Are You A Christian?
 

Mainly in response to the thread Do Christians feel welcome here? I started to wonder how many of the members here consider themselves Christian.

Although for most people, the question "Are you a Christian?" can be answered with a simple 'yes' or 'no', I also know that if these were the only options, there would be complaints along the lines of "I'm a New-Age-Satanic-Wiccan-Atheist-Agnostic-Zen-Buddhist-Christian, what am I supposed to vote for?" So, if you can answer 'yes' or 'no', do so, for others; rather than try and account for lots of various categories and categorisations, instead I have provided three in-between answers. Use them as you please.

EDIT: Also, I did a search, but couldn't find anything. So appologies if this has been done before.

Nope, not at all.

What's the estimated population do you think?

Yes, I am.

My guess is :

30% Yes
5% Mostly
5% Somewhat
10% A bit
50% No

Simply based on my general perception, and the connotation of being "mostly" Christian versus being "a bit" Christian.

EDIT: Oh, and no.. I'm not. I prefer logic. :D :D

How about some variation on "I used to be?"

It would make the No's more interesting. I'd fall into that crowd, as would numerous friends who chose a path other than the one their family started them on.

I don't consider myself to be any less of a Christian because I don't believe that the bible should be understood literally by any means (old or new testament), or because I don't believe the bible should be considered to be anything remotely resembling a historical document, or because I believe that there is worth and validity in other forms of religious thought and other scriptures. Neither do the many other Christians who feel the same way I do. So, I voted yes. If you ask anyone who's even remotely an evangelical, fundamentalist, or born-again Christian though, I am most certainly a heathen who is going to 'hell.' Wherever they think 'hell' is. :rolleyes:

I still voted yes.

(I'll also edit the poll to add an "I used to be" option.)

not at all.. of course this may shock some of you

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: *SHOCKED FACE* :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

For reasons I hinted at in my original post I choose against giving any sort of comprehensive options. The whole area of personal religious belief is just too 'rich' to be able to be comprehensive in a single poll. (If you're not a christian, were you ever? What are you now? A different major religion? Which one? Maybe you aren't religious at all? Are you 'spiritual but not religious'? Or just plain atheistic? Do you consider yourself agnostic or 'properly atheistic'? If you are Christian, would you say you are an 'Evangelical'? Or are you more of a 'liberal' Christian? Are you an actively practicing Christian, or more of a passive believer? Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc! :crazy: )

Yep and proud of it.....I cant live by logic alone

If you asked my parents, I would either be "used to be" or "somewhat". The real answer is that I never was, despite being dragged to church and going to a private school with required chapel and religous study classes. In the end, I just don't care.

I think that the interesting question that would come out of this would be "if you used to be a Christian, what made you stop believing?" Or something along the lines of "Define yourself as a 'somewhat' Christian". To be honest, this seems like a yin/yang type of thing because you believe or you don't. I don't see how you can believe in half-measures.

Can someone elaborate for me?

Christian
From Wikipedia,
A Christian is a follower of Jesus Christ. There are different interpretations of what exactly that entails, however. In any case, Christians by definition are a part of Christianity...

Yes, i'm a Christian and it seems a bit of an easy answer either you believe or you don't you can't somewhat believe or mostly believe.

No, I'm not Christian.
This may be hard to comprehend from a Christian point of view, but I consider myself Jewish - not so much religiously as culturally.
I'm not sure if I believe in a God, or all of the events and miracles in the Torah. I do, however, believe that there is probably some historical basis for the religious texts - considering that various other ancient writings speak of similar events occuring, such as the flood from which the story of Noah's Ark comes.
Why am I going into this? Well, some non-religious people claim that they're not religious because they don't believe the things in the texts existed or happened. I'm not claiming certain events and people didn't exist or happen, but I'm just not sure if I agree with the reasons and ways that they happened. For example, I do believe Jesus the person existed. I just don't believe all the Christian texts associated with his birth and mission. To me, he is just a person that preached Judaism from a different perspective and ended up having a lot of influence.

As for my religion - well, Judaism is just rich with tradition. I mean, nearly every Jewish person you meet can probably come up with fond memories of grandparents and passover and latkes and matzo ball soup and singing, dancing etc. There are also certain values that Jews hold highly which I respect and agree with. I feel that I share, through lineage, a history. Most Jews were born of Jewish mothers (as opposed to conversion, as Judaism doesn't try very hard to convert people) and therefore, to me, it is almost like a race. I mean, if people can dig up traces of that lineage from our past and murder us for it (as has been done), it really does bring it out of the realm of religious belief.
So, while I do not really act like a Jew in the religious sense, I feel strongly connected to the religion, history, and to other Jews.
Also, while I am not so much a believer in any specific religious texts, I do believe that there are supernatural forces of some sort on earth. I won't go around preaching their existance, however, because we can never really know, right? I just like to think there are.

no as in never was. Jewish if anything.

My mom is very religious.. My parents both go to a nondenominational church that I actually like quite a bit.

I used to be into church when I was younger, but once I got into the later years of high school and college I kinda fell away from it. I do believe in God and I think the Bible is the source of a lot of wisdom, but I'd rather do whatever the hell I want right now.

I started praying again in boot camp though.

Question? What if we are New-Age-Satanic-Wiccan-Atheist-Agnostic-Zen-Buddhist-Christian? :D , feh i'll just go with 'yes'.

I agree.

Taking polls for this or that is one thing, but taking polls for the simple use of putting everyone into nice, neat piles for labelling isn't really a worthwhile endeavor.

I think there are enough other discussions on who is what religion in the philosophy forum, not to mention the thread that inspired this one is pretty much taking care of the "what religion is everyone" question pretty well by itself, but with some measure of discussion.

So, unless someone has something compelling to say, I don't think it's necessary for this thread to be around. Let's have some discussion and prove me wrong. So far I see the poll resulting in some numbers... but no discussion to show for it. Let's make it happen.

- analog.

Nope.

Dad was Mennonite, when he was religious. Mom is Southern Baptist. I went to a Lutheran preschool and bible school until I got old enough to go to the "teen" classes at the Mennonite church for a week in the summer. Never fit in, never was able to remember any of the memorization stuff, though i could sing you the entire lyrics to 'Brass Monkey' and 'Like A Virgin' at the time. It never felt right. Not to mention the smoke coming out of my feminist mother's ears during the one sermon at the Mennonite church that I remember us sitting through. And my preschool pastor was creeeeeeeeeepy. I have respect for every type of faith, doing the work that I do, but still haven't found anything that works for me. And I'm okay with that, though my family is still very touchy about the whole situation. It's about respecting each other's beliefs and not making them feel uncomfortable to be Christian or not in a forum that is quite open-minded. We need labels here, why?

What is a Christian? I'm serious. There's about one definition per TFP poster. By "Christian" you could mean not Muslim or not Jewish or not Atheist. Anyway, I'm sure you already thought of that.

I am a Christian, but I'm a practicing Bible believing Christian. I'm not just "Christian" as in not-something-else.

Well, I never realised asking a question such as this was such a touchy subject.

A mod can go ahead and delete this thread if desired.

Yep and I feel perfectly welcome here.

Once upon a time....

Not at all. Second generation unbabtised godless heathen, though I consider myself an agnostic. ;)