doodad

You are probably correct in the technical sense, but is it always a negative thing to do? If believing in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus or
God is beneficial then the fact that it may be irrational seems rather academic to me.

If irrational belief leads to adverse consequences then the belief becomes more than irrational, it becomes toxic. Perhaps we should judge "irrational beliefs" by the results they give in this case. I cannot believe that millions of people continue to practice something that is not in their best interests.

Some of the finer things in life in the way of emotional experiences aren't all that rational.
Love, amore, and testing our limits or tempting fate with daredevil stunts aren't too rational to me, but I sure get off on the first two. I'm too old for the dare devil stunts, but I must have lived a charmed life when I was younger because
death was a heartbeat away for me on many occasions as I pushed those old jalopies with recapped tires up above 110mph.

Jobar

doodad:
I cannot believe that millions of people continue to practice something that is not in their best interests.

Ahhhh, would that it were so.

Don't you know any cigarette smokers, or obese people, or drug addicts? I have to say it's very hard to find a single person who does *not* "practice something that is not in their best interests."

Echo

You might want to inform your opponent that this analogy of the trinity, in which there is one god who appears in three different modes, is known as modalism and is considered a heresy by most christian denominations.God is (supposedly) not merely one god who sometimes appears in the form of the father, sometimes in the form of the son, and sometimes in the form of the holy spirit; a better analogy would be a quantity of water that is fully gas, liquid, and solid at the same time.

What is this person's denomination?

thebeave

The analogy that always come to mind for me with respect to the Trinity concept, is "The Three Stooges" (the Stooge line-up with Curly, not Shemp or God-forbid, Curly Joe!). I think one can easily grasp the 3=1 Trinity concept with such an analogy. You see, as individual Stooges, they are relatively unamusing and powerless to be funny and create chaos. But when all three are together, they are united as one giant "Stoogehead", if you will, and have then achieved , almost omnipotent power to both amuse and destroy (just like the "real" God).

This reminds me also when the Don McLean song "American Pie" comes on the radio. At the point where he sings,"And the three men I admire most, The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost", I always sing over it to say, "And the three men I admire most, Moe and Larry and Curly too". Pisses off some of my more religious friends though.

Roller

He's a Catholic. I thought that analogy with water being all three states at the same time better but it is impossible to attain such state.

doodad

I was speaking of the practice of religion Jobar, or are you too dense to deduct that? Sorry, tit for tat.

Klil H. Neori

As someone had already said, there is a triple=point for water, that is, a form in which all three phases can exist in peace. But those are still three distinguishable phases.

One basic thing amuses me, in this lad's argument: since all things are made of the same kinds of atoms, would he say that we are all the same even though different in the same manner? He's cheating if he only refers to water, just because of its homogeneity of substance (not that homoegneous, actually, there's always the nasty electrolyte piggy-riding on the H2O's). And if he _does_ agree to it, this really pushes the notion of "sameness" to its logical conclusion: Taoism, which leaves no room for any God, Jesus, or Holy Ghost, in the kind of revered state a Catholic would like.

doodad

We make fun of the concept of the Holy Trinity, and yet it was an attempt to make sense out of madness so to speak, or at least an attempt to organize madness. There was a secular reason for coming up with a standard definition of the trinity, and it was a smart move on the part of the guy who insisted there be one. Constantine wanted unity in his domain, and also wanted unity in the religion he chose for his domain, so by fiat we have the current definition of orthodox trinity.

The official definition of the Holy Trinity was an attempt to reconcile the claim that Christianity was monotheistic (as stated by God in the OT) with the existence of the three divine entities, namely God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Hey, it reminds me of a UN decision to divide a country in order to save a country, but at least these jokers tried.

What was the problem? People. There were those who claimed that God was the main man, and others who claimed that Jesus was (the Jesus freaks) and those who claimed the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost was the real kicker. I think the Holy Ghost camp was on to something rational. At least they seemed to admit there was "ghosts". Talk about an indestructible deity, this guy's like a puff of smoke. How you gonna kill that action? He's transparent to anything, including logic.

On a more serious note, I have a concept of the Holy Spirit that works for me but it's too early to get into that. Where's the coffee honey?

[ December 03, 2002: Message edited by: doodad ]</p>

Vesica

Three States at the same time....

I am lost as to why the analogy has taken an additional step to water needing to be in all three states simultaneously!?! What water...A water molecule? A ml of water?

I am not arguing one way or another about the logic of the Trinity..I simply do not understand where this additional complication is coming from, after all water is in all three forms right now out in the wide, wide world...Why are the spatial restrictions added?

lpetrich

The Father is the Big Bopper.
The Son is Ritchie Valens.
The Holy Ghost is Buddy Holly.

And the song is a reference to their dying together in a plane crash.