What is Christianity?

I don't follow your point, jar. Given that I said ISIS would be using a different definition that my own, why should my proposal be of any help to them? ISIS might very well consider everyone who failed to share their world view to be either a bad Muslim or a Christian. I personally don't think I have to agree with their determination.And to be frank, I'm not all that concerned that my definition does not work for ancient Christians. I will say that whether or not an individual believes in pre-destination or the the trinity is not an issue for me. Nor is it much of an issue that some Christians did not have access to a Bible what with the Bible not being written and all. I'm not sure what to make of this statement. I'm sure you are correct, but it is not the color of the words that is of any import. The colored words simply identify words supposedly spoken by Christ in the first person. I'll bet that you can pick up an uncolored KJV, NIV or ESV Bible, and a red highlighter and correctly color 99.9% of the red words in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. FWIW, my own Bible has only black and white text.

It appears to directly answer the point you raised about red letters being of recent vintage. Perhaps you could have asked a different question. I submit that there is a fairly consistent message despite some differences between the Gospels. Have you in mind some people who reject one or more Gospels? I don't believe I would have an issue with those people. I've never said that I don't consider Faith to be a Christian. I consider her definition of Christianity to be off, but I would include her in mine even if I'd spend much of the time admonishing her. Really? Because I don't see anything like that in the OP. In fact, you specifically asked for our personal definitions.From message 1: It seems that this is meant to be a debate, despite what you said.In any event neither you nor I get to dictate what ISIS thinks Christianity is nor are we bound by that. Perhaps their definition is wrong. Which means that I haven't left it undefined. I agree that my definition is loose. But that does not make the definition useless.One of my aunts likes to ask, "If being a real Christian became illegal, could you even get yourself arrested". Her impression was that we ought to be able to recognize at least some aspect of Jesus teachings in your life. She did not require that we find all of his teachings there. I suppose my definition is close to hers.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I would submit that this is a personal issue having very little to do with Christianity. I doubt that most Christians have such a complete disunity with their fellow man. Most people on this planet are not Christians.

You are right of course. But the point of my aunt's rather impractical hypothetical is that simply identifying Church attendees is not the correct way to define true Christians. So either you missed my point or I didn't tell the story correctly. Ridiculous or not, the arrest of people for being Christ-like is exactly the point of the story. It is, after all, just a hypothetical, a story told with the intention that the hearer examine him/her self.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I disagree with that such a thing would be hard. I admit that I'd find such a person a bit strange, but items 3 (at least the question regarding whether Mary was a virgin), and 11, that all humans will be bodily resurrected don't seem essential to me. I also don't find a belief in hell to be essential either.If you were talking to such a person who professed to be Christian, how long do you think it might take to find out that he had such strange beliefs. For me, only the belief or lack of belief in hell is likely to come up during a conversation and maybe not even that.

Right, and it somehow interferes with being able to participate in say a union meeting?

I agree that I did not provide the answer to the question. I provided the anecdote to suggest a way someone might evaluate answers to the question 'What does it mean to be Christian?'What I will suggest is that the only thing we modern people have available to tell us what Christ was like is the Bible. We simply don't have access to the narrative from the early churches save for that which appears in the NT.I submit that it is possible to gain some insight into who Jesus was or was alleged to be by reading the NT, and in particularly the Gospels. If someone claimed to have some other way of following Christ, I'd have to have that explained to me before I modified my opinion.I would expect such a persons behavior would be visibly different from a non-Christian and that the person would attribute those differences to Christ's teaching. If instead the person attributed his way of life to following Buddha, then the man is instead a Buddhist.I probably cannot be more clear than that. If that does not suffice as an answer for you, so be it. Sorry for any lack of precision you might find.Edited by NoNukes, : grammar

And you might note that I did not question him on his experiences with believers.And why are you telling me that Phat may have overstated his experiences? If that is the case, I'd expect Phat could speak for himself. I understand that you are trying to help, but I'm not sure why it is useful for you to explain Phat's experiences to me as if I'd never been around any Christians.

I see that I was not clear, and that I did speak somewhat imprecisely by talking about Christians vs. non-Christians. The point is, as Moose mentioned, that an atheist knowing or not knowing anything about Christ might exhibit Christ like behavior just because he thinks that is the right thing to do.However if the person does not attribute his behavior to following Christ and his teachings, or if he does not attempt to follow said teachings, then IMO he isn't a Christian. It does not imply an inferiority on his part any more than does being an Alpha Kappa Alpha shows superiority over being a Kappa Alpha Theta.

That appears to be about fifty percent of what I posted. Yes, the identification with Christ is important, but it is not enough, and at this point I dispair of ever communicating that point to you. I yield.

Important, but mandatory?It is not vital that Mary is a virgin. What is important is that Joseph is not the father of Jesus. I understand that having Mary be a virgin makes such questions easier to answer, but that's a poor reason in my opinion. If I am reading you correctly it seems that 'resurrection of the body' might be more specific an idea than is needed. I don't think getting a new spirit body counts as having your body resurrected. What makes you think that?

Well, no ringo. What you are describing is not the point of the story, so it is you and not the story that is wrong.Your position is exactly the same as rebutting the point of an Aesop's fable by insisting that tortoises and hares cannot actually talk and that they would never actually race each other. Yeah, that's true, but sleeping during a race is still a bad idea.

Your response suggests that you lack even the slightest bit of imagination. Of course there are ways to identify Christians other than by catching them attending church.1. We might arrest everyone wearing a crucifix.
2. We might bug their homes and catch them praying in the name of Jesus.
3. We might catch them reading the New Testament
4. We might have people report them when the attempted to proselytize.
5. We might ask them whether they worship Christ and arrest anyone who refused to simply deny being a Christian.
6. We might catch people who worship on days when church is closed.
7. We might arrest anyone we caught professing to be a Christian in public.
8. We might arrest everyone reading Bible verses through a megaphone on the sidewalk.
9. We might arrest everyone who gives a panhandler a sandwich and a Chick tract.
10. We might arrest people for attending church on any day except Sunday.
11. We might watch people who attend church, but only arrest them if they accumulate some number of points from doing items 1-10 from above list.The methods above might be more or less reliable than simply catching people leaving a church. But at least some of them are in tune with my Aunt's point which is that there are plenty of posers in church. But the idea that finding people at church is the only way to identify a Christian is ludicrous. I've identified fellow Christians during conversations at the bus stop. Maybe you can too.

Yes, they would. And that effort would be absolutely beside the point in what was a hypothetical thought experiment.But of course if all you are really trying to do is shift the goal posts from impossible to impractical, then you have a perfectly great ringo argument; an argument that is just as pointless as telling us that turtles cannot talk.I wonder if Einstein knew that there were no elevators in space and that there were no uniform gravitational fields?ABE:As if further evidence of your BS were required, apparently it is okay for you to bring up and rule out giving money to pandhandlers as not effective at identifying Christians, but somehow impractical when I bring up 'giving panhandler's a Chick tract' or arresting people for using a megaphone on street corners, those things are somehow too difficult and must be ruled out regardless of whether they are effective. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I take this to mean that only people who embrace Trinity Doctrine can be Christian. I find this particular part of your definition problematic primarily because the Bible is full of supporting and contradictory statements about the topic.