Critieria for a Belief in Christ?

[Divine Insight]

What should the Christian churches hold up as the criteria to determine whether someone truly believes in the Christ?

Shouldn't the criteria they hold up be based upon the words attributed to the Christ himself?

John 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

Doesn't this scripture itself basically demand that anyone who claims to believe on Christ but cannot do the things that Christ said they would be able to do, be evidence that their claim to believe on Christ is without merit?

Shouldn't every Christian who claims to believe on Christ, be able to do the things that Christ himself had proclaimed they should be able to do?

Shouldn't we be going to Christian churches to be healed instead of going to hospitals? Shouldn't we be rushing our dead children to the Christian church to be raised from the dead by those who believe on Christ.

If we ourselves are Christians who believe on Christ shouldn't we be able to raise our own loved ones from the dead? As well as raising total strangers from the dead too?

Didn't Mother Teressa draw a valid conclusion when she realized that she believed on Christ with all her heart, soul, and mind, yet HIS very criteria and promises for what this belief should cause her to be able to do through him was totally empty and devoid of any truth?

Wasn't her conclusion that "Jesus you must not be true" a valid conclusion?

Surely a girl who had devoted entire her life to becoming the bride of Christ as a nun believed on Christ. Yet nothing that he had promised came to pass.

How can Christians claim to even believe in Christ when they can't do the things he himself had proclaimed they should be able to do?

And some of them go far beyond this and actually claim to know Christ in a very personal relationship. Surely they should be able to do the things that Christ proclaimed they should be able to do.

Doesn't John 14:12 and other verses that follow it pretty much demonstrate that there can be nothing to these ancient claims?

[13] And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
[14] If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.

Where on earth are any of these promises being fulfilled?

Even the Catholic Pope himself cannot do the sorts of things that had been attributed to Christ.

Can the Pope heal the sick? Can the Pope raise the dead? Is the Pope doing greater works than Christ is said to have done?

According to the very words attributed to Christ, if the Pope merely believes on Jesus that should be sufficient for the Pope to be able to do all of these things, yet he can't do any of them.

Why is that?

Why is it that Christians can't do what their very own Christ had proclaimed they should be able to do?

[Divine Insight]

Can you imagine that if the Pope could work obvious miracles, how people would begin to worship him?

I can't imagine why they would. It would seem to me that it would be rather ridiculous for any theists to think that miracles performed by the Pope would be from any other source than God. Unless they were going to accuse him of being powered by Satan. But Jesus dismissed that. When Jesus was accused of performing miracles via the power of Satan he refuted that by proclaiming that Satan could not be the author of good works lest his house would be divided against itself. This excuse, if valid for Jesus, would necessarily also then be valid for anyone who does good works.

In fact, I have often argue that if a Wiccan does good works using their magical powers then, according to Jesus their power necessarily has to come from God and cannot come from Satan for the same reasons Jesus gave.

If he excuse is valid for him, then it must be valid for everyone.

And what's the difference of people attributed miracles to the Pope? The Pope himself could hardly lay claim to the credit. In order to lay claim to the credit he would need to renounce Christianity altogether, depart from the Catholic Church, quit the Papacy and continue going on to perform his miracles without giving God any credit at all.

It seems to me that any excuse that God couldn't perform miracles through the Pope, or that Jesus couldn't have performed them through Mother Teressa is an extremely weak excuse that simply doesn't hold up.

When I asked why Jesus didn't take advantage of an opportunity to Glorify the Father through Mother Teressa you said:

That's between Mother Theresa and God

Hardly.

Mother Teresa was a very well-known Catholic nun who had already clearly given her life over to the service of God. The idea that Jesus would need to "test" Mother Teresa further and could not use her to glorify God makes no sense at all.

On the contrary, it sounds like nothing more than an extreme excuse for this religion. This is like scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for excuses why basically nothing in this religion has ever come true.

By the way, this isn't just about Mother Teresa. There are no living nuns today who are able to heal the sick using the power of Jesus or God to glorify the Father.

Mother Teresa is simply the most famous example of a nun who was HONEST enough to own up to this truth and question the very claims of the religions. Other nuns may be more patient, or unwilling to question why Jesus isn't keeping his promises. But the bottom line is that does not exist so much as a single solitary nun who can perform miracles like Jesus is said to have done so that the Father can be Glorified.

So it's not like Mother Teresa is a lone example of a nun who couldn't perform miracles. She's merely the only one who was honest enough to question the religion when the promises made by Jesus turned out to be clearly empty.

All we ever hear from this religion is excuses.

It's a theology of never-ending apologies for why the religion never holds true.

Surely you can understand why non-theists are tried of hearing empty excuses?

That's all they ever get from the theists. Where is there any evidence that anything the scriptures of this religion had ever promised has ever come true?

All the religion has to offer is excuses and apologies for why nothing held out to be the "truth" in its scriptures has ever come true.

This religion has Jesus proclaiming to "Be The Truth".

He then promises to do whatever we ask in his name.

But that promise has never been fulfilled beyond perhaps average everyday chance.

Some people may have prayed to Jesus and their prayer may have "come true". But that should be expected to happen some percentage of the time just by pure random chance.

There's just no evidence of any fulfillment of these promises. And if there were evidence we would surely expect to see it in nuns who have devoted their lives to Jesus. But we don't even see it there.

There is no evidence that nuns fair any better than anyone else when it comes to praying to Jesus to heal people, etc.

But he promised he would do any thing they ask.

Endless excuses for why this never happens simply aren't impressive.

It just sounds like beating a dead horse. There's always an excuse for why it isn't getting up other than the obvious fact that it's actually dead. An excuse that theists simply refuse to even consider.

[JehovahsWitness]

Why should a Christian Church judge anyone?

Because they were instructed to:

1 CORINTHIANS 5:12
"it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning." NLT

Did Jesus teach his disciples to go around judging others?

Yes, if those "others" are in the Church.

MATTHEW 18:17
3If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won't accept the church's decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector." - JESUS CHRIST (NLT)