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Christians Preferred: Are only Literalists True Christians™?

Heyo

Veteran Member
Group selection: I'd like members, who don't identify as Christian, limit their participation to short clarifying questions. As a non Christian myself I will also limit my participation.

With permission of @ElishaElijah, who is new to the forum, I want to reproduce his opinion here:
In Arkansas inflicts child abuse on its school children
This is another false statement, there are people that believers in Jesus Christ, been born of the Spirit, have repented and walking with God - Believers/Christians they know the truth, that the whole Bible is the truth, Genesis is the true account. Then you have the rest of the people - Unbelievers - If a person doesn’t believe the whole Bible they aren’t a Believer so how can they be a Christian?

Evolution vs. creationism threads tend to attract only non believers on the evolution side even so most people who identify as Christian are not creationists/literalists. But it seems there is a lot of potential debate between the two Christian camps. So, please, discuss/debate.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
With permission of @ElishaElijah, who is new to the forum, I want to reproduce his opinion here:
In Arkansas inflicts child abuse on its school children


Evolution vs. creationism threads tend to attract only non believers on the evolution side even so most people who identify as Christian are not creationists/literalists. But it seems there is a lot of potential debate between the two Christian camps. So, please, discuss/debate.
As biblical literalism was only invented in the c.18th and c.19th, it seems fairly obvious that it is far from being a requirement for being a Christian.

But there are some extreme Protestant sects that like to indulge the No True Scotsman fallacy by trying to redefine Christianity to fit their own narrow - and ,frankly, stupid - version of it. :D
 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
Welcome to the forums @ElishaElijah :).

As a Christian I deeply respect literalists and I kinda admire them.
I am not a literalist because as a child I was never taught that the Bible is supposed to be the scientific truth.
My Catholic priest taught me that the Genesis tale is an allegory and that scientists are right about the origin of mankind (without going into detail...but surely admitting Evolution.).
So my upbringing deeply influenced my beliefs.
I do believe that Evolution doesn't diminish God's greatness.
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
But there are some extreme Protestant sects that like to indulge the No True Scotsman fallacy by trying to redefine Christianity to fit their own narrow - and ,frankly, stupid - version of it. :D

Interesting you should use the word “narrow”....Matthew 7:13-14.
So according to the Bible itself, the genuine path would be “narrow.”

This of course couldn’t include every narrow version.

There have always only been “a few”, i.e., the Israelites, that were worshipping Yahweh / Jehovah in the way He approved.

As biblical literalism was only invented in the c.18th and c.19th, it seems fairly obvious that it is far from being a requirement for being a Christian.

Daniel 12 states that only in the “Final part of the days” would truth become “abundant.”

Just applying (Biblical) Scripture. And there are no passages anywhere else in those Scriptures that would seem to contradict.
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
Explaining the entire Bible literally? That doesn’t happen, does it?

For instance, God riding on clouds?
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
I think true fundamentalist view of scripture would lead a person not to be a fundamentalist, assuming they had adopted the protestant canon as their source. Here are some references against being fundamentalist:

[1Co 8:11 NIV] 11 So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge.

[1Co 8:1-2, 6 NIV] 1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that "We all possess knowledge." But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. 2 Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. ... 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.

[Luk 6:42 NIV] 42 How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.


Now look at the way that Judas dies. In Matthew he commits suicide. In Acts he bursts into flames. The fundamentalist must ask "Which death is correct?" These are the same death, but the so-called fundamentalists are unable to appreciate this. Their own fundamentalist rules prevent them. They must make up excuses I suppose.
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
Explaining the entire Bible literally? That doesn’t happen, does it?

For instance, God riding on clouds?
It’s sorta interesting, I think, that for many, they’ve been taught that the Lake of Fire is literal....but really, how can death be burned? Revelation 20:13-14
 

74x12

Well-Known Member
With permission of @ElishaElijah, who is new to the forum, I want to reproduce his opinion here:
In Arkansas inflicts child abuse on its school children


Evolution vs. creationism threads tend to attract only non believers on the evolution side even so most people who identify as Christian are not creationists/literalists. But it seems there is a lot of potential debate between the two Christian camps. So, please, discuss/debate.
You don't need to know everything to be saved.

BTW I disagree that it's child abuse. Weird how it's child abuse to teach more Biblical point of view; but it's okay for secularists to push their wacky views, opinions etc. no matter how extreme on children.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Evolution vs. creationism threads tend to attract only non believers on the evolution side even so most people who identify as Christian are not creationists/literalists. But it seems there is a lot of potential debate between the two Christian camps. So, please, discuss/debate.
Of course there are more than just a few Christians who accept the science supporting the Theory of Evolution. I recently had someone say to me that someone can't believe in God and evolution at the same time. Which is of course, nonsense.

Reading Genesis 1 and 2 as science and literal history, is not by any stretch of the imagination the same thing as believing in God. How we interpret scripture is a matter of the mind and exposure to ideas. How we believe in God, is a matter of the heart.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
With permission of @ElishaElijah, who is new to the forum, I want to reproduce his opinion here:
In Arkansas inflicts child abuse on its school children


Evolution vs. creationism threads tend to attract only non believers on the evolution side even so most people who identify as Christian are not creationists/literalists. But it seems there is a lot of potential debate between the two Christian camps. So, please, discuss/debate.
I am a Christian and I do not read or interpret the Bible literally. There is no requirement nor logical reason that it be viewed so.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
You don't need to know everything to be saved.

BTW I disagree that it's child abuse. Weird how it's child abuse to teach more Biblical point of view; but it's okay for secularists to push their wacky views, opinions etc. no matter how extreme on children.
It is not OK to force any view on others. Especially children.
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
As I mentioned, not all of the Scriptures need be literal. However, we should consider if the Biblical events in question, were referred to by other Scriptural personages, like Jesus, as being literal.

Don’t you think that would matter? How they viewed them?
 
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