manner.

you did'nt explain anything, you were talking of self love, delusion, you only advocated lunacy, you just told the man what he should do.
and yes I can be bigoted and rude, especially went people start by saying I'm logical, and the go on to say they believe in god, give me a break!.
logic and religion, are mutually exclusive.

Perhaps you will learn more as you go through life. I do hope so.

how do you think, we become atheists, through study, a lot of study, we are not plebs/sheeple, we start as non-believer, then we get infected with the mind virus, we recover through study and come to our senses.
I extremely doubt it, that you could find an atheist who has'nt study hard, be they young or old.
I pity you for not opening you mind to the truth.
wake up and smell the rose's.

 

[TheVisitor]

I just got around to reading your opening post - One Raven.
Thats good, really good advice.
If anywhere I could see anything I disagree with, was your putting aside of Paul's Spirit inspired insight into the true Christian doctrine obtained from shadows and types in the old testament, which I don't see as the major point you were trying to make, but I think still need clarifing.
That is what the old testament was for, it was full of types and shadows for the future, the writtings of the prophets, and actual histories of the Hebrews, both symbolic and literal, which are to be interpreted by the same Spirit that wrote it in the future.
All the wandering in the wilderness and sacrifices were done in the natural to set forth types for example in the spiritual.
The natural alway types the spiritual.
That is the purpose Jesus keep referring back to the old testament, He keep every "jot and tit-el" of the law, and magnified not did away with it to the Christian disciple wanting to follow Him by making it a law written on the tables of your heart.
That is the people He is raising up, that are being "all taught of God".

But you raised some very good points.

 

[Student of Yoga]

Anyone who follows the ten commandments is the true Christian. Such a person does not hate any other religious belief, nor is he a slave to his senses. Having controlled his anger, jealousy, greed, attachment etc, he is free from the turmoils of the mind (Satan) and enjoys the true bliss of life (heaven). He is the at peace with the world. The same goes for buddhists, hindus, taoists, Jews. Im not so sure about Islam (the concept of jihad does not seem to follow this pattern)

 

[SkinWalker]

Anyone who follows the ten commandments is the true Christian.

Does that make a Jew who doesn't think Jesus was a messiah a christian?

 

[Student of Yoga]

No - it means that a Jew who follows the advice of the Torah as well as Moses will feel the same as a Christian as most religious teachings have the same essence. All teach not to give in to lust, anger, greed etc.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

If you want to be really brave and are ready to do it, test out what I have said. Speak to God.

Reminds me of that wonderful old movie "The Ruling Class" with Peter O'Toole. He was regarded by his family as crazy because he believed he was god. When someone bothered to ask him why he thought that, he said, "Because every time I tried praying, I found that I was talking to myself."

You're getting off into territory that is imponderable and unresolvable. People hear voices in their heads all the time and indeed most of the time other people think they are crazy. If you say you talk to god and I say you just have a series of particularly vivid hallucinations, neither of us can ever prove the other wrong.

As for your observation that a definition provided by an outsider isn't quite correct... I presumed that we were looking for a definition that could be used by outsiders. Religion is such an arcane thing that the definitions used by insiders are often not helpful to us in trying to gain a glimmer of understanding about a particular religious community. To tell us that a Christian is a person who talks to Jesus, when many of us are not convinced that Jesus ever lived and in any case most of us accept as fact that you can't talk to the dead, is to leave us scratching our heads and knowing nothing.

To say instead that you wish to be guided by the teachings attributed to Jesus may seem incomplete or even off the mark to you, but it is nonetheless true and important and it gives us something we can understand.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Anyone who follows the ten commandments is the true Christian. Such a person does not hate any other religious belief, nor is he a slave to his senses. Having controlled his anger, jealousy, greed, attachment etc, he is free from the turmoils of the mind (Satan) and enjoys the true bliss of life (heaven). He is the at peace with the world. The same goes for buddhists, hindus, taoists, Jews. Im not so sure about Islam (the concept of jihad does not seem to follow this pattern)

*************
M*W: The "ten commandments" were not original and were taken from the Code of Hammurabi. In other words, they were plagarized.

Christianity occurred so much later than the Code of Hammurabi, there could be absolutely no connection between Christianity and the Ten Commandments. After all, Christianity says that there are only two great commandments: love the lord god with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Since Satan is a Christian concoction, or the antithesis of god, it makes for a good story plot.

There is no such person as a Christian. The descriptions of such a person are divided among some 34,000 interpretations. Not a water-tight thing, I'd say.

Christianity is a farce. There was no Jesus of Nazareth, there was no historical virgin birth as many of the gods of myth were born of "virgin" mothers most oftenly in a cave or manger with many animals (i.e. of the zodiac) around. None of these gods ever walked the Earth as humans.

Why do you believe in fairy tales?

 

[Medicine*Woman]

No - it means that a Jew who follows the advice of the Torah as well as Moses will feel the same as a Christian as most religious teachings have the same essence. All teach not to give in to lust, anger, greed etc.

*************
M*W: Yeah, this is fine and good to control one's faulty emotions, but again, there were only the 'Moses' of Egypt. They weren't Hebrews nor Jews. The Moses of the OT didn't exist. There was no Exodus ever out of Egypt. All lies. So who actually wrote the Torah? Not to say that its tenets aren't worthy, but let's face reality here, it was written by human males with their own personal agendas, and billions followed the ruse!

 

[Student of Yoga]

i dont believe in fairy tales-whether Jesus existed or not is irrelevent for most of us. Its in the past, or a past fairy tale. Time to move on. But what does not move on is that the basic fundamental teachings of every faith is the same. Why should we not have anger, greed, jealousy etc? Do we feel happy being like that? It is a basic requirement to be a good Human being, whether you believe in "fairy tales" or not. So follow them and forget whether he existed or not, just follow them.

 

[SnakeLord]

That is called keeping an open mind.

"There's a thing called being so open minded your brains drop out" - Richard Dawkins