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Originally Posted by Chris T
Not really. People's ideas about religion may shift one way and back again over time, but Christianity is underpinned by a written body of teaching that has not changed.
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Then how come there are so many sects?
How can Russ justify his statements that catholics are not christians if they use the same written body of teaching that has not changed?
When you say changed, at what point do you consider it unchanged?
The council of nicea?
After all, the written body of teaching was changed dramatically at that point, with many parts of the written body of teaching being discarded.
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Originally Posted by Chris T
I agree with your definition of faith in a person (human being). However you are misunderstanding the concept of a Christian's faith in God. The focus of Christian faith is not in whether God exists, it is in God himself, his character, and his reaction to situations - much the same as you stated above with relation to human beings. It certainly begins with a step of faith over the issue of whether he even exists but once that is established in the life of a believer, he can move on to other issues that grow out of that without constantly revisiting that first question. A Christian no more starts each day reminding himself that there is such a thing as God any more than you remind yourself that your chair won't collapse when you sit down for breakfast.
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Hence the "to all intents and purposes imaginary"
You base your faith on your deity not on how you know it to react, but how you have been told by others it will react, so you faith is based not on what you know of the deity, but on what you know of those who have informed you, many of whom you have not met and cannot meet, as they lived approx 1,950 years ago.
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Originally Posted by Chris T
So you say, but how?
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How is it not?
Using the empirically measured and observed and documented data that shows my chair will not fall over if I sit on it properly, I have faith that when I sit down, it won't fall over.
---------- Post added at 16:17 ---------- Previous post was at 16:16 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Russ B
I have faith in some things but not as powerfully as I have faith in Almighty God.
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Is there any reason why the way you have faith in other things, such as a friend, would be any different to the way someone else would have faith in a friend?
If he catches it in time, that question is also to Chris T