What is Christianity?

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Christians -
Post your thoughts and beliefs WITHOUT knocking the beliefs of your fellow posters

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Iritating...Just like jar requested... Keep the animals in line, GREAT JOB!

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"Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."Ephesians 5:14

I believe I do but there are many non-Creedal Christians here as well as those from a host of other moral systems and I was hoping you'd expand on that for their benefit. It's one of those internal terms not often used outside the fold.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

prophex, if you wish to describe how you see Christianity, please do so. As I said, I hope this will become a discussion, not a debate.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Well, so far it looks like there are few Christians here. I had thought, based on some other posts that there were more than two Christians on this board, but perhaps I was wrong.Christians, if you are out there, how about stepping up and explaining what your view of Christianity is?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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prophex, if you wish to describe how you see Christianity, please do so. As I said, I hope this will become a discussion, not a debate.

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I took what you said as an insult and I would say Christians deserve an apology.I'll leave you with this cool quote by a guy named Clive Staples Lewis: "I believe in Christianty as the sun rises, not only because I see it but by it I see everything else."(from memory, probably not exact)

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"Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."Ephesians 5:14

Sure warded me away with the insulting approach...

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"Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."Ephesians 5:14

I have a question. Earlier you said Since athiests do not believe in god, and many Buddists are also atheists, how does that fit into your condition 'love god'. How
can you 'love' a being that does not exist ? Or is there another
criteria for 'loving god'.. for example, by your works?

IMHO, absodamnlutely. I think the passage from Matthew 25 sums it up nicely.

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34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

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It is not so much a matter of "Doing Works" for the merit of them as in recognizing the inner oneness of all beings. Christianity is not about dying, not about the second coming, not about heaven, it's about living. It's about recognizing that all men are part of life, all things are a part of life.The guy that stops his car and helps a turtle across the road loves GOD. When you reach up and get down the package on the top shelf of the grocery store for someone who can't reach it, or sit on the floor to read to kids, you are loving GOD.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

In other words, motivation for the works count. You believe that when works are done for the kindness and compassion, that is 'loving god', even in the person doing those works does not believe in God.

Pretty much.But if it were done to be a good work, to gain credit, for the doer not the recipient, then it would not be loving God.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

What is Christianity? I note you said "personal concept." In order to defend and/or define my "personal concept" of Christianity, I must describe Christ to you. In order to do this action justice, I need to know how to do this.

I can't really tell you how to describe your beliefs, except to say that they should be yours. Just give it a go and if one of the readers doesn't understand I'm sure they will ask for clarification.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I'm not sure where you see the insulting approach. It has been my experience reading Jar's posts that he is always respectful of the other posters and I didn't see any exception with his opening post.I do know that some Christians sects don't consider other Christian sects to be Christians. For example I worked with some fundamentalist Christians who didn't consider Catholics to be Christians. They said that Catholics were all going to hell. What I never did figure out was that they also said that the way to salvation was to accept Jesus as your lord and savior. From what I can tell from going to catholic church and Catholic school in my youth is that this is precisely what Catholics believe. Of course they also pray to Mary and the saints but I think that god forgives these "sins".Anyway, the short version is that I think that Jar was simply asking for people not to use the "you are not a real Christian" argument. Of course I could be wrong, it happens.

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Anyway, the short version is that I think that Jar was simply asking for people not to use the "you are not a real Christian" argument. Of course I could be wrong, it happens.

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Jar said no debating, funny how the word argument comes into the conversation.Jar expects the Christians here to lack self control, which offends me. Asgara did a good job of containing the crowd (hmm, riot?) I guess.

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"Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."Ephesians 5:14

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I do know that some Christians sects don't consider other Christian sects to be Christians. For example I worked with some fundamentalist Christians who didn't consider Catholics to be Christians. They said that Catholics were all going to hell. What I never did figure out was that they also said that the way to salvation was to accept Jesus as your lord and savior. From what I can tell from going to catholic church and Catholic school in my youth is that this is precisely what Catholics believe. Of course they also pray to Mary and the saints but I think that god forgives these "sins".

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Actually Catholics believe that works/deeds/sacraments get you to heaven, believe me I just recieved Confirmation (the sacrament) a month or two ago.There are many verses of the Bible speaking against this, (this is where you get the "sects" you were talking about.)Just wanted to clear that up, don't take it the wrong way jar.

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"Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."Ephesians 5:14