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> ... In considering whether or not Christianity is true it is hard to ignore the actions of those who claim to be its adherents. Yes, but the key word here is

> ... In considering whether or not Christianity is true it is hard to ignore the actions of those who claim to be its adherents. Yes, but the key word here is _claim_. If someone calls themselves a vegan and yet eats veal then you, as someone who understands what a "vegan" is, you can call them out for their hypocrisy. There are a few problems here: 1) Many, many people have no idea what an actual Christian is or what we believe. 2) Furthermore, nobody wants to know because their worldview is justified much more easily by fighting against a straw man rather than objective truth. 3) We as a society don't value objective truth. So I can call myself whatever I want even if I don't really believe in the key doctrinal points. 4) Going down that same path, the people who actually stand up for what is truth and calling out those who are not, get labeled as rabble-rousers and are chastised as being "judgemental." In any case, what we have here is a big heaping helping of nobody knowing anything anymore... and nobody seems to care. FWIW: I am a Christian and I did not vote for Trump.

flukus 10y ago
> Many, many people have no idea what an actual Christian is or what we believe. Christians have been fighting over that for as long as there's been Christians. I'm not convinced the word is in any way useful.
- nvahalik 10y ago
  Though the term has been usurped, tracked through the mud, and left out to be baked out in the sun the word is still very useful. At the end of the day even though we might call ourselves different types of Christians based on the traditions and non-essentials that we hold to, there are still Christians from every tribe, tongue, and nation that are united by Christ... and Christian is really only the word I can think of that makes sense.
  - flukus 10y ago
    You can't really say they're united by Christ when they can't agree on the nature of Christ (man, god or both?) and have frequently fought over the particulars. About the only way you can group all Christians together is that they believe a Christ of some form existed. But that definition is loose enough to include atheists, muslims and others.
    - learc83 10y ago
      Words have meaning, but that meaning isn't always precise because we communicate using a natural language not Lojban. Humans have the ability to use context and reason to determine what a person means when they say they are a Christian. 99.9% of the time such a person person means that they are a follower of Jesus Christ and that they believe Jesus Christ to be the son of God. Of course there will be disagreements on the exact definition, their are disagreements on the exact definition of the word programmer. That doesn't stop it from being a useful word. Any label has exceptions.
      - flukus 10y ago
        > 99.9% of the time such a person person means that they are a follower of Jesus Christ and that they believe Jesus Christ to be the son of God. But this itself is devoid of meaning. Many people say they follow christ but may have completely different beliefs on what that means. Even believing the son of god is not universal among Christians. These aren't just blurred lines, it's more like saying a car mechanic, an airline pilot and a web developer are all programmers.
        learc83 10y ago
        > Even believing the son of god is not universal among Christians. It is nearly universal--universal enough to be useful. If someone says they are a Christian, absent any other knowledge, you can be very confident that they mean that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Obviously not 100% confident, but confident enough to proceed with that assumption in most cases. I could say that a car mechanic, a pilot, and a web developer are all skilled trades. That doesn't make the term skilled trade meaningless, it just makes it less specific. "Christian" is a very broad classifier and it is about as useful as any other broad classifier. It lacks specifics, but language is recursive--I can add as many extra identifiers as I like, e.g., Protestant Christian, Roman Catholic Christian, and Orthodox Christian.
  - redial 10y ago
    This is actually very easy to test. Do you believe mormons are christians? What about Jehovah's Witnesses?
pfisch 10y ago
This kind of seems like a no true scotsman fallacy. I'm not even sure what an "actual christian" would be because the books that make up the christian faith contradict themselves all over the place. You could even make arguments that some of the books are false or that some of the apocryphal books are real. Because there is no factual bedrock underlying religion there is no truth to be found and anyone can just claim anything and ascribe it to whatever religion they want for the most part.
- GavinMcG 10y ago
  No True Scotsman isn't a formal fallacy, and simply saying "here's a line, and these so-called examples are on the wrong side of it" isn't No True Scotsman. Rather, No True Scotsman requires that someone change their definition to exclude counterexamples while maintaining that they're keeping an untainted definition. It's entirely legitimate to say "There are people who call themselves Christians but do not act in accordance with X, Y, and Z teachings of Christ. Therefore, I don't accept their claim." That's definition, not redefinition.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    This comment is so meta.
  - vacri 10y ago
    The response in question misrepresented the OP saying "A lot of Trump supported identify as Christian" as "Christians only voted for Trump", and then goes on to say "no actual christian" in the rebuttals, which is pretty close to verbatim "no true scotsman". As in "yeah, those people only _claim_ to be christian, they're not _actual_ christians". It's a textbook example of No True Scotsman. The idea that there is only one kind of christian died the moment that Mr Iscariot did his friend a bad one. Ever since then, there's been schism after schism after schism. Even Peter and Paul saw and did things differently. In the modern day, we're talking about rivalries so deep that even moving a ladder[1] is proven impossible, so how "they're only _claiming_ to be christians, and aren't _actually_ christians" passes muster, I don't know. These are the heads of christian sects going back more than a millenium, who disagree on what it means to be christian. Folks who are in charge of multiple large houses of worship, with large congregations that see them as their christian guides... but somehow "oh, I don't think they see it right, therefore 'not christian'"? "No True Scotsman" is perfectly appropriate. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immovable_Ladder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immovable_Ladder
Mikeb85 10y ago
> Many, many people have no idea what an actual Christian is or what we believe. Probably because there's more Christian sects than there are flavours of ice cream. All with different beliefs. To me, Christianity is synonymous with Orthodox Christianity, but for the typical American 'Christian' it's probably some flavour of Protestant Evangelicalism...
- nvahalik 10y ago
  > All with different beliefs. Different customs and perhaps some different interpretations, but if you believe something different (e.g. that deviates from or adds to scripture) then objectively you have a different basis and therefore a different faith. I'd encourage you to watch some of the debates by James White[1] (yes, those are links to purchase, but if you check the podcast feed/blog they link to YouTube videos of many of the debates. What you'll clearly see in many of those debates is how the arguments of one side breaks down. I can't see how any reasonable observer could watch a handful of those debates and not be at least open to if not convinced that perhaps some of what these "different beliefs" offer isn't real Christianity, but something dressed up as such. I do believe that there are very small number of _actual_ Christians in the US. Definitely not the 70-ish% from Pew[1]. Maybe 5-10%. Probably even less. [1]: http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php/2011/01/19/available-debates-by-dr-james-white/ http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php/2011/01/19/available-d... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States
  - Mikeb85 10y ago
    I certainly would argue that my religion (Orthodox Christianity) is a different religion from that of Dr. James White (Baptist Christianity). Anyhow, I don't care to argue specifics, only to point out that as everyone thinks their version is correct, and there's many versions out there, it's difficult to say what a 'real' Christian believes, assuming one is charitable enough to consider sects other than one's own as 'Christian'.
- grzm 10y ago
  Which Orthodox? Eastern? Russian? A prominent one missing from your list is Roman Catholic.
tps5 10y ago
If you want to define Christianity as a set of precepts derived from the teachings of Christ then you must define the teachings of Christ. This seems like an impossible task to me. Not only is there the issue of discovering what's been lost in translation, but also the existing texts have been heavily edited over the centuries. Entire books could have conceivably been lost. Forgeries could have been adopted. Even if you disregard all that, is there really an objectively correct way to read Christian (or any) scripture? I'd say no. My view is that religions are like languages. What defines a language is what is widely spoken and widely understood within some community. It doesn't matter whether a word has been recorded in a dictionary. It can be said to be part of the language if it is used and understood. By the same token, I would define religions as they are practiced, not based on some interpretation of what has survived from the texts. Based on that view, there isn't (and never has been) a monolithic Christian religion. Instead there are many fragmented communities that have varying rituals/practices. Some of these practices are quite widespread (mainstream) and some are not. I understand the desire to base our understanding of religions on the texts. But I can't see any coherent way to do it.
- learc83 10y ago
  > but also the existing texts have been heavily edited over the centuries There has actually been surprisingly little editing mostly because there are thousands of very old NT manuscripts, with copies of most of the NT dating from just 100 years or so after its writing. There are scribe errors and even some editing, but the sheer number of ancient examples is enough to reach consensus.
  - zeven7 10y ago
    This is exactly right. The New Testament is one of the most well preserved texts from antiquity that we have.
  - y4mi 10y ago
    "surprisingly little editing" "Just 100 years after its writing" ... Because a verbal recollection about a controversial topic is so trustworthy and surely haven't been 'edited'. Remember how many 'facts' there are about Holocaust deniers? And this is happening with actual evidence to the contrary around.
jcranmer 10y ago
Defining Christianity has always been hard, particularly since before the Great Schism and arguably even until as late as the Protestant Reformation (or, more accurately, the Treaty of Augsburg which established Lutheranism and Catholicism as both acceptable forms of worship in the Holy Roman Empire), the Christian world tended to argue that there was one single interpretation of Christianity. The definition that most people rely on is something along the lines of the Holy Trinity, but nontrinitarian sects like Mormonism are usually considered Christian. It's also worth pointing out that pretty much every schism prior to the Protestant Reformation centered on interpreting the relation of Jesus to God, so that, say, Nestorianism isn't clearly Trinitarian or Nontrinitarian. The early Catholic church was also quite thorough in wiping out records of competing sects, so we know very little about what texts, say, the Gnostics used for their support, instead mostly relying on what their attackers said about them (imagine having to learn about, say, the history of the Democrats given only Donald Trump's tweets). Another complicating factor is the existence of highly syncretic forms of religion. Are Manichaeism (a Gnostic religion, which is to something that's vaguely syncretic of both Christianity and Zoroastrianism) and Druze (a Christian-Gnostic-Muslim syncretism) Christians or not? Furthermore, an interesting facet of history is that religions tend to attack heretics far more than they attack heathens. This does seem to continue to the modern day--if you consider atheism to be a religion, then agnosticism (being noncommittal as to the existence of god) is a natural "heresy" of that "religion"--and militant atheists like Dawkins reserve even more anger for agnostics than for Christians.
- nvahalik 10y ago
  This is exactly why one of my soon-to-be-focuses is Church history. > Another complicating factor is the existence of highly syncretic forms of religion. Are Manichaeism (a Gnostic religion, which is to something that's vaguely syncretic of both Christianity and Zoroastrianism) and Druze (a Christian-Gnostic-Muslim syncretism) Christians or not? Why is this complicated? Again, if I call myself something but yet plainly reject or outright act in a manner that goes against the stated doctrines then I am clearly not what I claim. Examples: Cath olicism: Rejects the finished work of Christ by replacing the old sacrifices with a new one (the mass). (Read Hebrews 10). Teaches that man's sin is imputed to them (against what Romans teaches). Mormonism: Actually the most polytheistic religion in the world. (Since there are in an infinite number of gods.) Nestorianism: Confuses Jesus' being and goes against the council of Nicaea. Condemned at two church councils as heresy. > Furthermore, an interesting facet of history is that religions tend to attack heretics far more than they attack heathens. This does seem to continue to the modern day--if you consider atheism to be a religion, then agnosticism (being noncommittal as to the existence of god) is a natural "heresy" of that "religion"--and militant atheists like Dawkins reserve even more anger for agnostics than for Christians. I'm glad you at least acknowledge this. I steal Mohler's term of "worldview" when describing atheism—but in practically every way you have a religion in atheism: you are the god, you have a way of viewing the world, you have "holy books" written by people such as Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens... you get the idea. But yes, it makes sense. I care far more what other people get wrong about my faith who claim to be like me but are not rather than people who don't make that claim...
analog31 10y ago
1) Many, many people have no idea what an actual Christian is or what we believe. I actually think it's more tolerant and consistent with reality to let each Christian define their own beliefs, and not to assume any single unifying belief. Any attempt by me, to generalize about your beliefs, will be offensive to you. Straw man fallacy and all that. I won't have any means of knowing whether I'm right or wrong, without actually sharing in your beliefs. And if I agree to some set of beliefs, those might be offensive to the next Christian whom I talk to. And so forth. Likewise, why would you agree to a description of your religion that casts it in a negative light? All I really care about is how people treat one another. I have kind of a simple checklist for religions: How do they treat women? How do they deal with reproduction and sexuality? How do they deal with science? How do they treat doubters and non-believers?
deleted 10y ago
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flukus 10y ago

> Many, many people have no idea what an actual Christian is or what we believe. Christians have been fighting over that for as long as there's been Christians. I'm not convinced the word is in any way useful.

nvahalik 10y ago
Though the term has been usurped, tracked through the mud, and left out to be baked out in the sun the word is still very useful. At the end of the day even though we might call ourselves different types of Christians based on the traditions and non-essentials that we hold to, there are still Christians from every tribe, tongue, and nation that are united by Christ... and Christian is really only the word I can think of that makes sense.
- flukus 10y ago
  You can't really say they're united by Christ when they can't agree on the nature of Christ (man, god or both?) and have frequently fought over the particulars. About the only way you can group all Christians together is that they believe a Christ of some form existed. But that definition is loose enough to include atheists, muslims and others.
  - learc83 10y ago
    Words have meaning, but that meaning isn't always precise because we communicate using a natural language not Lojban. Humans have the ability to use context and reason to determine what a person means when they say they are a Christian. 99.9% of the time such a person person means that they are a follower of Jesus Christ and that they believe Jesus Christ to be the son of God. Of course there will be disagreements on the exact definition, their are disagreements on the exact definition of the word programmer. That doesn't stop it from being a useful word. Any label has exceptions.
    - flukus 10y ago
      > 99.9% of the time such a person person means that they are a follower of Jesus Christ and that they believe Jesus Christ to be the son of God. But this itself is devoid of meaning. Many people say they follow christ but may have completely different beliefs on what that means. Even believing the son of god is not universal among Christians. These aren't just blurred lines, it's more like saying a car mechanic, an airline pilot and a web developer are all programmers.
      - learc83 10y ago
        > Even believing the son of god is not universal among Christians. It is nearly universal--universal enough to be useful. If someone says they are a Christian, absent any other knowledge, you can be very confident that they mean that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Obviously not 100% confident, but confident enough to proceed with that assumption in most cases. I could say that a car mechanic, a pilot, and a web developer are all skilled trades. That doesn't make the term skilled trade meaningless, it just makes it less specific. "Christian" is a very broad classifier and it is about as useful as any other broad classifier. It lacks specifics, but language is recursive--I can add as many extra identifiers as I like, e.g., Protestant Christian, Roman Catholic Christian, and Orthodox Christian.
- redial 10y ago
  This is actually very easy to test. Do you believe mormons are christians? What about Jehovah's Witnesses?

pfisch 10y ago

This kind of seems like a no true scotsman fallacy. I'm not even sure what an "actual christian" would be because the books that make up the christian faith contradict themselves all over the place. You could even make arguments that some of the books are false or that some of the apocryphal books are real. Because there is no factual bedrock underlying religion there is no truth to be found and anyone can just claim anything and ascribe it to whatever religion they want for the most part.

GavinMcG 10y ago
No True Scotsman isn't a formal fallacy, and simply saying "here's a line, and these so-called examples are on the wrong side of it" isn't No True Scotsman. Rather, No True Scotsman requires that someone change their definition to exclude counterexamples while maintaining that they're keeping an untainted definition. It's entirely legitimate to say "There are people who call themselves Christians but do not act in accordance with X, Y, and Z teachings of Christ. Therefore, I don't accept their claim." That's definition, not redefinition.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- jessaustin 10y ago
  This comment is so meta.
- vacri 10y ago
  The response in question misrepresented the OP saying "A lot of Trump supported identify as Christian" as "Christians only voted for Trump", and then goes on to say "no actual christian" in the rebuttals, which is pretty close to verbatim "no true scotsman". As in "yeah, those people only _claim_ to be christian, they're not _actual_ christians". It's a textbook example of No True Scotsman. The idea that there is only one kind of christian died the moment that Mr Iscariot did his friend a bad one. Ever since then, there's been schism after schism after schism. Even Peter and Paul saw and did things differently. In the modern day, we're talking about rivalries so deep that even moving a ladder[1] is proven impossible, so how "they're only _claiming_ to be christians, and aren't _actually_ christians" passes muster, I don't know. These are the heads of christian sects going back more than a millenium, who disagree on what it means to be christian. Folks who are in charge of multiple large houses of worship, with large congregations that see them as their christian guides... but somehow "oh, I don't think they see it right, therefore 'not christian'"? "No True Scotsman" is perfectly appropriate. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immovable_Ladder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immovable_Ladder

Mikeb85 10y ago

> Many, many people have no idea what an actual Christian is or what we believe. Probably because there's more Christian sects than there are flavours of ice cream. All with different beliefs. To me, Christianity is synonymous with Orthodox Christianity, but for the typical American 'Christian' it's probably some flavour of Protestant Evangelicalism...

nvahalik 10y ago
> All with different beliefs. Different customs and perhaps some different interpretations, but if you believe something different (e.g. that deviates from or adds to scripture) then objectively you have a different basis and therefore a different faith. I'd encourage you to watch some of the debates by James White[1] (yes, those are links to purchase, but if you check the podcast feed/blog they link to YouTube videos of many of the debates. What you'll clearly see in many of those debates is how the arguments of one side breaks down. I can't see how any reasonable observer could watch a handful of those debates and not be at least open to if not convinced that perhaps some of what these "different beliefs" offer isn't real Christianity, but something dressed up as such. I do believe that there are very small number of _actual_ Christians in the US. Definitely not the 70-ish% from Pew[1]. Maybe 5-10%. Probably even less. [1]: http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php/2011/01/19/available-debates-by-dr-james-white/ http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php/2011/01/19/available-d... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States
- Mikeb85 10y ago
  I certainly would argue that my religion (Orthodox Christianity) is a different religion from that of Dr. James White (Baptist Christianity). Anyhow, I don't care to argue specifics, only to point out that as everyone thinks their version is correct, and there's many versions out there, it's difficult to say what a 'real' Christian believes, assuming one is charitable enough to consider sects other than one's own as 'Christian'.
grzm 10y ago
Which Orthodox? Eastern? Russian? A prominent one missing from your list is Roman Catholic.

tps5 10y ago

If you want to define Christianity as a set of precepts derived from the teachings of Christ then you must define the teachings of Christ. This seems like an impossible task to me. Not only is there the issue of discovering what's been lost in translation, but also the existing texts have been heavily edited over the centuries. Entire books could have conceivably been lost. Forgeries could have been adopted. Even if you disregard all that, is there really an objectively correct way to read Christian (or any) scripture? I'd say no. My view is that religions are like languages. What defines a language is what is widely spoken and widely understood within some community. It doesn't matter whether a word has been recorded in a dictionary. It can be said to be part of the language if it is used and understood. By the same token, I would define religions as they are practiced, not based on some interpretation of what has survived from the texts. Based on that view, there isn't (and never has been) a monolithic Christian religion. Instead there are many fragmented communities that have varying rituals/practices. Some of these practices are quite widespread (mainstream) and some are not. I understand the desire to base our understanding of religions on the texts. But I can't see any coherent way to do it.

learc83 10y ago
> but also the existing texts have been heavily edited over the centuries There has actually been surprisingly little editing mostly because there are thousands of very old NT manuscripts, with copies of most of the NT dating from just 100 years or so after its writing. There are scribe errors and even some editing, but the sheer number of ancient examples is enough to reach consensus.
- zeven7 10y ago
  This is exactly right. The New Testament is one of the most well preserved texts from antiquity that we have.
- y4mi 10y ago
  "surprisingly little editing" "Just 100 years after its writing" ... Because a verbal recollection about a controversial topic is so trustworthy and surely haven't been 'edited'. Remember how many 'facts' there are about Holocaust deniers? And this is happening with actual evidence to the contrary around.

jcranmer 10y ago

Defining Christianity has always been hard, particularly since before the Great Schism and arguably even until as late as the Protestant Reformation (or, more accurately, the Treaty of Augsburg which established Lutheranism and Catholicism as both acceptable forms of worship in the Holy Roman Empire), the Christian world tended to argue that there was one single interpretation of Christianity. The definition that most people rely on is something along the lines of the Holy Trinity, but nontrinitarian sects like Mormonism are usually considered Christian. It's also worth pointing out that pretty much every schism prior to the Protestant Reformation centered on interpreting the relation of Jesus to God, so that, say, Nestorianism isn't clearly Trinitarian or Nontrinitarian. The early Catholic church was also quite thorough in wiping out records of competing sects, so we know very little about what texts, say, the Gnostics used for their support, instead mostly relying on what their attackers said about them (imagine having to learn about, say, the history of the Democrats given only Donald Trump's tweets). Another complicating factor is the existence of highly syncretic forms of religion. Are Manichaeism (a Gnostic religion, which is to something that's vaguely syncretic of both Christianity and Zoroastrianism) and Druze (a Christian-Gnostic-Muslim syncretism) Christians or not? Furthermore, an interesting facet of history is that religions tend to attack heretics far more than they attack heathens. This does seem to continue to the modern day--if you consider atheism to be a religion, then agnosticism (being noncommittal as to the existence of god) is a natural "heresy" of that "religion"--and militant atheists like Dawkins reserve even more anger for agnostics than for Christians.

nvahalik 10y ago
This is exactly why one of my soon-to-be-focuses is Church history. > Another complicating factor is the existence of highly syncretic forms of religion. Are Manichaeism (a Gnostic religion, which is to something that's vaguely syncretic of both Christianity and Zoroastrianism) and Druze (a Christian-Gnostic-Muslim syncretism) Christians or not? Why is this complicated? Again, if I call myself something but yet plainly reject or outright act in a manner that goes against the stated doctrines then I am clearly not what I claim. Examples: Cath olicism: Rejects the finished work of Christ by replacing the old sacrifices with a new one (the mass). (Read Hebrews 10). Teaches that man's sin is imputed to them (against what Romans teaches). Mormonism: Actually the most polytheistic religion in the world. (Since there are in an infinite number of gods.) Nestorianism: Confuses Jesus' being and goes against the council of Nicaea. Condemned at two church councils as heresy. > Furthermore, an interesting facet of history is that religions tend to attack heretics far more than they attack heathens. This does seem to continue to the modern day--if you consider atheism to be a religion, then agnosticism (being noncommittal as to the existence of god) is a natural "heresy" of that "religion"--and militant atheists like Dawkins reserve even more anger for agnostics than for Christians. I'm glad you at least acknowledge this. I steal Mohler's term of "worldview" when describing atheism—but in practically every way you have a religion in atheism: you are the god, you have a way of viewing the world, you have "holy books" written by people such as Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens... you get the idea. But yes, it makes sense. I care far more what other people get wrong about my faith who claim to be like me but are not rather than people who don't make that claim...

analog31 10y ago

1) Many, many people have no idea what an actual Christian is or what we believe. I actually think it's more tolerant and consistent with reality to let each Christian define their own beliefs, and not to assume any single unifying belief. Any attempt by me, to generalize about your beliefs, will be offensive to you. Straw man fallacy and all that. I won't have any means of knowing whether I'm right or wrong, without actually sharing in your beliefs. And if I agree to some set of beliefs, those might be offensive to the next Christian whom I talk to. And so forth. Likewise, why would you agree to a description of your religion that casts it in a negative light? All I really care about is how people treat one another. I have kind of a simple checklist for religions: How do they treat women? How do they deal with reproduction and sexuality? How do they deal with science? How do they treat doubters and non-believers?

deleted 10y ago

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