It seems like you are giving an argument similar to the one below:

1. If Christianity is a monotheistic religion, then it should only have one god.
2. Christianity does not have one god but rather three, namely Jesus, Jehovah, and the Holy Ghost.
3. Therefore, Christianity is not a monotheistic religion.

I would disagree with premise two of this argument which claims that the Trinity, i.e. Jesus, Jehovah, and the Holy Ghost, do not constitute as one god in Christianity but rather as more than one.

It seems to me that that the doctrine of the Trinity is not something given just to circumvent incoherencies in Scripture, but rather a way to describe the main parts of who God is. This means that it is not that case that Jesus, Jehovah, and the Holy Ghost are all different entities, but rather that they are just parts of one being manifested in different ways so as to perform different essential functions.

To give an example, think about it in terms of a normal human body. It would seem absurd to claim that because we have two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head that we are not one person but many. Each respective body part plays a different role and performs a different function, but is still ultimately a part of only one human body. In the same way, it seems that the one God of Christianity manifests Himself in different ways so as to perform different functions, which are seen in the three parts of the Trinity.

In conclusion, it seems that under this view, in contradiction to the one given by you and expressed in my argument above, the doctrine of the Trinity can be coherent with Christianity being a monotheistic.

(Additionally, if you are looking for material for where the Holy Ghost is mentioned in the Bible, the book of Acts in chapter 2 is a great place to start.)

I like the way St. Patrick explain the trinity. A shamrock has 3 leaves each separate from the other but together they make one. — hachit

This is an application of the equivocation fallacy. If each leaf of the three is a separate leaf, then the three together is not "a leaf" but a conglomeration of leaves. If the three parts form one leaf, the the three parts are not individually leaves each but parts of a leaf.

There is a concept-mangling in the St. Patrick explanation of the H. T.

It seems to me that that the doctrine of the Trinity is not something given just to circumvent incoherencies in Scripture, but rather a way to describe the main parts of who God is. This means that it is not that case that Jesus, Jehovah, and the Holy Ghost are all different entities, but rather that they are just parts of one being manifested in different ways so as to perform different essential functions. — CFR73

This would stand, if and only if God, Jesus and the HOLY SPIRIT appeared or existed while the other two did not exist. But all three can and do exist concurrently according to Christian tenets. Therefore your claim of these beings a manifest of the one god in different ways, fails. However, if you insist that they are manifests of one god, then there is no trinity; and you are a heretic. In fact, if you insist that there is a one-ness, and it was the accepted norm of looking at the faith, then the word trinity never would have been coined.

OK. Taking the analogy of body parts with various functions. What are the demarcation lines between the three entities? Does the Holy Spirit deal with different matters than those dealt with by Jehova or Jesus?

the three entities — Jacob-B

‘God’, Divine Human, and Spirit, to boot,
All structured on wishes—what a hoot!
Angels added, too, and Devils haunting.
All as supposed, so, their doings are moot.

The ostensible existence of a "trinity" is a good reason to doubt the truth of Christianity. — Relativist

What, exactly, is meant - do you mean - by "the truth of Christianity"? Whoever said that any test of Christianity was dependent on "truth"? The question is the hallmark of a kind of ignorance, ignorance pure and simple. Any discussion founded on it is then an exercise, even if a prolonged and heated exercise, in ignorance. And although it may use words that occur in Christianity and are used by Christians, the failure to understand them simply means that the discussion is not and cannot be about Christianity. Whether these remarks apply mutatis mutandis to any other religions is more than I know, but I know something about Christianity - and indeed, failure to properly understand and use the terms of any subject of study means that the study cannot be right, accurate, and is even in some cases just stupid foolishness.

What, exactly, is meant - do you mean - by "the truth of Christianity"? Whoever said that any test of Christianity was dependent on "truth"? — tim wood

By "the truth of Christianity", I am referring to key doctrines of Trinitarian Christianity being true. In particular, that Jesus actually existed, was executed (died), and was resurrected (he lived again, walking the earth), and that Jesus is God (of the same substance as "God the father", and the "Holy Spirit". This does not apply to non-Trinitarians, such as Jehovah's Witnesses.

But no Christians claim these are true. Lots of fringe Christians do; that is, for example, some fundamentalists do, but "fundamentalist Christian" is a noun-substantive, not an adjectival construction: fundamentalist Christians, with respect to this issue, then, are not Christians, though they to some degree overlap. And of course straight-up non-Christians are often completely confused on this point.

The Creed of Christians is contained in the opening words of their Creed (Creed: system, statement, set of beliefs): "We believe...". That's it, and that's all there is to it. Period. And this is a more than a twice-told tale, this being settled by the folks who created Christianity, and confirmed ever since by their successors.

Holy Spirit — Relativist

Bless your soul with tongues of fire; Holy Spirit burn;
Leave no trace of man’s desire; Holy Spirit turn.
Oh, man, why detest thy constitution;
Doth thou think Nature has a lot to learn?

So Nature got it wrong, the pious say,
In man’s constitution, erring its essay,
Granting so many ways to go astray.
Well, then, Who, do they say, penned this world’s play?

For any proposition p:

(I believe p) = (I believe p is true).

(I believe p) = (I believe p is true). — Relativist

Maybe true for you. Is it? Can you think of nothing that on the one hand you believe true but at the same time cannot aver as true?

I believe you're making nonsense....

Probably because you are not paying attention to the meanings of words.

I recommend you read this article.

This is an application of the equivocation fallacy. If each leaf of the three is a separate leaf, then the three together is not "a leaf" but a conglomeration of leaves. If the three parts form one leaf, the the three parts are not individually leaves each but parts of a leaf.

Sorry I thought it was obvious that the 3 leaves made up the one shamrock. Because that is what he meant.

And? So? Please make your point in something that requires fewer than several thousand words, 123 author citations, with about 175 papers cited. It's clear, in any case, that the topic, belief, can be understood in various and not necessarily compatible ways. Equally clear is that each of these ways is criteria based. That is, from differing starting points, one arrives at differing understandings of what belief is.

Your proposition P ≡ ((I believe X) = (I believe X is true)), then, may be true under some criteria, but I deny that it is universally true. Let's try this: do you affirm or deny that P is universally true?

Sorry I thought it was obvious that the 3 leaves made up the one shamrock. — hachit

A shamrock has 3 leaves each separate from the other but together they make one. — hachit

... one LEAF? one SHAMROCK?

If the three leaves make up one shamrock, then the analogy to the holy trinity completely fails, as the holy trinity consists of three manifestations of the one and same god, and the shamrock is not three manifestation of the one and same shamrock, but it is of three leaves.

Let me put it this way. Each member in the holy trinity is god. But each member of the three leaves is not a shamrock. Each leaf is a leaf, not a shamrock. But in the trinity each constituent of the three is god. And the three constituents make one god.

So your analogy, as re-written by your correcting my reading of the first instance of the wise saying, is not applicable to the holy trinity.

And? So? Please make your point in something that requires fewer than several thousand words, 123 author citations, with about 175 papers cited. It's clear, in any case, that the topic, belief, can be understood in various and not necessarily compatible ways. Equally clear is that each of these ways is criteria based. That is, from differing starting points, one arrives at differing understandings of what belief is.

Your proposition P ≡ ((I believe X) = (I believe X is true)), then, may be true under some criteria, but I deny that it is universally true. Let's try this: do you affirm or deny that P is universally true? — tim wood

You only need to read the first sentence of
this article. It defines the term "belief", as the word is commonly used among english speaking philosphers. Yes, under this definition, it is universally true. It seems you use a nonstandard definition. Please provide it, and give me an example of something you believe, but do not believe to be true.

very will and I won't bother defending someone else's idea so.
Let me start from the bottom.

God is one entity with 3 parts but each one of it parts is not the other. Father, Son, Holy spirit.
They are of one substance, three minds, and three bodys.

Whatever the substance is, that is what makes them God and it is shared between them.

God is one entity with 3 parts but each one of it parts is not the other. Father, Son, Holy spirit.
They are of one substance, three minds, and three bodys.

Whatever the substance is, that is what makes them God and it is shared between them. — hachit

Thanks for the explanation, hachit.

Where does one body start, and the other end, when you say god is omnipresent? I can see that Jesus is of a typical human's physical body, so his limits of extent in the physical world are given. But what about the Father and the Holy Spirit? God is omnipresent; is either one of the two omnipresent, or both of them?

They have three minds. This presupposes that they have different thoughts, different memories, different knowledge. Which of the three is omniscient? Which has more memory, and which is the one that is all
good? And the other two have how much knowledge memory, and goodness? Maybe some of the three are not all good? If all the three are all good, and all knowing and have all memory, then their minds are not separate.

That is to say that it is the substance that the three share that has omniscience, omnsophia and omnimemory. If yes, then they don't have different minds. So the three share among them one body limited in size, two infinitely large bodies, and one mind. Which is not what you claimed they have among the three of them.

As far as the phenomenal description of the Trinity, don't get too hung-up on the incoherence part, as you say. Remember, our own conscious existence (and the nature thereof) is not coherent.

That's one reason why Christianity (Jesus) is more relatable to us humans.

You only need to read the first sentence of
this article. — Relativist

And here it is:

From Stanford.edu on belief: "Contemporary Anglophone philosophers of mind generally use the term “belief” to refer to the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true."
---------
Wherein in that sentence does it say anything at all about anything's being true?

And, how do Contemporary Anglophone philosophers of mind non-generally use the term; and how do non-Contemporary Anglophone philosophers of mind use the term whether generally or non-generally?

My use of therm "belief" is standard so far as I know. Here is the online definition from Merriam-Webster:

"Belief: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing,
her belief in God
a belief in democracy
I bought the table in the belief that it was an antique.
contrary to popularbelief
2: something that is accepted, considered to be true, or held as an opinion : something believed
an individual's religious or political beliefs
especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group
the beliefs of the Catholic Church
3: conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence
belief in the validity of scientific statements."

-----

Again, nothing whatsoever about anything being true.

well let start by saying that there all God. Therefor any think one of the part have then has God has also. Goodness is one part of the substance.

As far as wich ones are omnipresent, that is something I do not know all I know is that it wasn't always that way. Not that God could not have been he just wasn't.

As for the all knowing, that is the the father for Jesus openly emitted that only he know when the world will end.

And the holy spirit is the divine power of God.

well let start by saying that there all God. — hachit

So we are back to the start. They are all god. And together they make one god. This means that they are all singularly omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. So three make one -- much like my criticism precisely said, three of one something can't make one SAME something. There is more if there are three, yet you say the three are each the same as the sum of the three.

In effect, therefore, you say "1 + 1 + 1 = 1". At least this is how I read your first claim. If I misread it, or you wanted to say something different, then I apologize, and I humbly ask you to please clarify it for me.

In the rest of your post here in the last reply you make it clear, and you also admit, that you are oblivious to the characteristics of each god.

Your closing says

And the holy spirit is the divine power of God. — hachit

But the holy spirit is the god. (According to your first claim.) So the divine power is the divine power of the divine power? a bit of a recursive finite regress, with a meaning I can't comprehend. Also, you seem to sugget that Jesus and the Father are not the divine powers of god. That makes them less than god. So are they god, or not god? You have to make up your mind sometime sooner or later. If they are god, then they also are the divine power of god. If they are not god, then why the Holy Spirit having only this power?

God is omnipotent, all-powerful; therefore Jesus is all power ful, and so is the Father, since they are gods. But you say only the Holy Spirit is the divine power.

--------------

You said in your very first reply that this is very simple. Yet I am somehow confused; I am not so simple as to understand your concepts as you have penned them, @hachit.

Remember, our own conscious existence (and the nature thereof) is not coherent. — 3017amen

No, I can't remember that. If I am incoherent, I don't have a memory, do I? So if I don't remember that, I am incoherent, but I can't remember that I am incoherent, so I must be coherent. If I am coherent, as you say, then I must remember, but I don't remember, since I am incoherent, as you say.

Can you get me out of this infinite flip-flop switch, @3017amen? You put me in there, so you must rescue me too.

Ha, indeed, indeed!

Let me try to get you out of this pickle; this pickle of self-consciousness (self-reference):

Socrates: "What Plato is about to say is false."
Plato: "Socrates has just spoken truly."


Which statement is true?

ok. Many of you clames are true which is good.

(Also I misrepresented the Holy Spirit by giving you his definition and expecting you to know what that meant)

The best way, I think, is to describe the concept is in sets and subset. You have the set of God, within this set are other sets called subsets. Jesus, God the Father, and The Holy spirit. None of the subsets overlap.

Sorry if I'm hard to understand sometimes. I'm better when I'm speaking.

Wherein in that sentence does it say anything at all about anything's being true? — tim wood

I never said anything about it BEING true. What I said was:

(I believe p) = (I believe p is true).

... which is consistent with the article. Bizarrely, you took issue with this, and now you're conflating (I believe p is true) with (p is true).

The ostensible existence of a "trinity" is a good reason to doubt the truth of Christianity. — Relativist

I never said anything about it BEING true. What I said was, (I believe p) = (I believe p is true). — Relativist

But no Christians claim these are true.... The Creed of Christians is contained in the opening words of their Creed (Creed: system, statement, set of beliefs): "We believe...". That's it, and that's all there is to it. Period. — tim wood

You're free to believe what you like. You're free to doubt the truth of the Trinity - you'll have lots of company, some of it good. However, on these bases to doubt the truth of Christianity is just ignorant confusion. The truth of Christianity lies in what adherents believe and what they do with their beliefs. And if you pay attention and listen to Christians, that's what they themselves will tell you, and that is all they'll tell you. Or they may add that they believe the details are true, but no Christian who understands his or her faith will tell you that they are true, excepting as they themselves are ignorant.

The whole and entire application of so-called science, however broadly defined, as a test or measure of religion, is error. Real scientists don't make that error. People who do not understand the distinctions involved make that error all the time. Don't be one of those people.

There are Christian apologists who absolutely insist Jesus was actually resurrected, and that this can be"proven". I've debated Christians on this for years. They would argue that Christianity is a fraud if Jesus was not actually resurrected. You seem to have a different view; it seems almost that you think it fine to pretend the Jesus stories are true, because this serves the purpose.

And if I claim 2+2=5 and that arithmetic is a fraud if it isn't, and you argue with me endlessly, are you then going to conclude that arithmetic is false?

And why would you debate such people? But my message to you is that your fault is in failing to distinguish matters of science (broadly defined) and religion. As to what is true or what the truth is, good luck on "finding" either of those. Christians (and I suppose this is true of many or most religions, but Christianity is what I know something about) believe certain things. Christian wackdoodles will claim that they're true; again, a claim real Christians don't make except in error or ignorance.

If you like, you can think of Christianity (and likely other religions, & etc.) as a kind of game with its own rules/beliefs. No law says you have to like them or play the game. But if you're going to criticize the rules or the game itself, you ought to at least have a minimal understanding of those things, else you're just the wackdoodle on the other side of the "debate."

As to changing the minds of any of those wackdoodles, see how you do with yourself first. It's a sign of maturity not to argue with crazy people. So there's your matrix: mature, or not; crazy, or not. Four options: which are you?

The best way, I think, is to describe the concept is in sets and subset. You have the set of God, within this set are other sets called subsets. Jesus, God the Father, and The Holy spirit. None of the subsets overlap. — hachit

I still don't get this. You say Jesus is god. Yet it is less than god. Because God has three subsets, which don't overlap. So Jesus does not overlap with Father does not overlap with Holy Spirit. So... if they are not overlapping, they are different. They are gods; yet they are different from each other... and yet there is one god. A ONE god can't be DIFFERENT from itself. If you insist on one god, then Jesus, Father, and the Holy Spirit must be overlapping. If they are gods (which you say they are) and are not overlapping, then the three form three different gods, with the fourth god being formed by their entire set.
Incongruent with logic. Your application of the set theory somehow was inadequate.

How can you believe in one god and three gods at the same time? I think you have to make up your mind, and design a totally different system of gods in your view.

What you say is not what you say, and what you not say is what you say. This is your belief.

You, and other Christians have to ask yourself: can I believe in something that all logic says is not possible to exist? If I can believe it, am I completely gone, or am I just denying the fact to myself that my belief makes no possible sense? If my god is not possible to be, who is the real god whom I have been falsely avoiding to worship because I have been too much wrapped up in NOT thinking my faith through?