What a Christian is.

Note: I do not like religious arguement. That is not to be confused with discussion, where people listen and take into account what others say. I also don't have all the answers, which is why I try to stick to the fundamentals and work from there. If you wish to continue a discussion and I don't reply to this, feel free to PM me.

More and more these days we see and hear about people who call themselves "Christians." It bothers me that many people use that label, but do not really know what it means to be a Christian. I don't want to sound judgemental, but I grow weary when I hear of such labeled people doing and saying things that are completely contradictory. So, what is a Christian?

1. The Romans first began to use the term "Christian" as a deragatory term for the followers of Christ. A Christian would have to first be a follower of Jesus Christ. He was the only perfect person to walk on this Earth, and was therefore the only person who could be made a sacrifice to cover all of our sins. We must accept his sacrifice, acknowledging that we can only receive salvation through His forgiveness. (1 John 1:9, Romans 3:23, Philippians 2:8, Luke 1:66-67))

2. A Christian must believe that the Bible is the infallable Word of God (Psalm 119:160). It doensn't contradict itself, and every prophecy made by a Prophet accepted by God has come true or is in the process of coming true right now (which is kind of cool). No one has all the answers to everyone's questions, but the Bible is God's manual for our lives. There are some things that we just won't understand until we are standing before God, and that leads to my next point.

3. A Christian must have faith (Hebrews 11:1). We must believe that God has a plan that he is carrying out and be willing to go along with it. Someday we'll look back and see exactly what He did and is doing now.

4. We must love everyone (Matt 3:45-48, 22:38-39). We don't have to like everyone, but we must treat others in a manner that we would want them to treat us. That includes forgiving others when they wrong us and asking for forgiveness when we wrong others. That doesn't mean you have to like them or trust them, but that you will leave their final judgement to God and not to yourself.

Apart from popular beliefs, Christianity is not so much a religion as a relationship with an perfect, all-powerful God who loves us and wants us to be able to live the life He designed for us, one full of joy and peace. I just feel that there are too many people who label themselves Christians, but leave Christ out of the picture. Granted there are many debatable topics, but these four main points are the foundation of the faith and will not be disputed.

My concern is people will not interpret this correctly.

My concern is how much longer such a belief system will last.

Amethyst Star,
It seems to me , from the way you presented your post, that you are strong in your
faith. You left me with the impression that you are comfortable with the unanswerable
questions and willing to wait patiently for the time when you'll be enlightened.
I started a thread here called "Post Your Path" to try and gain a little better understanding of the diverse idealogies that confront each other in this forum and would like to know how you came to believe what you do. This is not an effort to assault your faith; I just
can't help but be curious. PM me if thats more appealing to you. R.C.

It's too bad that Christ still isn't around today.

Yeah, yeah, I know he's here "in spirit." I mean in body.

Yeah, yeah, I know we go to church and "eat his body and drink his blood." I mean...


Aw forget it.

ya i know he could show us so much!

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Originally posted by Amethyst Star
What a Christian is.

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Deluded.

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Originally posted by kimpossible
Deluded.

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Well, 90-95% of them. 5%, or around there, are enlightened.

I've always wondered how God survives on such a slim prophet margin. Supermarkets could learn something from the Old Man.

Most supermarkets run well under 5% for net margins. WallyWorld runs under 1% for net margins.

Be that as it may, I've yet to meet an enlightened biblethumper. And I highly doubt I ever will. Being a biblethumper clearly requires checking your brain at the door.

No christian preacher has physically hit me with the bible while professing their acceptance of jesus into their life and asking me to do the same, but a few of them have tempted me to hit them with it for ignoring his message while preaching this.

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Originally posted by kimpossible
Most supermarkets run well under 5% for net margins. WallyWorld runs under 1% for net margins.

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AH HA! We've found out where God's balls are! They are in Sam Walton's pants! Saints be praised!

Actually, it was a Paulist Congregation that first distinguished itself by the term we would call "Christian". It was Paul coopting Christ for his own schemes.

Catholics have always been particular not to be called Christians. These so-called Christians, in all of their Doctrines depart from anything Christ ever said and regard Paul as their Leader and Fount of All Doctrine. The core of this Doctrine is that through the Murder of the Messiah, all Sins are Forgiven. Thus we have a sort of version of Satanism where Murder leads to Free Sin. It is odd that "Christians" think they have a Religion. All the World suspects Protestant Christianity of its inherent Evil, and we will even have "Christians" questioning the other Religions of the World for not providing for "Forgiveness", that is licence to Sin. What good is a Religion, they ask, if it does not allow for the basest of human actions and motives. So used are they to their effective Satanism, that they confuse Satanism with True Higher Religion.

Not that the Catholics are left entirely uncontaminated by this. But there are many Marian Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods and Marian Organizations within the Catholic Church that effectively ignore Pauline Doctrine and focus rather on the Religious Doctrines of Christ, the Apparitions of Mary, and the example and Teachings of Her Saints.

The lunacy of Paul and his subsequent impact on Christianity should not be underestimated. Leo's right. He defined "Christianity" more than Jesus did.

This is because Paul communicated in every way that Jesus did not. Jesus was charismatic and spoke to gatherings of Jews like a traveling poet using the local language. Paul was academic and wrote to entire cities through the Mediterranean in the international language of Greek, the language of commerce in the eastern Roman empire and the language of philosophy everywhere. Paul wrote in prose. And he wrote profusely.

Philosophy was synonymous with all of education back then, remember. If you didn't speak Greek, your ideas would not go far.

Jesus asked his close friend Simon Peter to lead the new faith in his absence. Peter is called the "first pope" for this reason. You'd think that a personal endorsement by Jesus would carry more weight, right?

The fact is that it did not!

Peter and Paul were the first and, probably for that reason alone, the most important followers of Jesus to disagree on what it meant to be a follower of Jesus and to think each other was a pile of shit.

Peter didn't like Paul because he was executing and stoning followers of Jesus up until he had his dehydration-induced vision. Paul actually killed some of Peter's friends. He also wanted to get rid of many tenets of Judaism, which Peter, a devout Jew, would not allow. And to top this all off, Paul never even met Jesus.

Paul hated Peter because he was a country bumpkin from the sticks. He was uneducated and hadn't travelled very much. Paul thought Peter, by relying too much on Jewish tradition, was taking an unrealistic approach to bringing the message of the kingdom of heaven to non-Jews. Non-Jews were a sensitive topic. Jews took themselves very seriously, to the point where it was illegal to marry a non-Jew. Paul was convinced that the return of Jesus was near and was obsessed with "saving" every single person on the planet. Peter was concerned with saving Jews and Paul thought he was narrow-minded yokel.

This was just a few years after Jesus' death, remember. They were all ape about what the "living Jesus" meant, whether Jesus was everywhere in the universe and could be accessed by everyone. Paul was influenced by a hallucination, so he of course thought Jesus was everywhere in a Platonic theory of forms kind of way.

Paul was scholarly, educated, literate, and spoke Greek. He was well-to-do and "refined." This gave him great power in influencing the masses. Jesus was not like this. The first pope was not like this. And this power made Paul's lunacy even more frightening and terrible.

A "Christian" is a Paulist loony. Make so mistake.

Dear Ex-nine,

I think you mistake the relationship of Peter and Paul. Yes, Paul never liked anybody but his flattering slave Timothy, but Peter was in fact Paul's sponsor into the Church.

Let us see why. Remember how Peter had begun a murder spree among the Jewish Community -- killing those who would renig upon giving all of the property to the New Community. The Bible says that it was the Holy Spirit that was killing people for leaving a zero or two off their checks, but if you can infer the Reality from what the Bible says, the People were only afraid of being in the Offices of Peter, and they did not fear the Holy Spirit as they clamoured for Peter to be replaced by new Leadership of the Community. We find this New Leadership in the person of Stephen who was elected to replace Peter. The Bible does not say this exactly, but if we read Stephen's Acceptance Speech, it is not the speech of a new flunky but the Speech of a New Executive Chief. Stephen replaced Peter.

Enter Paul. Paul pieces together of mob of his old Anti-Jesus associates and murders Stephen. With Stephen now out of the way, Peter comes back into Power.

Not long afterward Peter sponsors Paul's Membership into the Church, receiving from Paul bags of money from Greek Ionia. Paul will later laugh at his partnership with Peter, but partnership it was.

The Partnership would fall apart. Of all of the Apostles, Peter was least critical of Paul (though Peter does indeed warn the Readers of the Pauline Letters to be aware that Paul was easy to misunderstand into the grounds of real heresies). James, Jude and John all wrote repeated letters specifically attacking Paul's doctrines, but Peter stayed largely silent. Eventually Peter was asked to step down and leave Jerusalem. Peter, who had financed his office through contributions from Paul, was now cut off as no longer being useful. Peter decided to fund himself by doing as Paul had done, that is, going to the Gentiles with his hand out. Paul found out about this and quite thought it was a violation of their original agreement (see Galatians where Paul brags of being Apostle to the Gentiles while Peter was Apostle to the Jews). They meet in Rome and have something of a Gang War which so annoyes Nero that he has them both killed -- Peter is crucified, while Paul is killed quickly with a sword, probably because he would not shut up.

Does anyone remember this song being showed to them with sticky tape on fingers when they were a kid?

2 little dickie birds sitting on a tree, one named peter, the other named paul. Fly away peter, fly away paul. Come back peter come back paul

Kinda interesting if you think about it.

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Originally posted by Ex Nine
Peter and Paul were the first and, probably for that reason alone, the most important followers of Jesus to disagree on what it meant to be a follower of Jesus and to think each other was a pile of shit.

Peter didn't like Paul because he was executing and stoning followers of Jesus up until he had his dehydration-induced vision. Paul actually killed some of Peter's friends. He also wanted to get rid of many tenets of Judaism, which Peter, a devout Jew, would not allow. And to top this all off, Paul never even met Jesus.

Paul hated Peter because he was a country bumpkin from the sticks. He was uneducated and hadn't travelled very much. Paul thought Peter, by relying too much on Jewish tradition, was taking an unrealistic approach to bringing the message of the kingdom of heaven to non-Jews. Non-Jews were a sensitive topic. Jews took themselves very seriously, to the point where it was illegal to marry a non-Jew. Paul was convinced that the return of Jesus was near and was obsessed with \"saving\" every single person on the planet. Peter was concerned with saving Jews and Paul thought he was narrow-minded yokel.

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And yet they were One, Paul and Peter. With all the differences, somehow they figured out how to be One.

http://www.dreamviews.com/forum/viewtopic....p=239478#239478

Unity, dude! Oneness Principle, BAAAY-BEEEEEEEEEE!!! :D