The Holy Trinity

[Angry Dragon]

In the Bible there are three gods mentioned
God the Father
God the Son
God the Holy Ghost
but I fail to see any quotes by this third god
Does this third god really exist or did someone just decide to add it??
Or is a simple metaphor for God the Mother??




To me it seems that a truly holy family consists of a father, a son, a spirit,

[rurallib]

1. I had read that three head gods were pretty standard way back then

so it was an adaptation to other religions of the day.

[CrispyQ]

2. How about a parent, a child & a spirit?

;)

"A father, a son & a ghost. Where are the women in this religion?" I got chastised badly for asking this question during confirmation.

[safeinOhio]

3. Unitarians go back to the 16th century

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarianism

Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being.<1>
For most of its history, Unitarianism has been known for the rejection of several orthodox Protestant doctrines besides the Trinity,<2> including the soteriological doctrines of original sin and predestination,<3><4> and, in more recent times, biblical inerrancy.<5> In J. Gordon Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions it is classified among "the 'liberal' family of churches".<6>
The first Unitarians, although not called Unitarians initially, were found in Poland and Transylvania from the 1540s onwards, though many of them were Italians.<7><8> In England the first Unitarian Church was established in 1774 on Essex Street, London, where today's British Unitarian headquarters are still located.<9> The first official acceptance of the Unitarian faith on the part of a congregation in America was by King's Chapel in Boston, from where James Freeman began teaching Unitarian doctrine in 1784, and was appointed rector and revised the Prayer Book according to Unitarian doctrines in 1786.<10>

[struggle4progress]

4. christianity has never regarded the trinity as three different divinities

[laconicsax]

5. Google "arianism." n/t

Edited to add: Or just look up non-trinitarian Christian sects

[struggle4progress]

12. nah. christianity arose during the roman era as a sect within judaism, which had long

been uncompromisingly monotheistic

the debate over arianism was a series of later power struggles, masquerading as long-continuing debate over philosophical issues, such as whether homoousios or some other word should be used

[laconicsax]

15. You're right. The non-trinitarians never existed.

:eyes:

[darkstar3]

17. They weren't True Christians.

[Demstud]

30. Why?

[struggle4progress]

18. nontrinitarian christians existed and exist imo but not polytheistic christians

you might do better trying to express your own views rather than mine, as i often consider your summaries of my views highly inaccurate

[laconicsax]

20. You're trying to have it both ways.

You can't be both non-trinitarian and monotheistic unless two of the three distinct entities aren't divine.

[Speck Tater]

6. That depends entirely on which brand of Christianity you're talking about.

I know Christians who definitely see the "father" and the "son" as two distinct personalities.

[Angry Dragon]

7. Then how does that birth of Jesus work out??

[trotsky]

11. However, one could also say it *always* has. n/t

[xchrom]

8. Blessed be God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It's Three In One.

The Nicene Creed is the basis.

[Angry Dragon]

10. I do not read it as that

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

And I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

This speaks of three gods


And this was written almost 400 years after Christ ......... It seems it should not have taken them that long to figure out what they were believing in

And catholic means universal and not the Roman Catholic Church

[xchrom]

19. Read it how you want - but it's still Three in One.

The Holy Trinity.
Blessed be God - not gods - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

[Angry Dragon]

21. One god -three faces

kinda puts a crimp in a man dying on the cross when he is one part of one god
and he knows the outcome going in

edit: I was brought up in a religion that taught there were three gods.....
Are you telling me my religion is wrong??


In the post above is the Nicene Creed.............

[pipoman]

9. Not a theologian, I believe there is more than one explanation

depending on denomination. I have heard one explanation as "the Father" being god, "the son" being Christ while he was on earth, and "the Holy Spirit" being the result of christs earthly death. I have also heard the explanation that all three are aspects of one being, each with specific functions in heaven and on earth. I have also heard that "the Father" created and was the god of the old testament, then "the father" came to earth as "the son", when christ was crucified he became "the holy spirit" for his ascension and has remained the holy spirit since.

[Taverner]

13. Actually the Trinity is not mentioned in the Bible at all.

That's all the Council of Nicaea, several hundred years later....

[Angry Dragon]

14. but it does mention the father the son and the holy ghost

Are you saying the Bible does not spell out the relationship or something else??

[Taverner]

16. It may, but it also mention Jehovah, Elohim, Adonai, etc....

You could have a massively polytheistic religion if you went by name alone

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. There are a couple of times all 3 are mentioned together

though both are at the end of chapters; it's possible they were additions by later scribes as the idea of a Trinity took hold.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+28&version=NIV
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Corinthians+13&version=NIV

Those are the only places where the 'Holy Spirit' is promoted to being apparently equal to the other 2.

[Taverner]

28. Wouldn't surprise me. Council of Nicaea was really dedicated to their theology...

So much that they may have poisoned Arius...

[struggle4progress]

29. Arius died, aged 80, in 336, a decade after the Council of Nicaea. As this happened

over a millennium and a half ago, it seems at best an exceedingly cold case

I am not aware of any first-hand accounts

Athanasius apparently wrote about the matter to a certain Serapion (Epistula ad Serapionem de morte Arii). One should remark that some texts once attributed to Athanasius are now considered dubious and various others are now regarded as entirely spurious. This letter was once widely circulated, it seems: Theodoret, who was born about thirty years after Arius died, includes in his Ecclesiastical History (which covers a period ending around 439 and which must therefore have been completed about a century after Arius' death) an extract from that letter. Athanasius says "I was not at Constantinople when he died, but Macarius the Presbyter was, and from him I learned the circumstances." Macarius apparently told Athanasius that Arius .. urged by the necessities of nature withdrew, and suddenly .. ‘falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst' .. and immediately expired as he lay

The symptoms might suggest massive abdominal hemorrhage as cause of death

[Taverner]

35. My bad. NT

[moobu2]

23. The Trinity is an ancient prehistoric astrological concept

derived from the 3 most important positions the sun takes on the horizon during a 12 month period. On the Summer solstice and the Winter Solstice, the sun is north and south on the horizon and on the Spring and Fall equinoxes the Sun is in the center of the horizon, and at the same location as one another.

All the stories in the Bible are complex allegorical stories of various astrological events and viewing the Bible like that is the only way any of it makes any sense.

With that said, the early Christian church fathers invented the Christian version of the trinity for political reasons, or in other words, to form a coalition from various groups with differing opinions about the divinity of Jesus, and other relevant issues.

That's my final answer.

[MarkCharles]

25. I like that final answer. There are so many parts of the Christian

religious mythology which are simply re-worded or re-worked imagery of much more ancient mythical tales and fables.

From Adam and Eve and their sons, to Noah and his ark, to reincarnations, actual "waking from the dead" and so much more.

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. Not on our planet, they're not

"On the Summer solstice and the Winter Solstice, the sun is north and south on the horizon"

No. Not at all. Assuming we're in the northern hemisphere, at the summer solstice the sun rises at its most northerly point, and also sets at its most northerly point; and rises and sets at its most southerly points on the winter solstice. But that is not 'north and south'. The sun is always south at midday, any time of the year (give or take a few degrees for things like the elliptical orbit of the earth).

"on the Spring and Fall equinoxes the Sun is in the center of the horizon"

That doesn't even mean anything. "The center of the horizon"? Can you remotely explain what you mean by that?

At the equinoxes, the sun rises approximately in the east, and sets in the west. We've accumulated 6 points on the horizon so far, plus the sun being due south at midday. How does this give you your trinity?

[moobu2]

32. Starting from the spring equinox

if you begin observing the sun every day as it rises on the horizon for roughly 12 months, you should notice that the sun begins to move slightly north every day until it reaches it's furthest point north on the horizon <Summer Solstice>, then it starts is southerly movement across the horizon and every day the sun will rise at a point further south. Eventually, the sun will reach a central point on the horizon where the amount of day light hours are the same as the amount of nighttime hours <Fall Equinox>. The sun continues to move south as it rises on the horizon every day until it reaches it's most southern point <Winter Solstice>. The Sun appears to rise at that southern for 3 days before it begins to move back north (Jesus and other deities die for 3 days and are resurrected). If you continue your sun observances you will see the sun rising on a more northerly point every morning until it reaches a pint where the amount of day light hours are the same as the amount of nighttime hours <Spring Equinox> which would be near the exact same point that the sun rises on the Fall Equinox. The 3 most important points on the horizon relative to the sun.

This diagram shows another Biblical allegory where the story tellers used those 3 points on the horizon as an example.

[muriel_volestrangler]

33. Bwahahah

So now your "3 most important points" are allegories of Jesus and the 2 thieves crucified with him. You've just downgraded 2/3rds of the Trinity to criminals receiving a rather harsh punishment. And you've put in a picture of a Celtic cross because ... you also drew crosses and circles? I hate to disappoint you, but there's no vertical line that becomes visible at sunrise. A Celtic cross, as the name implies, is not a typical representation. And there's no cross at sunrise.

You appear to be flailing about to find anything to do with the number '3' to say 'this is where the Trinity came from'. You might as well say it comes from the 3 dimensions of space. Or the 3 sides of a triangle, the simplest geometric figure. Why are you restricting yourself to sunrise, by the way? (You said nothing about sunrise in the earlier post). 3 is a fairly low number, that turns up frequently. You can't just take the first thing that comes into your head when you hear '3' and say "that's where the Trinity comes from". If the positions of the sun at equinoxes and solstices were involved in some way, then we should have one of the members of the trinity occurring twice as often as the others, being in the middle of them, or things like that.

[Angry Dragon]

34. ........

[bananas]

24. Like Harpo Marx, he doesn't talk much - doesn't mean he isn't there. nt

[MarkCharles]

26. Which who is the "he" you are referring to?

[bananas]

27. Chico. nt