- When I talk about what a religious group believes, such as Catholicism or Mormonism, I am talking about what the bona fide representatives and scholars of that group believe (i.e. the leaders and their aids).

your original claim wasn't even about what a religious group believes. You used the word "nobody".

We don't need to talk about your original claim anymore though.

Egads. Mormons would constitute 0.61% of Christians and UU would constitute 1% of Mormons. You are talking about tiny outliers here. — Leontiskos

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the presence of UU churches in the US is strongly correlated with the location of academic institutions.

I mean, maybe if you're a Christian it makes sense for you to take that seriously, but I'm not beholden to any particular churches dogma and thus I'm not obliged to apply some arbitrary rule to decide Mormons, who are Christian by any obvious metric other than popularity among other Christians, are somehow not Christian. — flannel jesus

This is literally on par with saying that 99% of scientific professionals hold that such-and-such is pseudoscience, but, "I'm not obliged to apply some arbitrary rule to decide that such-and-such, which is science by any obvious metric other than popularity among scientists, is somehow not scientific."

This is very bad reasoning. It's not a minor argument to argue on the basis of what the vast, vast majority of experts in some field believe. The criteria and studies that go into such consensuses are anything but arbitrary or dismissible.

Almost all of these churches have very simple definitions for what counts as a Christian, and by the vast majority of those simple definitions, Mormons meet the standard. These organisations start clarifying extra hoops to jump through only when you mention Mormons.

It's not at all like science, because this is about what words mean, not about empirical observations. No empirical observations can tell you what the word "Christian" means. It's definitional.

Ask the majority of Christians, "how can I know if something is a Christian?" They'll tell you one, two, or three criteria, if someone fits those criteria they're a Christian. Almost without fail, Mormons pass any intuitive criteria for being a Christian.

Did you know many protestants say Catholics aren't Christian?

These fuckers really love gate keeping the word.

Almost all of these churches have very simple definitions for what counts as a Christian, and by the vast majority of those simple definitions, Mormons meet the standard. These organisations start clarifying extra hoops to jump through only when you mention Mormons. — flannel jesus

I don't think this is right at all. It is not a coincidence or a conspiracy that Christians do not find Mormons to be Christian. The way that Mormons conceive of God, Christ, the afterlife, and original sin all differ drastically from historical Christianity. And that doesn't even touch the absurd rabbit hole of Joseph Smith and the birth of Mormonism.

It's not at all like science, because this is about what words mean, not about empirical observations. No empirical observations can tell you what the word "Christian" means. It's definitional. — flannel jesus

If we have to ignore 99% of what Christian leaders and scholars throughout history have said on what constitutes the essence of Christianity, then we are engaged in post hoc rationalization. Anyone who is truly interested in understanding a religion will attend to the leaders, doctrines, and history of that religion.

Ask the majority of Christians, "how can I know if something is a Christian?" They'll tell you one, two, or three criteria, if someone fits those criteria they're a Christian. Almost without fail, Mormons pass any intuitive criteria for being a Christian. — flannel jesus

I think this is entirely false. Or else, if your method is finding the most ignorant person in the room and hoping they help your case, then your method is deeply flawed. Those who are knowledgeable of what Christians have historically believed and practiced, and what Mormons believe and practice, do not conflate Christianity and Mormonism.

So you are a Mormon, then?

Did you know many protestants say Catholics aren't Christian? — flannel jesus

Did you know that's false? Unless by "many" you mean "a small minority." We can't just redefine words whenever it suits our purposes.

These fuckers really love gate keeping the word. — flannel jesus

:roll:

The problems with Mormonism and the mendacity of Mormon apologetics go deep, and should definitely be opposed. But that is a separate matter. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the vast divergences between Mormonism and Christianity. For example, South Park mocks both, but as it turns out they still require separate episodes.

Well, Spinozists like me don't "believe in Spinoza's God" or that "everything is God" either because (A) only natura naturans (e.g. laws of nature) are real and (B) everything else, or natura naturata, is not real (i.e. merely exists transiently ... like breath on a mirror or footprints in beach sand at low tide or the shapes of clouds). The characters (& plot devices) in the Bible/Quran also are not divine – do not "reveal God"; they are just superstitious fictions (according to Spinoza).

I'm thinking English is not your native language, because what I wrote you're simply not reading right. I invite you to reread. If you want to ask about or challenge what I did write, then we can go from there.

On the contrary, English is my native language. Your approach to this topic is about what I would expect from the average American middle-schooler, but I think you are older than that, no? Making a strong distinction between a belief and an affirmation and then anachronistically projecting that distinction back in time such that creedal professions of Christian faith do not involve predication is a confusion that American youngsters are prey to, but the slightest historical knowledge of the Nicene Creed and its history would clear up such confusion (such as, for example, passing knowledge of the prolonged debates over the appropriateness of predicating homoousious of Jesus at Nicea I).

The idea that one professes the Nicene Creed without involving themselves in affirmations and predications is deeply confused, and I am not quite sure where to begin with such an idea. I can only ask you to engage the points and arguments that have already been given, rather than sidestepping them.

predications — Leontiskos

Ok. You tell me something about God. And you tell me how the Patristic Fathers would have responded to someone asking how tall God was, or fat, or skinny. or bald, or smart. The problem with facts is that they come with accidents, and the Fathers were in my opinion smart enough to recognize that if on the basis of some fact you were compelled to say what God is, then you have also said what He isn't, and I'm thinking they were smart enough not to go there. So it's not a question of worrying about beliefs, but instead about what you may be forced to say about facts. Apparently you are unable to distinguish between belief and knowledge, and suppose that they couldn't either. But don't feel alone; I have lots of neighbors who cannot either.

also feels vulgar to include Mormonism into Christianity. The latter has centuries of sophisticated and curated thought building its tradition, the former is dumb as soon as you bat an eye on it — Lionino

There are literally hundreds of Christian denominations, if not thousands. You'd be hard pressed to explain why Mormonism fails to fit the general definition yet continue to hold the others do.

Your reference also to "Christianity" as a single monolithic belief system that has marched forward for the past 2024 years references no actual religion or belief system.

Denominations split to this day

For a list of denominations:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations

Mormonism began in 1830, but it's not as if the other Christian traditions all trace back 2000 years and have held consistently throughout. Fundamentalism, for example, traces back to the early 1900s.

For a list of 62 denominations that began in the 19th century: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Christian_denominations_established_in_the_19th_century

Christianity is not immutable and the relative antiquity of one denomination over another doesn't afford it greater legitimacy.

Protestantism generally relies upon a restorationist theology where they claim their views restore the true beliefs of the church lost by the Catholics (of which there are varying movements within that tradition as well). The point being that it is well accepted among Christians that the church does change, leaving the various denominations to argue what it truly ought to be.

But, sure, a Catholic can deny a Baptist is a Christian and insist upon his prescriptive definitions, but that would serve no purpose other than provocation, as it's not like the terminology usage will change among the traditions nor will the belief systems

IIRC Mormons hold that JC is the literal son of god and not god himself placing him outside of the nicean-creed understanding of christianity.

The difficulty is that your thesis is so far beyond the pale.

Beginning in the 17th century there emerged a historical school which argued for a low Christology based on Enlightenment/naturalist presuppositions. In my opinion it is already intellectually dishonest to approach history with an anti-supernatural dogma, for in that case the conclusion that Jesus was not divine is a fallacious petitio principii rather than a substantial conclusion. Thus I would call such people "faux historians." Nevertheless, there is at least precedent for such an approach, and therefore it is not beyond the pale in a cultural or scholarly way.*

But the proponents of a low Christology have always had to contend with Nicea I, given that it obviously represents a high Christology. Thus progression theses were developed, such as the Hellenization thesis, which sought to make the high Christology of 325 consistent with the supposed low Christology of Christ’s life, three centuries earlier.

What you are doing is actually unheard of, and I have never seen anything like it. In one way or another, you are trying to deny that Nicea I represents a high Christology. Not even the faux historians are willing to engage in the mental gymnastics required to support such a bizarre thesis. Nicea I is simply a data point of high Christology. It is in no way up for grabs by proponents of a low Christology, and no one disagrees on this! Such a thesis would be the flat-earthism of historical theology, and the argumentation which claims that if the Christians at Nicea had wanted to make affirmations and predications then they would have used “fact-language” instead of “belief language,” is on par with the argumentation for a flat Earth. I don't usually engage flat-Earthers, and so I find myself in an odd spot.

* This approach is now crumbling, first because Enlightenment presuppositions are becoming more delineated and contextualizable, and second because the natural interpretive context of Second-Temple Judaism has replaced the artificial Enlightenment context, thus upending the Enlightenment conclusions. For those who are interested, three days ago Larry Chapp interviewed Brant Pitre on a closely related topic, “Jesus and divine Christology.”

Ok. You tell me something about God. And you tell me how the Patristic Fathers would have responded to someone asking how tall God was, or fat, or skinny. or bald, or smart. The problem with facts is that they come with accidents, and the Fathers were in my opinion smart enough to recognize that if on the basis of some fact you were compelled to say what God is, then you have also said what He isn't, and I'm thinking they were smart enough not to go there. So it's not a question of worrying about beliefs, but instead about what you may be forced to say about facts. Apparently you are unable to distinguish between belief and knowledge, and suppose that they couldn't either. But don't feel alone; I have lots of neighbors who cannot either. — tim wood

This is the sort of non-argument I would expect from a flat-Earther. Like it or not, there is predication about Jesus occurring in the Nicene Creed, and it is obviously supernatural predication:

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end. — Beginning of Nicene Creed

"Ah, but they didn't really affirm any of that because in the 17th century an (ultimately unsupportable) distinction between facts and mere beliefs emerged," is not a real argument. It doesn't even come close to a real argument.

You may be confused about the Christian balance of apophaticism and cataphaticism, but this is beside the historical fact that Nicea I affirmed and predicated of Jesus a high Christology. Dismissing the historical realities on the basis of quasi-theological hunches will not do. If you want to promote a low Christology you should follow in the footsteps of your forebears and avoid Nicea I at all costs, rather than pretend that it supports your conclusion! Your strange anachronistic claims about "beliefs" end up being little more than unfalsifiable arguments.

Mormons aren't Christian, neither are Kardecists. — Lionino

The number of Americans who see such claims as contestable speaks volumes about the American approach to religion. :sad:

But if you follow the pluralistic argumentation closely, the proper conclusion is that no one can say anything substantial at all when it comes to religion or the supernatural (and Tim Wood projects this mindset back into the 4th century). So it's not, "Mormons are Christian," but rather, "You said something substantial about the Mormon religious status, and you're not allowed to do that," or, "If someone says that they are something, then they are. You aren't allowed to contradict them." Luckily, this approach is open even to those who know nothing about Mormonism or Christianity.

If we have to ignore 99% of what Christian leaders and scholars throughout history have said on what constitutes the essence of Christianity, — Leontiskos

No that's exactly what I'm saying Mormonism fits. Why don't you tell me what you think they said constitutes the essence of Christianity?

Useful at this point to make explicit what we seem to disagree on. I take issue with the proposition that God exists in any material sense, which claim is fatal to any religion that supports it, and these days ultimately fatal to the religion itself. That is, I can describe God as being anything or in any way I like, as I can describe a unicorn as being a horse with a single horn on its forehead - which does not affirm its existence. On the other hand, if I hold that God is real in any material sense, then He is, demonstrably, this or that. This a distinction, if you will, between attribution and predication. *And between supposing and presupposing.

And based on secondary readings, I conclude that the early Christian thinkers understood this very well. That they could presuppose God's existence, take it as given, and thereby not worry about the problems that existence itself poses - attribution but no predication. Thus the creed's "We believe...". How or when or why it became, "I believe," I don't know. but on that difference one of us right and the other wrong.

You, if I understand aright, maintain that they held that God existed. I merely that they believed that God existed and were explicit in that distinction. No doubt many then, and now - I have met many - are incapable of this distinction. But I am pretty sure that insistence on His actual, real material existence, and especially with regard to the consequences of that claim, would be a heresy that might have got up a barbecue, these days an excommunication.

^Later edit.

3 because monotheism appears wherever humans begin to seriously write what they're thinking. The most respectable philosophical schools are monotheist starting from Xenophanes and Heraclitus, the most respectable schools in Hindu philosophy Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Yoga. Monotheism is just the most reasonable view given the history of philosophy and some would even argue there can be certain knowledge of God's existence. Having said that, it would be painful because loving Jesus is much easier than loving God who didn't incarnate and also I would say I'm more certain of Jesus' Divinity than my ability to figure out everything.

IIRC Mormons hold that JC is the literal son of god and not god himself placing him outside of the nicean-creed understanding of christianity. — BitconnectCarlos

I know the Mormon view of the trinity is distinct in that they believe it to be 3 separate beings, making it a polytheism. It can be argued that the triunity of other denominations ultimately fails and is actually a polytheism anyway.

As to the rejection of the Nicean Creed,

"Non-Trinitarian groups, such as the Church of the New Jerusalem, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Jehovah's Witnesses, explicitly reject some of the statements in the Nicene Creed."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed#:~:text=Non%2DTrinitarian%20groups%2C%20such%20as,statements%20in%20the%20Nicene%20Creed.

The schism between the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church relates to the addition of "and the son" to the Creed:

As the Creed states:

"I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets."

This makes Jesus co-equal to the Father, which is not universally accepted. In addition to Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglicanism also questions the "and the Son" language.

This is the filoque controversy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filioque

Anyway, the point being that "Christianity" describes a wide range of views and even the the Church's early efforts to crystallize the faith into a concise summary isn't universally accepted.

Suppose you somehow became convinced that Christianity is false. Suppose you came to believe that Jesus was just a man. — Art48

Been there, done that.

Except that I don't consider Christianity "false". There are no "true" religions so there can't be any "false" ones. Religions begin; grow and flourish because they satisfy the needs of their members; increase in complexity; continue on for a long time; or begin to fail and may go extinct. As far as I know, nobody is making sacrifices to Jupiter or praying to Zeus. Competition is a factor, as is outright suppression. Christianity both competed and suppressed.

Jesus was a man. Unfortunately, his biography was a highly partisan project. There weren't any impartial inquiries into his activities and ideas. I believe Jesus was an itinerant preacher who attracted a following. He had some very good ideas which remain worthwhile.

It's a lot easier to put up with this (probably) very scruffy, (quite possibly difficult) man, than his latter day followers, and the 2000 year accretion of dogma.

4. None of the above. I would do something else. — Art48

I first did what a lot of Christians have done -- I absented myself from the church. Later on I developed more specific objections to Christian belief and practice (and the beliefs and practices of the other two received religions).

I may believe in God (some days yes, some days no) but in any case, I'm not an atheist. Atheists seem to feel their non-belief is some sort of great accomplishment. It's not.

Probably the worst sermon topic for any preacher, priest, or pastor is what they have to deal with on Trinity Sunday. Explaining the Trinity, and why/if/how it is important to following Jesus is damned hard, if not nigh unto impossible. It's worse than the Immaculate Conception the Virgin birth, miracles in the wine cellar, and so on.

But I am pretty sure that insistence on His actual, real material existence, and especially with regard to the consequences of that claim, would be a heresy that might have got up a barbecue, these days an excommunication. — tim wood

" [LDS] Church members believe that "The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Mormonism#:~:text=LDS%20Church,-Latter%2Dday%20Saints&text=Church%20members%20believe%20that%20%22The,is%20a%20personage%20of%20Spirit.%22

On the other extreme:

Maimonides’ conception of God (the Jewish view of extreme monotheism):

"That also means that, in Aristotelian terms, one cannot actually say “God is . . .” and proceed to enumerate God’s attributes. To describe the Eternal One in such a sentence is to admit of a division between subject and predicate, in other words, a plurality. (Maimonides writes in Chapter 50 of the Guide, “Those who believe that God is One and that He has many attributes declare the Unity with their lips and assume the plurality in their thoughts.”) Therefore, he concludes, one cannot discuss God in terms of positive attributes.

On the other hand, one can describe what God is not. God is not corporeal, does not occupy space, experiences neither generation nor corruption (in the Aristotelian sense of birth, decay, and death). For obvious reasons, Mai­monides’ conception of the Supreme Being is usually characterized as “negative theology,” that is, defining by the accumulation of negatives. Maimonides writes, “All we understand is the fact that [God] exists, that [God] is a being to whom none of Adonai’s creatures is similar, who has nothing in common with them, who does not include plurality, who is never too feeble to produce other beings and whose relation to the universe is that of a steersman to a boat; and even this is not a real relation, a real simile, but serves only to convey to us the idea that God rules the universe, that it is [God] that gives it duration and preserves its necessary arrangement.”

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/maimonides-conception-of-god/#:~:text=God%20is%20not%20corporeal%2C%20does,by%20the%20accumulation%20of%20negatives.

And then there is the Catholic notion of the God head, which, candidly, I don't understand:

"In Catholic theology, we understand the persons of the Blessed Trinity subsisting within the inner life of God to be truly distinct relationally, but not as a matter of essence, or nature. Each of the three persons in the godhead possesses the same eternal and infinite divine nature; thus, they are the one, true God in essence or nature, not “three Gods.” Yet, they are truly distinct in their relations to each other.

In order to understand the concept of person in God, we have to understand its foundation in the processions and relations within the inner life of God. And the Council of Florence, AD 1338-1445, can help us in this regard.

The Council’s definitions concerning the Trinity are really as easy as one, two, three… four. It taught there is one nature in God, and that there are two processions, three persons, and four relations that constitute the Blessed Trinity. The Son “proceeds” from the Father, and the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” These are the two processions in God. And these are foundational to the four relations that constitute the three persons in God."

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/explaining-the-trinity

As to the rejection of the Nicean Creed, — Hanover

Using this as a criteria for considering someone a Christian has one really bizarre effect: it means many, probably most, perhaps all early Christians don't count as "Christian" either. Early Christians meaning the first couple centuries of Christianity.

[LDS] Church members believe that.... — Hanover

There seem two general questions in this thread, does God exist? Who gets to call themselves a Christian? The first oft pursued here and imho not to much effect, being a contest I style as being between rationalists on one side, and on the other the irrational. The irrational get to claim and argue as they like, but the waves of their thinking always break against the rock of the simple rational request for evidence. Which evidence, even if provided, would be as noted above and elsewhere fatal to most conceptions of God and problematic for all.

As to who gets to call themselves a Christian, as the whole topic is based in nonsense, who cares?!

But this not to say that the idea of a god is nonsense, which I take as a powerful regulative idea. But the idea of (a) god not the topic here, being itself a serious topic - the topics here being about nonsense and in some cases the learned exposition of the histories of the development of that nonsense - this latter part, unravelling the history of ideas held by people, being what some people call and understand as metaphysics.

As to who gets to call themselves a Christian, as the whole topic is based in nonsense, who cares?! — tim wood

But this was the subject of the OP. It asks what a Christian would do if he were to learn that Jesus was but an ordinary man. If we are convinced that a Christian must accept the divinity of Jesus, then the answer is that person would necessarily cease being a Christian.

I think there's room for the counter-argument, which is that the person could remain very much a Christian because Christianity isn't defined in the brittle way that many demand it be. A common attack on theism by atheists is to point to the most unworkable parts of specific theistic theological systems and then to declare there is no God.

I'm not Christian, but should I one day consider it, it won't be based upon a literal belief that a woman bore God so he could be sacrificed in order to forgive the world of sinfulness, but it would be instead because I might find the primacy that that belief system places upon forgiveness worthwhile of believing in.

I'm not Christian, — Hanover

How do you know, if a person may ask?

Why don't you tell me what you think they said constitutes the essence of Christianity? — flannel jesus

Where to start? As far as I'm concerned Mormons do not even believe in God. They think that "God the Father" was once a mortal human who, through Mormon doctrine, eventually became "God," or became god of the planet Earth. Mormons think they too will be able to become a god like "God the Father" became a god, with their own planet. When monotheists look at this sort of thing the obvious conclusion is that Mormons do not believe in God at all.* Or at the very least, "Mormons believe in God" requires a remarkable degree of equivocation.

This is a good example of the fact that any resemblance between Mormonism and Christianity is only superficial. Those in this thread who are claiming that there are no substantial differences between Mormonism and Christianity, despite the unanimous testimony of knowledgeable Christians and scholars, have no idea what they are talking about. It beggars belief that folks in this thread are claiming that those who distinguish Christianity from Mormonism only do so on an ad hoc basis. The content and claims in this thread are falling below even what one might expect from Reddit.

(I have Covid and am trying not to post on more complicated topics, but this topic is easy enough.)

* Note too that this falls short of classical polytheism, which generally posits an ontological distinction between gods and humans.

As to who gets to call themselves a Christian, as the whole topic is based in nonsense, who cares?! — tim wood

No one cares whether Mormons call themselves Christian. The question is whether they are Christian. The question is whether Christianity means anything at all. The pluralistic counter-arguments are simply vacuous.

I have an acquaintance who knows absolutely nothing about any religions. He was raised atheist and does not care at all. He also has a very strong opinion that all religions are the same. This results in the silly claim, "I know nothing about religion, but I have a strong opinion that all religions are the same." Of course his opinion is not worth a dime, but he is nevertheless welcome to hold it. This thread is just a redux, "I know nothing about Christianity, but I have a strong opinion that we cannot say that Mormons are not Christians." Three cheers for uneducated opinions. :clap:

That one does not care about a question does not show that the question is nonsense or unimportant. It merely shows that it is outside their scope of interest. And to opine on things that one has no knowledge of or interest in is to claim to know what they obviously do not know, and when people claim to know what they do not know the well of quality discourse is poisoned.

How do you know, if a person may ask? — tim wood

I'm circumcised, so I just assume someone had good reason.

You didn't answer what you quoted though.

For me, and I am likely in the minority, the historical facts are not necessary to appreciate/even if one wishes, to adhere to the message.

If Jefferson et. al. were mythological, and if I were an American, I might still appreciate and live by the Constitution.

If Socrates and Kant were mythological, I might still appreciate and live by the philosophies contained therein.

Why can't I appreciate and adhere to Christian principles and deny its history. Who says that you have two choices, believe and belong, or reject and stay clear?