I’d have to agree that Skald and others of his kidney, while they may self-identify as such, really don’t get caught by my internal Christian filter.
“Deist” fits much better. It helps others see where you’re coming from better, if you don’t co-opt terms with commonly-understood definitions to your own ends. I mean, by the same token, per Skald’s list of admirable philosophers on par with Jesus, he’s as justified in calling himself a Confucian. But that won’t make him one.
I could have told him that. Great Debates has abandoned the fighting of ignorance about issues of religion, in favor of sound bites expressing one’s disdain for those who are not as intellectually superior as the member posting them. It sucks, but unless Tom~ and Buck get way too authoritarian for the moderating style of the Dope, or we have a word from Gaud (;)), it’s inevitable. Gresham’s Message Board Law: Bad posting drives out good.
One observation: it’s called Christianity for a reason. It’s not Marianity, Biblianity, Tillichian Quellianity, or anything else. The key point is avowal of a relationship, however conceived, not a philosophic acceptance of a series of dogmata or credulous subscription to the inerrancy of a particular canon of a compilation of religious writings.
I think that it is theoretically possible to define this in rational terms. But given the atmosphere of GD, I’ve given up trying to approach that.
Well, of course i’m utterly free to ignore anyone i disagree with. I don’t actually care whether you think I’m a christian or not, any more than I care what you say you believe. Beliefs matter about 1/100000000000000000000000000000 as much as actions.
If Jesus is the main focus, and the person reveres Jesus, seeks to understand and follow his teachings, and be Christ like then they are a diest?
Sure , it’s not Christianity in the most traditional understanding of the word, but looking at the great diversity within the Christian community I think there’s room for this.
I don’t consider Falwell or Swaggart Christians regardless of what they claim to believe. IMHO they have demonstrated that they have no real interest in following the teachings of Christ.
I think what we’ve discovered is that the term Christian isn’t enough of a description. It tells us very little about the person.
Not sure what this response is supposed to mean, but I was just contributing my $0.02 to the discussion. IMO, if we’re going to stretch the definition of “Christian” to include any “good” person, regardless of their belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ, then we may as well abandon the word altogether. I agree with other posters that “deist” is a better description (and Skald seems to be looking for feedback, else why post the OP at all).
I’m not trying to restrict what Skald can believe, or say that he doesn’t “deserve” to be called a Christian, I just don’t thinkit accomplishes anything to take an established descriptive word and redefine it to mean anything and everything.
My Bolding
What I’m seeing from Skald’s posts is a very wishy-washy version of revere that I’d say was more akin to “admiration” or “respect” than awe and worship. Hey, I evidently feel the same way about Nietzsche, Russell and Proudhon, but I don’t go around calling myself a Russellist or Proudhonian*. I understand that MMV, what I’m saying is that liberal Christians of that feather mustn’t get upset when people make assumptions about their core beliefs based on a common-sense understanding of the term “Christian”. As Skald and Poly and You would have it, the onus is on the other side to be non-definitional. I say the onus is on the libXtians to start off by saying how their beliefs differ from such generally-considered core beliefs as the divinity of Jesus, the resurrection, etc. Or be even more overt and say :
‘I’m a Christian - as in “Christianity, the Philosophy” rather than “Christianity, the Religion”.’
*Of course, thanks to that fucker Roddenberry, Nietzschean is right out. 
In my opinion religions and churches are anachronisms. I question whether they have ever provided a positive impact on the world. Today it is clear what horrsors they visit upon the earth.
They are capitalistic in their endless search for growth and conversion. They compete for a fixed pool of humans and are historically ruthless in it. We all know of the history of the churches and we pretend it didnt happen to justify our continuing faith. Somehow the conflict for converts has morphed into a threat to civilization. We would serve our world better if we simply taught our children philosophy when they were old enough. Spend your Sundays playing golf or baseball with your kids. The time spend with them will help civilize them far above the churches ability.Fear of burning in hell is a lousy way to reach our children.
Well, I personally subscribe to a holarchal view of reality. There are two
intertwined concepts here and it’s important to distinguish them:
-
Most all organisms have evolved to best fit their niche (tho of course it is more
complicated than that). -
On the intellectual/moral scale mankind has evolved the farthest (tho admittedly
sometimes it’s hard to tell WRT individual humans).
So looking at it from perspective #1 yeah a coelocanth is no less evolved than a
human is. From perspective #2 humans blow coelocanths away. Now I’m not
presumptuous enough to claim that humans HAVE reached the highest int/moral/
spiritual level; the perspective of a whale or dolphin is incomprehensible to me
and for all I know they are superior to us in one or more of those ways (what
gods do they worship then if any?). But AFAIK only humans have the capacity
for a worldcentric perspective; the perspective of most animals doesn’t go any
farther than “if it moves kill it, run away from it, or f*** it.”
Does this mean that humans will continue to evolve along those three lines? No
it certainly does not. We go extinct and some other organism comes along and
reaches the heights we never got to, or some alien race 100 million light years
manages to pull it off (yes I’m alluding to worldwide enlightenment of a quasi-
Buddhist kind). But as of now we have the edge (which also carries a huge
amount of responsibility too). Rant off. 
I think the term used was Sklad used wanting to be Christ like. I get your point and it is a valid one. I don’t agree that it’s the job of the person who says, “I’m a Christian” to try and be sure they fit the definition of the person they are talking to. In my own case I probably wouldn’t use the term Christian without some qualifier, if at all, because I realize my definition doesn’t fit what most people would consider it to mean. I also realize that when someone says to me, “I’m a Christian” that doesn’t mean I think they are. They may go to church three times a week and shout “praise Jesus” and “thank you Jesus” daily but that doesn’t mean they’ve met my definition , which is , to actively seek to discern, understand , and live, what Christ taught.
Understanding both of these things my conclusion is that we should be aware that the term Christian can mean many things to many people. All that “I’m a Christian” means is that the person has , believes they have, or wants to have, an association with JC.
Other than that if I care, then it’s up to me to ask questions and get more detail.
I agree that there’s no reason for me to get upset if someone makes some assumption on what that* probably* means. That’s their problem. I also don’t think there’s any reason for them to get upset if they discover they are wrong, although some will be and want to argue the point. If they want to know my definition, they need to ask questions. If I want to know theirs, it’s up to me to ask. I don’t think there is an onus on anyone beyond the term unless they choose to clarify.
It’s obviously a word that doesn’t mean the same to everybody who uses it and that fact should be common knowledge by now.
Point 1. It already has a varied definition. We’ve discussed that6 in several threads already.
Point 2. Sklad chooses to call himself a Christian in a definition that works for him. He’s not proposing it for anyone else.
There was a huge arguement here when I first joined because someone said they considered some other posters Wiccan friend a Christian according to the principles they lived by. The other poster was pissed because their friend didn’t want to be called a Christian.
I would say Gandhi lived according to the principles Jesus taught but I know he purposely remained a Hindu. Still I could honestly say I consider him a better Christian than Swaggart.
We’re not creating definitions that anyone else is required to use or even agree with. I know there are hundreds of years of Christian tradition but that has constantly been changing as well. There’s nothing wrong with considering new definitions and finding them valid.
If you read my OP and the thread that prompted my opening this one, I brought this up in an attempt to engage badchad in an discussion that did not include personal attacks, insults, or vulgarities. I don’t really care whether you folk think “Christian” is the best word to describe me or not, any more than I care what faith y’all hold to yourselves. Actions are what count, not words.
And, in fact, I’d really call myself a Christian agnostic more than anything else.
::quietly points cosmosdan to proper spelling of my name so that he doesn’t piss off Thor::
Well, fair enough. I guess I’m showing my Catholic colors here-- we’re big fans of unambiguous rules and clear distinctions. No offense intended.
Do you apply this same principle to other common terms – people may define them in whatever way they choose?
“Then let us no more pass judgment on one another, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.” (Romans 14:13 RSV)
I make no practical use of the Bible or the Christian faith so I may be reaching here- but how do you nitpicking Christians expect to bring Christ to the people if you deride their faith or question their motivations?
Jesus: “I’m Jewish!”
Fezzick: “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”
How you doin’ Skald ? Can I get you anything? Beverage? (umm…you aren’t afraid of lions, are you?)
I was with you, and nodding my head, until this point - “an association” doesn’t do it for me as a valid definition for Christianity as a religion. Like I said, I have “an association” with the sayings of Bertrand Russell. That doesn’t make it a religion. When you say “I am a Christian” in a religious discussion, you’re saying “My religion is Christianity”. That’s got to mean more than “I have an association with Jesus” for the word “religion” to have any meaning.
Again, I agreed with everything you said, but you must acknowledge that of all the definitions, there’s a large set that has elements in common?
An example:
Do you think it’s accurate if a person who only likes dressing up as Jesus and giving bread-and-wine dinners, but in no other way follows Jesus’ teachings, chooses to call himself a Christian? I’m not questioning his right to, BTW, just the accuracy of the self-definition.
Well, cool. I thought I was atheist because I don’t believe in a god, but as it turns out I’m actually Christian because I do believe Christ was a real person who had some cool things to say.
Heck, someone looking at me and my actions might suspect I am a liberal female vegetarian. But in fact, I like soldiers in uniform, I work in a bar and sometimes watch football games there and I like the smell of bacon being cooked. So it turns out I am a conservative male carnivore afterall! Weird!
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,’ it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master - that’s all.’
It is rare nowadays that I see a post on a religious thread in GD which makes as much perfect sense as this one. At first I too was interested in discussing religious/philosophical issues and interpretations here, but the general tenor of this forum has led me to reading it less and less.
When I saw the title to this thread and read the OP, I thought “Great! Someone who may be talking about a kind of Christianity I would be interested in reading feedback on.” Then the topic descended into the usual intellectual snobbery and boring arguments over the semantic meaning of “Christian”.
I suppose I’m only contributing to that by posting here, so I guess I won’t bother with it any longer. I can’t say whether the quality of my posting is good or bad (there will no doubt be plenty of witty drive-by posts to tell me, I’m sure) but the holier-than-thou blathering here has certainly driven me out.
Do you follow the precepts that you assign to the Christ figure as a way to live your life? ie do you follow what you believe were Christs teachings? Then if you think you are a Christian despite not believing in god, then go on knock yourself out and call yourself a Christian.
A Christian need only be a follower of Christ, whatever he may have been. Everything else is open to interpretation.
For instance an Arthurian Scholar studies the tails of King Arthur even though that person never existed. So maybe it is possible to follow Christ’s teachings as you interpret them even if you think Christ was a completely fictional character.
It may be that the term Christian is devalued by its inclusiveness, but I would argue that Skald is far more a follower of Christ, than Phelps ever was. Yet Phelps probably would pass any of the tests from the people here who would like to see more strict requirements on who can call themselves Christian.