I feel that more people are willing to admit being atheist on a message board than in other more public forums which would make it appear there are more atheists here.
That is not the basis for Christianity. Christianity says that only people who accept Jesus as the son of God will be saved. They could be the nicest people in the world and still get tossed into the fire if they don’t agree. They could be complete shits their entire life and accept Jesus towards the end and be saved.
Many Christians are nice, and justify their kindness with Christian teachings, but Christianity is about accepting a particular view of divinity rather than acting in a moral manner.
Your first paragraph is not correct. You have described a view that a great many Christian denominations hold and one that has surfaced periodically throughout Christian history, but it is only one view and it is not held, universally, by all Christians.
Please say more. Do you not believe that the defining criteria for Christianity is that acceptance of Jesus as the Son of God is necessary for salvation?
ETA: and if the requirement for any characterization of a belief system is that all of it’s tenets are universally held, then are there any belief systems at all?
Not to mention people do an awful lot of cherry picking when comparing the morals of Christianity to Buddhism. I’d like to see where Buddhism teaches anything similar to what’s mentioned in the below link (and this is ignoring the bat-shit insanity of the OT).
Which is okay to do when one claims the moral teachings of one are so great- show the teachings that are really fucked up instead of letting Christians do all the cherry picking. That’s the whole point of me posting it. To show what cherries aren’t picked when Christians talk about the great morals of Christianity and how it compares to Buddhism. Can you do some comparable cherry picking from Buddhism since you claimed the teachings of Buddha and Jesus are similar?
Possibly the LDS and spin offs like The Community Of Christ
Belief in Christ as Savior is a pretty universal tenant but my question would be, do some denominations believe and/or teach that people who are morally good but have rejected formal religion can still receive salvation? So how exactly is judgment handled? Is it just Faith in Jesus? Many people believe exactly that but some do not. From the CofC.
Judgment
and the degrees of glory in which a wide variety of people get opportunities to be saved after death.
I suppose in comparison even the Mormons and spin offs are a relatively small number.
It always seemed supremely unjust and unloving for Christians to think that a still seriously flawed person would get to heaven by faith in Jesus but a very good moral person who steadfastly exhibits compassion and concern for others will go to hell because they didn’t accept Jesus in the same theological way Christians do. I’ll let Tom speak for Catholicism. Read a few things and still couldn’t tell.
Now they believe that, at least officially. In a period of history where they don’t really have the power anymore to convert by the sword on any real scale, and are even often the weaker Christian faction, they’ve suddenly decided that religious tolerance is a good idea.
But for most of their history they were most certainly all about the belief that they were the only path to salvation and that everyone else should be converted or killed.
Yeah, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find that the history of that particular development closely mirrors the rise and fall of the RCC as a dominant force.
The NT requires interpretation and those vary. Your link went looking for negativity and interprets passages accordingly.
IMO there is a huge difference between what Jesus actually taught and what Christianity teaches. I think Christianity has misunderstood and distorted what I think are the things Jesus stressed. So, I’m probably not a good one for this assignment. I look at the teachings of Buddha and Jesus as philosophical and spiritual approaches to life and our relationship to each other rather than any doctrine or mysticism.