Corruption of Christianity

[razeontherock]

My opinion is faith is believing in things that are not seen.
Examples is Jesus Christ and God. I put all my trust in them and it's personal. Meaning that I have to change for God and God only. I don't mind leading people to Christ but in all it's really up to them to keep the faith and stay on track. I can't fight their battles and neither is God/Jesus an accuse for their sins.

Pardon me, don't mean to but in here, but faith is the evidence of things that are not seen. To say "faith is believing" is a tautology. Faith is evidence, and substance!

 

[razeontherock]

If that's the case, why do Christians talk about how one needs to believe, or have faith in, Jesus, in order to be saved? If the criteria for salvation aren't known, why be a Christian at all?

You are missing the entire aspect of Salvation that is in the here and now! You have just changed it to the proverbial get out of jail free card, with the thinking behind this question

 

[razeontherock]

I think of faith as hope.

Hope is a conduit through which Faith works. When Faith works, you have Love. "And now abideth faith, hope and charity ..."

The 3 are distinct, but inseparable; w/o Hope, Faith cannot work, and Faith w/o works is dead.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

You are missing the entire aspect of Salvation that is in the here and now!

And what aspect is that?

You have just changed it to the proverbial get out of jail free card, with the thinking behind this question

And what is it if not that? Christians may well believe in Christ for reasons other than salvation, but salvation is still a consequence of their belief, right? And salvation still entails that one goes to Heaven rather than Hell, right?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Pardon me, don't mean to but in here, but faith is the evidence of things that are not seen. To say "faith is believing" is a tautology. Faith is evidence, and substance!

Can you explain how, exactly, faith constitutes evidence, what it's evidence of, and indeed what 'faith' means?

 

[razeontherock]

And what aspect is that?

And what is it if not that? Christians may well believe in Christ for reasons other than salvation, but salvation is still a consequence of their belief, right? And salvation still entails that one goes to Heaven rather than Hell, right?

You goofed with the quote function; you were responding to me here with both snips. In answer: the aspect that affects us here and now!

You are falsely reducing Salvation to heaven or hell. Jews never had any concept of heaven or hell, but very much did of Salvation.

 

[razeontherock]

Can you explain how, exactly, faith constitutes evidence, what it's evidence of, and indeed what 'faith' means?

We're big on tautologies suddenly. Faith IS evidence, of things not seen. And substance, of things hoped for.

Seeing how exactly this happens, is what Scripture is for; reading it in that light causes things to open up for you.

 

[Suggestion Box]

In response to the OP:

Well, let's see. I just searched the entire forum for the word "Charity" and this is all I found. I work for a charity organization where it seems like we get more donations from the people we're serving than from the people 'volunteering'. Hmmmmm somebody may have a point!

 

[razeontherock]

Or maybe our search function isn't the most helpful tool?

 

[Faithful Skeptic]

Or maybe our search function isn't the most helpful tool?

Nah. It works fine: http://www.christianforums.com/search.php?searchid=4909839

That's 210 different threads that include the word "charity" and were active this very month.

http://www.christianforums.com/search.php?searchid=4909847

That shows that there were 455 comments posted this month including the word "charity".

I went into the advanced search to look to see how many there have been since the forum started, but apparently I can only search within the past month.

In response to the OP:

Well, let's see. I just searched the entire forum for the word "Charity" and this is all I found. I work for a charity organization where it seems like we get more donations from the people we're serving than from the people 'volunteering'. Hmmmmm somebody may have a point!

 

[razeontherock]

apparently I can only search within the past month.

Yeesh, they're always changing something. Did everybody's blessings in savings disappear a few days ago?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Faith transformes the phenomenology of perception (from physical to created, spiritless to God filled etc), and the resulting disclosure is taken as the new empirical standard. In that way faith provides evidence insofar as it transformes experience. So faith introduces an alternative empirical arena, and that is the believer's standard, so to speak. If the subject finds the alternative more rewarding, religious life may well follow.

 

[Tatian]

"I also blame the early Catholic church for screwing majorly with the Christian faith."

GrayAngel, my friend, I don't really think you are being fair to our Catholic brothers. Not entirely sure what you believe they are responsible for. I imagine you can come up with some things I would agree with, such as penance and others maybe not so much. Before the Catholic Church was really the Catholic church, probably not until 600 A.D. but certainly not before 400 A.D., we had all sorts of things going on. All sorts of heresy abounded, monasticism, arianism, and things that the Christian Church was doing, such as excommunicating one half of the church because it recognized and celebrated easter on a different day. If you mean purely doctrinal in our modern time, such as papism or perhaps veneration of the saints, well, we all have something wrong in our theology.

 

[razeontherock]

Faith transformes the phenomenology of perception (from physical to created, spiritless to God filled etc), and the resulting disclosure is taken as the new empirical standard. In that way faith provides evidence insofar as it transformes experience. So faith introduces an alternative empirical arena, and that is the believer's standard, so to speak. If the subject finds the alternative more rewarding, religious life may well follow.

Interesting verbiage! I would suggest an improvement on "religious life" though; how do you use religion?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Interesting verbiage! I would suggest an improvement on "religious life" though; how do you use religion?

I believe in God actually. Incidentally it enhances my live. God it good. I think that practicing right religion if food for sophia, and sophia (wisdom) brings life in abundance. Perhaps I shouldn't say this but there is a nice Shi'a quote (amongst many):

O Ali, no poverty is harsher than ignorance, no fortune better than the intellect, no loneliness drearier than pride, no victory like counseling, no intellect like moderation, no lineage like good manners, and no worship like pondering (over things).

quoted from this book