I do not agree and I do not disagree. How is that for a confused answer?

Religions are socially defined systems of belief. While disagreement exists on particulars within religions by those who do believe and follow all of the pillars of those religions, it is important to draw a line at some point.

"Catholics" who never go to church or take part in the community are not Catholics, for instance. Community is an integral part of the Catholic faith; to ignore this is to deny one of the major beliefs of the Catholic church. Catholics do not deny major beliefs of the Catholic church.

There is legitimate disagreement and discussion over the use of birth control in relationships where the goal is healthy, but waiting would be wiser. Those who disagree with the current positions of the Church do not disagree with the fundamentals on which the current position is built. They simply disagree on the implementation of these fundamentals to mean what, specifically, in living healthy, moral lives.

Those are my examples. Lots of people still identify themselves with groups which they have fundamental disagreements with and do not belong to [anymore].

"most of those"?

> V.Kemp wrote:

> Many people do hold themselves to the standards of their religions, Gladiator. That you call it "virtually impossible" to live up to the standards of many religions is just not true. Many people can call themselves what they are. And they ought to be proud to, as most of those religions you listed have very virtuous morals.

kemp, i still stand by my opinions, it's impossible in THIS day and age, there are disagreements between people in the same group, there will always be, everyone is raised in a different environment thus everyone grows up with different ehtical and moral beliefs
now when religous books were written they didn't say, oh you can follow this IF YOU LIKE IT

now i think people shouldn't say "I am ...."
cuz that would mean you represent a religion which you most likely are against in some points, there are no main points and small points ..those can vary from person to person

i think people should say "I think this...religion is best" or "i believe in this religion..."

I made a similar argument earlier regarding political ideologies.

I usually don't get to do this, but I'm taking a slight amount of credit for the advancement of this theory in the forums! 

>>there are no main points and small points ..those can vary from person to person<<

Religions are socially constructed. We're not talking about "main points" and "small points." We're talking about the foundations (values) on which religions are built and the evolving interpretations of what best ways there are to use those foundations in practice. Most religions have developed dogma. Many of them are continually developed, more and less.

I'll save my lecture on the philosophical views held by the west that led to this focus on faith and accepting jesus as opposed to right acts for another time, Sir SupAll. The Catholic church integrates right acts into its dogma more than most protestant churches.

>>so that we don't have to live perfectly, which nobody can do anyway.<<

"Murdur now the path of must we, just because the son has come"? You're raping Christianity and it's wrong.

>>Christianity isn't about rules. Its about freedom, if anyone says differently, they're wrong.<<

Christianity isn't ABOUT rules or freedom. And since you are saying it is and it isn't, you are wrong. If it's about freedom what freedom is that, the freedom to follow in Lucifer's path? If it's not about rules, are there not things that Christianity teaches us just not to do?

Rules, freedom, both common themes here. An element of Christianity is the freedom of choice that we have, and the rules or guidelines are the governing of it. Saying Christianity isn't about rules or freedom is a bit like saying a government isn't about laws and management.

I disagree with the statement in the original post. By saying we are such and such a denominatioin, then we are saying that we are so as people. As people, we are fundamentally flawed - we can never be perfect, we can never follow every rule that is set down, and therefore, as we say that we are people of a religion, we are not wrong. I am a practising Catholic, I attend mass every weekend, I take part in church events, I am now a eucharisitc minister, I am an Altar server and I read the readings. However, just because I practice so it does not necessarily mean that I am a follower of Catholicism. Being a Catholic, or any other Christian denomination, means caring for, not just the physical church and going through the motions, but taking care of the church that is the people, and we are all God's people, being a good moral person and standing up for good and so on are more important, and if you do these then you can still profess yourself a Christian, I believe, for you are as such and just because you do not go to church or something, it does not mean that you cannot profess yourself as a Christian. There is a point in that saying you are such and such yet not doing a thing about it makes you not such and such as you have professed, I agree to an extent there. The point is, many believers/professors of a faith and so on do try to overcome the barriers that present situations that would otherwise have caused a compromise, and whilst we cannot always succeed, (as I said, our own nature is often the cuase of failure,) those who try to act as their religion leads, (not dictates,) can fairly represent themsleves as the Church that they believe in, as God's people on earth.

That is why I disagree, Gladiator. I am glad of the way in which you present your argument and amicably ask others' opinions, not just tell them that they are wrong because you say so. 

see this is where you guys are getting me wrong, i'm not saying people who inject their own morals are wrong and are not part of the religion
i do that aswell, and i did before say "i'm a ----" but i was talking with this girl i used to go in highschool with, met her randomly, she has a P.H.D in philosophy and is in Germany right now, she's writing a book mainly about religions and the modernization of religions

now her view, which she convinced me off is that we are basically interpreting these religous books, now everyone has a different interpretation, mostly because of how they think and how they were influenced throughout their life and the environment they were raised in
we DO NOT know for 100% what was meant by what was written
we can assume, but we can never be 100% sure, NEVER unless you travel back in time
THUS it wouldn't be fair for us to be a representation of a religion that we all interpret differently, SURE there are some basic values that have to be believed but even those are values we have interpreted...
that's why i think we can't represent our religions we can only merely say that we believe most with the values of X religion..

Sunnet are basically there to go that extra mile, sorta
but that's SPECIFICALLY for that, it says it's for that, offcourse that again falls into assumptions and interpretations but i'll give you that...
if we could put our own morals into play then there would be no need for a religion, a phsyco serial killer has convinced himself that it is right to kill someone... he thinks it's right...

my point is, all we have are assumptions for which we can never know what was actually meant or if we were supposed to have assumptions and interpretations --> which is why we can't represent religions, we can't say "i'm a ....." because we can never know what that religion was really meant to be,
yes i agree that it's great to find ourselves through religion, and that quite possibly was the point of religions.. but i'm merely saying we can't represent them as what it means to us is not the same as what it means to another and that's where conflicts arise..

I know I am saying there are Catholics who say "I am a Catholic but I must disagree with the Church to be a Christian" they are not Catholic if they think that

BTW, Samuel L. Jackson = Best sig line ever.

Insofar as religions are socially defined and have very developed dogmas, we have a perfect idea of their values. We (the people involved in those religions) CREATED those values. We decided the values. We chose the texts. We created the doctrine around those texts and values.

You're AGREEing with YOURSELF. This makes as little sense as your proposal. You refuse to accept that people create the meaning in these religions. You keep referring to religions as if they are some traditions handed down to us by some God that we can never fully understand or live up to. They are created and maintained by PEOPLE. It's the people in a religion that determine that religion's course.

People live up to the standards and values of their religions every day. You're offensive to claim that they don't have every right to say "I am a Christian" when the word "Christian" is defined as describing them.