Christians believe it is more important to be a Christian than it is to be a good person.

I still maintain that an arguments validity only depends on whether the conclusion is necessary, given the premises. From the Wikipedia entry for "Logical Validity": "To say that an argument is valid is to say that the conclusion really does follow from the premises. That is, an argument is valid precisely when it cannot possibly lead from true premises to a false conclusion." In other words, an argument is valid if GIVEN THE PREMISES, the conclusion must be true. But this doesn't matter because I maintain that both premises are true. Furthermore, my opponent has not challenged the truth of either of the premises. All they have said is that some Christians do not believe premise number 2. Again, it doesn't matter if they believe it or not. The fact is, being a Christian and being a good person are logically distinct ideas. It is simply the case that it is possible to be a good person without being Christian. Therefore, it trivially follows that being a good person is not the same as being a Christian. So, premise #2 is definitely true. Is premise #1 true? I challenge everyone here to ask a Christian if they believe you can get to Heaven without believing that Jesus is the son of god. This is absolutely the basis of what it means to be Christian. All Christians admit that all men (and women) are sinners. Therefore, it is impossible to avoid wickedness at all times. Yet NO Christian will admit that it is possible to be a Christian without accepting that Jesus is God. This alone proves that being Christian is more important than being good. Now, I will respond directly to some of my opponent's objections: Objection 1: Christians DO believe that doing good deeds is important. Response: I do not doubt this at all. I never said Christians believe good deeds are unimportant. What I said was that it is MORE important to be a Christian than to be good. This objection is irrelevant. Objection 2: You can not be a bad person and be a Christian at the same time. Response: Two things. First, this is untrue. Christians will readily admit that nobody is perfectly good. We are all sinners. Therefore, if all people are sinners, but some people are Christians, then it logically follows that all Christians are sinners and therefore it is possible to be Christian and wicked at the same time. Secondly, this objection is also irrelevant since even if Christians were always good it is still possible, and I still maintain, that it is MORE important to them that they are Christian than it is to be good. These are the only two objections my opponent has put forth. Neither of them are successful and, in fact, both objections are irrelevant since they attack a claim I never made. I am not saying that Christians are bad people or even that it is possible for a Christian to be a bad person (even though ALL Christians admit that it is impossible for a human to be perfectly good; we are all sinners). All I am saying is that, to a Christian, it is MORE important to be Christian than to be a good person. Given the choice of being the thief on the cross, or being Ghandi (who was not Christian but was undoubtedly a good person), ALL Christians, if they are truly Christians, would choose to be the thief and not Ghandi. They would rather be someone who lived a wicked life but who found Jesus in the end, than someone who lived an inspiring and good life, but who never found Jesus. This does not mean they are bad people or that they want to live a wicked life. It only shows that it is MORE important to accept Jesus than it is to lead a good life. To put it another way, it is POSSIBLE to get to Heaven if you are wicked, but is is NOT POSSIBLE to go to Heaven without believing in Jesus. I don't see how any Christian can disagree with this statement, nor anyone who knows anything about Christianity. From this statement, it is trivially clear that although leading a good life and believing in Jesus Christ are BOTH very important to Christians, it is nonetheless still true that believing in Jesus Christ is MORE important than leading a good life.