World religions versus Christianity

keith99

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Given Christianity's emphasis on sin:
"Christianity teaches 'Don't' "
would be a more appropriate meme.
OB

It could be argued that a religion that says do not do evil sets a much lower standard than one that says do good. Not that such a position can be taken against Christianity, just against the OP. After all Christians are commanded to go the extra mile.
 
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ViaCrucis

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Well that's false advertising. Because unless you're advocating full-blown antinomianism, then this simply isn't true.

There are plenty of "do's" in Christianity, most famously the Greatest Commandment, that we love God and our neighbor. Christ also says, "A new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you." The Sermon on the Mount is replete with commandments and instructions for how Christians ought to conduct our lives.

What you seem to be trying to argue is that certain forms of Christianity teach that our salvation isn't based on what we do, but rather on what Christ has done. This was the rallying cry of the Reformation; that we are justified by grace alone through faith on Christ's account alone.

The problem though with trying to use this as a contrast with other religions is that other religions don't share the Christian notion of salvation. And so the debate over Justification is something that can only exist within a specifically Christian context. It makes no sense in a Buddhist context, or a Hindu context, or a Wiccan context.

This to the extent that little to nothing is being said at all here.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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Aryeh Jay

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Well that's false advertising. Because unless you're advocating full-blown antinomianism, then this simply isn't true.

There are plenty of "do's" in Christianity, most famously the Greatest Commandment, that we love God and our neighbor. Christ also says, "A new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you." The Sermon on the Mount is replete with commandments and instructions for how Christians ought to conduct our lives.

What you seem to be trying to argue is that certain forms of Christianity teach that our salvation isn't based on what we do, but rather on what Christ has done. This was the rallying cry of the Reformation; that we are justified by grace alone through faith on Christ's account alone.

The problem though with trying to use this as a contrast with other religions is that other religions don't share the Christian notion of salvation. And so the debate over Justification is something that can only exist within a specifically Christian context. It makes no sense in a Buddhist context, or a Hindu context, or a Wiccan context.

This to the extent that little to nothing is being said at all here.

-CryptoLutheran

A new commandment?

Bible Gateway passage: Leviticus 19:9-18 - English Standard Version


Leviticus 19:9-18 English Standard Version (ESV)

Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

9 “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. 10 And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.


11 “You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. 12 You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.


13 “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. 14 You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.


15 “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. 16 You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life[a] of your neighbor: I am the Lord.


17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
 
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ViaCrucis

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A new commandment?

Bible Gateway passage: Leviticus 19:9-18 - English Standard Version


Leviticus 19:9-18 English Standard Version (ESV)

Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

9 “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. 10 And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.


11 “You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. 12 You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.


13 “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. 14 You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.


15 “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. 16 You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life[a] of your neighbor: I am the Lord.


17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

The "new commandment" is , "That you love one another as I have loved you." The commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves isn't the new commandment.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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Christian Apologist

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Lutheran + Graph.jpg
 
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Aryeh Jay

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The "new commandment" is , "That you love one another as I have loved you." The commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves isn't the new commandment.

-CryptoLutheran

And therein is the problem. What was Jesus’s biggest act of love?
 
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Christian Apologist

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And therein is the problem. What was Jesus’s biggest act of love?

Jesus Stripped his equality, wealth, Joy and Glory with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit and humbled himself to the form of a servant .


”Who although being essentially one with God and in the Form of God {possessing the fullness of the attributes which make GOD GOD} did not think this equality with God was a thing to be grasped or retained.” Philippians 2:6 Amplified version

“For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” 2 Cor. 8:9


Hebrews 12

1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

In the original language “for the joy” means “he exchanged Joy for Shame”.



John 17

“Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.


Thank you, Jesus, for coming down from your throne in heaven where you were the Almighty God, “EL SHADDAI”, The Great I AM creator of all things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, and principalities and powers. You were rich yet you became poor. You were Almighty yet you emptied yourself and became a humble servant, you exchanged joy for sorrow , sorrow by dying a shameful death on a cross as a criminal even thou you had no sin , Jesus you laid aside your Glory with God the Father and Holy Spirit . Jesus you should have been born as a King in an opulent palace, instead of a servant in a stable in a manager. Thank you, Jesus for your sacrifice
 
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ViaCrucis

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Aryeh Jay

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His laying down His life by the cross.

-CryptoLutheran

And so far, only a tiny percentage of Christians in history have done anything like that. People kept telling me that Jewish Law is impossible to keep and yet I never saw any one of them follow Christ’s greatest Commandment. I don’t see the commandment to die for the person standing next to you as a great recruiting tool for Christianity, but then, I don’t see Christians doing a lot of what Jesus told them to do. Supply Side Jesus has taken over for the “Real” Jesus.


I do count you as one of the few posters on CF that truly gets it and I am not saying this as my sarcastic alter ego but as the real Jason.
 
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yeshuaslavejeff

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That's the difference between Ekklesia (true circumcised hearts, Jews first then gentiles) and church (membership by man's rules)
And so far, only a tiny percentage of Christians in history have done anything like that.
======================================
Jesus said the commands are easy, and the burden light. (for Jews and gentile Ekklesia)
People kept telling me that Jewish Law is impossible to keep and yet I never saw any one of them follow Christ’s greatest Commandment.
He also said there are MANY false, few true.
=======================================
Ekklesia DO what the Father says. Memberships do what their memberships say.
I don’t see the commandment to die for the person standing next to you as a great recruiting tool for Christianity, but then, I don’t see Christians doing a lot of what Jesus told them to do.
 
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ViaCrucis

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And so far, only a tiny percentage of Christians in history have done anything like that. People kept telling me that Jewish Law is impossible to keep and yet I never saw any one of them follow Christ’s greatest Commandment. I don’t see the commandment to die for the person standing next to you as a great recruiting tool for Christianity, but then, I don’t see Christians doing a lot of what Jesus told them to do. Supply Side Jesus has taken over for the “Real” Jesus.


I do count you as one of the few posters on CF that truly gets it and I am not saying this as my sarcastic alter ego but as the real Jason.

I think the idea that Torah is impossible to keep, but Christ's commandments aren't, is a fundamental misreading of the Sermon on the Mount (or Sermon on the Plain, following Luke's narrative). In a lot of ways the things Jesus says are immensely difficult. One example would be the way in which Jesus equates being angry with one's brother as a violation of the command against murder--to be angry against another is to commit murder in our heart.

I view the way which Jesus calls His followers to live to be defined by the cross. It's one of the reasons I chose ViaCrucis as my name, via crucis is Latin for "way of the cross". My original avatar was a picture from the Stations of the Cross, a devotional and meditative practice in Western Christianity that evolved from the days when pilgrims would visit Jerusalem and walk the Via Delarosa, the path which tradition says Jesus carried His cross to Golgotha.

The call to a life defined and comprehended in the cross is, I believe, the essence of Christian living to be. Not as some pietistic call to self-flagellation, but of truly pouring oneself out toward others in imitation of the Jesus who invites us to "Come and follow [Him]", in recognizing that this world is a cross, a place of hardship. The world isn't fair, justice is rarely if ever found here--but we have an opportunity to, in the midst of that adversity and hardship, love others, to give of ourselves to others. I can participate with God in His work in the world--that a hungry mouth gets fed, a person can have warm clothes on their back, the downtrodden and dejected person can be received with welcome and warm embrace.

This is what Christian discipleship looks like, a people defined by their humanity, and a humanity defined by Jesus; to discover our humanity in and with one another. Not closing ourselves up into our little shell, but that life is experienced in and with one another.

And I think that is immensely difficult, even impossibly difficult, this is the narrow way of the cross which Jesus speaks of.

G.K. Chesteron once said "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried."

This is the Coram Mundo (us before the world) dimension of Christianity, which I think is frequently ignored because many try and confuse how we ought to live with the Coram Deus (us before God)--namely by treating good works not as means by which we live toward our neighbor, but as shiny trophies we try and show off to God.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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muichimotsu

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His laying down His life by the cross.

-CryptoLutheran
Act of love or not, it doesn't seem to have the impact that me or any actual mortal would in sacrificing yourself for the sake of others, because I'm pretty sure I'm not coming back in 3 days. The exceptional nature of what supposedly happened to Jesus is not indication that there are special effects that resulted from it, only that it was unusual.

Just never found that compelling when this is also supposed to be God incarnate, yet is fully human, creating that contradiction only generally "explained" by appealing to divine mystery or using analogies that don't work categorically in talking about an entity that can exist in two places simultaneously with fundamentally different properties.
 
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ViaCrucis

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Act of love or not, it doesn't seem to have the impact that me or any actual mortal would in sacrificing yourself for the sake of others, because I'm pretty sure I'm not coming back in 3 days. The exceptional nature of what supposedly happened to Jesus is not indication that there are special effects that resulted from it, only that it was unusual.

Just never found that compelling when this is also supposed to be God incarnate, yet is fully human, creating that contradiction only generally "explained" by appealing to divine mystery or using analogies that don't work categorically in talking about an entity that can exist in two places simultaneously with fundamentally different properties.

What are your feelings on people who undergo suffering without dying, would you say their sacrifice and experience isn't all that impactful?

Because this kind of "Well, Jesus was only dead for a few days, so it's not really meaningful." idea makes literally no sense to me, and tends to come across as dismissive for the sake of being dismissive.

I'd argue that all human suffering and pain matters.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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dzheremi

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The existence of the millions of known Christian martyrs and passion bearers over the centuries and down to today (if you take the widest view possible so as to include everyone in every communion and church) really shows the incredibly myopic thinking that goes into statements about how "so far, only a tiny percentage of Christians in history have done anything like that." I suppose it all hinges on how you define the commandment, in that, yes, only a few Christians have been crucified (there were a select few early martyrs we all know about, and outbreaks of that during different times, like during the genocides in Turkey), but as far as laying down their lives is concerned, a great many Christians have done so and continue to do so.

I tend to take it as an example of how far you must be willing to go (akin to the often misunderstood "if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you" command in Matthew), rather than a literal command, but anyway...it is of course entirely possible to be willing to do such things as laying down your life for another regardless of religion, so I wouldn't think that people today would think of that as a 'recruiting tool' for Christianity in particular, but I don't know. Some Christians do glory in it without having done anything like that themselves, and I have mixed feelings about that. Yes, we are to boast in nothing other than the cross (Galatians 6:14), but it is specified that it is the cross of Christ we are talking about here, not anyone else's. Your own cross you are to take up daily, and as I understand it without fanfare.
 
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FireDragon76

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And so far, only a tiny percentage of Christians in history have done anything like that. People kept telling me that Jewish Law is impossible to keep and yet I never saw any one of them follow Christ’s greatest Commandment. I don’t see the commandment to die for the person standing next to you as a great recruiting tool for Christianity, but then, I don’t see Christians doing a lot of what Jesus told them to do. Supply Side Jesus has taken over for the “Real” Jesus.


I do count you as one of the few posters on CF that truly gets it and I am not saying this as my sarcastic alter ego but as the real Jason.

Most Christians in the US have a religion that isn't all that similar to anything the historical Jesus actually taught. It's more of an imperial state religion about worshipping power and patriarchal hierarchies, and of course, having the poor and social inferiors know their place.
 
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muichimotsu

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What are your feelings on people who undergo suffering without dying, would you say their sacrifice and experience isn't all that impactful?

Because this kind of "Well, Jesus was only dead for a few days, so it's not really meaningful." idea makes literally no sense to me, and tends to come across as dismissive for the sake of being dismissive.

I'd argue that all human suffering and pain matters.

-CryptoLutheran

Except Jesus' suffering was meant to have an eternal impact and yet it's a finite and limited death, so it doesn't work to compare and equivocate suffering in general senses with that which is meant to have eternal significance.

I never suggested that less suffering is less meaningful, but meaning is as much a matter of perspective as it is also scaled
 
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