For those who don’t find “far-right” to be an applicable descriptor with what is known currently, I acknowledge that the meme creator could have been more precise with their word choice. However, I feel the difference is academic:
We can replace “far right” with the easily verified “not leftist” without changing the meme whatsoever, primarily because the meme is about Nancy Mace and her mercurial, disingenuous opinion, not (directly) about the shooter.
Edit - I modified it, though I still find it to be a distinction without a difference - alt version for those who prefer (whoops missed one first time)
Mormons aren’t Christians, at least according to those Christians who hate Mormons. They might believe in Jesus Christ but they didn’t find him. This might seem like a distinction without a difference but only because it is.
No True Scotsman comes to mind.
Took me longer than I care to admit 😅
sorry for my lack of red circles
Don’t worry, I gotchu
https://youtube.com/shorts/8Ed8PGq5_EE
Ypu are mistaken as to how that argument goes.
The idea is that Christianity is a separate faith from Judaism because they have an entirely different set of texts and a different view of the relationship with God and what is expected of the faithful.
Islam is a separate faith of Christianity and Judaism as it too has additional texts and a different perspective on God than what Judaism and Christianity has (which again differ themselves).
Thus LDS is a different faith because it has a wholly new set of texts, it has a radically different view of the relationship with God than every other Abrahamic faith, and we have a lot of evidence that suggests Joseph Smith was outright fabricating everything. That’s a critical difference and suggests it should be seen as something else following the same standards applied to all otherAbrahamic faiths.
I wouldn’t say “wholly new set,” more like “additional set.”
The KJB is a foundation of their theology and taught in all their churches.
And yeah, he was making everything up; that’s how you start any religion. :)
All of Smith’s texts are wholly new fabricated by him.
The fact is we don’t have the quantity of evidence for the fabrication of most faiths to the extent we have for LDS.
Yet people still follow it, dude literally just made it up
True, it’s relatively new compared to the others.
I’m not mistaken as how that argument goes. I disagree with it.
In a different reply, I said "There is no authority, no person or group of people, authorized to decide who is a Christian and who is not. " and I stand with that. I didn’t deny that you can come up with arbitary criteria to exclude certain groups, especially when you are allowed to use vague language like “different perspective on God”.
Do you think Paul wrote all the letters by Paul? How is this a critical difference?
applied by whom? Applied by you and which army?
They found him at a 7/11 in Missouri, and then they get their own planet when they die. They’re like the Scientologists of Christianity. Which I think was L Ron Hubbard’s point.
There is no authority, no person or group of people, authorized to decide who is a Christian and who is not. That’s just not how such identity markers work.
Yes there absolutely are. If you don’t believe that Christ’s death on the cross redeemed the world of sin you are not Christian as that is the defining belief. There’s literally no point in the faith if you don’t accept this. By this standard LDS are Christians.
I gave a post earlier describing why you can assert that LDS is a different branch of Abrahamic faiths which I will repost below. This is of course ignoring that it is entirely acceptable to view LDS as a fraudulent creation by Joseph Smith.
"Ypu are mistaken as to how that argument goes.
The idea is that Christianity is a separate faith from Judaism because they have an entirely different set of texts and a different view of the relationship with God and what is expected of the faithful.
Islam is a separate faith of Christianity and Judaism as it too has additional texts and a different perspective on God than what Judaism and Christianity has (which again differ themselves).
Thus LDS is a different faith because it has a wholly new set of texts, it has a radically different view of the relationship with God than every other Abrahamic faith, and we have a lot of evidence that suggests Joseph Smith was outright fabricating everything. That’s a critical difference and suggests it should be seen as something else following the same standards applied to all otherAbrahamic faiths."
well actually, the death on the cross is not that important to mormons.
To summarize, the person you responded to stated
To which you responded,
Followed by a wall of text that presented absolutely zero authority figures authorized to decide who is, and isn’t, christian.
All you gave is YOUR criteria, but there’s no reason anybody needs to follow your criteria. You’re also not authorized to decide. That’s the point.
No True Scotsman
I never really thought about it but unlike Catholics who have the pope. Christians don’t have a lead authority. So yeah there is arguably an authority to say what is and is not Catholic but not an authority to say what is or isn’t Christianity
Other groups have authorities as well but there is no central authority to all. You can be expelled from a denomination but not from Christianity itself.
First I reject the assertion that no one can make that determination so your “No True Scotsman” is not applicable
To be clearer there is one standard that all Christians agree to which is the redemption of Christ. If you don’t think Christ died to redeem sin there’s literally no point in the religion.
The rest of my post explains why those that think LDS aren’t Christian and what their claims are.
There are different views on Jesus. Some would say he died because of the sin of the world, because he was sinless and so couldn’t live in a world full of sins. Some see him as a revolutionary who was cought and put to death to prevent the revolution. Some see it all very symbolic and allegorical. Some even deny Jesus was a real historic figure and see him purely as myth and still take value from his stories.
Ok? Im not sure what your point is. The redemption from sin is literally the one thing they all accept.
You said “died to redeem sin” and I put Christians who believe he died for other reasons or don’t even believe he existed at all and therefore didn’t die. Not sure if you’re moving the goalpost
Except those that don’t. You’re committing the fallacy right there. If those people over there that call themselves Christians don’t agree with your arbitrary criteria, then they’re not true Christians. Except your only evidence to back up your claim is, “trust me bro.” There’s no license or certificate from any kind of authority. It’s just you making shit up.
Allow me to demonstrate.
All Christians have a tattoo on their forehead of Jesus on the cross with a pool of blood at the base of the cross. Every year they go through a secretive cleansing and atonement ritual that culminates in an update to the tattoo that makes the pool of blood bigger. You can identify the most pious Christians by how big their pool of blood is.
If you don’t have this tattoo, then you’re not a Christian and your erroneous opinion of what criteria makes someone christian is irrelevant.
You need to have an actual example to present a counterfactual. You cannot presume one might exist and then argue as if your claims have validity.
If you can find an actual example of a Christian denomination that does not see Christ’s death on the cross as an act that redeems the world of sin you can press the No True Scotsman claim but it needs to be real and it isn’t.
You absolutely do not understand No True Scotsman, then.
This whole thing started with you arguing against someone that stated that there is no central authoritative body that decides who is and isn’t christian. You have yet to present one. Instead, you just present YOUR criteria, as if you’re the authoritative body, but your not, because there isn’t one.
I could call myself a Christian and make up whatever criteria I want that makes me qualified, and there’s nobody to stop me.
And even if I did, you would reject it because they don’t meet your definition of a Christian denomination, so I still failed to “find an actual example of a Christian denomination that…”
Wasn’t Paul the only one that said that? Plus, it wasn’t a new religion at the time. They all considered themselves Jewish at least until 70 ad.
None of the apostles said this directly. It’s literally the central dogmatic point everyone shares post schism. If Christ’s death isn’t redemptive there’s no point to the faith at all.
Again, not a new religion. They were a sect of Judaism.
There’s encyclopedias worth of schism and heresy, all just more reasons to hate one another, like true Christians.
I think most of the early christian churches agreed on which books and gospels are part the Bible and in which order. The interpretations and translations of them often differ though.
Some groups like the Mormons decided to add additional books nobody else thinks is “inspired by God”.
In my personal view a better comparison than Scientology would be Islam. They also added stuff with the difference that they “degraded” Jesus to a prophet and made Mohammed the central figure.
Canonization began in the 3rd century and took centuries to form the canons now used in the various denominations. The Ethiopian Church has the biggest canon, still I never heard anyone arguing they aren’t real Christians because they include Enoch and what not. “inspired by God” is language not all Christians would use. There are no official critieria for what is or is not a Christian, just infighting to belittle some groups.
Except we don’t have the outright evidence of fraud for Islam like we do for LDS
That’s only because Islam is older than 200 years and from a time before the printing press. If Joseph Smith had lived, say, 500 years earlier, Mormonism would be shrouded in the same “unprovability” that most other religions enjoy.
Other than the general acceptance that all religions are unsubstantiated fraud.
The catholic church uses thousands of pages of additional made-up stuff that other sects don’t believe in, from ex-cathedra edicts to the canonisation of saints, and the other Christian faiths don’t hold those as “inspired by god”. If that’s the primary difference, then the LDS faith is at the same level as Catholicism, not Islam.
I think the part with the saints is a fair point. Things like the catechism I see more as formalization of how to interpret the Bible. However, I agree with you it’s probably closer to that than Islam but my primary point was that it’s not much like Scientology.
And why would you listen to their definitions? They are Christianity, sure not mainline, but as kooky and deranged.
To be clear: I was being sarcastic. In a different reply I said that there is no authority who can decide who’s a real Christian and who isn’t. It’s all about self identification and they identify as such so they are Christians
No worries. I just don’t think they get to say they’re entirely different. It all leads back to the same thing.
I’m confused about what your point is and what you think mine is. My point is that Mormons are Christians and I made fun of people denying that. This isn’t rolling back or moving the goalpost or anything but just explaining my original intention and when you read the other comments you see that most understood it that way.
I read this as you guys agreeing - religious designations are arbitrary, you guys are just saying it from different POVs
I thought you were taking the side of those that deny them as Christians. It doesn’t matter anyway because I was just clarifying my position.
Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientology are all quite similar. They all have some modern founder (Smith / Russel / Hubbard) who has positioned themselves as a Abraham like figure within the religion. Someone who has been charged by god (or aliens) to write the scriptures.
They are all cults of personality, and a lot of American evangelical churches display similar traits. Charismatic preachers who become celebrities within the movement getting fame and power in the process. There seems to be something in the American psyche that gravitates to this kind of movement.
Christian or not - all of these are problems movements in my eyes.
Christian Science as well. It’s eerie how many overlaps they have with Mormons: founded by a single person (Mary Baker Eddystone), have a book they treat as scripture (Science and Health), believe they are the “one true way”, and tell people to “pray to know if the book [and the religion] is true”
So eerie, in fact, that it was the final nail in the head (so to speak) that allowed me to leave Mormonism for good
And wealth.
They also think Catholics aren’t Christians either.
Well, Catholics really aren’t Christians because they use a weird and theologically wrong handshape while praying /s