What Makes a person a - insert religion here -:

Is that a quadruple negetive? Makes it kinda hard to make sense out of. I'll try to cancel out some of those negetives and le'me know if I get it right.Nosomewhere Jesus teaches that NOT following every letter of his teaching makes you a NOT non-Christian. Is this corect? Somewhere Jesus teaches that following every letter of his teaching makes you a Christian? He doesn't say anything about following every letter.He tells us what we must do, though. He doesn't say that failing to do those things makes us no longer a christian. Maybe we just aren't very good christians. Reminds me of Star Wars. The way I see it, heaven is a gift. All you have to do is accept it. To use you stair analogy, getting to heaven would be like falling down the stairs, you have to do something to prevent yourself from falling to not get into heaven. Its not like you have to do a lot of climbing and you might trip and never get to the top. An example of preventing yourself from falling would be not clothing the naked or not feeding the hungry. Not in my opinion. well hold it, whats all that business about having to "do" and you can't just try? How can you do if you can't? I think you have a little misunderstanding in there but your opinions do seem to differ some. Eitherway, rest assured that I am a Christian.

You mean "plain and utter common sense" is hard to get through, and in the same way the narrow gate is hard to get through?Could you explain more?

This is the essence of your take on RC. Other than direction of travel, it's not all that different from my bosses stairway-to-heaven view (mass-goer everyday, and is starting to take a leaf out of my work-based evangelism - he's evangelising me!! There is no way he can fire me now - I'd have him up on religious persecution charges...)My boss: "I feed the poor and I climb the stairway"versusYou: "I fail to feed the poor and I fall down the stairway.""Feed the poor or you'll end up in Hell" it's the same thing -whichever way you take it. Two sides of the same works-based coin. You can't do. That is the point. The point of the LAW ("do this, that and the other") wasn't that we COULD do it. The point is that we couldn't do it! What does a man do when he realises he CANNOT follow the "do's and don't" (and we cannot - no matter how hard we try)Jesus said "there is a piece of filth (in your eyes: the Jewish priest to your Samaritan) lying like dirt on the ground. Go do likewise! You CANNOT do it. You, like me, step over them every day... According to RC definition you most definitely are. As to whether you are a Christian or not - I do not know. And as I do not know, rest I assuredly cannot.

Your sense of "plain and utter sense" is patently different to the majority view. I myself cannot take them as being deliberately obtuse. They fight too long and hard and very often honestly- reasoned to suppose that. It takes a fighter to know a fighter and that they are.But I see the sense you make - I know what you say is true. I know what you mean by pity allied with powerlessness...not even powerlessness, but just "thats the way life is - how awful". But if one is blind to what you say what can you do? You can reason and argue - yet see them; not missing mere subtleties, but missing by a mile. "There is the gate - its wide open" you yell, yet they blunder past the wide opening.Ever tried to herd sheep Robin? Its much the same - and not for no reason is that the Biblical analogy used.I'm an ordinary bloke, a mechanical engineer, commoner garden. And the gospel makes plain and utter mechanical sense - simply because I see it in the same way that you (and I) see those vets (and they do not).And you see the gospel too - just about. There is just a hairsbreath between you and it. Its just that nihilism doesn't trouble you enough. You see it but it doesn't drive you insane enough to cry out for release from the ensuing insanity.And the day you do you will see.Thats is just the way it is - and it makes perfect sense

No, have you? There must be some cultural difference here. A mechanical engineer around here is held in reasonably high esteem."commoner garden"?Very good post, iano. I'm glad somebody agrees with me.

So, you can definately say that someone liek the JW's, who do not accept the trinity, and the concept that Jesus is God as Christians though.That is, even though the fact they consider themselves CHristian.

Yup. Try it if you ever get the chance. You'll see something relevant. Practical, not prone to whimsy, least likely to be satisfied by flowerly nonsense, needing hard and fast evidence (of the kind that would satisfy such a one as described). Not the type to ever entertain unresolved systems. I could go on, but I guess you get the gist. That doesn't make it a good post - its more significant than that. Who gets your gist around here. Faith and me. What are Faith and me?Birds of a feather.We are in agreement with each other and not quite with you. We are either closer to your truth or you to ours. That is what I mean by the gospel being a hairsbreath away from you. Presumptious I know - but I did your gig already. It doesn't fit. And I needed fit.

Sorry Ramoss, there's a word missing or something, in what your saying and the gist is unclear.

Well, I'm not so sure about that. Your prose style is mighty whimsical. Your automotive metaphors crack me up.You have an odd sort of poetic character in you, iano, only it's been injected the wrong way.I'm off-topic, but I just thought I would mention it.One's prose style is a window to the soul.

Could you design a poo-pump out of a rolling ark and some trees?Thought not...We were told to be "all things to all men" Robin. If I could engineer you in the kingdom I would. In a heartbeat

Which implies fundementalism per se is a bad thing. Yes or no answers abound in life nwr. This does not make them 'bad'Are you going to die or are you not. Yes or No.You fundamentalist you...

A Christian is a person not a teaching. A person can have all the Christian teaching they like - that does not make them a Christian. Whether the teaching is "Christian" teaching or not is not of central import. The gospel itself is what is important."The gospel is the power of God unto salvation". In our age the gospel is the predominant way for God to cause a person to be saved (but it is not the only way open to him at all places and times). A JW who consults his bible will read the gospel. Sure WatchTower Central put a spin on it as do the Mormons and Roman Catholicism (and fundamentalists I hasten to add: "God hates the queers" -whoever heard of such lunacy?). But the power of the gospel is not constrained by the spin man places on it.Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic monk. In a monastery - trying to get away from sin (for that is what monastecism is aimed at). He read "But now a righteous FROM God is revealed". He had read it a zillion times before. He thought this meant Christ, God incarnate, being revealed in his coming as man. The standard that Christ set was the righteousness-unto-salvation, the standard, that had been revealed - and had better be attained - otherwise....Then he got it...God SUPPLIES the righteousness that man requires.It can happen to a mormon, a fundamentalist, a hindu...or a Roman CatholicEdited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

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I wouldn't go anywhere near as far to say that a particular Mormon or a Jehovahs Witness or a Roman Catholic is not a Christian. Whilst the teachings behind these systems are not Christian teachings (no more than an 'engine' without pistons or a crankshaft is not an engine) that doesn't have to stand in the way of God calling and them responding to that call. They can be saved despite their Religion not because if it.

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I think it's funny that you, Ian, a Protestant, would characterize the teachings behind your own religion (namely, Roman Catholicism) as not true Christianity.

Stop following me around the board will ya Schraf? Your fooling no one and whilst I don't mind (indeed I am flattered) I don't want to see you hurt.

Part of the central theme in the Jehovah Witness belief is that fact that Jesus is not part of the trinity , and is not the father.Since that is the case, would you consider them CHristians?