Work out any better than the other ways?
A radio collar, after he’s been stunned, weighed and tagged.
You know you have a bad OP when **lekatt **asks for clarification on “don’t follow religion, follow god”.
Of course the book! jeez it’s not like it’s been translated a million times and pruned and added to over the years. oh wait :smack:
And if I ask somebody a question and they answer it, I should accept that as an accurate reflection of what Jesus said two thousand years ago?
I didn’t say it was perfect. I said written transmission of a message is more accurate than oral transmission of a message.
But you make it sound as if the NT was written by eyewitnesses.
I thought it was written by translators of copies of copies of translations of copies of what was written down after oral transmission.
Plus a bit of editing.
Besides I thought the early church decided that anyone who called himself a prophet *was * a prophet and would the Holy Spirit would indeed be speaking through him.
Was that rule abolished?
This is perfect. ^^
I have tried so many times to show believers that the god they pray to isn’t even close to the god the guy is praying to in the pew next to you. 
And saying, “I’m a christian,” is nothing different than saying, “Hey, I’m a member of the coupon club too!” As a matter fact, religion is a believed coupon club. Just saying “amen” supposedly entitles you to a chance at a paradise for all eternity. It entitles you to “gifts”, “blessings”, etc. And you don’t even have to sign up online! Just swing by confession once in a while.
Also, I’m still baffled WHY anyone would want to follow this biblegod. Is it like the desire to follow Hannibal Lecter and study him? Charles Manson? Idi Amin? If you’re really talking about truly following this type of deity, I’d say humans like I just mentioned are the type that seem to most closely resemble biblegod.
If a Christian took out their Bible, read all the quotes attributed to Jesus they could tell if they were following the teachings that are attributed to Jesus or not. I know so many people who claim to follow the Bible that only pick out a few passages and forget or ignore all the rest. Not just following the letter of the law but also the spirit. I know atheists who act more like a Christian than some who claim to be Christian.
My, that’s a nice Christian attitude!!
Bare minimum-
Is there one personal supreme God?
Did that God reveal Himself to the people of Israel through the events & teachings recorded in the Old Testament?
Is Jesus the fullest revelation (incarnation or icon or Son) of that God?
Was Jesus a flesh & blood man?
Was Jesus’ death somehow a sacrifice for our sins?
Did Jesus rise bodily from the dead?
Has God the Father exalted Jesus to be Lord over all creation?
Is God/Jesus’ greatest expectation of us to be devotion to God & active compassion towards other people, especially those who can do little for us?
Is the New Testament an accurate record of Jesus’ words & teachings & theological significance & what he wanted his followers to perpetuate?
I would almost add Was Jesus’ mother Mary a virgin who conceived him by a miracle of God?
Almost.
So far. I have Thor’s and Vishnu’s mounted heads hanging from the wall of my study.
Cool, cool. Did the hounds need special training? Do they naturally track ichor?
Well you’re probably better off playing 10 rounds of telephone and having someone write down the message than playing a whole 600 rounds.
While it is the case the the former will turn the original message of “Blessed are the Cheese makers” into “Blessed are the peacemakers”, at least it doesn’t turn it into “Blase for a Herman Barker”.
This is one of the most comprehensive “bare minimum” list for being a Christian I’ve ever seen.
“Follow”? What is this “follow”? You should never follow any religion, instead start your own! I believe that every smallest thing in the universe recursively contains the whole of the universe and we are the natural progression of the smallest thing trying to expand out and rebecome everything which is in them in which they are. We are growing to become god, which is within us. Hence, you do not follow god, you lead it.
Really, everyone seems to have this metaphysic thing all backwards.
No, the evidence is strong that the New Testament was written down in the first century and we have pretty accurate copies of what they wrote down. That doesn’t mean that what they wrote was true but if you picked up the original scrolls Mark or Matthew wrote and compared them to what you’d find in a modern Bible, there would be a close match.
No, that’s not mainstream Christian belief.
To use a recent example, Joseph Smith said he received a divine message in the 1820’s. Now you may not believe that Smith received an actual message from God. But it would be foolish to claim that Smith wasn’t an actual person or that we don’t know what Smith said the message was.
The purpose of words is to communicate. When, in a discussion, we don’t use the common definition of a word, it’s important that we do it for a good reason, and define it carefully.
Christianity is the name of the religion of Christians. The OP denies this but doesn’t give much in the way of clues what it does mean to be a Christian, other than “following God”, which is pretty ambiguous.
He says that Christianity is made-up (which I agree). He says it’s not in the Bible. No, it’s derived from the Bible, as would be any religion that follows the Bible. There are quite a number of different derivations. Of course, there would also be a number of different ways for people to “follow God” based on the Bible.
What’s the point?
Nothing to discuss here, really.
Dude…god is product, packaged and sold by religion. That’s any god, any religion.
If you claim to be Christian, but not follow Christianity, this is like saying you’re a man but you’re not a human being. Christianity (in this case) is the religion. They sell a particular brand of god. If you buy that brand, you follow Christianity. There it is.
No special training, they’re naturals.
That dog-spelled-backward thing is for a reason.