And just because someone keeps the ten commandments ~ or at least tries to uphold them to the best of his / her ability ~ doesn't make that person a Christian. So what does it make this person? ~ An unsaved sinner???

Is it better to be a really bad sinner, who is a Christian, or a truly decent person, who cannot believe that Jesus is God?

People do not need the Bible in order to adhere to a moral code. The Bible does contain some some good teachings on morality, but it also contains some dreadful teachings~

~giving one's daughters to strangers for sex
~slaughtering babies
~seducing one's father
~betraying one's most faithful follower

Is that the kind of morality that I want to have held up before me as God's good example?
I think not.

I don't dislike the word 'sin' because I feel guilty, I dislike it because it is over-used by Christians, for reasons I cannot yet understand, except that it is somehow to try to make us all feel guilty about everything.

While I used to carry this burden of guilt on my shoulders, I no longer do. If I do something wrong ~ something specific, I feel bad about it & try to put it right, but I see no reason to feel bad when I haven't done anything. I refuse to carry the guilt of Eve, who probably didn't exist and whose only sin was to eat fruit when she was only one day old.

Jews talk about sin too, but don't bother their neighbors about it.

And I understand that they do not believe in the Christian concept of 'original sin'.

If they don't, and Jesus was a Jew, and Christianity is supposedly based on Jesus, how did Christianity re-interpret 'sin'??

They should, it's the reason they exist as a nation, it's part of the covenant made with Yahweh. They would be blessed by God and in return they would point the world to the true God.

Yes that's true, but again I see people at work, my kid's school... and you can tell. You usually don't even have to talk about God, but when you do you just know. And as for attending church and reading your Bible, of course it makes you a better Christian.

Did going to medical school make you a better doctor or did you just know what you know from birth? You see Victor we don't know how to be Christians by nature. In fact our very nature is sinful and in rebellion against God, so we need instructions. We need to know how to act, and how to behave, so we read our instruction book just like everyone else.

well i think lots of people can go to church twice a week and go to bible study regularly - and i have a feeling they are not particularly good christians - but they sure look the part.

its alot more to walk the walk than just show up and talk the talk.
i don't know about the med school analogy -
actually - i know many people who went to med school. i'm not sure i'd want all of them to be my doctor... and its not because they are not smart or knowledgeable. there is something about them at heart that makes some of them good doctors .. and you can't teach it no matter how hard you try. isn't the same true for being a good christian?

yes victor that is true. I have never stated I am a "good" christian. Being good on my own is of no merit. My goodness comes from what Jesus did on the cross. His pain, my release and the pieces fit. I cannot atone my own sin. During OT times there was the blood atonement which was required to rid one of their sins. When Jesus came, He became the sacrificial lamb. You are correct when you state that just going to church does not do it. There has to be a personal relationship with Jesus.

We all fail God miserably at one time or another.

Blessings,

LL

Dying on the cross has nothing to do with your "goodness."

He can die on the cross all he wants to and you can still be a miserable person. But you're forgiven, no matter what you do, because you believe that he died to forgive you.

What a crock.

Christianity as a religion is total nonsense.

Would you say that Jesus, as a human, was a 'sinner'?

How do you know that you are right, though?

Don't you notice other good decent people who are not Christians?

Don't you notice real committed Christians, whom you actually don't get this positive feeling about?

I know a couple of Christians who seem to just light up any room they enter. On the other hand, I know those who are a very poor advert for their religion.

There are Christians who have shown some surprise that I can be such a decent person & be an agnostic, rather than a Christian. But then, of course, God works in mysterious ways and just because I haven't committed myself to Christianity, yet, doesn't mean that Jesus isn't working through me, does it?

It would appear that there is always an answer ~ always an explanation ~ for the times when non-Christians appear to follow the Christian code better than some Christians do ~ yet the Christians still want to label everyone as 'sinners'.