there is probably a book on it, somewhere. I remember studying the idea but I can’t recall any specific text. Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions might say something about it. Although nowadays it ought not to be too hard to find references through the wonder of Google.

Another point to recall is that there are threefolds in many different religious traditions. — Wayfarer

Yes. Trinity seems to be a common mystical metaphor for unity within multiplicity. But, I prefer the concept of Unity as Holism. :smile:

How Ancient Trinitarian Gods Influenced Adoption of the Trinity :
https://www.ucg.org/bible-study-tools/booklets/is-god-a-trinity/how-ancient-trinitarian-gods-influenced-adoption-of-the-trinity

Jewish Numerology (Gematria) :
In their eyes the number 3 was considered as the perfect number, the number of harmony, wisdom and understanding. ... It was also the number of time – past, present, future; birth, life, death; beginning, middle, end – it was the number of the divine
https://wno.org.uk/news/three-is-the-magic-number

:up:

7 was also a special number they say

I read your article. So Jews would say the Trinity was pagan and although there is 3 in God there is not three persons? Is this how modern Jews see it?

I read your article. So Jews would say the Trinity was pagan and although there is 3 in God there is not three persons? Is this how modern Jews see it? — Gregory

I don't have enough personal experience with Jewish theology to answer that. But it's clear that Orthodox Jews and Muslims are dogmatically opposed to any partition of their Atomic (indivisible) God. My general impression is that Jesus was a Jewish mono-theist. But some of his non-Jewish followers wanted to deify Jesus as the super-natural risen-from-the-dead Christ, just as some early Buddhist sects began to deify him, after his very human death.

Although Jesus and Siddhartha never claimed divinity directly, "great men" have often been deified, in retrospect, by their disciples. They found easy acceptance of such notions, because they were surrounded by Polytheists, who found it intuitive to envision their gods in human form. It's fairly common in history for human heroes to be regarded, by sycophantic acolytes, as either embodied gods themselves, or sent by the gods to save their suffering people. Even the pre-monotheism (pagan) Hebrews seemed to view their savior Moses as god-like. Actually, only after the return from Babylonian captivity, did the remnant of Jews become fervently monotheistic. :pray:


Monotheism vs Trinitarianism :
Serious critics of trinitarian doctrines are nearly always fellow Abrahamic monotheists.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/trinity/judaic-islamic-trinity.html

The Apotheosis of Washington :
Name of a painting in the rotunda of the capital building.
"The Apotheosis of Washington depicts George Washington sitting amongst the heavens in an exalted manner, or in literary terms, ascending and becoming a god (apotheosis)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apotheosis_of_Washington

the idolization of Moses :
God says to Moses, “see, I make you as God to Pharaoh,”
https://newpolity.com/blog/moses-and-the-battle-not-to-be-god

WASHINGTON ELECTED TO GODHOOD

I have a(n) (extremely ridiculous) theory. A person suffering from refractive eye error when he looks at me holding up 1 finger, he actually sees 3 fingers.

Maybe it's this :point:



See timestamp 0.52 (1 object, 2 images. Sancta trinitas, unus Deus)

God is the same as his power and his love and his justice and everything about him. He is one thing. That is what monotheism is about. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share an intellect and will. There is ONE God but three relations of consciousness within it.
— Gregory

Yes. Unfortunately, you can't expect atheists and anti-Christians to understand that. Yet they are allowed to dominate the debate and even encouraged for some strange reason. — Apollodorus

Huh? Love and justice are abstracts. A Father and Son can be tangible when they are the result of tangle humans who have sex, but the existence of supernatural beings who some argue is only one being, seems a con game to me, trying to convince something intangible is tangible. I don't know about the Holy Spirit having anything like a tangible existence. The Christian understanding of a god is not the only one, and why would we assume the Christian notion of a god is the only possible one to exist? What about Apollo the power to create and reason? Isn't he also an important god?

I read your article. So Jews would say the Trinity was pagan and although there is 3 in God there is not three persons? Is this how modern Jews see it?
— Gregory
I don't have enough personal experience with Jewish theology to answer that. — Gnomon

It is my understanding the Christians were killing each other during Contanople's time because of the debate of if God was three or one. This was a problem with language. Romans did not have a word for such a trinity but for the Greeks, who had a word for it, had no problem accepting such a trinity. It is my understanding Greek Jews were the first to write a Bible. Using the Greek language would make the trinity of God possible. So the answer to the question is what language were the Jews using. Also, the Romans created a word that made the trinity palatable to them.

Given today's reality, we are thrilled with a loving God, but our understanding of a loving God was not as it is today, until our bellies were full. Not that long ago God was jealous, revengeful, fearsome, and punishing the Satan had demons who could possess us. We are good with arguing the existence of God ignoring the reality of Satan and demons. Today's believers have a whole different understanding of God and Satan because the condition of our lives is so different.

Bottom line, what language are we using, and what is the condition of our lives that makes this or that believable.

Here is an interesting explanation of how concepts evolved to make the trinity of God palatable.

Doctrine, the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead. The doctrine of the Trinity is considered to be one of the central Christian affirmations about God. It is rooted in the fact that God came to meet Christians in a threefold figure: (1) as Creator, Lord of the history of salvation, Father, and Judge, as revealed in the Old Testament; (2) as the Lord who, in the incarnated figure of Jesus Christ, lived among human beings and was present in their midst as the “Resurrected One”; and (3) as the Holy Spirit, whom they experienced as the helper or intercessor in the power of the new life. — Britannica

Romans did not have a word for such a trinity — Athena

Triumvirate? And variants?

You made my day with that question. I had to gather information to explain my meaning and that lead to an enlightening experience as I realized the relationships between concepts I have long held. Merry Christmas to me, you gave me what I want most- enlightenment.

Perhaps my wording was not exacting enough. Three men are not equal to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as one, not three. It is the nature of the one that is in question. How does the 3 become the 1?

I will quote from "Jesus Wars" by Philip Jenkins.

THE NEW LANGUAGE OF GOD.

The Apllinarian crisis also showed how much of the controversy in the church arose from disputes over shades of language. By the end of the fourth century, theologians drew subtle yet critical differences between a number of words that earlier had been thrown around in far vaguer terms....
The most important terms are ousia, physis, hypostasis, and prosopon. — Philip Jenkins

Is that better? Rome and everyone understood 3 men. That is the problem in the Jesus Wars. There is the Father, and there is the Son, and there is the Spirit. Three separate gods! People were killing each other with this understanding of a separate Father, Son, and Holy Spirit because there is only one God! Okay, how do we make this right without the language for 3 being 1? Jews expected a savior, they were not expecting God himself. They still do not accept the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as one God. That begins as a language problem and becomes a science problem. How can the impossible be possible?

If Jesus is God, when did this happen? Was he born a God? Or did he become a God when he was baptized and the Holy Spirit entered him? Or, did he become God when he died? Greeks were okay with men being sons gods, but I don't think they took this too seriously. In Rome, a king had to die before becoming a God. First, we need the language to talk about these things, and then we need some scientific thinking to figure out how a man could be God. Not just any god, but the one and only God. Can we wrap our heads around these language/thinking problems and a different Roman and Greek understanding of the God issue? You know, Alexander the Great was the son of Zeus. That is not how the Romans understood such things.

Digging around for more clarification, the argument gets more and more interesting because it is tied to claims to power and land. Greeks gave up liner heritage and this led to the war against the Maccabees (a Jewish group).

"Apotheosis" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apotheosis
The conquering Greeks were giving people jobs based on merit. The Jews found that intolerable because in their society everything was based on linage. Martin Luther and some Christians today, believe God determines who is born to rule and who is born to be a servant. Martin Luther thought God decided who is born to be a leader and who is born to serve. We come out of a Judo/Christian society that was very much determined by our lineage, not our merit.

Now look at the word "Divination" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinization_(Christian)

The term originally was used in Greco-Roman pagan society to venerate a ruler. It was inconceivable to Jewish piety. Yet, with time, it was adopted in Eastern Christianity by the Greek Fathers to describe spiritual transformation of a Christian. The change of human nature was understood by them as a consequence of a baptized person being incorporated into the Church as the Body of Christ. Divinization was thus developed within the context of incarnational theology. — Wikipedia

:rofl: That notion of being divine is a whole lot different from Zeus having sex with your mother. Thank you again for your question. :heart:

Y very w! And of course you are exactly correct. I offer/refer you to this site:
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.505183/page/n233/mode/2up
You should find yourself at pp. 221-222 (of the text itself) of a pdf of An Essay on Metaphysics. I point you to the paragraph starting, "Christian writers in the time of the Roman Empire asserted, and no historian today will deny,..." (p. 223 of the text). And to the end of the chapter, a few pages. Of course you can read the whole chapter. And chapter XXV, "Axioms of Intuition," (p. 248 of the text) I find very interesting.

The irony of their fighting over words and meanings and new understandings cannot have been lost on you. What a relief we do not do that today, especially here in TPF, this cloistered reserve of reason. Luc Ferry observes that the conversion of logos in 1 John 1 from a Greek principle of nature to being a man then living was an "intolerable deviance," :"a matter of life and death." (A Brief History of Thought, pp. 62-63.) And so it goes.

What I don’t understand is in the Bible, Jesus communicates directly with God. Wouldn’t this amount to nothing more than talking to yourself? — Pinprick

It's wording not concept, trinity is God in 3 persons, Jesus him self said he's talking with (or praying to) father, and we know father is not son, both are God but Jesus didn't talk to both, but to father, therefor he didn't talk to himself.

How could Jesus feel forsaken, as he famously declares on the cross? — Pinprick

The meaning of his words of being forsaken is well explained in Psalms 22,2 which start with same famous quote.

↪Athena Y very w! And of course you are exactly correct. I offer/refer you to this site:
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.505183/page/n233/mode/2up
You should find yourself at pp. 221-222 (of the text itself) of a pdf of An Essay on Metaphysics. I point you to the paragraph starting, "Christian writers in the time of the Roman Empire asserted, and no historian today will deny,..." (p. 223 of the text). And to the end of the chapter, a few pages. Of course you can read the whole chapter. And chapter XXV, "Axioms of Intuition," (p. 248 of the text) I find very interesting.

The irony of their fighting over words and meanings and new understandings cannot have been lost on you. What a relief we do not do that today, especially here in TPF, this cloistered reserve of reason. Luc Ferry observes that the conversion of logos in 1 John 1 from a Greek principle of nature to being a man then living was an "intolerable deviance," :"a matter of life and death." (A Brief History of Thought, pp. 62-63.) And so it goes. — tim wood

Whoo, whoo you are doing it to me again! There is so much I do not know and getting through this ignorance to enlightenment is very challenging! There were so many unfamiliar concepts in what you gave me. The notion of self-differentiation is exciting and I recall number 3 has been very important in several early civilizations. There is a Chinese concept of "one, two, infinity". This would be math and metaphysics.

There is the monad, number 1, the un-undifferentiated whole. "The one Godhead, secret in all beings, all-pervading, the inner Self of all, presiding over all action, witness, conscious knower and absolute...the One in control over the many who are passive to Nature, fashions one seed in many ways." Swetaswatara Upanishad

Then the Dyad where the action begins. 'In the Two we experience the very essence bring to bind many together into one, to equate plurality and unity. Our mind divides the world into heaven and earth, day and night, light and darkness, right and lift, man and woman, I and you- and the more strongly we sense the separation between these poles, whatever they may be, the more powerfully do we also sense their unity." Karl Menninger

Then the Triad. "All was divided into three." Homer "The Triad has a special beauty and fairness beyond all numbers, primarily because it is the very first to make actual the potentialities of the Monad." Iamblichus

We use scales to symbolize justice because it balances two. All of this is more comprehensible with geometry and actually drawing the two overlapping circles and then connecting where the lines cross getting a triangle.

Where is the emotiocon and the melting brain running out of an ear? Like I think the explanation of the trinity needs an understanding of the math, but that is not what comes through the Bible. The explanation you gave me is clearly more than three men ruling together or three gods Father, Son, and Holy Spirit working together. Without coming to metaphysics through math, we are missing an understanding of the forces involved. Am I am making sense?

"The creative activity of God is the source of motion in the world of nature" (from your link) but did you ever hear this explanation in Sunday school or a church sermon? What you gave me opened a whole new way to understand the Trinity and I so regret that was never the subject in Sunday school.

"That nevertheless there are in this world many different realms, each composing of a class of things peculiar to itself...." and then religion runs off in fantastic imagination of another realm mixed up in a history of a small group of people who justify everything they do with a fanciful notion of a god's will and things get very contentious from here.

I really appreciate the information you shared about the Trinity. I would be more interested in attending a church that presents such information instead of lessons for being good children based on fiction instead of math and science.

The notion of self-differentiation is exciting — Athena

I have a rule for understanding set theory: that only so much is said in so-many words. Thus if the text in question is short enough, it cannot be saying all that much - however difficult that little bit may be. An upper bound so to speak on possibilities. And I find the same rule applies usually to most other texts, usually favoring the relatively simple: if it's more complicated, then the writer probably would have written more - and he certainly has not said what he did not say. .

The trinity buffalos a lot of people, me included. But what is it about? It appears to be about what something is, and how something is perceived. Consider your mother: a one or a many? Well, a mother to be sure. Also a wife. In any case a parent. And finally a woman. That's four - at least four. And is she not certainly each of these and all of them? And similarly for lots of people? Granted there are a few odd crotchets about the participants in the holy trinity, but more understandable than not, yes? And if something more than can be understood, then reasonable to look to the text. As to interpretation, that endless.

So the trinity is the idea that somehow God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are separate, but one. Different manifestations of the same being. What I don’t understand is in the Bible, Jesus communicates directly with God. Wouldn’t this amount to nothing more than talking to yourself? How could Jesus feel forsaken, as he famously declares on the cross? Wouldn’t he be privy to all the information or knowledge that God has? I get it that expecting Christianity to make sense is asking too much of it, but I don’t think I’ve seen this objection to the idea of the trinity, and I’m wondering if it has been posed before, and if so what the responses were. — Pinprick

What I don’t understand is in the Bible, Jesus communicates directly with God. Wouldn’t this amount to nothing more than talking to yourself?

My understanding is that we came from God, we are made up of the essence or a part of the spirit of God (Holy Spirit). So you can think in a sense that before we were conceived we were once one with God. Once we were born and took human form we became distinctly different, separate from God but we are from God. In that sense I believe that is what defines a Soul.

Jesus always spoke in context of the Father (or Spirit) and if you pay attention to his wording and you can tell that he is speaking in metaphoric language (or parables). "I know the Father, and the Father knows me." kind of theme to where he is implying in Human form I am separate from the Spirit but once his time comes he will transcend to become one with the Spirit.

I believe that is why in the beginning of the New Testament he is referred to the Son of Man than later referred to as Son of God. Maybe insinuating that he wasn't always divine or maybe didn't acknowledge his divine nature or aware of his divineness until he began his journey and when it was time for him to go to the cross that it was at that moment when he became the Messiah. A sort of transformation of awareness.

Maybe during Jesus journey he was struggling with his identity of being God. How would you feel if suddenly God spoke to you and said "You will be my vessel and become the Son of God. You will be the sacrificial lamb that will save humanity from Sin." and from birth you will be aware of that.

A sort of Spiritual Existential Crisis but not in a traditional sense. Maybe God being in human form made him vulnerable to attacks by the enemy by means of temptation and that was the challenge for him. To maintain his innocents (Free of Sin) state until he got to the cross. The temptation of either settling to a normal human life existence or completing Gods divine mission to save humanity was the struggle.

Being God the spirit made him immune but becoming God in human form made him vulnerable.

Wouldn’t he be privy to all the information or knowledge that God has?

That would be a very frightening experience to have the knowledge of God. It probably would drive any normal person insane. And that is probably why he was preying at the garden before he was crucified. Knowing your fate and knowing what you have to do to accomplish Gods will which will save humanity.
Knowing the future but knowing you can't change the course of it because this is the way to humanities salvation. The burden of overwhelming responsibility that Jesus held is like holding the whole world on his shoulders.

That's why Jesus said “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” - Luke 22:42

Never asking why he had to do it because he knew why he had to do it. He knew his purpose, he knew why but in a way he was asking the Father to find a way to give him relief from this burden but without compromising his divine mission.

The struggle between human nature and divine nature.

You lost me on that one. I prefer attempting to imagine a past consciousness and what the Greek effort to understand the mysteries of math has to do with understanding the trinity. A train of thought different from all other people on earth at that time. And to understand the twisting of meaning when Jesus was said to be logos, the laws of nature.

And I like thinking about the difference between being the son of Zeus versus the Son of God. I wish others saw that as an exciting contrast worthy of discussion. As the Greek understanding of math and the laws of nature were different from all others, so is the Christian understanding of God, different from all others. I can not think of any other god that had a son without a woman. The sons of Zeus had real power on earth such as Hercules and Alexander the Great. A son that is a martyr and needs to be sacrificed to save human souls, is a different kind of god. We can not blame the Jews for not accepting that Christian reasoning. Not only is it a different way of understanding God, but it is also a different way of understanding humans.

Judaism holds that adherents do not need personal salvation as Christians believe. Jews do not subscribe to the doctrine of original sin.[7] Instead, they place a high value on individual morality as defined in the law of God—embodied in what Jews know as the Torah or The Law, given to Moses by God on biblical Mount Sinai. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvation — Wikipedia

Jews had a god-like all the other gods when people had patron gods. Patron gods had favorite people who they protected and the people with the most powerful god won wars. When Christians won wars pagans thought it meant they had the most powerful god. You know the jealous, revengeful, fearsome, and punishing God, not the God of love Christians worship today. The Jewish notion of God is not a trinity.

Jesus promoted violating the law saying it was not God's law but human ideas of law. I agree it was human ideas of laws, but that does not make the Christian understanding of the trinity any better and twisting the understanding of the laws of nature to mean a deified Jesus is just wrong.

My understanding is that we came from God, we are made up of the essence or a part of the spirit of God (Holy Spirit). So you can think in a sense that before we were conceived we were once one with God. Once we were born and took human form we became distinctly different, separate from God but we are from God. In that sense I believe that is what defines a Soul. — TheQuestion

That is contrary to the older Egyptian notion of the trinity of our souls. When we die part of that trinity, the physical part, becomes nonexistent.

Part of the trinity is judged and may enter the good life after death or not.

The Assessors of Maat were 42 minor ancient Egyptian deities of the Maat charged with judging the souls of the dead in the afterlife by joining the judgment of Osiris in the Weighing of the Heart.[1][2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assessors_of_Maat — Wikipedia

Finally, the third part rejoins the source.
That is compatible with the native American notion of the Creator and returning to the source after death.

Christianity externalized the God spirit and made God the trinity.

What I don’t understand is in the Bible, Jesus communicates directly with God. Wouldn’t this amount to nothing more than talking to yourself? — Pinprick

You just pinpointed one of the many inconsistencies existing in the Bible! :smile:
Do this kind of stories ring a bell? To me yes. It reminds me of school essays written by children. It also reminds me how people with insufficient rational abilities argue in discussions, talk and write on various subjects. Arguing with those persons usually leads to nowhere. So is the study of the Bible!

That is contrary to the older Egyptian notion of the trinity of our souls. When we die part of that trinity, the physical part, becomes nonexistent. — Athena

I’m not familiar with Egyptian faith but this notion is based on my own spiritual self exploration. Is an expression of my own personal interpretation of the Bible.

Finally, the third part rejoins the source.
That is compatible with the native American notion of the Creator and returning to the source after death. — Athena

I guess that is true. Again this is based on my own personal perspective on faith. What I realize is there is no standard in how to believe, I guess that is why I am a harsh critic of Systematic Faith. I believe is a flawed practice and the only way, you can worship God and understanding the Nature of God is through Spirituality.

We came from a Source and we return to the source.

Whether you believe in Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Native American faith and even Atheism (return to the Universe into a natural elemental state). This theme of return to the source is Universal.

Christianity externalized the God spirit and made God the trinity. — Athena

I wonder what your "personal" definition of Christianity is? The argument seemed to be based more on technical systematic understanding than spiritual. And Trying to understand the rational reasoning and the mechanics of what make God, God. Which is a different dynamic and different explanation than spiritual understanding.

. Today's believers have a whole different understanding of God and Satan because the condition of our lives is so different. — Athena

Ironically, the Christian Trinity omits a significant deity from Old Testament : Satan. Originally, he was a heavenly prince, whose job was to serve as legal prosecutor in God's dealings with humans (including the temptation of Jesus in the desert). By contrast, the Holy Spirit was basically a messenger boy, who unlike an Angel, didn't take on human form.

The Roman Christians didn't have a name for the abstract concept of "four" (only a symbol : IV). But they could have used the Greek word "tessera" to describe a four-in-one deity : the Holy Tesseract. The Hindu pantheon included both good and evil gods. For example demonic Kali, who was the 10th avatar of Vishnu. What's the name for a 10-in-one deity? :cool:

↪Gnomon
I really appreciate the information you shared about the Trinity. I would be more interested in attending a church that presents such information instead of lessons for being good children based on fiction instead of math and science. — Athena

Persistent controversies over technicalities of Roman Catholic dogma may be interesting to Theologians and Philosophers, who like to argue over fine distinctions. But to the man or woman on the street, the Trinity concept may be accepted as Gospel, but understood as Metaphor.

As legal terminology, "The Trinity" allowed the church to reconcile incompatible literal meanings (Monotheism vs Polytheism) by the indisputable power of faith in inspired church authority. To say that 3=1 does not compute mathematically. But as a religious notion, it works mystically.

Likewise, in a practical sense, the bread (or host) of the sacrament is just baked dough. But as a mystical symbol it combines the mundane notion of eating bread with the sublime imagery of the apparent physical body on a cross, which is secretly only a vessel (host) for a supernatural spirit. Even philosophers cannot argue with poetic figures of speech. :joke:

PS__I was raised in a back-to-the-Bible fundamentalist church that did not accept add-on Catholic doctrines such as Trinity & Saints & Christmas. Ironically, some of us still celebrated Christmas, as a semi-secular holiday. So, I was always conflicted on that "holy day". With one crucial exception, our teachings were logical and subject to evidence. But the only true source of that evidence was a collection of ancient "scriptures", that were later compiled by the very church whose authority we rejected. :yikes:

You just pinpointed one of the many inconsistencies existing in the Bible! :smile:
Do this kind of stories ring a bell? To me yes. It reminds me of school essays written by children. It also reminds me how people with insufficient rational abilities argue in discussions, talk and write on various subjects. Arguing with those persons usually leads to nowhere. So is the study of the Bible! — Alkis Piskas

I am unsure of your meaning, but not many of us would be able to write a book on quantum physics, so maybe when people were writing the word of God, they also had a problem with that? Hebrews knew they were using stories. They were meant to be interpreted literally.

I’m not familiar with Egyptian faith but this notion is based on my own spiritual self-exploration. Is an expression of my own personal interpretation of the Bible.

Neither are Egyptians familiar with their ancient gods and reasoning. This is sad to me as they are caught up in religious conflicts with Christians, Jews, and Islam. I don't think anyone has an exclusive hold on "God's truth". As Joseph Campbell said, God came to everyone and their stories are different because they interpreted Him differently. That is going with the first point. We have human interpretations of God's truth, not an invaluable "God's Truth". Much of Christianity is Egyptian. Isis was the bread and water before Jesus became the bread and wine.

I guess that is true. Again this is based on my own personal perspective on faith. What I realize is there is no standard in how to believe, I guess that is why I am a harsh critic of Systematic Faith. I believe is a flawed practice and the only way, you can worship God and understanding the Nature of God is through Spirituality.

We came from a Source and we return to the source.

Whether you believe in Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Native American faith and even Atheism (return to the Universe into a natural elemental state). This theme of return to the source is Universal.

There is an increasing demand for a more spiritual experience. This is where our understanding of the trinity is so important! Some like to say we are spiritual beings having a human experience. That is totally different from an external God and Spirit, and needing to be saved by this external spirit/God.

{quote]I wonder what your "personal" definition of Christianity is? The argument seemed to be based more on technical systematic understanding than spiritual. And Trying to understand the rational reasoning and the mechanics of what makes God, God. Which is a different dynamic and different explanation than spiritual understanding.

Yes, there is a difference. Mine personally includes quantum physics. I am really sitting on the fence between being materialistic or more metaphysical. I have had experiences that can not be explained with a purely material understanding of reality.

PS__I was raised in a back-to-the-Bible fundamentalist church that did not accept add-on Catholic doctrines such as Trinity & Saints & Christmas. Ironically, some of us still celebrated Christmas, as a semi-secular holiday. So, I was always conflicted on that "holy day". With one crucial exception, our teachings were logical and subject to evidence. But the only true source of that evidence was a collection of ancient "scriptures", that were later compiled by the very church whose authority we rejected. :yikes: — Gnomon

:lol: And Christianity rejected the authority of the Jewish system of authority. Perhaps we need a good comedian to help us see the irony in that. Then along comes Mohammid and he retells his people about the same God and prophets. Then comes Mīrzā Ḥosayn ʿAlī Nūrī who starts the Bahai faith with is inclusive of the other three religions.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam break down into many separate groups all competing with each other for the "authority" to tell us about God's truth, and that is really humans telling us different things, and it has always been like this. The Bible was written by humans. This is a very serious matter because if we don't get it right, we do not become immortal. But if the trinity is our reality, we have a soul that is immortal. Ah, that is what hell is for, all those souls who don't get to go to heaven where Satan has control and we are eternally punished. I think Christianity has a problem with spiritual reality? Or for sure I have a problem understanding exactly what Christians believe.

Ironically, the Christian Trinity omits a significant deity from Old Testament : Satan. Originally, he was a heavenly prince, whose job was to serve as legal prosecutor in God's dealings with humans (including the temptation of Jesus in the desert). By contrast, the Holy Spirit was basically a messenger boy, who unlike an Angel, didn't take on human form.

The Roman Christians didn't have a name for the abstract concept of "four" (only a symbol : IV). But they could have used the Greek word "tessera" to describe a four-in-one deity : the Holy Tesseract. The Hindu pantheon included both good and evil gods. For example demonic Kali, who was the 10th avatar of Vishnu. What's the name for a 10-in-one deity? :cool: — Gnomon

Decad is ten. And you have made delightful points. For sure why stop at a trinity? I never thought of that before, but what is the rule that a God can only be a trinity? And what of Satan? He is essential and I can not understand why Jesus wasn't an angel or Satan wasn't a son? Satan was much more popular than he is now. I don't think a church that lectured about Satan would be popular today. For our present understanding of God, we might want to know about Zoroastrians.

Zoroastrians divided the spiritual realm between forces of good and evil. I believe Judaism is a continuum of badness and goodness, not opposing forces. However, it was Cyrus a Persian king and Zoroastrian who freed the Jews from Babylon and ordered that Persia would pay for the rebuilding of the Jewish temple. There was agreement that both religions would be at peace. This eastern influence carried an understanding of demons that did not exist in Judaism and Christians embraced that understanding of demons. They embraced a notion of spiritual reality that has an opposing force of evil. So you are right, the trinity is not the whole of spiritual reality.

not many of us would be able to write a book on quantum physics, — Athena

I'm not talking about writing in a scientific style or sophisticated manner. I'm talking about inconsistencies. If I say that I am the only child and later Ι say that I have two brothers, how can you take what I am saying seriously?

Hebrews knew they were using stories. They were meant to be interpreted literally. — Athena

Maybe you mean "They were not meant ..."?

Is an expression of my own personal interpretation of the Bible. — Athena

I can accept that fully.

I don't think anyone has an exclusive hold on "God's truth" — Athena

Certainly not.

There is an increasing demand for a more spiritual experience. This is where our understanding of the trinity is so important! — Athena

I agree.

Some like to say we are spiritual beings having a human experience. — Athena

One can also say, "We are spiritual beings having a spiritual experience". It depends on the kind of experiance ...

I am really sitting on the fence between being materialistic or more metaphysical. — Athena

I don't think you have to be either of them. You are a spiritual being living in a world that is both material and spiritual.

I have had experiences that can not be explained with a purely material understanding of reality. — Athena

Certainly!

Zoarastrianism might have been the foundation of what became Pauline doctrine on the separation between the Absolute and the world. These notions were codified by Christian baptism of the works of Aristotle

Hebrews knew they were using stories. They were meant to be interpreted literally.
— Athena
Maybe you mean "They were not meant ..."? — Alkis Piskas

I hate it when I forget the little word "not". It makes a slight difference in what I mean. :lol:

So the trinity is the idea that somehow God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are separate, but one. Different manifestations of the same being. What I don’t understand is in the Bible, Jesus communicates directly with God. Wouldn’t this amount to nothing more than talking to yourself? How could Jesus feel forsaken, as he famously declares on the cross? Wouldn’t he be privy to all the information or knowledge that God has? I get it that expecting Christianity to make sense is asking too much of it, but I don’t think I’ve seen this objection to the idea of the trinity, and I’m wondering if it has been posed before, and if so what the responses were. — Pinprick

Pinprick, I think you have made an excellent argument that has not been made before. Clearly given that conversation with God, Jesus and God are not the same consciousness.

Zoarastrianism might have been the foundation of what became Pauline doctrine on the separation between the Absolute and the world. These notions were codified by Christian baptism of the works of Aristotle — Gregory

I so wish we all could discuss Zoarastrianism as easily as we discuss Judaism and Christianity because all these ideas were circulating and religions share them in common. Something that is very exciting to me is the notion of the Creator manifesting the universe by giving order to chaos which is also very much the responsibility of pharaohs to maintain that order. I believe we see this theme throughout oriental thinking. Might we have very interesting discussions if we spoke of global warming as the result of man-made chaos?

Scholars and theologians have long debated on the nature of Zoroastrianism, with dualism, monotheism, and polytheism being the main terms applied to the religion.[38][37][39] Some scholars assert that Zoroastrianism's concept of divinity covers both being and mind as immanent entities, describing Zoroastrianism as having a belief in an immanent self-creating universe with consciousness as its special attribute, thereby putting Zoroastrianism in the pantheistic fold sharing its origin with Indian Hinduism.[40][41] In any case, Asha, the main spiritual force which comes from Ahura Mazda,[21] is the cosmic order which is the antithesis of chaos, which is evident as druj, falsehood and disorder.[22] The resulting cosmic conflict involves all of creation, mental/spiritual and material, including humanity at its core, which has an active role to play in the conflict.[42]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism — Wikipedia

Hum, I think I will start a thread about chaos and global warming.

Pinprick, I think you have made an excellent argument that has not been made before. Clearly given that conversation with God, Jesus and God are not the same consciousness. — Athena

:up:

Occam's Razor here.. "Why have you forsaken, me?" was a person trying to claim the role as messiah, thinking he was actually going to succeed in some miraculous fashion, and then it did not.

Crisis for remaining followers...what to do? Appearances of apparition.. he can't be dead..

This "can't really be dead" turns into much different thing by the Book of John. Now, he is not a human messiah in the Jewish sense (political leader herald in political autonomy and depending on the group- the End Times).. he is some part of a more complicated picture more in line with geometric Greek thought. Perhaps influence from Hellenistic Judaism played a part via Paul in this, through contemporary works by Philo of Alexandria..