Christianity in your mind's eye

[historia]

Christianity is one of the world's largest and most diverse religious traditions.

And yet, for brevity's sake, it's convenient to make reference to 'Christianity' or 'Christians' on this forum without having to reel off a litany of qualifiers about which particular churches, beliefs, and practices we are describing. But do we all have the same thing in mind when we do this?

Consider these comments from a couple of our friendly neighborhood atheists:

Take mainstream Catholic teaching, remove Mary, mother of God stuff, remove Papal authority. That's my working assumption of what Christianity is

As far as I'm concerned, anyone that says they're Christian is Christian, but pretending that the Catholics are anything but the standard for orthodoxy is chutzpah.

Questions for debate:

When making reference to 'Christianity' in general terms, should we all have in mind Roman Catholicism (or something close to that)?

Is that, in fact, the expression of Christianity you have in your mind when you personally use the term 'Christianity'?

[cms]

As a non-theist, I'm inclined to picture Christianity more as 'being this really basic, minimal set of beliefs', than the 'acting in a certain way'.

Diagoras, Is Hitler the picture of Christianity?

[nobspeople]

As this is the forum (option a from above), I have to assume the basics as: god had a son named jesus that is a sacrifice to humanity; jesus died and rose again. Assuming they believe more than that opens up a whole can o' worms that I, for you, don't care to open.

I appreciate that point, especially since a disproportionate number of Christians on this forum hold heterodox views.

But, apart from this forum or any kind of debate, when you personally think about Christianity, do you picture it as just being this really basic, minimal set of beliefs? Or do you picture it differently?

I pictured it as being how I was raised. Now, TBH, I'm not sure how to picture it past 'jesus died and raised, salvation, god'. Anything more and I get lost in the various types and sects arguing over who is right and who isn't.

[TRANSPONDER]

As a non-theist, I'm inclined to picture Christianity more as 'being this really basic, minimal set of beliefs', than the 'acting in a certain way'.

Diagoras, Is Hitler the picture of Christianity?

Godwin's Law, as every good Internet citizen knows, reads as follows: “As an online discussion continues, the probability of a reference or comparison to Hitler or Nazis approaches 1.” When Mike Godwin created it in 1990, he was trying to address the widespread phenomenon of glibly comparing someone else to Hitler or ...(Internext answer)

While the Rule that 'The first one to mention Hitler loses the argument' is overdone, it really, really doesn't do the case of the debator any good to drag Hitler - comparisons into it.

Jesus said:

Matt. 7:13 “Go in through the narrow gate, because broad is the gate and spacious is the road leading off into destruction, and many are going in through it; 14 whereas narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life, and few are finding it."

So, whatever you think of real Christianism based on big religious institutions should be really wrong.

This is surely a twisted reading of the passage. It does not refer to the size of religious institutions, or even religious groups, but (pretty obviously, if you read it in context) refers to choosing the easy and slipshod way of following the Faith rather than sticking closely to the teachings.

In God's place, if I was going to condemn anyone, it would be those who twist my Book out of context to prop up some one's person opinion.

"Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great". (Matthew 5.19)

[theophile]

But, apart from this forum or any kind of debate, when you personally think about Christianity, do you picture it as just being this really basic, minimal set of beliefs? Or do you picture it differently?

As a non-theist, I'm inclined to picture Christianity more as 'being this really basic, minimal set of beliefs', than the 'acting in a certain way'. The latter is compatible (in my view) with the philosophy of humanism in many respects, so it would be too broad a characterisation to be really useful.

If we take that approach, we'd be calling a lot of folks 'Christian' who couldn't be further from the truth. I think cms highlighted that nicely in his Hitler question

But yes, there would be overlap / compatibility with humanism. That said, I'm not sure I agree with your 'too broad a characterization to be useful' comment. Is the definition of humanism itself 'too broad to be useful'?... The path of the Christian is a narrow one (if we take Jesus' teaching seriously). For instance, what humanist gives away all that they own and trusts in the world to provide?

[JoeyKnothead]

...
The path of the Christian is a narrow one (if we take Jesus' teaching seriously). For instance, what humanist gives away all that they own and trusts in the world to provide?

What Christian can be reliably shown to do this?

[theophile]

...
The path of the Christian is a narrow one (if we take Jesus' teaching seriously). For instance, what humanist gives away all that they own and trusts in the world to provide?

What Christian can be reliably shown to do this?

Hey, I never said there were many true Christians in the world! I certainly do not qualify.

But hence my pushback that we can't simply categorize a Christian as one who holds a basic set of beliefs or is a member of a Christian church. That is way too easy and misleading and just gives Christianity a bad name.

When it comes to recognizing one, I think it would be something like the Supreme Court Justice response to detecting hard-core pornography: "You know it when you see it."

[TRANSPONDER]

But, apart from this forum or any kind of debate, when you personally think about Christianity, do you picture it as just being this really basic, minimal set of beliefs? Or do you picture it differently?

As a non-theist, I'm inclined to picture Christianity more as 'being this really basic, minimal set of beliefs', than the 'acting in a certain way'. The latter is compatible (in my view) with the philosophy of humanism in many respects, so it would be too broad a characterisation to be really useful.

If we take that approach, we'd be calling a lot of folks 'Christian' who couldn't be further from the truth. I think cms highlighted that nicely in his Hitler question

But yes, there would be overlap / compatibility with humanism. That said, I'm not sure I agree with your 'too broad a characterization to be useful' comment. Is the definition of humanism itself 'too broad to be useful'?... The path of the Christian is a narrow one (if we take Jesus' teaching seriously). For instance, what humanist gives away all that they own and trusts in the world to provide?

If I might pop my 2 cent in, I do see the qualification for Christianity as both narrow and broad; narrow in that 'Faith in Jesus as the saviour' is all one needs and rites and any dogmas and doctrines beyond that really aren't relevant. And broad of course in that it encompasses everyone who believes in Jesus as the savior (Sorry Thom. Jefferson, you ain't a Real Christian).

Which brings in humanism, as Jefferson thought that the Gospels were the best moral code there was, even if he didn't believe in the divine claims. That's humanism. There are religious humanists who (so far as I can gather) reckon that we are better off to arrange and live our lives as though there was was no god there, and humanism can cover everyone from Theists to atheists and including irreligious theists and Deists, too.

In view of the topic I won't critique the Bible as a moral code, but just to say that humanism is not incompatible with the Gospels, given that they both try to devise the best way to live, so far as they can. Which brings up the point of human (secular) moral codes diverging from the Bible. Sure, we have moved on from the OT and the attempts of Bible apologists to pretend that there isn't approval of slavery in the Bible (or at least acceptance of it) in eitherand both Old and New T, make that clear. Also the attempts to make out that it doesn't treat women as 2nd class citizens. Whether or not women being used to bake cakes and deliver letterbox flyers for the Roman Church, while then having to stand at the back at services with their heads covered and their traps shut was empowering women or not, the fact that we even have that debate shows that human social mores have moved on even from the discussion of slavery and gender equality. So there is no reason why Christian humanists at least should quietly accept that God and Jesus are letting us do it our own way, which is better than anything in the Bible.

cue: "So look at the world. Great job by Secularism, hey?"

[JoeyKnothead]

...
The path of the Christian is a narrow one (if we take Jesus' teaching seriously). For instance, what humanist gives away all that they own and trusts in the world to provide?

What Christian can be reliably shown to do this?

Hey, I never said there were many true Christians in the world! I certainly do not qualify.

But hence my pushback that we can't simply categorize a Christian as one who holds a basic set of beliefs or is a member of a Christian church. That is way too easy and misleading and just gives Christianity a bad name.

When it comes to recognizing one, I think it would be something like the Supreme Court Justice response to detecting hard-core pornography: "You know it when you see it."

In other words, we can't trust anyone who claims to be Christian, or who claims to live a "godly" life?

[nobspeople]

...
The path of the Christian is a narrow one (if we take Jesus' teaching seriously). For instance, what humanist gives away all that they own and trusts in the world to provide?

What Christian can be reliably shown to do this?

Hey, I never said there were many true Christians in the world! I certainly do not qualify.

But hence my pushback that we can't simply categorize a Christian as one who holds a basic set of beliefs or is a member of a Christian church. That is way too easy and misleading and just gives Christianity a bad name.

When it comes to recognizing one, I think it would be something like the Supreme Court Justice response to detecting hard-core pornography: "You know it when you see it."

In other words, we can't trust anyone who claims to be Christian, or who claims to live a "godly" life?

Christian or not, people can only be trusted so far. That speaks more about humanity than it does christianity IMO

[theophile]

...
The path of the Christian is a narrow one (if we take Jesus' teaching seriously). For instance, what humanist gives away all that they own and trusts in the world to provide?

What Christian can be reliably shown to do this?

Hey, I never said there were many true Christians in the world! I certainly do not qualify.

But hence my pushback that we can't simply categorize a Christian as one who holds a basic set of beliefs or is a member of a Christian church. That is way too easy and misleading and just gives Christianity a bad name.

When it comes to recognizing one, I think it would be something like the Supreme Court Justice response to detecting hard-core pornography: "You know it when you see it."

In other words, we can't trust anyone who claims to be Christian, or who claims to live a "godly" life?

Of course we can't. Hypocrisy runs rampant in this world. I would also suggest there are a lot of church practices and teachings that are wholly un-Christian. So if "godly life" is defined as, say, doing what the pope says... like having children versus dogs... We're in that spot (again) where the truly Christian is malformed (IMO) and given a bad rap.