Christianity is the most inclusive faith, despite the fact that it is accused of being exclusive.

Hello Tatatize. I must say I am intimidated by your photo. So I changed my kitty assassin photo to a man wrasslin' a bear, just so I can feel a little more confidant against your "thinking man's look." Consequently (or not), I shall call you Tat for short. According to Thich Nhat Hahn a famous Buddhist author there is no such thing as a Buddhist, just one who agrees with Buddhist thinking. To say "I am" anything is incorrect. According to Buddhists all of us are Buddhists. This debate is in terms of each doctrine's ideas on obtaining "salvation" not in terms of what we all call ourselves. Anybody can call themselves Christian, Buddhist, or Muslim, doesnt mean they necessarily are. Sitting in a garage does not make you a car. Those that "do bad" try again, according to Buddhism, at a lower level. Thus they are behind the 8 ball each time. If there is some kind of punishment for bad that refuses you enter to nirvana than by definition you are not redeemed. If you are not redeemed because you were bad than my point is proved. According to Buddhist philosophy the bad are unredeemable, which make the bad ineligible for Nirvana. The term eventually actually because of past lives and such could refer to 20 billion years or so, or how about 600 billion years. If someone is "bad" and is recreated at a lower level than before, than it is more difficult for them to become more enlightened. Thus the downward spiral away from nirvana is exponential. And eventually that person could be a worm. And then what? If bad could eventually equal worm, I would define this definitely as exclusive. Especially if the requirement in Buddhism is to no everything. How many people do you know that are close to knowing everything? Probably not a soul. In fact one of the dichotomous tenents of Buddhism is that you can not know everything. Not everyone is intelligent enough to know everything in the universe. In fact I would argue that the Buddhist is right when he says you can not know everything in the universe. Requiring that a Buddhist knows everything about everything in order to achieve Nirvana does indeed exclude folks like me that still don't know how to be civil to my father. Your term "eventually reach Nirvana" could be replaced by "eternally seeking Nirvana" and a Buddhist would not argue with you. It is inclusive in that they are invited to believe it. Actually I do get to tally up all those that could. In fact that is exactly what I am doing. The child molester is not redeemable in Islam. He is only redeemable in Catholicism and Judaism if he is lucky enough to have God forgive him. My point is that Christianity offers REDEMPTION and the ASSURANCE of redemption without having to DO anything besides accept Jesus Christ as personal Lord and savior. To say that something is not inclusive when it allows people to be included is a strange argument on your part. I would say that, yes, by allowing people to be included you are in fact being quite inclusive. The debate was about Christianity and the major religions. I will not use exception as example if you do not use exception as example. Deal? I am sure if I tried hard enough I could find a Jonestown or Manson type "religion" to discredit this whole debate. So, allow us to keep it simple. By definition a Christian is one who believes that Jesus Christ is their personal Lord and Savior, that He is a redeemer necessary to bridge the gap between the disconnect that exists between man and God, a result of the Fall of Adam. So therefore any "cult" albeit LABELED Christian is not, by definition, Christian. So you are incorrect to say that Christianity is not one faith it is. I cant start Islam Part 2 and call it Islam. It wouldnt be fair to the folks that hold that faith near and dear. And as far as sects go (we call them denominations) they do all believe in the tenents I described above. Check out the WHAT WE BELIEVE sections of Pentacostals, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Assemblies of God, Church of Christ and on and on. It is incorrect to say that the umbrella of TRUE Christianity is as wide as you say. we are talking about the tenents of Christianity, not the tangents of some of its followers. Using some exclusivist thing the Pope said doesnt help your argument because Christians dont agree with what he said anyway. And seeing as I am a Christian and this is a Christian point of view, bringing the Pope's opinion into it means nothing to me. It is quite inclusive, because it means WE'RE ALL IN THE SAME BOAT. All of us start at the same starting line. Where as other faiths have righteous and unrighteous based on many criterior. Consider Islam: (Q'ran) SURA 6:164 - Each soul earneth only on its own account nor doth any laden bore another's load." So for those that have say murdered at the age of 13, they dont have enough TIME left in their life to tip the scales of righteous and unrighteous back in their favor before the time comes. They could use a man like Christ then, couldnt they? Chris was designed for the person who made mistakes, the one who needs help, the one who cant do it alone. The only exclusion happening is the self imposed exclusion of the man or woman who looks at CHrist and says "NO THANKS, BUB!" God bless