The ones who love Christianity bashing but ironically, embrace Islam especially. It does not bother me in the slightest. If I live long enough to see enough Muslim control of our Government, I will only be able to say I told you so, when they realize the mistake they made.
No I'm pretty sure you have to actually live up to his moral teachings as well, which the vast majority of people who consider themselves to be Christians, fail as in an almost depressing manner.
I have this debate with my pastors at Church. They do like to tell people that they are saved solely through grace and faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible is relentless in it's teaching that you must love your neighbour, serve your family and community etc. I personally believe that faith without works/action is futile. I would also argue that if someone is truly following Christ, then one, by default should be doing their utmost to serve anyway. A man/woman should serve according to their ability. I am an able man so I should be doing more than someone who is unable.
"Some" ? I would argue the number is much higher. I mean come on ... when we have folks like Ben Carson arguing that theory of Evolution was an evil plot hatched by Satan ... does this not set the "nutbar" alarm off ?
Is it possible that you don't fully understand the purpose of the biblical stories? Their purpose is to teach complete obedience and loyalty to the Boss. It doesn't matter what the Boss tells you to do. The Boss is the person who has the power to kill you if you piss him off. The only thing that matters is that you do it without whining about it. If he tells you to stone your disobedient child to death then get some rocks and start stoning him till he's dead. If he tells you to kill everyone in a town and all of their animals you do it without showing compassion as Saul did. If Yeshua says that he will toss you into the fire and get burned to death if you abandon him then you had better stick to him like glue. If you are told to build a boat and get all of the animals and their food on it you get busy even if you don't know what a boat is. The rule is to do exactly whatever you are told to do regardless of how asinine you may think it to be without deviation. It is like a military code of conduct for everyone. Follow orders even if go doing so will result in your death or grievous bodily harm. IMO the Bible is beautifully written because all of the stories illustrate that rule and they use one or more of the Ten Commandments from Exodus 34:11-28 to do it. That is true of the New Testament as well. So if you don't know what the real Ten Commandments are you will have a difficult time understanding the stories. And the stories are just that, fictional stories. They don't depict actual events except in some scenes from the Maccabee books.
How many things did Yeshua ever say that were moral? He said that he had only been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He called Gentiles dogs and swine and told his Apostles to stay away from them. He condemned whole towns to hell fire because they didn't believe in his delusions.
And the only things in the bible that we can trust to be true are those things that we have historical knowledge of.
Christians use "being saved" as an excuse to act like *******s. In their minds, god automatically forgives anyone who is a "christian" They think that anyone who is "saved" automatically goes to heaven regardless of any sins they committed in life.
Then they are completely misunderstanding the Bible and it's teachings. I know what you mean though, there are plenty of people who think that they will go to heaven if they simply believe, I do not believe personally that that is the case. Equally, one shouldn't do things with the intention of building up 'heaven points'.
Sola Fide "Salvation by Faith alone" is a primary doctrine of Protestantism. Orthodox and Catholic do not accept Sola Fide. Given that one of the primary purposes of religious belief is to gain entrance through the pearly gates - it is interesting that Christianity can not agree on what the correct salvation formulation is.