Christianity measured against religion.

Xeno.of.athens

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Some say Christianity is not a religion, but I believe that it is. However it is possible to discuss the similarities and differences between Christianity and different religions, and how Christians perceive God, salvation, and the meaning of life, and how you preceive the way other religions each approach questions about God, salvation, and the meaning of life.
 
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HTacianas

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Some say Christianity is not a religion, but I believe that it is. However it is possible to discuss the similarities and differences between Christianity and different religions, and how Christians perceive God, salvation, and the meaning of life, and how you preceive the way other religions each approach questions about God, salvation, and the meaning of life.

Religion is for the most part the examination of the conscience. Meditating on what is right and what is wrong. Our conscience is our connection to God. If you read the Avesta of Zoroastrianism it is difficult to distinguish it from the book of Proverbs. The Bhagavad Gita of Hinduism is also. They are attempts to reach God, but are imperfect. The common denominator is to do good in hopes of a reward in the afterlife. That is the most important aspect of Christianity. Repent of evil and do good and you will be rewarded for it. When it comes to salvation, who is more likely to be saved, a good Hindu or a bad Christian?
 
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Mark Quayle

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Religion is for the most part the examination of the conscience. Meditating on what is right and what is wrong. Our conscience is our connection to God. If you read the Avesta of Zoroastrianism it is difficult to distinguish it from the book of Proverbs. The Bhagavad Gita of Hinduism is also. They are attempts to reach God, but are imperfect. The common denominator is to do good in hopes of a reward in the afterlife. That is the most important aspect of Christianity. Repent of evil and do good and you will be rewarded for it. When it comes to salvation, who is more likely to be saved, a good Hindu or a bad Christian?
Is this typical EO thinking? Your statement, "The common denominator is to do good in hopes of a reward in the afterlife. That is the most important aspect of Christianity. Repent of evil and do good and you will be rewarded for it." is as wrong as it can be. The most important aspect of Christianity can be stated many ways —"Seeing God's Glory", "Becoming one with God", "Knowledge of Christ"— but "doing good in the hopes of a reward is not one of them".

Your statement —"...who is more likely to be saved, a good Hindu or a bad Christian?"— seems to me to demonstrate again, the same error. Your view, (at least, as expressed in this post), has no relation to the Gospel or to the Grace of God. God is not "more likely to [save]" anyone, except whomever he chose from the foundation of the world to save. God's salvation has no relation to the merit of the person being saved.

I certainly hope yours is not typical EO thinking.
 
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ViaCrucis

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Some say Christianity is not a religion, but I believe that it is. However it is possible to discuss the similarities and differences between Christianity and different religions, and how Christians perceive God, salvation, and the meaning of life, and how you preceive the way other religions each approach questions about God, salvation, and the meaning of life.

Agreed.

I do think there can be some value, also, within that of talking about how Christianity is subversive of religion as well. I can think, off the top of my head, how some mid-20th century Christian thinkers, both Protestant and Catholic used that kind of language as a way to talk about a fundamental difference between what Christians confess in regards to the Incarnation and what all that means and "religion" in a generic sense.

For example in Herbert McCabe's work "God Still Matters" he says the following,

"It was always an illusion to suppose that by wisdom, or ascetic practices, by meditation or by building the Tower of Babel, we could come to the Father. The good news is that the Father comes to us. [...]

This is what John is talking about at the beginning of his Gospel when he calls Jesus the Word of God made flesh. Jesus is God's Word, God's idea of God, how God understands himself. He is how-God-understands-himself become a part of our human history - and therefore, of course, the one hated, despised, and destroyed by the rest of us, who wouldn't mind being divine but are very frightened of being human.

In Jesus, says the Christian, we do not understand God but we can watch God understanding himself. God's understanding of God is that he throws himself away in love, that he keeps nothing back for himself. God's understanding of God is that he is a love that unconditionally accepts, that always lets others be, even if what they want is to be his murderers. God's understanding of God is that he is not a special person with a special kind of message, with a special way of living to which he wants people to conform. God's understanding of God could not appear to us as someone who wants to found a new and better religion, or recommend a special new discipline or way of life - a religious code laid upon us for all time because it is from God. God's understanding of God is that he just says, 'Yes, be, be human, but be really human, be human if it kills you - and it will.' The Law of God is a non-law, it has no special regulations. The Word just says, 'I accept you as human beings, what a pity you have such difficulty in doing this yourselves. What a pity you can only like yourselves if you pretend to be super-humans or gods.' God could never understand himself as one of the gods, only as one of the human race.
" - Herbert McCabe, God Still Matters, pp. 104-105

McCabe is, I think, being intentionally subversive. He is not, of course, saying that God is okay with us living however we like, going around killing and stealing and the like. The point he is making is that the truest human being is Jesus, that God the Son and Word has come down to us, made man, and showing us the Father and here just is. Jesus just is human, human as human should be, as meant to be; all of our sin and and wickedness is fundamentally inhuman. God became a man, truly man, and our response to that was to murder Him. We are still caught in the lie, "you shall be as gods", but God doesn't want us to be "as gods", because God Himself does not see Himself as "one of the gods", He sees Himself as the One who freely gives Himself, thus when God became man He does not come to show us how we can through our own efforts and practices become more divine, but rather comes to show us what it means to be truly human. Because God, ultimately, sees Himself as with us, He created us and made us to inhabit and live and share His life with us; not by our going up, our ascending to become divine but by His coming down, His meeting us, giving Himself to us in love.

That is, the Incarnation is subversive, it takes virtually every single religious trope that has ever been conceived and flips it on its head. It takes religion and flips it upside-down. God turns religion upside-down by the Incarnation.

-CryptoLutheran
 
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SavedByGrace3

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Some say Christianity is not a religion, but I believe that it is. However it is possible to discuss the similarities and differences between Christianity and different religions, and how Christians perceive God, salvation, and the meaning of life, and how you preceive the way other religions each approach questions about God, salvation, and the meaning of life.
I understand what you are saying but must interject.
Christians are new creatures. It is not merely religion. We are essentially a different creatures in that we have a spirit within ourselves that is of God. We are children of God. Our bodies are the same, and our souls are the same, but our spirits are completely new, and completely different from those of non-Christians.
As far as religion, that is a logical, and outward manifestation of that new spirit that has been inserted. The key difference is:
  1. An unregenerate cannot love others or commune with God. There is no potential for any act of spiritually manifested righteousness.
  2. An regenerate can love others and commune with God. There is now the potential for the manifestation of spiritually manifested righteousness.
So religion for the Christian exists only because he is a new creation that can manifest the works of God.
Christians are told to "put on" the outside something that is inside themselves that does not exist in unbelievers.

Romans 13:14 KJV
14. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.

Galatians 3:27 KJV
27. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

Ephesians 4:24 KJV
24. And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Romans 13:12 KJV
12. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.

Colossians 3:12 KJV
12. Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;

So Christianity is more than just a religious observance to a set of rules and rituals. It is the outward manifestation of a new spiritual creature, that is the spirit of Christ that has been birth into us.

The putting test of all believers is the God walk test.
1 John 3:9-10 KJV
9. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
10. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.

We cannot sin from this new spirit that has been birthed within us. We cannot sin from our spirit any more than God can sin. Of course there is the potential to sin from the parts of our makeup that is not born of God, being our uncrucified flesh and unrenewed minds.
 
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BobRyan

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Some say Christianity is not a religion, but I believe that it is. However it is possible to discuss the similarities and differences between Christianity and different religions, and how Christians perceive God, salvation, and the meaning of life, and how you preceive the way other religions each approach questions about God, salvation, and the meaning of life.
it is most certainly a religion.

James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. NKJV

27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. NASB
 
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Jeltja

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Some say Christianity is not a religion, but I believe that it is. However it is possible to discuss the similarities and differences between Christianity and different religions, and how Christians perceive God, salvation, and the meaning of life, and how you preceive the way other religions each approach questions about God, salvation, and the meaning of life.
I think religion outside of Christian faith communities are essentially human distorted echoes of our proper attitude towards God. Within false religions are elements Christians could assent to and the nonChristian elements depend on characteristics and anthropology of true religiion (perverted by fallen nature and a lack of Biblical revelation). I think it's right to call Christianity as well as some Cults religion, but nonChristian religions are only so by analogy to Christ and Biblical revelation.
 
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Clare73

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Some say Christianity is not a religion, but I believe that it is.
According to the definition of religion, Christianity is a religion.
However it is possible to discuss the similarities and differences between Christianity and different religions, and how Christians perceive God, salvation, and the meaning of life, and how you preceive the way other religions each approach questions about God, salvation, and the meaning of life.
In no other religion is it even conceivable that man is not to measure up, but rather God comes down and measures up for him.
 
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HTacianas

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Is this typical EO thinking? Your statement, "The common denominator is to do good in hopes of a reward in the afterlife. That is the most important aspect of Christianity. Repent of evil and do good and you will be rewarded for it." is as wrong as it can be. The most important aspect of Christianity can be stated many ways —"Seeing God's Glory", "Becoming one with God", "Knowledge of Christ"— but "doing good in the hopes of a reward is not one of them".

Your statement —"...who is more likely to be saved, a good Hindu or a bad Christian?"— seems to me to demonstrate again, the same error. Your view, (at least, as expressed in this post), has no relation to the Gospel or to the Grace of God. God is not "more likely to [save]" anyone, except whomever he chose from the foundation of the world to save. God's salvation has no relation to the merit of the person being saved.

I certainly hope yours is not typical EO thinking.

Like it says:

Mat 25:41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:

Mat 25:42 ‘for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink;

Mat 25:43 ‘I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’

Mat 25:44 “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’

Mat 25:45 “Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’

Mat 25:46 “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

And again:

Rom 2:11 For there is no partiality with God.

Rom 2:12 For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law

Rom 2:13 (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified;

Rom 2:14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves,

Rom 2:15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)

Rom 2:16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.
 
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Mark Quayle

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Like it says:

Mat 25:41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:

Mat 25:42 ‘for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink;

Mat 25:43 ‘I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’

Mat 25:44 “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’

Mat 25:45 “Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’

Mat 25:46 “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

And again:

Rom 2:11 For there is no partiality with God.

Rom 2:12 For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law

Rom 2:13 (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified;

Rom 2:14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves,

Rom 2:15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them)

Rom 2:16 in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.
Maybe you can enlighten me as to how the use of all those verses —a few of which I noticed are carefully removed from their context— proves your thesis: "The common denominator is to do good in hopes of a reward in the afterlife. That is the most important aspect of Christianity. Repent of evil and do good and you will be rewarded for it."

Your religion is starting to sound to me not so much different from so many others, non-Christian religions.
 
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HTacianas

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Maybe you can enlighten me as to how the use of all those verses —a few of which I noticed are carefully removed from their context— proves your thesis: "The common denominator is to do good in hopes of a reward in the afterlife. That is the most important aspect of Christianity. Repent of evil and do good and you will be rewarded for it."

Your religion is starting to sound to me not so much different from so many others, non-Christian religions.

There is nothing "carefully removed from its context". It is plain, simple, easy to read, and on point. Now, are you to tell me that someone who converts to Christianity does not have to change their behavior and do good?
 
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BobRyan

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Then why is that religion ignoring those verses and making it about self, what is in it for me?
that is painting with a rather broad brush - -

The missionary, disaster relief, and evangelism efforts of certain denominations is indeed remarkable.
 
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timothyu

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The missionary, disaster relief, and evangelism efforts of certain denominations is indeed remarkable.
Yes but it relies on the people to do what they are not. Administration hasn't changed much from the Sanhedrin,.
 
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Mark Quayle

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There is nothing "carefully removed from its context". It is plain, simple, easy to read, and on point. Now, are you to tell me that someone who converts to Christianity does not have to change their behavior and do good?
Someone whom God has regenerated WANTS to change their behavior and do good. Not to do just 'good enough', either. They hunger and thirst after righteousness.
 
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Xeno.of.athens

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An unregenerate cannot love others or commune with God. There is no potential for any act of spiritually manifested righteousness.
Mohandas Gandhi. What do you know about him, what do you make of him if you know much about him?
 
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Xeno.of.athens

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In no other religion is it even conceivable that man is not to measure up, but rather God comes down and measures up for him.
Are you sure of this?
How does Judaism and Islam think of god?
 
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Hawkins

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God's religion behaves more or less like today's mass media. It is to bring truth/info from the extremely small amount of eyewitnesses to the mass majority. Mass media is for conveying the daily facts, while a religion such as Christianity is for conveying the truth of God.

The the US government has a piece of important message for its citizens, it goes through the mass media for this piece of message to reach the public, that is, all the states of America, not just one or two states, not just Indiana or Texa but all the states.

Similarly when God has a message for humans it is conveyed in a world-facing manner, not just India or the Middle East, but the whole world from Jerusalem, all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the world.

Do other gods have such a demand for their message to convey in a mankind-facing manner? The answer is NO. Either they don't exist, or they don't know how to convey their message correctly, or they don't have a message for humans.
 
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Clare73

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Are you sure of this?
How does Judaism and Islam think of god?
I am sure neither believes that the Creator of the Universe incarnated in human flesh to himself pay the penalty for man's sin.
 
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