What makes a true Christian?

[Tart]

In a Private Message someone said to me "a True Christian has been taught what makes a true Christian and has had all his biblical questions answered."

Is that true? We cant have any questions about the Bible? I dont get why someone would think that... "i know everything"...?

Though i dont want to throw away this advice (if you can call it that).. Wouldnt it be nice to have complete faith always in God?

[bjs]

In a Private Message someone said to me "a True Christian has been taught what makes a true Christian and has had all his biblical questions answered."

I am curious whom this private message come from, though of course I do not expect you to reveal that information.

It is only that, in all my years posting on this site, I cannot think of a single instance of a Christian writing the phrase “True Christian� with capital “T� and “C� (other than perhaps a in response to how an atheist used the phrase).

So either this private message was an anomaly, or you are using a non-Christian to define what Christians think – which would be problematic to say the least.

[Tcg]

[Replying to post 11 by bjs]

Christians do indeed use that term:

• What Is a True Christian?
  
  Have you ever met a true Christian? Have you ever attended a church full of true Christians? Are you sure? What is it that makes a person truly Christian?
  
  https://www.tomorrowsworld.org/booklets ... an/content

Some on this site use the term, "orthodox Christian", perhaps as a way to avoid breaking the rules. The meaning is clear in any case. Christians themselves develop different categories of Christians. This atheist doesn't.


Tcg

[bjs]

[Replying to Tcg]

I did rather explicitly say “on this site.� I am confident that Christians at some point have used the phrase “true Christian.� In this case it is, statistically speaking, probably coming from an atheist.

I often use the phrase “orthodox Christian� to refer to those Christian who hold to the belief agreed upon by Roman Catholic, Easter Orthodox and Protestant Christians. These doctrines are famously summed up in the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds. This provides a clear statement of what is being discussed and allows language to be tool for understanding instead of a hindrance to it. I am saying nothing about the truth or falsehood of anyone’s Christianity. This site defines a Christian as someone who says they are a Christian. That is fine, but it doesn’t provide a meaningful idea to debate.

The statement that atheists don’t develop different categories of atheism is objectively false. One of the most obvious examples of categories atheist create is that many atheists on this site differentiate between “strong� and “weak� atheism.

[Zzyzx]

.

I am deeply impressed with your ability to know what other people really think, especially since – according to you – what they say openly contradicts the private thoughts that you have assigned them.

Straw-man much?

WHERE do you see any claim to know what people think – or ‘assign’ private thoughts to them?

Notice that what I actually said was “even if they may� – which is decidedly NOT a claim to know.

I suppose that I will have to trust that readers are not naïve or gullible enough to believe that your sarcastic remarks bear any resemblance to my remarks.

Who said “It is kind of funny that the only people who ever say this are atheists�

Perhaps the fallacy in making such a patently false statement has become difficult to conceal.

[Tcg]

I did rather explicitly say “on this site.� I am confident that Christians at some point have used the phrase “true Christian.� In this case it is, statistically speaking, probably coming from an atheist.

Please show your math. It should be very enlightening.


Tcg

[bluegreenearth]

Wouldnt it be nice to have complete faith always in God?

Why do you think it would be nice to have complete faith always in the Christian God when faith can be used to justify belief in any unfalsifiable religious claim? You might as well lament how nice it would be to have complete faith always in Buddha or the Hindu gods or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Rather than having complete faith in an unfalsifiable religious claim, I recommend you consider applying the scientific method to your epistemology instead. At least the knowledge that is acquired through the application of the scientific method has the pragmatic benefit of reliably informing your decisions based on the expectation of predictable outcomes. It also includes the feature of being self-correcting rather than dogmatically incapable of identifying where mistakes were made.