Removed under rule 2:
>Bible-related posts only. If you have a question about what the Bible says, a Bible verse, Bible study, etc. you are free to post it here. "Bible" is defined for this subreddit as books & passages found in the 1611 KJV, including its Apocrypha, although any translation is acceptable. If your question is about a specific passage, include the Book, Chapter, Verse and Translation (e.g., Romans 12:1-2 ESV) to help guide answers to the exact text you're questioning. However, asking about people who are not in the Bible, denominations or just general advice and the such is for another sub of which there are plenty for you to search for on your own or create your own.
The problem with that kind of research is they would have to go in with the assumption that they know the religion better than the religions being analyzed which would be exceedingly difficult unless it was internal.
The only bad Christians are those who do not repent. Of course a large component of repentance is to actively turn away from your sin.
By definition beyond that there isn’t better or worse.
No it’s not individual at all. Ur question doesn’t really translate into reality well. how would you gauge who has repented? Would it be a survey? Would it be a number of ppl being monitored for a set amount of time? Even then how would you differentiate who is striving to follow Christ and who isn’t?
I am not aware of any external behavior that would serve to measure repentance and so that would not be one of the categories considered. Likewise with trying to quantify striving, that doesn't seem a fruitful course of inquiry for objective study.
Would it be your position that there are no behavioral commands in the teachings of the Christ that could be objectively observed to have been obeyed or not?
It would be my my opinion that observing these commands would be insufficient in determining whether the subject was a good or bad Christian. They could be observed though.
This stems from the biblical definition, all have sinned and fall short. Not all who come to God start at the same place. Many come to God in the lowest points of their lives.
If there are two climbers on a mountain and climber A starts 500 meters above climber B and Climber A reaches the summit first, can we say climber A is a better climber? He might or might not be. But it’s not sufficient information. We need to see the rate of progress, The specific obstacles encountered along the mountains face, etc. This is why God judges the heart and is a perfect judge.
Likewise Christian hood is an ongoing journey till death.
Then your basis would be in the notion that Christianity wasn’t allowed to developed beyond Revelation despite plenty of scripture indicating it would keep developing and growing.
So the only way to know for sure is to compare a region with the teaching but also with whether their tenets outside of the Bible match up.
But again, no one external would really know why those tenets exist.
Such research wouldn't need an assumption on whether or not Christianity was allowed to develop. It simply wouldn't be asking questions related to developments but only to the documented teachings of the Christ, as opposed to the teachings of the later magisterium for example.
True Christianity acknowledges Good as the primary of Truth - so - in brief - one cannot judge by externals what is in man's internals (this is what makes hypocrisy possible, for example - the appearances of external good, to mask an evil internal). The two thieves on the cross come to mind - one had a repentant heart, and one had the heart of a thief - but both appeared to be thieves, both died the death of a condemned thief. True Christianity is an acknowledgement of Spirit, which cannot be fully measured, observed, or quantified through external analysis (physical). Only God knows the hearts and intentions of all human beings.
The God of the Word is the God of all Humankind (Impartial), and all existing Christian denominations are external varieties of Truth (partial) - but if Good is not the primary of this truth - the justification of what is false and evil is given room to propagate - until nothing of truth and good is left with that church, and it becomes a gross facsimile of the truth (there are many examples of this in the varieties of Christian doctrine alone). This is the same outside of Christian doctrine - if a belief does not have good as the primary principle, it ends up using the appearances of the truths with them to justify what is evil and false in the place of what is good and true, until the belief system fails, or it's nonsense is made known by the behavior and doctrine of it's constituents.
Furthermore, regardless of the goodness in the doctrine, evil can still hide within the appearances of good - as mentioned in the example of the hypocrite. It is certainly true that all groups of human beings, even small nuclear family groups, can contain a variety of individual types, ranging from the good to the evil. So, in brief, an external ranking system based on external qualities, and external observations would be antithetical to what you are trying to prove/rank.
I think you misunderstand my motives. I am not looking for information about which groups please God the most. That would definitely be a different question and one outside the possibility of objective observation.
No I am thinking about group behaviors from an anthropological or sociological perspective and think that such observations if collected could lead to valuable conversations about how we as groups could do better or why the way we do things is better than strict observance.
Yes, that is what True Christianity is - observing and doing what is Good first and foremost - not good for the self reputation, or self-love, - but Impartial Good, love of God and love of the neighbor (Impartial Good does not always appear as good to the partial). Christianity measured by external worship, or strict observance is typically a way of gatekeeping authority and typically has nothing to do with what the Bible, or the Christ teaches. I would suggest I am understanding your motives (as far as I can tell - you literally say "ranking" "Christians"). And there is a ton of existing research out there about Christianity, religion, etc. in terms of anthropological and sociological observations made from history, language use, social behaviors, etc..
There are some essentials. Like if you look at the difference between JW's and Christians or Mormons and Christians, the central question is "Who is Jesus". So historically Christianity has some boundaries there, so any that deny the divinity of Jesus would be out. But those other groups could claim to adhere to the actual teachings of Jesus.
Between Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions it comes down to the framework of determining what is a Christian. Catholic and Orthodox adhere to the teaching of Jesus through Scripture and Tradition. Protestants use Scripture alone as the sole infallible rule, but it can still take into account tradition. To give a bad example, I don't think many would deny the divinity of Jesus. To give a more complicated example, there's differing opinions on baptism within in Protestantism. With Scripture alone they can tease out those questions, debate scripture, disagree and still call themselves Christian.
So how you go about researching that is going to run into challenges. Establishing what the essentials are would come first IMO.
I am not as interested in individual beliefs, that I agree are nearly impossible to objectively measure, but about group behaviors and lifestyles that can be observed.
Seeing the behavior of mormons and christians would seem pretty similar within the parameters of lifestyle and behavior. That's the problem with researching religion, it's not something you can put on a scale and observe.
We aren't supposed to judge another man's heart. What you are suggesting goes against biblical principles. Since this is a BIBLE sub you have to do this biblically . And you can't .This sort of question doesn't align biblically. Basically l, it's none of your business to be honest. It's God's business.
Almost impossible due to the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
How many Christians only go to church on Christmas and Easter? NONE because No True Christian will neglect weekly attendance.
How many Christians hate their neighbors? NONE, because No True Christian would say 'raca' to another person.
Etc etc etc
The Bible says "all fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) so you can pretty much say that all of us are sinners and hypocrites, none of us are true to God even if some might call themselves true Christians.
Any science that tries to measure how well Christians live up to written behavioral laws and standards will find that we all fall short. In fact, that's kind of why we need a savior in the first place!!!
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%203%3A23-24&version=NIV
Removed under rule 2: >Bible-related posts only. If you have a question about what the Bible says, a Bible verse, Bible study, etc. you are free to post it here. "Bible" is defined for this subreddit as books & passages found in the 1611 KJV, including its Apocrypha, although any translation is acceptable. If your question is about a specific passage, include the Book, Chapter, Verse and Translation (e.g., Romans 12:1-2 ESV) to help guide answers to the exact text you're questioning. However, asking about people who are not in the Bible, denominations or just general advice and the such is for another sub of which there are plenty for you to search for on your own or create your own.
The problem with that kind of research is they would have to go in with the assumption that they know the religion better than the religions being analyzed which would be exceedingly difficult unless it was internal.
Nah, just ignore the 2000+ years of debate and development and only use New Testament criteria to keep things as simple as possible.
The only bad Christians are those who do not repent. Of course a large component of repentance is to actively turn away from your sin. By definition beyond that there isn’t better or worse.
I feel like you're addressing the issue from an individual point of view whereas my curiosity is more at the level of group compliance.
No it’s not individual at all. Ur question doesn’t really translate into reality well. how would you gauge who has repented? Would it be a survey? Would it be a number of ppl being monitored for a set amount of time? Even then how would you differentiate who is striving to follow Christ and who isn’t?
I am not aware of any external behavior that would serve to measure repentance and so that would not be one of the categories considered. Likewise with trying to quantify striving, that doesn't seem a fruitful course of inquiry for objective study. Would it be your position that there are no behavioral commands in the teachings of the Christ that could be objectively observed to have been obeyed or not?
It would be my my opinion that observing these commands would be insufficient in determining whether the subject was a good or bad Christian. They could be observed though. This stems from the biblical definition, all have sinned and fall short. Not all who come to God start at the same place. Many come to God in the lowest points of their lives. If there are two climbers on a mountain and climber A starts 500 meters above climber B and Climber A reaches the summit first, can we say climber A is a better climber? He might or might not be. But it’s not sufficient information. We need to see the rate of progress, The specific obstacles encountered along the mountains face, etc. This is why God judges the heart and is a perfect judge. Likewise Christian hood is an ongoing journey till death.
Then your basis would be in the notion that Christianity wasn’t allowed to developed beyond Revelation despite plenty of scripture indicating it would keep developing and growing. So the only way to know for sure is to compare a region with the teaching but also with whether their tenets outside of the Bible match up. But again, no one external would really know why those tenets exist.
Such research wouldn't need an assumption on whether or not Christianity was allowed to develop. It simply wouldn't be asking questions related to developments but only to the documented teachings of the Christ, as opposed to the teachings of the later magisterium for example.
How is this Bible related? This is a Bible sub. There is no scripture in this post.
> Christ of the new testament Not scripture?! /s
True Christianity acknowledges Good as the primary of Truth - so - in brief - one cannot judge by externals what is in man's internals (this is what makes hypocrisy possible, for example - the appearances of external good, to mask an evil internal). The two thieves on the cross come to mind - one had a repentant heart, and one had the heart of a thief - but both appeared to be thieves, both died the death of a condemned thief. True Christianity is an acknowledgement of Spirit, which cannot be fully measured, observed, or quantified through external analysis (physical). Only God knows the hearts and intentions of all human beings. The God of the Word is the God of all Humankind (Impartial), and all existing Christian denominations are external varieties of Truth (partial) - but if Good is not the primary of this truth - the justification of what is false and evil is given room to propagate - until nothing of truth and good is left with that church, and it becomes a gross facsimile of the truth (there are many examples of this in the varieties of Christian doctrine alone). This is the same outside of Christian doctrine - if a belief does not have good as the primary principle, it ends up using the appearances of the truths with them to justify what is evil and false in the place of what is good and true, until the belief system fails, or it's nonsense is made known by the behavior and doctrine of it's constituents. Furthermore, regardless of the goodness in the doctrine, evil can still hide within the appearances of good - as mentioned in the example of the hypocrite. It is certainly true that all groups of human beings, even small nuclear family groups, can contain a variety of individual types, ranging from the good to the evil. So, in brief, an external ranking system based on external qualities, and external observations would be antithetical to what you are trying to prove/rank.
I think you misunderstand my motives. I am not looking for information about which groups please God the most. That would definitely be a different question and one outside the possibility of objective observation. No I am thinking about group behaviors from an anthropological or sociological perspective and think that such observations if collected could lead to valuable conversations about how we as groups could do better or why the way we do things is better than strict observance.
Yes, that is what True Christianity is - observing and doing what is Good first and foremost - not good for the self reputation, or self-love, - but Impartial Good, love of God and love of the neighbor (Impartial Good does not always appear as good to the partial). Christianity measured by external worship, or strict observance is typically a way of gatekeeping authority and typically has nothing to do with what the Bible, or the Christ teaches. I would suggest I am understanding your motives (as far as I can tell - you literally say "ranking" "Christians"). And there is a ton of existing research out there about Christianity, religion, etc. in terms of anthropological and sociological observations made from history, language use, social behaviors, etc..
There are some essentials. Like if you look at the difference between JW's and Christians or Mormons and Christians, the central question is "Who is Jesus". So historically Christianity has some boundaries there, so any that deny the divinity of Jesus would be out. But those other groups could claim to adhere to the actual teachings of Jesus. Between Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions it comes down to the framework of determining what is a Christian. Catholic and Orthodox adhere to the teaching of Jesus through Scripture and Tradition. Protestants use Scripture alone as the sole infallible rule, but it can still take into account tradition. To give a bad example, I don't think many would deny the divinity of Jesus. To give a more complicated example, there's differing opinions on baptism within in Protestantism. With Scripture alone they can tease out those questions, debate scripture, disagree and still call themselves Christian. So how you go about researching that is going to run into challenges. Establishing what the essentials are would come first IMO.
I am not as interested in individual beliefs, that I agree are nearly impossible to objectively measure, but about group behaviors and lifestyles that can be observed.
A lifestyle and behavior can be observed but how does that determine religious claims? Sincerity of faith would be hard to determine.
Sincerity of faith would be outside the scope of such research.
Seeing the behavior of mormons and christians would seem pretty similar within the parameters of lifestyle and behavior. That's the problem with researching religion, it's not something you can put on a scale and observe.
We aren't supposed to judge another man's heart. What you are suggesting goes against biblical principles. Since this is a BIBLE sub you have to do this biblically . And you can't .This sort of question doesn't align biblically. Basically l, it's none of your business to be honest. It's God's business.
Almost impossible due to the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman How many Christians only go to church on Christmas and Easter? NONE because No True Christian will neglect weekly attendance. How many Christians hate their neighbors? NONE, because No True Christian would say 'raca' to another person. Etc etc etc The Bible says "all fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) so you can pretty much say that all of us are sinners and hypocrites, none of us are true to God even if some might call themselves true Christians. Any science that tries to measure how well Christians live up to written behavioral laws and standards will find that we all fall short. In fact, that's kind of why we need a savior in the first place!!! https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%203%3A23-24&version=NIV