Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe one can be a disciple of Christ without being a Christian. I was.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Christianity and a couple scenarios
- Thread starter PoetPhilosopher
- Start date
I believe one can be a disciple of Christ without being a Christian. I was.
dis·ci·ple
/dəˈsīpəl/
noun
noun: disciple; plural noun: disciples
- a personal follower of Jesus during his life, especially one of the twelve Apostles.
synonyms: apostle;
follower
"the disciples of Jesus"- a follower or student of a teacher, leader, or philosopher.
"a disciple of Rousseau"
synonyms: follower, adherent, believer, admirer, devotee, acolyte, votary; ...
- a follower or student of a teacher, leader, or philosopher.
Going by that definition if I live by what Jesus taught by word and example, am I a disciple? How about the Buddha, Lao tzu, Krishna? I can live by what all of them taught, so am I a disciple? Or is that definition somehow lacking and/or incorrect? Just curious.
BilliardsBall
Veteran Member
Ah, but I have NO problem explaining free will and Hell, indeed, it's a far more blessed and logical explanation than predestination into Hell!
Ellen Brown
Well-Known Member
Good thing you aren't actually going to be judging people.
Faithofchristian
Well-Known Member
Let's take a closer look at this.
Now keep in mind only one can be right and the other is wrong.
A fundamentalist Christian believes, As having a literal interpretation of the
Bible/Scriptures.
But as the bible/scriptures clearly points out in the book of 2nd Peter 1:20---"Knowing this first, that no Prophecy of the scripture is of any Private Interpretation"
If you notice the first words are
( Knowing this first ) meaning above everything else, Christians should know there is no private Interpretation of scriptures.
But yet alot of Christians skip right over this, and goes about giving their own private Interpretation of scriptures.
So the question is, How is this to work,
Seeing 2nd Peter 1:20, That no Prophecy of the scripture is of any Private Interpretation.
As for the Universalism Christian
Now if the Universalism Christian is right,
That means Jesus Christ must be wrong.
Now here's the problem, in the book of
Revelation 3:5, Jesus Christ speaking, saying, "He that overcomes, the same shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the book of Life, But I will confess his name before my Father, and his angels"
As you can read and see, anyone, including Christians, Jesus Christ can blot out their names out of the book of Life.
If you notice in the above sentence
( He that overcomes ) This being, he that overcomes the tribulation of the AntiChrist.
So how exactly is this to work ?
If Christians believe they will be Raptured out, how exactly are they to overcome the Tribulation of the AntiChrist ?
So the question is,
Either Jesus Christ will be right, that He can blot out their names out of the book of Life.
Or the Universalism Christian is wrong.
As there only can be one right and one wrong.
I can bet absolutely positively, that Jesus Christ will be found right.
And the Universalism Christian is wrong.
That everyone will not be saved, as someone's name will be blotted out of the book of Life, All because they did not overcome the Tribulation of the AntiChrist.
PoetPhilosopher
Veteran Member
Well as soon as the AntiChrist and Tribulation as described in the book of Revelation comes, I'm using the book of Revelation since you mentioned it, then I will pretty much have a solid grounds to believe those passages. And if Jesus Himself came up to me and said them... I would believe. But there are two things to prove as it stands:
1. The validity of Revelation and explaining how its critics who believe it shouldn't be in the Bible are wrong.
2. How your interpretation of there being an actual AntiChrist and Tribulation are correct ( you mentioned private interpretation and not doing it before ).
And if we believe that the Burden of proof is on the one saying "This is true and I assert it" and not "This is false"... I actually wouldn't have to prove much I don't think. But there remains the question of proving the Bible in order to use the Bible, and it's even harder when you put in there AntiChrists and Tribulation and talk about the negatives of personal interpretation.
shmogie
Well-Known Member
I agree with you to an extent. First, an alleged Christian who judges another´s walk with God is a fool.
According to Jesus, there will be many who come to him in the end believing they are saved, and he will tell them they are wrong.
So, when someone accepts Christ, the result of that should be to study more deeply, and manifest the fruit of being saved, being correct in important doctrine, and living a Christian life. The truth will be given by the Spirit.
shmogie
Well-Known Member
God knows who is a true Christian, not I. There is nothing in the NT that science can disprove, I think that is a red herring.
The Apostles were given the responsibility of expanding the bedrock beliefs of Christianity, within the framework of what Christ taught. Further, the Spirit was given to them to guide them in this task. For purposes of salvation and right living their writings are inerrant.
However, being humans, my truth might be different than yours. You may believe in infant baptism, I totally reject it. The Bible says ¨come let us reason together¨, if after doing so, we still disagree, then it is between God and us individually. I can say you have it wrong, but when you stand in the judgement my opinion means 0, and anyway, as I said, only God can judge souls.
exchemist
Veteran Member
Well, you certainly seem to have smoked out the fundies with your question.
I hope that is what you were after. Normally, a rhetorical question does not expect an answer.
But if you want a critique of fundamentalism, it would be a long answer.
siti
Well-Known Member
...and therein lies the problem!
Not necessarily, the fundamental problem of fundamentalism is neatly summed up in one sentence in @Faithofchristian 's post that I just quoted.
exchemist
Veteran Member
Touché, excellent point.
Though one does really need to take things a little further to spell out what that leads to.
The joke is that fundamentalists inevitably splinter into tiny fragments, each of which fervently believes that it, and only it, is "right" and everyone else is "wrong". In fact this splintering is practically guaranteed by the inflexibility of their attitude, because as soon as a disagreement arises, there is a dispute and since each is convinced the other is wrong there is no alternative but to march off and start a new church, in which they can regard themselves as "right". Those of us with any contact with fundamentalists will have seen this, often repeatedly. Seen from the outside this looks all rather absurd and unnecessary.
The basic problems are failure to recognise the value of alternative points of view, the value of the different facets of meaning that can be seen in a literary text and the the arrogance of thinking that they must be right and everyone who does not share their point of view - which means almost everyone in the world - is "wrong". Going through life convinced everyone around you is wrong is hardly a healthy attitude of mind.
Faithofchristian
Well-Known Member
You said in your post above
( And if Jesus Himself came up to me and said them... I would believe )
Nope I disagree with you.
As far back in the old testament, many people said the same thing as you did,
If he came himself then I would believe.
Jesus did come in his first coming and people only crucified Jesus.
So it is with you, If you can't take Jesus at his in the Bible, how are you going to take Jesus at his word if Jesus came speaking it himself, You will not.
As people did when Jesus was here the first time and crucified Jesus.
You can't accept Jesus word in the Bible, You will not accept it even if Jesus came himself, As the people said, that if the Lord came himself, then we would believe.
As it is the people didn't take the Lord Jesus at his word when he was here himself, But crucified Jesus.
If people can not take Jesus at his word in the Bible, People will not take Jesus at his word even if Jesus stand before them
PoetPhilosopher
Veteran Member
What proof do you have that my personal standards of proof are the same as those of the people talked about in a 2000 year old book?
Universalists are one example of Christians with a more liberal or progressive point of view. I think it's better to just say liberals and progressives versus conservatives, of which a subset of those would be fundamentalists.
To answer your question, "Does having a looser understanding still demonstrate less faith if your beliefs are more easily adaptable," the answer to me is actually the opposite. Having a much more narrow and rigid view of God that is not adaptable, demonstrates a lack of faith. The reason I say this is because faith is about the heart, not the head. And if someone is saying, "I believe everything I believe is true", that is the head. It's putting faith in ideas. It's not putting faith in the Unknown. It's not resting in unknowing. It's the opposite which is seeking assurance and security against the unknown by holding tightly onto one's own beliefs about something.
The "true believer" has a much harder time with things that challenge their beliefs, leading them to irrationality to continue to support their ideas. That sort of a denialism runs headlong straight into spiritual growth and development. It puts a choke collar around faith, mistakenly viewing inflexible beliefs to be a mark of actual faith. For instance, the denial of evolution runs contrary to an openness to knowledge about God's creation. It places one's peculiar reading of the book of Genesis above what Nature herself reveals to us. Faith allows for beliefs to change. "True Believer-ism" denies the opening of faith into new knowledge.
Is there anything positive about that? Is there anything positive about being closed off to things which challenges our own beliefs? Not really. While it may provide a temporary sense of security against the Unknown, ultimately that puts a limit on spiritual growth, and like anything that stifles and chokes growth, that leads to dysfunction of the body. It becomes like a cancer which eats the body in order to continue to support itself.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Your forget about obvious option number 3: both are wrong. ;-)
You see, I don't agree with that. It only lists a few things that people believed, which often weren't in agreement with each other. The Apostle Paul for instance went into a great deal of explanation how different Christians believed different things, contradictory things, but the injunction never was to get them to all believe "correctly" about things. His injunction was to not judge other Christians who believed differently then themselves, but to do what Christ taught, which was to love one another. That is radically different than "True Believer-ism". (cf. all of Romans 14).
According to the Bible, a Christian follows the teachings of Jesus, which was to love and not judge. So if a progressive is not judging other Christians, and the fundamentalist is judging other Christians, which of these two do you think is following Jesus? Which is being "Christian"? Which is not consistent with that?
To the fundamentalist I'd say (to borrow Oliver Cromwell's phrase)
I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.
To the universalist I'd say,
If you believe in decency, inclusion, equality and common sense, then you can't go too far wrong.
And in so doing, you judge yourself as that very thing you judge the other as. This what Jesus taught.
wellwisher
Well-Known Member
Free will gives us choices. Free will also give us the choice, not to make certain choices. For example, jumping off the bridge is a possible choice. There are many people who like doing this. Free will gives me the option to do this or not to do this. Not making this choice is better for my health. If I had no free will, I would be compelled to do this, even to my detriment.
Heaven and Hell does for human nature, what common sense science does for the health and survival of the body. We have free will. We can make choices that damage the body; cigarettes and drugs. Or we can makes choices to avoid these choices, so we can be healthier. We can also experiment and moderate as long as there is no irreversible affect.
Heaven and Hell is the distinction of two sets of choices, one that is optimize to human nature and the other that does harm to human nature. Hell is a place of repression due to harming human nature with unnatural choices.
The modern confusion; basis for relative morality, is connected to social mops supported by science, technology, free market and politics. These can create illusions of natural choices. This is the area some Religious sects differ as to how they deal with this; strict interpretation or loose knowledge.
For example, eating rocks is not natural for humans and would cause long term problems connected to broken teeth and intestinal problems. However, say technology and social programs were set up that could repair teeth on demand, as well as remove the rocks from the gut, before any permanent damage is done. This social mop is cleaning up a mess, associated with an unnatural action. If this mop is 100% effective, is eating rocks still unnatural? The answer is yes, since this is an illusion, that would not work without the artificial prosthesis. It is a staged illusion, that can fool many audiences. If you are fooled are you still responsible? The answer is yes since cause and affect follows it own laws. This is where knowledge comes in handy.
Human nature is similar, in the sense that philosophical, political and even religious prosthesis and mops, can appear to justify; mop up, unnatural assaults on human nature. If the terrorist is promised heaven and virgins for killing humans beings; enemies, does this do psychological damage to him/her. This promise is a type of mop. If the mop works well, there may appear to be no long term affect. However, no mop is perfect and the mop will wear with time. Human nature is impacted by this choice.
The ancients dealt with this by assuming an experimental state; no mop, and that cataloging of natural for human nature, needed to be based on natural cause and affect; heaven. Heaven is not composed of man made things that can wear out or create an illusion. Hell is similar in terms of it also not composed of man made things; divine. Hells says the long term affect is real and permanent, even if we use a manmade mop, to make choices that is not part of the DNA; natural and human instinct.
On the other hand, the promise of the spirit; inner voice, may compel one to make certain choices that may appear unnatural on the surface, since they may conflict with consensus thinking. However, the spirit follows the principle, that all things are lawful to be me, but not all things edify. All things are lawful to me, but I will not become mastered by anything; spirit leads to healthy moderation.
