Talk:Christianity is not a religion

	This Christianity related article has been awarded BRONZE status for quality. It's getting there, but could be better with improvement. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.

Archives for this talk page:

<1>

, (new)

Apologetics

Pascal's wager is hardly the state of the art in sophisticated theology™. Are there any more current apologetics this claim would cause trouble with? - David Gerard (talk) 23:50, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is a field where increasing sophistication is possible. Blaise Pascal is one of the cleverest fellows to have addressed the issue. I think the Wager is a bit more sophisticated than the game theory explanation makes it out to be. It also has to do with the force of habit; repeat the prayers from the book often enough and you'll come to accept their truth as part of your world. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 07:15, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Hence the ™. What I mean to say is, something more in current fashion; if this point has much force, it should take out a bunch of apologetics. I could take the Nicky Gumbel book out of its toxic waste barrel and have a look - David Gerard (talk) 10:47, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Dictionary definition

Quoting the dictionary really has strength only as an argument from common usage; the actual fallacy is that "Christianity is not a religion" rests on a very particular definition of "religion". How could we better document common usage here? - David Gerard (talk) 10:49, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Bible quotes

The James quote is pretty strong, the Timothy not so much given other translations tend not to use the word "religion". And one and a bit quotes is not a very strong case. Do we have any more? - David Gerard (talk) 10:50, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, the only place that the word 'religion' turns up in the NT speaking specifically about Christianity are the ones cited; Acts 25:19 and 26:5 uses it to refer to Judaism. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 03:54, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Christianity versus other moral codes

Much of this section doesn't actually make any sense to me. "many philosophies exist because of (or despite) the existence of Christianity"? "Moral codes often depend upon the reader's prior knowledge of Christianity, and assume it to be a religion"? Other stuff appears to be covered in other subsections - David Gerard (talk) 07:31, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

It just seems to be some rather inane rambling. --Coffee (talk) 18:46, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Just reading that section and it is rather odd. I will delete it tomorrow if it is not edited earlier. (and it will only have taken 7 years to fix.)Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 19:40, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

jack chick

In the "gun slinger", Jack Chick calls christianity a religion. http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0037/0037_01.asp

Christianity ISN'T a religion, however...

Christianity is a category of several distinct religions that kind of follow a common deity (much like Abrahamic isn't a religion, but a category of religions). Catholics, Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and Russian Orthodox Christians have radically different beliefs and arguably don't even follow the same deity (protestants don't pray to the saints, Jehovah's Witnesses don't consider Jesus to be a deity, oneness Pentecostals don't believe in the Trinity, etc) but they're all considered Christians. One could break that down even further and say that Westboro Baptist Church, Southern Baptist Convention, and independent African American Baptist churches aren't even of the same religion. To be fair, one can say the same about Hinduism. 71.208.92.135 (talk) 13:19, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

It kind of depends on what your definition of "religion" is. There are many people who, when asked for their religion, would reply "Christian" - but when asked to be more specific would reply by referencing a specific Christian denomination. As you suggest the same thing could be said of many other religions. (Though I would imagine that there are some individuals who who would just vaguely self-identify as "Christian" or whatever.)

Nevertheless, if one were to follow your logic; Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and presumably others would all not be "religions" because they all have different denominations within them. But if you think that Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Hinduism are not "religions" - then how would you describe them?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:41, 30 September 2023 (UTC)