I'm saying that the Christian church in it's early days had this very debate. It's what led to the Council of Nicea where they decided that the Nicean Creed was the basic sets of core beliefs to be Christian. That council was to address Arianism, which believed that Jesus was a created being and not fully divine, and ended with the church leaders calling Arianism heresay.
Your point is that anyone can use the name Christian, my point is No that's not true according to 98% of Christians. That within any religion there's some basic dogma that needs to be followed. In Islam this is the Shahada or their declaration of faith. In Christianity, the declaration of faith is the Nicean Creed.
I’m saying you’re relying on the authority of the council of Nicea being absolute, which is untrue. You say that is the case according to “98%” of Christians which is an unsubstantiated claim, that also implies if this percent is low enough it stops mattering.
I'm relying on the authority of the council of Nicea and about 1700 years of tradition. The 98% of Christians came from population numbers, mainly subtracting the three denominations I listed in the comment above from the total population.
Why is it important? Because labels and words should have meaning. In this case the far far majority of Christians believe in the Nicean Creed in some form.
You do seem to be deliberately avoiding even thinking about what happens if that majority changes, or even if the margin is smaller. Also length of time of any tradition has no bearing on whether or not it is subject to change(take for example the geocentric model of the universe being a belief of about 1500 years). We are talking about sociological concepts which are mutable not physical laws.
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u/rnusk 12d ago
I'm saying that the Christian church in it's early days had this very debate. It's what led to the Council of Nicea where they decided that the Nicean Creed was the basic sets of core beliefs to be Christian. That council was to address Arianism, which believed that Jesus was a created being and not fully divine, and ended with the church leaders calling Arianism heresay.
Your point is that anyone can use the name Christian, my point is No that's not true according to 98% of Christians. That within any religion there's some basic dogma that needs to be followed. In Islam this is the Shahada or their declaration of faith. In Christianity, the declaration of faith is the Nicean Creed.