Re: OT-ish:Conlang Census

On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 10:24:17PM -0500, Carlos Thompson wrote:
> It all depends how close your definition
> of "Christian" is (I know that for some people "Christian" does not even
> include Catholics).
Except individuals and churches don't get to decide what the definition of
"Christian" is. :)  Any religion centered on the teachings of Jesus Christ
is by definition Christian, regardless of the details.  Now obviously
those details are hotly debated and differences therein have been the
pretext for war etc, but regardless of how wrong one may consider
another sect to be, if they worship Jesus, they're Christians.  Roman
Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Church of England, US Bible Belt Southern
Baptists, Jews for Jesus, whatever.

Now it's obviously not perfectly cut and dried; few
things are in real life.  The Mormons are admittedly a borderline
case since their holy texts include an entire new book of what they
believe to be Jesus's teachings, which are not recognized by other
Christian denominations as legitimate.

And one could argue that Islam is a Christian denomination as
well, since Jesus is recognized as a holy prophet and forerunner
of Mohammed - but his actual teachings have been superseded by
Mohammed's, and the Qu'ran does not include either the Jewish or
Christian Scripture as a component, although many of the same stories
are retold in it.

-Mark