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[chess]

I think that I might have given some people here some wrong impressions in the past. So, I'd just like to clear a few things up.
1. I am a Christian.
2. This means that I believe in one God, who expresses Himself as a Trinity of people - God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
3. This also means that I believe all other gods/godesses/deities-of-any-description are fakes, invented by humans or by Satan to trap people and keep them away from God.
4. In addition, I believe that everyone who isn't a Christian is going to Hell.
5. Understandably, I would really rather all you people didn't go to Hell. Hence, I'm praying for you. And I'm going to keep praying for you. Even if you ask me not to.

So, there we go.

Comments

Re: Aren't all religions man-made?

[passage.livejournal.com]

This is a long post, if you want the important bit it's the one in bold, if you're low on time, just read that.

If you mean what you say then you are of course wrong, christianity doesn't believe it is the only religion (that would not be arrogance but utter blindness), it merely believes itself to be the right one.
I'm not quite sure how to clarify 'right one'. Only route to God perhaps?

If what you mean is that you think it arrogant that Christians believe their religion to be the only 'right'[1] one

Axiom 1: Self consistancy is required of a system. (i.e. contraditions are not allowed).
Definition 1.1: Religion: A set of beliefs relating to the existence, or not, of God, God's nature, and the impact of this on morality and ethics.
Definition 1.2: 'Holy book of x': that body of literature which is considered relavent to and canonical by religion x.
Deffintion 1.3 Chrisitanity: the religion that takes "The Bible" to be it's holy book[2]

Theorum 1: Christianity contains the belief that no one can reach God except through Jesus.
Proof of Thm 1: (resulting from deffinition 1.2 and 1.3)
John 14v6: "I am the way the truth and the life, no-one comes to the Father except by me" - Jesus speaking to his disciples at the last supper.
Acts 4v12: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." - Peter speaking to the Jewish religious leaders about Jesus.

Theorem 2: The belief "Other religions (those that are not Christianity) are valid routes to God and acceptable by him" cannot be an element of Christianity.
Proof of thm 2: This belief contradics thm 1, by Axiom 1 this is not allowed.

Theorem 3: (we state this theorum informally) A christian must believe that Christianity is the only 'right' religion.

Deffinition 1.4: Christian: a person who subscribes to the religion 'Christianity'

Pf of thm 3: direct consequence of thm 2 and thm 3.

Deffinition 1.5: x is true where x is a religion is defined to mean that all the beliefs that are elements of x are true.

Theorem 4: Christianity and another religion cannot simmltaneously be true.

Pf of 4: If another religion were true then that would contradict the belief in Christianity that it wasn't (from thm 3), by axiom 1 this would invalidate Christianity.
If Christianity were true then by thm 3 any other religion must be false.

So if I am a Christian of course I believe Wiccan (sp?) to be false (were false has the usual meaning of 'not true'), not because I like being arrogant, but because if it wasn't then that would mean Jesus lied, hence wasn't sinless and hence couldn't have made attonement for my sins and the entire of Christianity would collapse messily.

So it is not a trait that is a result of ignorance, rather it is a result of knowning what my religion says!

Neil

P.S.: I know you wouldn't agree with some of what I say in this post, Firinel (most of it infact). I will get around to answering the points you raised (but not in this thread).

P.P.S.: in response to the subject line: I do hope not! (And indeed, believe not).

[1] I'm relying on you interpretting this intuatively, poke me if you want me to try and find a way of explaining it.
[2] As with all things one can define them in a number of ways, for sensible deffintions the equivalence of these deffintions can be demonstrated, this is frequently easiest if you start with the right deffintion, I claim that this is the right deffintion and can derive any sensible deffinition of Christianity. I chose it because it is more complete than any other reasonably lengthed deffintion.