What makes a Christian?

[URAVIP2ME]

Ahh old testament, pre christian, not really relevant.

" Two kings ate one " is a punsy - 2 kings 8:1- not a literal eating of 2 kings eating one king.
Just an attempt to add a little lightness for a change.

 

[ChristineM]

" Two kings ate one " is a punsy - 2 kings 8:1- not a literal eating of 2 kings eating one king.
Just an attempt to add a little lightness for a change.

I see, chuckle.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

TRINITARIAN CHRISTIANS believe what was quoted above.
And yes, the mass majority of ‘Christians’ are trinitarian.
I ‘class’ myself as a Christian but I do not believe that Jesus is Almighty God......................In prophesy GOD stated that He would send a saviour - a SERVANT - who would do His bidding and that He would CHOSE that servant:

• “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations.” (Isaiah 42:1)

God states that he [will] put His Spirit on this servant whom He [will] choose and delight in.............................So, ALMIGHTY GOD - a SPIRIT BEING in a Spirit realm - created a physical world and put (amongst other things) a HUMAN BEING in it to rule over it.
The first man God created was tested as to his rulership and failed… he was initially sinless, holy, righteous in the eyes of God… he did all that God commanded him to do … up until he was tested by one from his own kind… and he sinned.

Or, rather to me, trinitarian Christians are the majority of 'so-called Christians' or 'Christendom'.
Being part of the MANY who call Jesus as Lord but prove false - Matthew 7:21-23

God's spirit is Not a person but what God uses to accomplish what He wants - Psalms 104:30

Man was Nor created to rule independent of God - Jeremiah 10:23.
By Adam breaking God's Law (Genesis 2:17) Adam was taking the Law out of God's hands and placing the Law into man's hands. Adam set up People Rule as being Superior to God's Rule.
Mankind's long history now proves that MAN has dominated MAN to MAN's hurt, MAN's injury - Ecclesiastes 8:9

Instead of a trinity or triune god I find at Psalms 90:2 God had No beginning, thus God was 'before' the beginning.
Whereas, pre-human heavenly Jesus was "IN" the beginning but Not ' before ' the beginning as his God was.
Even the resurrected ascended-to-heaven Jesus still thinks he has a God over him at Revelation 3:12.
Resurrected Jesus did Not appear in front of himself according to Hebrews 9:24.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Would you really need a TV, internet, a car, ...? Those are things that aren't essential but they are only possible because of the wealth in an industrialized nation.

I guess my question kind of is, 'is the cost of the extras, what makes the essentials not free.'

A lot of time, work, and resources goes into making the extra things happen. That is 'at cost,' on some level. But what is the cost of that, lifestyle wise. I mean starting with Romans, coercion probably made most of the structural products happen. If that is the case, then it seems like the structures would cause more pain than benefit, much of the time.

 

[Heyo]

I guess my question kind of is, 'is the cost of the extras, what makes the essentials not free.'

A lot of time, work, and resources goes into making the extra things happen. That is 'at cost,' on some level. But what is the cost of that, lifestyle wise. I mean starting with Romans, coercion probably made most of the structural products happen. If that is the case, then it seems like the structures would cause more pain than benefit, much of the time.

That would certainly be true for Rome where much of the labour was slave labour. And even today many people work a job they hate to buy things they don't need to impress people they don't like. People have a propensity to do such things to themselves (and, sadly, to others).
We could have eliminated the need to work a hundred years ago simply by taxing machines. But that may come in the mid future with advanced AI and UBI.

 

[PruePhillip]

And still slavery did not disappear from christian Rome.

A point of interest, although western rome fell in 476ad it was not until almost 1000 years later that eastern Rome fell off n 1453.

That's not even 600 years ago.

Methinks there's Topic Drift here.

 

[ChristineM]

Methinks there's Topic Drift here.

You made the statement regarding slavery disappearing from Christian Rome.

 

[Soapy]

Or, rather to me, trinitarian Christians are the majority of 'so-called Christians' or 'Christendom'.
Being part of the MANY who call Jesus as Lord but prove false - Matthew 7:21-23

God's spirit is Not a person but what God uses to accomplish what He wants - Psalms 104:30

Man was Nor created to rule independent of God - Jeremiah 10:23.
By Adam breaking God's Law (Genesis 2:17) Adam was taking the Law out of God's hands and placing the Law into man's hands. Adam set up People Rule as being Superior to God's Rule.
Mankind's long history now proves that MAN has dominated MAN to MAN's hurt, MAN's injury - Ecclesiastes 8:9

Instead of a trinity or triune god I find at Psalms 90:2 God had No beginning, thus God was 'before' the beginning.
Whereas, pre-human heavenly Jesus was "IN" the beginning but Not ' before ' the beginning as his God was.
Even the resurrected ascended-to-heaven Jesus still thinks he has a God over him at Revelation 3:12.
Resurrected Jesus did Not appear in front of himself according to Hebrews 9:24.

Man WAS created to RULE… it says so in the Scriptures.

Man was created to RULE OVER CREATION… but not Heaven.

Man is human, physical, mortal…. The human was made to rule over the physical and mortal world.

God is SPIRIT and rules over the SPIRIT world.

Man is the physical image of God - a restricted miniature version - a Spirit encased in ability-limiting FLESH. A man is restricted to the LAWS of physics within which the world was made. There are laws we can break but like a child with a toy, we are not yet able to understand the bounds of those laws and so at this time we are rightly limited to SAFE ABILITIES. If us obvious that there are greater things man can do BUT THEY ARE VERY DANGEROUS things and are not SAFE for man to uncover without destroying himself and the created world - and God will not permit that to occur

But, yes, RULE OVER CREATION but NOT independent from God - God who set the bounds of what man can do in the created world.

 

[PruePhillip]

You made the statement regarding slavery disappearing from Christian Rome.

Slavery was between 10-20% of the Roman economy. What do you think this percentage was in, say, European Middle Ages?

 

[ChristineM]

Slavery was between 10-20% of the Roman economy. What do you think this percentage was in, say, European Middle Ages?

Besides the point, you made a statement extolling the role of Christianity that was incorrect

 

[Heyo]

Slavery was between 10-20% of the Roman economy. What do you think this percentage was in, say, European Middle Ages?

Do you know what the German word ford for serfdom is? Leibeigenschaft. Literal "body ownership". That is slavery. That were 90% of the population at times. And all build upon a hierarchical structure invented by the RCC.

 

[PruePhillip]

Do you know what the German word ford for serfdom is? Leibeigenschaft. Literal "body ownership". That is slavery. That were 90% of the population at times. And all build upon a hierarchical structure invented by the RCC.

To say serfdom is slavery is to reinterpret the word.
Serfs are people bound to land
You could say the working class is a form of slavery too, but let's stick to proper definitions.

And I am not sure serfdom was a product of the RCC - serfs existed in Russia until a few generations ago. Reckon there would have been serfs if Europe was pagan.

 

[PruePhillip]

Besides the point, you made a statement extolling the role of Christianity that was incorrect

One needs to be careful in defining Christianity - Christians warred against each other but that isn't allowed in Christian doctrine.
And to a biblical Christian a slave was equal to a free person, and to rich and poor, man and woman, Jew and Gentile.
What Catholics or Orthodox practiced isn't necessarily Christian - just their interpretation.

 

[muhammad_isa]

One needs to be careful in defining Christianity - Christians warred against each other but that isn't allowed in Christian doctrine..

Yes, and it is trinitarian emperors who declared "war" on Arians, for believing that Jesus is not God, or so it is claimed.

What Catholics or Orthodox practiced isn't necessarily Christian - just their interpretation.

Yes, trinitarian emperors burned as many texts as they could, in order to stamp out their "rivals", and then propagate that Christians, including Jesus and the disciples (were they Christians??) had always believed everything according to what they agreed on in a series of staged ecumenical councils.

 

[Heyo]

To say serfdom is slavery is to reinterpret the word.
Serfs are people bound to land
You could say the working class is a form of slavery too, but let's stick to proper definitions.

And I am not sure serfdom was a product of the RCC - serfs existed in Russia until a few generations ago. Reckon there would have been serfs if Europe was pagan.

Serfdom was a rank in Feudalism which was the predominant form of government throughout the middle ages. The hierarchy in feudalism was mirrored from the hierarchy in the RCC and the RCC taught it was god-given. While pagans had classes, they weren't that big into nested hierarchies. (Which might be because they didn't have a single god.) The pagans of the early middle ages ("Vikings") didn't have serfdom until they were Christianized. (Though they had slaves.)

 

[IndigoChild5559]

To say serfdom is slavery is to reinterpret the word.
Serfs are people bound to land
You could say the working class is a form of slavery too, but let's stick to proper definitions.

And I am not sure serfdom was a product of the RCC - serfs existed in Russia until a few generations ago. Reckon there would have been serfs if Europe was pagan.

Don't I remember that serfs were considered the property of the Lord of teh Manor? How is that not a form of slavery?

 

[Heyo]

Don't I remember that serfs were considered the property of the Lord of teh Manor?

That is exactly what the German word says, they were owned (together with the land they worked).

How is that not a form of slavery?

In my opinion it is, but serfs had (more or less, depending on time and location) rights a slave didn't have. So there is a legal difference.

 

[PruePhillip]

Don't I remember that serfs were considered the property of the Lord of teh Manor? How is that not a form of slavery?

So for the sake of the political we expand the definition.
I worked in some pretty tedious jobs over the years with the "minimum wage" - felt I was a slave too. Sometimes felt that in marriage too.

The strict definition of a slave is someone you owns another person.
Probably the most brutal expression of slavery was that of the Arab world - men who survived the death marches from Africa to the Middle East were then castrated without surgery so there would be no 'African Arabs'

 

[PruePhillip]

Serfdom was a rank in Feudalism which was the predominant form of government throughout the middle ages. The hierarchy in feudalism was mirrored from the hierarchy in the RCC and the RCC taught it was god-given. While pagans had classes, they weren't that big into nested hierarchies. (Which might be because they didn't have a single god.) The pagans of the early middle ages ("Vikings") didn't have serfdom until they were Christianized. (Though they had slaves.)

That's interesting, thanks for that.

 

[ChristineM]

One needs to be careful in defining Christianity - Christians warred against each other but that isn't allowed in Christian doctrine.
And to a biblical Christian a slave was equal to a free person, and to rich and poor, man and woman, Jew and Gentile.
What Catholics or Orthodox practiced isn't necessarily Christian - just their interpretation.

Excuses, excuses, you still said slavery was non existent in Christian Rome