Jesus' Wife?

[Berkut]

Vlamy, do Unitarians use a normal bible, or do they go the Mormon route of using a heavenly modified bible? Once you go that route then I think the common belief structure can be changed enough that I wouldn't consider a Unitarian a Christian.

Unitarians do not use a Bible at all, except perhaps as a reference.  When you attend a UU church, in the pews you will find (I forget what they call it) a book with hymns and prayers from all sorts of different religious traditions.  To the best of my recollection, the majority of them are Christian in origin but there are also Jewish, Buddhist, and Muslim prayers and hymns (translated to English) included.

ok if that is the case then I believe that their belief structure is different enough from other Christians to not classify Unitarians as Christians. if they don't follow the bible nor believe in jesus as a person, from what Cal said in this other post, then I wouldn't classify sometone as a Christian.

<awaits flames and wrath from Beebs>

Who are you to say what makes someone Christian!!!

[HVC]

Can I be Christian if I don't believe that Christ ever existed, or if I believe he was wrong about everything he preached about?

we have very different understanding of the meaning of "belief in his teaching" if you equate that with believing everything he said was wrong.

That is the point.

So you are comfortable saying that someone who claims to be Christian is not actually Christian if they say they do NOT believe in his teachings?

I don't know where a scenario would come up where someone would say that they don't believe in anything Jesus preached yet still claimed they were Christian. But sure if it makes you happy to move to goal posts around, I would not be comfortable calling them a Christian in this parallel universe scenario of yours.

[alfred russel]

Can I be Christian if I don't believe that Christ ever existed, or if I believe he was wrong about everything he preached about?

we have very different understanding of the meaning of "belief in his teaching" if you equate that with believing everything he said was wrong.

That is the point.

So you are comfortable saying that someone who claims to be Christian is not actually Christian if they say they do NOT believe in his teachings?

The teachings of jesus in the bible conspicuously omit the part where he is the divine son of god. What if someone belongs to a group (lets call them "unitarians") that follows the teachings of jesus as laid out in the bible, historically believed in the divinity of jesus, but at a certain point as scholarship advanced decided to give up an opinion one way or the other on the theological stance? If they still follow the teachings of jesus....

[Malthus]

Scenes I'd love to see on cross-examination:

Q: You are being sued by my client for $10K, correct?

A: Yes.

Q: Do you or do you not consider yourself a Christian?

A: Well, yes, I'm a Christian.

Q: Have you ever read the NT?

A: Certainly.

Q: I'm going to read you a section from Matthew [reads Matthew 5:40: "if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well"] Is this or is this not part of Christian teaching?

A: Yes ...

Q: At $100 per tunic, $10K would buy 100 tunics, correct?

A: I guess so, but ...

Q: You have refused to give my client 100 cloaks, or the value of 100 cloaks, in addition to the $10K he was asking for, correct?

A: Wait a minute ...

Q: Just answer the question.

A: Well, yes, but I don't see ...

Q: So, when you said you were a Christian that wasn't accurate, correct? 

[Berkut]

I didn't really think there were people who would say they don't believe Jesus was divine at all and yet still claim to be Christian, but hey, who cares anyway?

I don't actually *care* if Valmy calms himself Christian, I just wanted to understand what he believes.

He does NOT believe that Jesus was divine (in the sense that most people use the term), does not believe he performed miracles, does NOT believe he was the actual son of god, and does not believe that he was sent to earth to provide us salvation.

In my opinion, much like you, that makes him not a Christian as I understand the term and find it useful to categorize belief systems.

But our comfort is largely irrelevant to Valmy. He wants to call himself Christian, that is his business.

[Jacob]

So you are saying that Valmy wants to call himself a Christian because he has some shared with the masses desire to be in the "in" crowd?

No, that's not what I'm saying.

[HVC]

Vlamy, do Unitarians use a normal bible, or do they go the Mormon route of using a heavenly modified bible? Once you go that route then I think the common belief structure can be changed enough that I wouldn't consider a Unitarian a Christian.

Unitarians do not use a Bible at all, except perhaps as a reference.  When you attend a UU church, in the pews you will find (I forget what they call it) a book with hymns and prayers from all sorts of different religious traditions.  To the best of my recollection, the majority of them are Christian in origin but there are also Jewish, Buddhist, and Muslim prayers and hymns (translated to English) included.

ok if that is the case then I believe that their belief structure is different enough from other Christians to not classify Unitarians as Christians. if they don't follow the bible nor believe in jesus as a person, from what Cal said in this other post, then I wouldn't classify sometone as a Christian.

<awaits flames and wrath from Beebs>

Who are you to say what makes someone Christian!!!

I, to my shame, forgot how thoroughly unpleasant you can be to discuss things with. Not the worse on languish, but pretty high up there.  I don't know why you felt the need to do that. Calling out Beeb in an unnecessary manner so that you could continue arguing with him and continue to a be a dick to him. You aren't in this discussion to make points, but as some means of getting your aggression out.

Cal made his points throughout the thread without being unnecessarily aggressive, so it is quite possible to stay civil in this discussion. 

And with that i'm done with this thread.

[alfred russel]

Scenes I'd love to see on cross-examination:

Q: You are being sued by my client for $10K, correct?

A: Yes.

Q: Do you or do you not consider yourself a Christian?

A: Well, yes, I'm a Christian.

Q: Have you ever read the NT?

A: Certainly.

Q: I'm going to read you a section from Matthew [reads Matthew 5:40: "if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well"] Is this or is this not part of Christian teaching?

A: Yes ...

Q: At $100 per tunic, $10K would buy 100 tunics, correct?

A: I guess so, but ...

Q: You have refused to give my client 100 cloaks, or the value of 100 cloaks, in addition to the $10K he was asking for, correct?

A: Wait a minute ...

Q: Just answer the question.

A: Well, yes, but I don't see ...

Q: So, when you said you were a Christian that wasn't accurate, correct?

A: I am a christian. When you reduce your claim to a tunic, I will hand over a tunic, as well as a cloak. 

[Berkut]

Can I be Christian if I don't believe that Christ ever existed, or if I believe he was wrong about everything he preached about?

we have very different understanding of the meaning of "belief in his teaching" if you equate that with believing everything he said was wrong.

That is the point.

So you are comfortable saying that someone who claims to be Christian is not actually Christian if they say they do NOT believe in his teachings?

The teachings of jesus in the bible conspicuously omit the part where he is the divine son of god. What if someone belongs to a group (lets call them "unitarians") that follows the teachings of jesus as laid out in the bible, historically believed in the divinity of jesus, but at a certain point as scholarship advanced decided to give up an opinion one way or the other on the theological stance? If they still follow the teachings of jesus....

An interesting question, I suppose.

My problem here is that if we water down the definition of "Christian" to be "One who follows 'the teachings' of Christ", then it of course begs the question of...what teachings?

And that itself can be watered down quite a bit - you can (and people have) summed up the teaching of Christ as "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or "Love the neighbors" or "Stop being such assholes to each other".

That then means that there are a lot of Christians out there (myself included) who are in point of fact Christian who most certainly would NOT identify themselves as such, and would even object to such an identification. Indeed, you could "follow the teachings of Christ" while being a member of an actually opposed religious group, like Hindu's or Muslims or followers of Zeus. Literally, if anyone who follows the most basic of the teachings of Christ, but does not even believe he was a god, or even believe there IS a god are Christians, then I am a Christian. I think that a definition of Christianity that includes an avowed atheist is a pretty silly definition.

And so we end up with another basically useless word, because people seem so afraid to let words actually *mean* something.

[Berkut]

Vlamy, do Unitarians use a normal bible, or do they go the Mormon route of using a heavenly modified bible? Once you go that route then I think the common belief structure can be changed enough that I wouldn't consider a Unitarian a Christian.

Unitarians do not use a Bible at all, except perhaps as a reference.  When you attend a UU church, in the pews you will find (I forget what they call it) a book with hymns and prayers from all sorts of different religious traditions.  To the best of my recollection, the majority of them are Christian in origin but there are also Jewish, Buddhist, and Muslim prayers and hymns (translated to English) included.

ok if that is the case then I believe that their belief structure is different enough from other Christians to not classify Unitarians as Christians. if they don't follow the bible nor believe in jesus as a person, from what Cal said in this other post, then I wouldn't classify sometone as a Christian.

<awaits flames and wrath from Beebs>

Who are you to say what makes someone Christian!!!

I, to my shame, forgot how thoroughly unpleasant you can be to discuss things with. Not the worse on languish, but pretty high up there.  I don't know why you felt the need to do that. Calling out Beeb in an unnecessary manner so that you could continue arguing with him and continue to a be a dick to him. You aren't in this discussion to make points, but as some means of getting your aggression out.

Cal made his points throughout the thread without being unnecessarily aggressive, so it is quite possible to stay civil in this discussion. 

And with that i'm done with this thread.

Oh please, that is some pretty light poking at Beebs in response to his doing the same with me. If you are going to get offended at that, I guess you should be done with a lot of threads.

[Malthus]

A: I am a christian. When you reduce your claim to a tunic, I will hand over a tunic, as well as a cloak. 

Well, now that you are talking settlement ...

[garbon]

Vlamy, do Unitarians use a normal bible, or do they go the Mormon route of using a heavenly modified bible? Once you go that route then I think the common belief structure can be changed enough that I wouldn't consider a Unitarian a Christian.

Unitarians do not use a Bible at all, except perhaps as a reference.  When you attend a UU church, in the pews you will find (I forget what they call it) a book with hymns and prayers from all sorts of different religious traditions.  To the best of my recollection, the majority of them are Christian in origin but there are also Jewish, Buddhist, and Muslim prayers and hymns (translated to English) included.

ok if that is the case then I believe that their belief structure is different enough from other Christians to not classify Unitarians as Christians. if they don't follow the bible nor believe in jesus as a person, from what Cal said in this other post, then I wouldn't classify sometone as a Christian.

<awaits flames and wrath from Beebs>

Who are you to say what makes someone Christian!!!

I, to my shame, forgot how thoroughly unpleasant you can be to discuss things with. Not the worse on languish, but pretty high up there.  I don't know why you felt the need to do that. Calling out Beeb in an unnecessary manner so that you could continue arguing with him and continue to a be a dick to him. You aren't in this discussion to make points, but as some means of getting your aggression out.

Cal made his points throughout the thread without being unnecessarily aggressive, so it is quite possible to stay civil in this discussion. 

And with that i'm done with this thread.

Oh please, that is some pretty light poking at Beebs in response to his doing the same with me. If you are going to get offended at that, I guess you should be done with a lot of threads.

Canadians.

[alfred russel]

An interesting question, I suppose.

My problem here is that if we water down the definition of "Christian" to be "One who follows 'the teachings' of Christ", then it of course begs the question of...what teachings?

And that itself can be watered down quite a bit - you can (and people have) summed up the teaching of Christ as "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or "Love the neighbors" or "Stop being such assholes to each other".

The teachings in the bible, would I think be a good start.

Yes they can be watered down to a very brief summary form. But they certainly contain more than that. Marxism can be watered down into a slogan or two, but I don't think a true marxist needs to believe in the divinity of Marx! 

[Berkut]

Can I be Christian if I don't believe that Christ ever existed, or if I believe he was wrong about everything he preached about?

we have very different understanding of the meaning of "belief in his teaching" if you equate that with believing everything he said was wrong.

That is the point.

So you are comfortable saying that someone who claims to be Christian is not actually Christian if they say they do NOT believe in his teachings?

The teachings of jesus in the bible conspicuously omit the part where he is the divine son of god.

John 4:16 is commonly cited by Christians as Christ explicitly stating that he is in fact the son of god, and only through him can salvation be realized.

Further, the New Testament itself has copious references to the same. I get that you can go for the teachings of Jesus while rejecting the rest of the NT, but I have my own opinions about that as well. But that has nothing to do really with how any particular person chooses what to believe or not believe.

[Berkut]

An interesting question, I suppose.

My problem here is that if we water down the definition of "Christian" to be "One who follows 'the teachings' of Christ", then it of course begs the question of...what teachings?

And that itself can be watered down quite a bit - you can (and people have) summed up the teaching of Christ as "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" or "Love the neighbors" or "Stop being such assholes to each other".

The teachings in the bible, would I think be a good start.

OK - so you think it is reasonable to call someone a Christian as long as they agree with just the teachings, even if they do not think the person doing the teaching was actually divine?

I don't think that is a terrible idea, but as I mentioned, it waters the definition down enough that it is basically informationally useless, since there are very few people who would disagree with the fundamental tenets of the "teachings of Christ".

On the other hand, some of those tenets are explicitly divinely religious in nature, and rejecting the idea of the existence of god would, IMO, pretty much reject the "teaching of Christ" bit, unless you water it down to a level that is basic enough that again you are just agreeing that it is a good idea to treat each other nicely.