Trinity Nonsense

[DeistPaladin]

The trinity bullshit is just evidence that polytheism was still interesting enough to sprinkle in a dose.

Here's how I think they came up with it:

"How is it that Jesus can forgive sins? And why does the jealous, attention hungry god of the OT suddenly need an intercessor?"

"Because Jesus IS God"

"If Jesus is God, how can God be an intercessor with himself? 'No man comes to the Father except through Me' becomes 'No man comes to Me except through Me.' This seems like a tautology."

"Um, well, you see Jesus is 'God the Son' who is a separate being from 'God the father'."

"So there are two or three gods then? I thought that was strictly forbidden by Jewish theology."

"No, no, there's only one god"

"But you just said there were..."

"You have to understand that God the Son is the same god as God the Father. They are separate persons but are of the same substance."

"WTF does that even mean?"

"Human minds can't comprehend it. It must be taken on faith."

"So, in the final analysis, is Jesus God or is Jesus not God."

"Yes."

"What?"

"When Jesus is praying to God, that's when he's fully human. When Jesus is forgiving sins, that's when he's fully divine."

"This isn't just a sloppy fix to the theological conundrum that must inevitably spring from merging strict Jewish monotheism with pagan concepts of redemption through faith in an intercessor deity is it?"

"No, no, no, it's what Jesus preached all along."

"So how come the earliest Gospels, the Synoptics, say nothing about Jesus being God, but rather making it clear that he's separate from and subordinate to God? It seems like the Johnnian Gospel was a rewrite."

"Perhaps Knuckles the torturer can better explain it to you?"

"No need! Praise Jesus!"

[Cinjin]

Paladin, that OP officially makes you my hero for the day.

Nice! Keep that shit coming!

"You have to understand that God the Son is the same god as God the Father. They are separate persons but are of the same substance."

"WTF does that even mean?"

"Human minds can't comprehend it. It must be taken on faith."

lol ---- I've HAD this conversation before. ---- lol

[Faith No More]

I think they had to reconcile the fact that God was himself and Jesus, but the 'holy duality' didn't quite sound as good so they invented the holy spirit.

[Minimalist]

In Lost Christianities, Bart Ehrman has this discussion of the advent of the concept:

The Beginnings of the Trinity
Neither Tertullian nor Hippolytus approached the questions of the nature of
Christ as God and man and of the relationship of the divine members of the
Godhead with the erudition, nuance, and acumen of Origen. But in some ways,
their less daring approaches became more useful to orthodox thinkers of later
times. Their opposition to patripassianist understandings (the belief that “the
Father suffered”) forced them to think in trinitarian terms, of God being distinctively
three in expression though one in essence. As Hippolytus puts it,
“With respect to the power, God is one; but with respect to the economy [i.e.,
to how this power expresses itself], the manifestation is triple” (Refutation
8:2). In Tertullian’s formulation, God is three in degree, not condition; in form,
not substance; in aspect, not power (Against Praxeas, 2). Tertullian was the
first Latin theologian to use the term Trinity.
Within the broad contours of proto-orthodoxy, then, one can see development
and variety. As time progressed, theologians became more entranced with
the mystery of the Trinity and developed a more highly refined vocabulary for
dealing with it. But that was long after the major issues had been resolved, of
whether Christ was man but not God (Ebionites; Theodotians), God but not
man (Marcionites, some Gnostics), or two beings, one man and one God (most
Gnostics). The proto-orthodox opted for none of the above. Christ was God
and man, yet he was one being, not two.24
Once that was acknowledged, the details still had to be worked out. And
they were worked out for centuries. If it were easy, it would not be a mystery.
Theologians began to be obsessed with the question of how and in what way
Christ could be both human and divine, completely both. Did he have a human
soul but a divine spirit? Did he have a divine soul instead of a human soul? Was
his body really like everyone else’s body? How could God have a body? Was
he subordinate to the Father, as in Origen?25 If he was not subordinate to the
Father, why was he the one sent, rather than the other way around? And so on,
almost ad infinitum.

The underlined part is the key. This bullshit was massaged for centuries and then presented to a captive population as a done deal. "Believe it or burn at the stake!"
Such is xtian "love."

[Cinjin]

[quote snipped]

The underlined part is the key. This bullshit was massaged for centuries and then presented to a captive population as a done deal. "Believe it or burn at the stake!"
Such is xtian "love."

When you combine all the parts, so that you can see all the many fallacies and contradictions, the murders and molestations, the arguments of "context", the outright fabrications, the pile of discrepancies, even the very nature of an angry, jealous, hostile malevolent god - it seems (to me) incomprehensible how anyone could continue to not only believe, but defend and attempt to sell this religion as humanity's saving grace.


**shakes head in genuine astonishment**

[JohnDG]

Jesus was a man with an extreme mental disorder, that he later passed on in the form of mass histeria.

[Minimalist]

[quote snipped]

The underlined part is the key. This bullshit was massaged for centuries and then presented to a captive population as a done deal. "Believe it or burn at the stake!"
Such is xtian "love."

When you combine all the parts, so that you can see all the many fallacies and contradictions, the murders and molestations, the arguments of "context", the outright fabrications, the pile of discrepancies, even the very nature of an angry, jealous, hostile malevolent god - it seems (to me) incomprehensible how anyone could continue to not only believe, but defend and attempt to sell this religion as humanities saving grace.


**shakes head in genuine astonishment**

But remember, for 1,000 years after they had the right to murder/torture anyone who disagreed or disputed their bullshit. I've said many times that if you gave me the right to execute people who disagree I could have millions worshiping a toaster in 20 years. Fear is a great motivator. Religious scumbags know that better than almost anyone else.

[Zenith]

But remember, for 1,000 years after they had the right to murder/torture anyone who disagreed or disputed their bullshit. I've said many times that if you gave me the right to execute people who disagree I could have millions worshiping a toaster in 20 years. Fear is a great motivator. Religious scumbags know that better than almost anyone else.

I don't have too much time these days, but I wanted to say something...
You know, in the first centuries since christianity became an official religion, the situation was like this: the Empire there was now an organized religion: priests, bishops, archbishops, etc. whom the people were indeed following blindly. So there was absolutely no need to punish a no-one-cares-for John for believing otherwise. The IMPORTANT thing when having a council was to force on every bishop & archbishop the accepted dogmas - the head of the beast is dangerous (i.e. the leader, the one who inspires others), not the tail! And when a bishop or archbishop refused to accept the new dogma, he was exiled (also mocked and stuff like that) - not butchered and tortured (at least the centuries 4 to 11, where we have the topic). Yet violence can still happen in the population, because once they have heard the "undeniable truth", they hate and despise the minority that refuses it, so there is a high probability for incidents to happen.

In few words: once you put into the minds of the mob to blindly believe their religious leaders, then, if you want to introduce a certain doctrine, you need only a council which everybody calls "ecumenical" (which, the mob believes it to be "God chose that through the Church") and force some bishops and archbishops to believe and preach what the Emperor & the majority of bishops & archbishops want.

Unfortunately, I didn't study about how things were going on in later centuries (after year 1000), and especially how things were in the Orthodox Christianity (i.e. the orthodox people did not have an inquisition, for instance).

[downbeatplumb]

Unfortunately, I didn't study about how things were going on in later centuries (after year 1000), and especially how things were in the Orthodox Christianity (i.e. the orthodox people did not have an inquisition, for instance).

The orthodox church had other persecution agencies e.g. the Oprichnik of Ivan the terrible.

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

[Zenith]

The orthodox church had other persecution agencies e.g. the Oprichnik of Ivan the terrible.

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

that page which you specified doesn't contain anything about "religion". On the other hand, it is talked about "internal enemies of the Tsar" (i.e. it is politics, people who would have wanted the Tsar dead or to replace him, things like that)