fides

1*1*1=1

1^1^1=1

It's the relationship between the ones that is important.

Conchobar

3 is the magic number, it has powers all in its numerical representation. There have been about twenty divine trinities, almost all before Tertullian invented the Chrsitian Trinity. That does not come from Judaism or the Old testament.

It is equivalent to a psychiatric disorder called Multiple Personality Syndrome (most commonly associated with early sexual abuse.) Was God sexually abused? And by whom, Grandfather God.

The Catholic Trinitarian Church didn't exist until the days when the Trinity was properly and officially formalised. Christianity had long existed in many forms, existed but it was not Trinitarian. It even had Jesus as a lesser created god, according to Bishop Arius. In the early 4th Century Arian Christians were a plurality over Trinitarians who developed in the second century and third.

It took nearly 4 centuries to invent and define the Trinity in the early church. While the Catholic Church dates to its official recognition by Constantine in 324 AD, the trinity was just barely established along with it. The Catholics or Trinitarians were just one of several Christian Sects prior to 324 AD.

There were the oldest ones, Ebionites, who were Jews accepting Jesus as the Messiah but not as a god. There were Nazarenes who strangely can be traced back to 100 BC regarded Jesus as a Messiah and one with special powers but not a god. There were Arian Christians, who actually dominated the Third century Empire. They believed that Jesus was a created god, secondary to the High God or Father. They had no Holy Ghost.

Tertullian in North Africa was a student of African antiquities especially Egyptian. He lived in the early 3rd Century. He would have been well aware of the wall murals at the Holy of Holies in the Temple at Luxor, Egypt. The murals showed the Father God Atum sending the messenger god, Kneph (called the Holy Spirit) to a virgin girl telling her that she would bear the high god's son. The next mural shows the Virgin bearing a son, Aten (or Horus), in a manger attended by Kneph, shepherds, and visited by three kings. This ancient Trinity comprised the Father (Atum), Son (Aten, the Sun), and Kneph (Holy Spirit), was proposed by Tertullian to the Christians as God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit.

Initially the Trinitarians were a minority to the Arian Christians. What tipped the balance was that Emperor Constantine's mother was a Trinitarian (Catholic). At the Council of Nicaea, Arianism was condemned and Trinitarian Catholicism was adopted as official in a council dominated by Imperial troops of Constantine. The Arians survived for several more centuries in the converted German kingdoms north of the Roman Empire. Athanasius who incorporated Tertullian’s ideas, elevated Jesus to a full godhood, articulated the Trinitarian dogma. So his followers were sometimes called Athanasians, Trinitarians, Orthodox, or simply Catholic (universal).

So, one is in every dogmatic sense a "Catholic" while he may not accept the Papal dogma which was added later. Trinitarian Christianity with Jesus as chief god is Catholicism, including Greek Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Maronites, Protestants, Fundamentalists, and Evangelicals.

Conchobar

Tercel

The parts of God are not in need of each other for existence.
According to standard, universally accepted, Christian theology:
The Father is the source of existence. The Father begot the Son. The Spirit procedes from the Father through the Son.

SRB

You say God has parts. Is Jesus a part of God? Is God identical to a part of God? How do you make sense of the sentence "Jesus is God" if Jesus and God are two different things?

If God is composed of three sentient beings, then the correct personal pronoun when referring to God would be "they" or "it."

I agree with net2002 that nobody has come up with an interpretation of the relationship between God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Father that makes the least bit of sense of what Christians say about them. The Doctrine of the Trinity is incoherent.

SRB

Tercel

Conchobar,

You're all over the place in your presentation of Christian history. Some of it's almost okay, some's badly skewed, and some...
I don't know where you guys get all this stuff from... presumably there's some atheist apologetics websites out there who haven't done their homework and have played chinese whispers with the facts in the meantime?

The "Catholic Trinitarian Church" eh? Has someone been inventing new denominations behind my back?

A wishful assertion.

Er if Arian Christians were in the majority... then why did the Council of Nicea condemn them with a vote of about 313 to 5?
And why is the example of a 4th century heresy being used when you admit that trinitarian belief with the church is at least a century older than that?

So the wierd sects go back as far as 100 BC... wow. Go read Paul's letters and you'll see that belief in the Godhood of Christ goes back to 50 AD.

Hmm the Arian Christians must have been pretty good to dominate in the 3rd century given that their founder Arius didn't start teaching that doctrine until the next century (in 318AD)...

Note the "would have been" (as opposed to "was") since what follows is utter speculation coming directly from the author's rather vivid imagination.

Note that given suficient imagination and flare in translation and interpretation we can use Christian terminology for these things and pretend to find similarities...
Of course the fact that ancient pagans in all probability never thought any such things and if they did almost certainly borrowed them straight from the earlier Christians, is clearly irrelevant.

The astute reader will note that earlier it was admitted that we weren't sure Tertullian was aware of this and that it was speculation. Now, by twisting the wording to the point of straight out lying, we can pretend that Tertullian actually noted this pagan parellel and that this was his motivation for the Trinity.

Those good old Arian Christians who lived centuries before their founder...
Tertullian died over a century before Arius was born.

And the Christians who had been willing to die for their beliefs up 'till then, turned around and said "Well if Constantine's mother says so...".

"Imperial troops"? That's a nice improvement. You know, every time I hear atheists tell the story of the council of Nicea I learn something new...
But I guess they don't call it "revisionist history" for nothing...

Tercel

In following the terminology used by the original poster, I used the term "parts" to refer to the distinctions between the Persons. So: yes.

Yes.

That question makes no sense. So, probably: No.

Easy: "Jesus is part of God". (Or more technically, "Jesus is of the same essence as God")

Perhaps. God does refer to himself as "We" in the first portion of Genesis.
However the difference between the three sentient beings in God is not so profound as the differences between three sentient humans: God doesn't have a body and so isn't separated physically and God doesn't disagree with himself - so unlike humans the three parts aren't wanting to do different things at the same time.
Since the 3 parts act together, it seems reasonable just to call God "He".

AmericanHeretic

What you have here is a mythic framework. That is the proper term for the trinity, and every other constructed assortment of myths.

A great way to (try to) prove a myth is with another myth. So the myth of god is supported by the myth of the holy ghost who is supported by the myth of Jeebus. Further support comes from the myth of heaven and hell and the soul, and for those who partake of religion, extra treats are found in the numerous cascading smaller myths like Mary being a virgin mommy and Jeebus walkin' on water and Moses partin' the Red Sea.

Every one of these are myths, and every one is as senseless and devoid of emirical evidence as the other.

Religion gets comical quickly when you label each myth as a myth. This is why you see all that absurd mental hoop-jumping-through because every myth must be true....or.....(oh no!) all myths are false.

All myths are false.

I love saying that.

So, care to show one true myth? Anyone?

Here, I'll supply one of my favorites:

God created the universe......nope, sorry, science has that one down. No god created the universe, the Big Bang did. Or, does anyone believe in a god who's got a sacred text that says "and on the first day He setteth offeth the Biggeth Bangeth and said 'BOOM, it is good".

There is no myth for creation from any religion that incorporates the Big Bang.

Uh oh.

If god didn't create the universe, then maybe Jeebus didn't walk on water and Mary wasn't a virgin and the holy ghost doesn't exist.....and religion is nothing but a mythic framework.

Before you myth-believers respond, please realise the very first thing I am going to say to you concerning your response is this:

Provide evidence for your myths.

Best of luck.

Darth Dane

It would seem that only in Christianity would one encounter the doctrine "1+1+1 = 1."

Maybe this would be more aptly put:

x+x+x = X

x being the unknown factor as well

All the small x's are the same as teh big, but on a different point on teh scale.

"Everything is a point on a scale subject to change and control"

More to the point, though, what about my comment regarding God being "confined" to existence as a man?

Who confines God as having an existance as man? Humans does this right?





DD - Love Spliff

SRB

As a point of fact (and grammar), just about all sentences of the form "Is P identical to Q?" where P and Q are singular nouns, make perfect sense. If God is not identical to a part of God, and Jesus is a part of God, then it follows that God is not identical to Jesus.

If Jesus is only a part of God then Jesus and God are not one, but two distinct things. God would be a kind of committee, of which Jesus is a part. That is polytheism in all but name. A polytheist might well believe in three distinct sentient beings with godlike powers. That's precisely what you say the Trinity entails. Admittedly the polytheist would assent to the sentence "there are three gods" and you wouldn't, but in terms of the content of your beliefs, there is nothing between you.

As a matter of grammar, three sentient beings are referred to as "they." That's true even if they always all agree with each other.

SRB

TheUnbeliever

The "Trinity" is akin to the Borg collective... with multiple personality disorder... while suffering from some kind of unknowable, infinitely annoying Godly mid-life crisis.

Assuming it can be described at all.