I’ve been sort of tossing this thought around my head for a couple of years now.
Let’s say that I find no historical evidence for the existance of Jesus. Let’s assume that I believe, with all my heart and all my mind that no such person ever walked the Earth. Let’s even go one step further and assume that I am a devout atheist.
Can I still be a Christian? Of course, it would be a no-brainer to imagine that I still like the stories, or still try to be as Jesus-like as possible, or of course still attend church.
But would this make me a Christian? Could I theoretically accept the idea of Him into my heart? Could I accept the idea of Him as my lord and savior?
Let’s even go one last step and assume that I will never believe in the concept of an immortal soul. And I will never change my mind on any of these “facts.” What would I need to do to be considered a Christian (short of deceiving others)? Would it even be possible? How?
Well I am not sure how this applies but it seems relavant.
I was dicussing with my sister about Christianity (I am a full blooded athiest and she is the polar oppisite) She tole me there is only two ways to get into heaven. Or in your case please God. One was to accept Jesus Christ into your heart as you Lord and Saviour and the other is to not sin. Apparently its ok to not belive in Jesus and or any of the Bible for that matter so long as you dont sin you will be accepted by God. But and here is the kicker if you have already sined to bad you have to belive in Jesus and ask for forgiveness.
There may be a way around it though. I am not sure but if you can figure a way to belive in him for just a little but and ask for forgiveness you can then stop beliveing and just not sin anymore. I think Jesus has to stick with his forgiveness. I dont think he is allowed to renig on a tecnicality.
Well, no, you wouldn’t be a Christian; you’ve rejected ALL the core beliefs of Christianity.
Abiding by most of the general behavioural guidelines, like being nice to people, would make you just as much a Muslim, a Buddhist, or a Sikh as it would make you a Christian. Unless we’re going to agree to water down the word “Christian” to meaning just “a nice person who goes through the motions of sitting in a pew on Sunday,” you can’t be described as a Christian in any sense that the word means anything. It’s kind of pointless to water the word down to the point where it’s synonymous with Muslim, Zoroastrian, etc. We have those words because they describe different sets of beliefs in higher beings.
This is closely related to the bait-and-switch tactic employed by some Christians (and recently Pitted on this board) to say “Well, you say you’re not a Christian, but you’re a nice person, so really, you are.” It’s a backdoor method to then justify the imposition of Christian belief.
Well, I try to not tell other people whether or not they should label themselves a certain way, so from that perspective, sure, call yourself whatever you want.
But, there’s an awful lot more to Christianity than following the teachings of Jesus as to how to be good to your fellow man (I’m sure someone who actually is Christian will come in here and elaborate on that). If Jesus isn’t your god, if he’s just a rabbi, then he’s no God, and you by definition would not belong to a faith which centers around Jesus not just being a pretty nice guy (which most people will probably agree with to a certain extent), but divine.
Also, if you are an athiest you most certainly are not Christian. Not only do you have no Jesus, but you have no God at all. Also, I’m not sure how you could be an athiet and have a “lord and savior,” as you say.
It seems to me that a while back there was a thread about whether or not just acting good was enough to make you a Christian. Maybe you (or someone else) could find that thread and link to it, I think it might be along the same lines as your question here.
Chistians belive that the only ways to get into heaven are through Jesus Christ or not sinning.
If you do not sin You please God and get a ticket to the gates to worship him forever in a gold lined city.
Being nice and going to church is not enough. You must not commit a single sin. The only person that can forgive you in a way to get in the Heaven Club is Jesus.
If the above is true and your chosen path is the non sinning approach I think that you may be able to call yourself a christian. Because they belive both ways are accptable. You cant be any other religon because that would break a commandmet.
But I dont recall any commandmets stating that you must belive in Jesus, Or the Bible for that matter. I am not sure the new testament introduced any new sins. You just have to obay the Ten Commandments. There may be a few but those are only if you have already sinned and are working with Jesus to get to God.
No. If you do not believe that Jesus was the son of god then you can’t be a Christian.
Jesus didn’t just say “be nice folks” he also said that the way to heaven could only be found through him. So which idea of Jesus would you want to accept?
Well, let’s see. There are these ideas on moral behavior, none of which was 100% original with the Man they’re attributed to, and which in any case have been taught by others since. You like them. And, apparently, you are inclined to feel that if He had been around and said and done the things attributed to Him, you’d accept Him as Lord and Savior. The problem is, so far as you can tell, He never existed and never said or did the things attributed to Him. Right?
I can’t imagine why you’d want to attach yourself to a fictional concept, no matter how wonderful you think him to be. I have a lot of respect for Gandalf the Grey and for Valentine Michael Smith, among others, but not an iota of belief in them as anything but well-crafted fictional characters. I might even consider it appropriate to use their teachings in real life (notes wryly how many times he’s quoted Gandalf in capital punishment discussions). But to attach myself to them would be a supremely irrational act.
On the other hand, there are a lot of shades of grey between “Nope, never existed nohow” and “Every word of the Gospels is literally true exactly as written.” Some of the problems have been written about here recently: Judas’s two distinct suicides; the Great Jerusalem Good Friday Zombie Invasion; something quite as simple as when Jesus taught what, like the Beatitudes and several of the famous parables.
I think that accepting that He existed as a human being, that the God of Whom He spoke was and is quite real, that He somehow incorporated in Himself the role of Messiah, in a way that the Jews were (and are) not expecting, that He taught a particular ethic, that He willingly allowed Himself to be arrested and killed, and that in some way He was able to overcome even His own death: I’d say these are something like minima. Needless to say, they don’t correspond with anybody’s creedal statement. But what I’m trying to do is pare that back to a bottom-line “believe in Him” assertion that doesn’t mandate more than it must to identify Him as Someone worth committing to.
Most of us who identify as Christian on this board are not enamored of the Gospels as inviolate historical records whose accuracy may not be doubted. Clearly literary styles and influences have shaped them, and they need to be read as the polemic and stylistically complex documents that they are. And precisely what it means that Jesus had dia ousiai in hen hypostasis and was somehow a part of a God with three hypostases in one ousia – well, in an extremely wry but literally true way, it’s Greek to me!
So I’d say that at minimum some acceptance of a historicity for Jesus, and that connected with some sort of personal theology that identifies Him in some way with the Father of Whom He spoke, is essential. But not necessarily a Chalcedonian or Nicene metaphysics nor a quasi-fundamentalist subscription to Gospel as literal account.
I don’t know if that helps or confuses the issue, but it’s a starting point for me for discussion.
Seems to me that before you could accept the idea of a savior, you need to have some idea what you’re being saved from.
Personally, I do believe that Jesus was a historical person who had some very good advice about how people should go about leading their lives. And I do my best to follow much of that advice. But I don’t believe any of the religious mythology that has been built around him. I suppose it might be possible to coin some other term to describe this philosophy, but in my mind the term “Christian” clearly implies acceptance of the religious tenets.
As far as I’ve been able to ascertain, there are many people who profess themselves to be “Christian” but who actually have a selective set of beliefs, some of which do not agree with tenets set forth by Christianity or by its various denominations (even the denomination they claim to be).
So while it might be perverse to call yourself a Christian, I don’t think you’re really so different from a lot of other people who might also call themselves by that label. A strict literalist would say you’re not. So might a devout Christian. But I know you would not be alone if you chose to call yourself Christian even while doubting the story of Jesus and the role he supposedly plays in Christian salvation.
A probem nowadays is christianity is taken to mean whatever one wants it to mean. There are certain things which must be believed and acted upon or its not christianity. Jesus being God incarnate,sinless,who willingly died for our sins is the point. Its not all relative.
Jesus explicitly said that all you have to do to get eternal life is love God and love your neighbor. He also said that loving your neighbor is the same thing as loving God, so really, all you have to do is love your neighbor.
A requirement for specific belief would not be compatible with an omnibenevolent deity. It would be a ridiculous system indeed to require that all human beings be able to simply guess- without a shred of evidence- which religious mythology out of thousands is the true one. As I’ve said many times before, a requirement for specific belief is no different than God demanding that each person be able to guess what number he’s thinking of between one and infinity. It’s ludicrous. Any criteria which is not based purely on an individual’s personal character cannot be defended as just. Salvation by anything but deeds is unjust (as is any demand for "perfection).
Who decides what those beliefs are?
Says who? Upon what authority do you base this definition of Christian?
Diogenes, I happen to agree with you, spiritually speaking. However, you’re not at all answering the OP; you’re engaging in a debate unrelated to the topic here.
The question is not whether tdn is going to Heaven, it’s whether s/he is a Christian. What you seem to be saying is that you don’t have to be a Christian to go to Heaven. I agree. But that doesn’t mean tdn is a Christian, does it?
I don’t think it’s quite this simple. If we assume that the OP intentionally follows the teachings of Jesus, tries to live his life the way he thinks Jesus would have (if he had existed, and been in the OP’s shoes), etc., then he wouldn’t be just as much a Muslim, Buddhist, or Sikh as he was a Christian. I grant that he doesn’t believe any of the core tenets of Christianity, and I think it’s probably not appropriate to call him a Christian, but there’s a very real sense in which he’s being a follower of Jesus, just as Hegelians are followers of Hegel and Randians are followers of Rand.
I don’t have any horse in this race being that I’m an atheist. I remember all that stuff from my Sunday school and bible camp days but as I recall it was a little more involved then that. Under Christian theology a nice guy who doesn’t accept Christ isn’t going to be given the keys to the pearly gates.
Since when was the biblical god omnibenevolent and since when did religion have to be logical? It doesn’t make much sense to me either but it is what it is.
A better way to phrase that would be “Under some Christian theologies …”.
Unless you’re intentionally defining the word “Christian theology” to match the definition you just gave for ideological reasons, there’s no reason to take such a narrow view of it. Christian theology can span the spectrum from Fred Phelps and Jerry Falwell to Paul Tillich and John Spong–“you must believe in Christ to be saved” may be a theme in some or even most Christian religions, but it certainly isn’t in all of them, or even in the most populous: the Roman Catholic church has, since the Vatican II reforms in the 60’s, believed that it’s possible it’s possible for a nonbeliever to be saved by Christ (yes, the nitty gritty of their position is nuanced–salvation still comes from Christ, even if the person doesn’t believe in Christ–but it still allows for a heathen to be saved).
The OP asks “can I be a Christian”, but really doesn’t make it clear if he’s asking a question about theology or word usage.
If it’s about usage, then the answer is that he can be a Christian by some definitions, that is “a follower of the teachings of Christ”, a person who exemplifies the “Christian virtues”. etc., but not by some other definitions. So the answer is yes and no.
If it’s a theological question, the answer is yes or no, depending on what parts of the bible you want to emphasize. The synoptic gospels, for example, are of quite different character. By Mark, I’d say yes; by John, no.
Thanks for all the interesting responses. It’ll take me a while to respond to all of them, but I’ll respond to one presently.
But first, I should clarify that I’m not looking for some back door into Heaven, as some have implied. Being an atheist, I really don’t care. My question is purely theoretical.
This seems a good place to start. When I asked if I could be considered a Christian, I’m surprised that no one answered with the rather obvious counter-question, “By whom?” This seems paramount. An atheist, a devout Muslim, and a Fundie Christian might give three very different answers. God Herself, if She exists, which She doesn’t, might give an answer wholly unexpected to all of you. Of course. And I myself would answer in whichever way I wanted.
I asked my girlfriend this same question last night, and she answered that I would be a Jew, Roman Catholic, Democratic Socialist, Unitarian, Protestant, or a few other things, depending on a) Who you ask, and b) Whether I’d been baptised. Her position is that it doesn’t matter whether I believe in God, but whether God believes in me. Funny, in that way it doesn’t matter what I believe, whether there is a god or not.
FWIW, when I asked this question, I was not trying to frame it in a legalistic way, but rather in a spiritual way. I expected a few people to come in with a little checklist and say “No, technically, on items 1, 17, and 24, you do not qualify.” But then that begs the question, what is Christianity in a less legalistic sense?
However, some Christian denominations would say that you are born with original sin, and that it’s necessary to be baptized to be cleansed from sin and open to God’s grace.
