Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: What is the biggest sin for a Christian?
In contrast to the Jewish view of being morally balanced, Original Sin refers to the idea that the sin of Adam and Eve's disobedience (sin "at the origin") has passed on a spiritual heritage, so to speak. Christians teach that human beings inherit a corrupted or damaged human nature in which the tendency to do bad is greater than it would have been otherwise, so much so that human nature would not be capable now of participating in the afterlife with God. This is not a matter of being "guilty" of anything; each person is only personally guilty of their own actual sins. However, this understanding of original sin is what lies behind the Christian emphasis on the need for spiritual salvation from a spiritual Saviour, who can forgive and set aside sin even though humans are not inherently pure and worthy of such salvation. Paul the Apostle in Romans and I Corinthians placed special emphasis on this doctrine, and stressed that belief in Jesus would allow Christians to overcome death and attain salvation in the hereafter.
Thomas Aquinas says that greed "is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things." In Dante's "Purgatory", the avaricious penitents were bound and laid face down on the ground for having concentrated too much on earthly thoughts.
Meher Baba dictated that "Greed is a state of restlessness of the heart, and it consists mainly of craving for power and possessions. Possessions and power are sought for the fulfillment of desires. Man is only partially satisfied in his attempt to have the fulfillment of his desires, and this partial satisfaction fans and increases the flame of craving instead of extinguishing it. Thus greed always finds an endless field of conquest and leaves the man endlessly dissatisfied. The chief expressions of greed are related to the emotional part of man."
Both Christianity and Judaism believe in some form of judgment. Most Christians (the exception is Full Preterism) believe in the future Second Coming of Jesus, which includes the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment. Those who have accepted Jesus as their personal saviour will be saved and live in God's presence in the Kingdom of Heaven, those who have not accepted Jesus as their saviour, will be cast into the Lake of Fire (eternal torment, finite torment, or simply annihilated), see for example The Sheep and the Goats.
Exorcism in Christianity is the practice of casting out demons from a person they are believed to have possessed. The person performing the exorcism, known as an exorcist, is often a member of the Christian Church, or an individual thought to be graced with special powers or skills. The exorcist may use prayers and religious material, such as set formulas, gestures, symbols, icons, amulets, etc. The exorcist often invokes God, Jesus and/or several different angels and archangels to intervene with the exorcism. A survey of Christian exorcists found that most exorcists believe that any mature Christian can perform an exorcism, not just members of clergy. Christian exorcists most commonly believe the authority given to them by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (the Trinity) is the source of their ability to cast out demons.
Once one recognizes that Christianity has historically engendered antisemitism, then this so-called tradition appears as dangerous Christian dogma (at least from a Jewish perspective). For Christians, the concept of a Judeo-Christian tradition comfortably suggests that Judaism progresses into Christianity—that Judaism is somehow completed in Christianity. The concept of a Judeo-Christian tradition flows from the Christian theology of supersession, whereby the Christian covenant (or Testament) with God supersedes the Jewish one. Christianity, according to this belief, reforms and replaces Judaism. The belief therefore implies, first, that Judaism needs reformation and replacement, and second, that modern Judaism remains merely as a "relic". Most importantly the belief of the Judeo-Christian tradition insidiously obscures the real and significant differences between Judaism and Christianity.
The Council also said that even those who do not believe in Christ are related to the Church: "All men are called to be part of this catholic unity of the people of God which in promoting universal peace presages it. And there belong to or are related to it in various ways, the Catholic faithful, all who believe in Christ, and indeed the whole of mankind, for all men are called by the grace of God to salvation." However, it added immediately that those who, "knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved". In this way, the Catholic Church teaches that any person who knows that the Catholic Church is necessary for eternal salvation and knowingly rejects the Church with deliberate consent cannot be saved. On the other hand, "those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life."
Catholic belief holds that the church exists both on earth and in heaven simultaneously, and thus the Virgin Mary and the saints are alive and part of the living church. Prayers and devotions to Mary and the saints are common practices in Catholic life. These devotions are not worship, since only God is worshiped. The church teaches that the saints "do not cease to intercede with the Father for us. ... So by their fraternal concern is our weakness greatly helped."
The four classic cardinal virtues are temperance, prudence, courage, and justice. Christianity derives the three theological virtues of faith, hope and love (charity) from 1 Corinthians. Together these make up the seven virtues. Buddhism's four brahmavihara ("Divine States") can be regarded as virtues in the European sense. The Japanese Bushidō code is characterized by up to ten virtues, including rectitude, courage, and benevolence.
Christians ranked as the second most educated religious group around in the world with an average of 9.3 years of schooling. Christians were found to have the second highest number of graduate and post-graduate degrees per capita while in absolute numbers ranked in the first place (220 million). According to the study, Christians in North America, Europe, Middle East, North Africa and Asia-Pacific regions are highly educated since many of the world universities were built by the historic Christian churches, in addition to the historical evidence that "Christian monks built libraries and, in the days before printing presses, preserved important earlier writings produced in Latin, Greek and Arabic". According to the same study, Christians have a significant amount of gender equality in educational attainment, and the study suggests that one of the reasons is the encouragement of the Protestant Reformers in promoting the education of women, which led to the eradication of illiteracy among females in Protestant communities.
Augustine of Hippo, discussing the morals of the church, described them:
The "cardinal" virtues are not the same as the three theological virtues: Faith, Hope and Charity (Love), named in 1 Corinthians 13. 
"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
Because of this reference, a group of seven attributes is sometimes listed by adding the four cardinal virtues (prudence, temperance, fortitude, justice) and three theological virtues (faith, hope, charity).
Together, they comprise what is known as the seven virtues. While the first four date back to Greek philosophers and were applicable to all people seeking to live moral lives, the "theological virtues" appear to be specific to Christians as written by Paul in The New Testament.
It invokes the Divine Mercy that is given to the humanity from the cross of Jesus. Blood and water from his side pierced by a spear (John 19:34) symbolizes the grace of sacraments: help and forgiveness (cf. "Diary" 299). This is also the meaning of the red and white ray in the Divine Mercy image.
Christianity was originally a sect of Second Temple Judaism, but the two religions diverged in the first century. The differences between Christianity and Judaism originally centered on whether Jesus was the Jewish Messiah but eventually became irreconcilable. Major differences between the two faiths include the nature of the Messiah, of atonement and sin, the status of God's commandments to Israel, and perhaps most significantly of the nature of God himself. Due to these differences, Judaism traditionally regards Christianity as Shituf or worship of the God of Israel which is not monotheistic. Christianity has traditionally regarded Judaism as obsolete with the invention of Christianity and Jews as a people replaced by the Church, though a Christian belief in dual-covenant theology emerged as a phenomenon following Christian reflection on how their theology influenced the Nazi Holocaust.
Secondary CharactersThis book was originally written with the goal of teaching people a Christian lesson, so many of the themes are Christian in nature and aim to show people how a true Christian ought to live his or her life.The driving conflict of this story is the separation of Ellen from her mother and the effects of this separation on Ellen, including how she misses the mother who had meant everything to her, how she struggles with being a good Christian, and how she deals with people who don’t care about her.
The identification of the Roman Catholic church as the apostate power written of in scripture became evident to Martin Luther while he was a Roman Catholic Priest. Martin Luther wanted the Catholic Church to reform itself and return to the teachings of the early church and the Bible and rid itself of the traditions and corruptions of the Papacy, which he believed to have strayed from the original teachings. Luther declared his intolerance for the Roman Church’s corruption in 1517, by nailing his 95 Theses of Contention to the Wittenberg Church door. The Pope as the antichrist was so ingrained in the Reformation era, that Luther stated it repeatedly. For example: “This teaching [of the supremacy of the pope] shows forcefully that the Pope is the very Antichrist, who has exalted himself above, and opposed himself against Christ, because he will not permit Christians to be saved without his power, which, nevertheless, is nothing, and is neither ordained nor commanded by God” (Smalcald Articles, II).
For the most part Islamic dietary laws allow the eating of seafood, though the Hanbali forbid eels, the Shafi forbid frogs and crocodiles, and the Hanafi forbid bottom feeders such as shellfish and carp. The Jewish laws of Kashrut forbid the eating of shellfish and eels. In the Old Testament, the Mosaic Covenant allowed the Israelites to eat finfish, but shellfish and eels were an abomination and not allowed. In ancient and medieval times, the Catholic Church forbade the practice of eating meat, eggs and dairy products during Lent. Thomas Aquinas argued that these "afford greater pleasure as food [than fish], and greater nourishment to the human body, so that from their consumption there results a greater surplus available for seminal matter, which when abundant becomes a great incentive to lust." In the United States, the Catholic practice of abstaining from meat on Fridays during Lent has popularized the Friday fish fry, and parishes often sponsor a fish fry during Lent. In predominantly Roman Catholic areas, restaurants may adjust their menus during Lent by adding seafood items to the menu.
In Christianity, exorcism is the practice of casting out demons. In Christian practice the person performing the exorcism, known as an exorcist, is often a member of the Christian Church, or an individual thought to be graced with special powers or skills. The exorcist may use prayers and religious material, such as set formulas, gestures, symbols, icons, amulets, etc. The exorcist often invokes God, Jesus and/or several different angels and archangels to intervene with the exorcism. Protestant Christian exorcists most commonly believe the authority given to them by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (the Trinity) is the source of their ability to cast out demons.
Speaking generally, the various denominations of Christians celebrate a Eucharist in which a wafer or small piece of sacramental bread from wheat bread is blessed and then eaten. A typical wafer weighs about half a gram. Wheat flour contains around 10 to 13% gluten, so a single communion wafer may have more than 50 mg of gluten, an amount that harms many people with coeliac, especially if consumed every day (see "Diet" above).
During the 1978 Conference, after a pilgrimage to Dick Sheppard's grave, activists nailed "Seven Theses" to the door of Canterbury Cathedral. "The theses reflected the theological approach of Gordon Wilson for whom Christ’s victory of love over violence on the cross was a fundamental principle". This action deliberately echoed Martin Luther's famous nailing of The Ninety-Five Theses to the church door in Wittenberg.
Though some early Christians were aware of Buddhism which was practiced in both the Greek and Roman Empires in the pre-Christian period, the majority of modern Christian scholarship has roundly rejected any historical basis for the travels of Jesus to India or Tibet or direct influences between the teachings of Christianity in the West and Buddhism; and has seen the attempts at parallel symbolism as cases of parallelomania which exaggerate resemblances. However, in the East syncretism between Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism was widespread along the Silk Road in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and was especially pronounced in the medieval Church of the East in China, as evidenced by the Jesus Sutras.
According to Harvard University professor Robert D. Putnam, an increasing number of Americans are leaving their faith and becoming unaffiliated. By 2050, Christianity is expected to remain the majority in the United states (66.4%, down from 78.3% in 2010), and the number of Christians in absolute number is expected to grow from 243 million to 262 million.
According to a 2005 paper submitted to a meeting of the American Political Science Association, most of Christianity's growth has occurred in non-Western countries. The paper concludes that the Pentecostalism movement is the fastest-growing religion worldwide. Protestantism is growing as a result of historic missionary activity and indigenous Christian movements by Africans in Africa, and due primarily to conversion in Asia, Latin America, Muslim world, and Oceania. According to Pew Research Center, Christianity is declining in the United states while non-Christian faiths are growing.
Saying that "some (extremist) foreign forces have used religion to infiltrate China", and noting that some religion including Christianity and Islam deliberately spread their political views in China, Wang considers "guiding religions to suit to China's development (a) core policy to solve China's religious problems." He supports the sinicization of religion: "Religions should be sinicized [...] We should guide religious groups and individuals with socialist core values and excellent traditional Chinese culture and support religious groups to dig into their doctrines to find parts that are beneficial to social harmony and development."
Christians will sometimes point out that in their points of view, the wrongdoings of other Christians are not the fault of their religious scriptures but of those who have wrongly interpreted it. They posit that the mistakes of Christians do not refute the validity of their teachings, but merely proves their weakness and sinful nature, of which they then turn to Christ. Thus, according to them, the "Word of God" can still be true and valid without it having been accurately followed. According to Ron Sider, an Evangelical theologian, "The tragedy is that poll after poll by Gallup and Barna show that evangelicals live just like the world. Contrast that with what the New Testament says about what happens when people come to living faith in Christ. There's supposed to be radical transformation in the power of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor 5:17, 1 Cor 10:13). The disconnect between our biblical beliefs and our practice is just, I think, heart-rending."
Although many of the ideas for what is unacceptable overlap, the seven major sins of Islam differs from the seven deadly sins of Christianity. The Islamic sins refer more to specific undesirable behavior rather than to the general negative characteristics or actions of the cardinal Christian sins. Despite the similar names, the seven main sins in Islam are more comparable to the Ten Commandments rather than the seven deadly sins. They both provide the bottom line for believers in terms of what is acceptable behavior in the faith. The actions themselves differ most of the major crimes in Islam relate to subservience to Allah. Any form of polytheism is seen to be the most severe offense in the religion and all of the other transgressions are in some form of association with Allah. Witchcraft, for example, is the taking on of supernatural powers in order to make the practitioner a being above the normal human. This challenges the power of Allah as the person in question has superseded their mortal position to become something greater and akin to a god. The same can be said of murder, as ultimately the power to decide who shall live and die is believed to belong solely to Allah. Life is thought to be a gift from Allah and the unjust taking of life is a severe spiritual offense, as it is not only seen as morally wrong but also as an affront to God.
Opposition was seen most clearly from the far-right, nationalist Greater Romania Party. The vice-president of the party stated that "clearly, we wouldn't initiate such a legislative proposal, since we're a Christian party. The sin of sodomy is one of the biggest [sins]". The Conservative Party was less vocal in its opposition to same-sex marriage, with Octavian Petrovici, the vice-president of the party's Bucharest division, stating about same-sex couples that "it's their own choice, and in the same way that we respect the option of every citizen, we respect the choice of these people. However, it is a long way from respecting a choice to making special laws, which do not match the values and principles that our party affirms".
Mortal sins, which are any severe and intentional actions that directly disobey God, are often confused with the seven deadly sins, which are pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust. They are not, however, the same. The seven deadly sins are called "deadly" because they might lead another to commit other sins. Some forms of the seven deadly sins (i.e. debilitating one's health because of their love of food) can constitute as grave matter, while others may just be venal (i.e. over-eating).