Summations Only

=======
Not at all. The Torah has plenty of references to multiple gods:quote:Exo 15:11 Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?quote:Exo 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.quote:Exo 22:28 Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people.
=======Yes....the Torah...when it was written ... was there any Christians or Muslims in the world ? or was only tribes and kingdoms with many gods like Romans and Greeks ?!The Jews were the only that had a single God, but even so...sometimes they worshiped minor gods like Baal======
What I'm asking is, why does it "make sense"?
Why is the magic number three? Why not eleven?
======Because in new testament Jesus said many times : Father...Himself and the Holy Spirit....and not moreYou would not find more gods or entities to prayJust see the baptism sacrament=====
The Bible has lots and lots and lots and lots of abnegations. We have a whole Bible Accuracy and Inerrancy forum for that.
=====Didn't read that yet....I'm new in here....As you said : let's go slowly ... if you want to... of course====
It must be man's word about God - and man's understanding of God is imperfect. So man makes up ideas like The Trinity that "make sense" to him.
======That's true..."man's understanding of God is imperfect"Real TrueAs I said in my first post :Can a dog understand the nature of the human-being ? no...because it is musch less than human...much...much...much more ......but it has some kind of intelligence...doesn't it ?You just can't figure the nature of God...just by reading the bible, you just can't understandYou can't read the bible alone without the assistance of the Holy Spirit, why ?! because of this versicles :Joh 14-26 "But the Comforter, [which is] the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."What a invisible being shall teach ?Well, this issue "the conforter that will be send" is the main link to Muslims believe of Mohamed last prophet...which makes all of this more complex to understand...doesn't it ?!Edited by Delta, : No reason given.Edited by Delta, : No reason given.Edited by Delta, : No reason given.Edited by Delta, : No reason given.

ICANT So you are saying that God performed artificial insemination? Really. So just what is God doing putting his Sperm into a married woman?

Well, you brought up the Torah. I only pointed out that it does, in fact, refer to multiple gods. Does the New Testament say there are only the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Does it say there are no others or does it just not mention any others?Does it say that those three are also one? That's what I'm saying: If you can't understand the nature of God, how can you say His nature is triune? What do Muslims think of the Trinity?

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

it depends on what time you are talking about, the egyptians had one god before the jews did, not very long though, but still they did again it depends on what time period, plato believed in one god, many people believed all the gods were just like the trinity, seperate persons but of the same substenceby the way baal was a major god not a minor one, it was a title, they even called yahweh baal. so because he didn't talk about them they didn't exist? does that mean that since he didn't talk about computers you are just imagening that you are using one? it only means he believed in only god not that there aren't more gods yes it also means that the trinity could be wrong if i need some "spirit" to understand the bible so i can read the bible and believe in the god written about in the bible, you have lost already only because you require a seeker to already believe before understanding the text, its a pure cop-out to require belief before you can understand somethingwhy try to seek truth objectively if its not needed, but just faith?

====
Well, you brought up the Torah. I only pointed out that it does, in fact, refer to multiple gods.
=====There was always multiple gods in this world, even todayHow many people worship money or power ?At that time of Torah was written...there was many gods around Israel, such as BaalBut Torah always said that there was only a tru God....just read above====
Does the New Testament say there are only the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Does it say there are no others or does it just not mention any others?Does it say that those three are also one?
======It mentions other human gods, of course, mainly in Torah ...as I said...there was many between tribes and cultures and kingdoms ...in fact each kingdom had is own group of gods...and I mean A GROUP....there was many=======
That's what I'm saying: If you can't understand the nature of God, how can you say His nature is triune?
=======Because He can't deny or abrogate the bible, because He is the same yesterday...today..and tomorrowBut the mankind, yes...it changes...it is not the same has it was 2000 years before...or 3000 or 4000 years....But even now we have multiple gods====
What do Muslims think of the Trinity?
====Well :they don't believe the bible or torah
they don't believe on Jesus dead on cross
they don't believe many thingsIt is just a natural path to unbelievers on Holy Spirit, and triunityThe bible and triunity must make sense from Alpha to Omega, and also make sense into mankind HistoryIf you see the Bible... there is :- old testament : as it was the plan of Father to mankind
- new testament : the manifestation of Father's plan in the Son
- book of revelation : the Holy Spirit revealing/teaching all that is to comeYes...Apocalypse was always understood as a book apart .. the last one...the revelation as earlier Christians called itDidn't Jesus said that the "comforter" would reveal/teach everything that was left ?Reveal...Book of Revelation...the end of story...the end of the bible by the Holy SpiritFor me all makes sense, well, for a Catholic point of view...as I truly believe that it is the real religion of GodWell...and because of the end of the bible...therefore the whole revelation from God to mankind as finished...are we living the last days ?Yes we are....but :Psalms 89,4 "For a thousand years in thy sight are as yesterday, which is past. And as a watch in the night"1000 years for us is like a night for God...just nothingMaybe He gave a week to mankind ... who knows ?!Edited by Delta, : No reason given.Edited by Delta, : No reason given.

If you're going to distinguish between "gods" and "true gods", you're back to the problem of human understanding again. How can you tell who is a "true" god and who is not? But that's just what the Bible says - you can't use the Bible to back up the Bible. How do you understand which parts of the Bible are true, if your understanding is imperfcect? That's a new one on me.Again, the same question, though: How do you know? How do you set the Revelation apart from the rest of the New Testament? It seems to me that you've picked the number three out of a hat and you're dividing everything you see into threes. Why?

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

Its a belief based off cognitive dissense, look at the first part of the NT, it talks about jesus being the "son" of god, well we all are sons of god, hes special though, they thought he would lead people back to gods way and save them.
saddly the text is very ambigous
then we have john and pauls stuff, well the author of john went further and claimed jesus was the logos, translating it to word is wrong, logos may mean "word" but its not the same as we use it.i really do think a lot of the problems stem from translations and misunderstanding rather than the trinity being true, jesus being called the son of god doesn't make him a superhero or somethingi've read some of the arguments from the other side and all i can say is, even though jesus did say baptise people in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit, that doesn't mean he is god, it says they are three beings, and jesus would be the middle man, people now say father,son, and holy spirit and ignore the authors wrote the to signify three beings
i've read most of the arguements, but in order for them to work you have to show that, thats how the people back then thought of it, but they didn't
to the writers of the sonoptics it always sounded like they believed jesus was a prophet and a special person chosen by god to show the way to god from sinful acts, he did say all of his acts were the product of god not him, if hes god why tell people he had nothing to do with itthis is true if jesus is god then he birthed himself and killed himself, and there would be no reason for him to shout "father why have you forsaken me?"
unless he isn't god on earth, and people have just made up some magical mythology that isn't even in the bible like original sin and the flood doing all the things we seei'd like to know why jesus would care about being forsaken by god, if he is god, all i can think is its a pretty pagan belief and i have nothing aganst pagan beliefs but not with the hypocracy ffrom some people

Hi Ringo,If I put a hole in the end of an egg, then pour the inside out as the white comes out I put it in a container then the yoke in another container. I have three different parts of the egg.
Therefore I had an object that was three in one.I was answering sidelined as I was assuming he meant it was impossible for 3 things to be one.

quote:

---

It falls apart right off the hop because it requires that we assert 3 different items to in fact be the same item without explanation for how we can justify it.

---

Just because I believe it that does not make it true.

That's what I'm saying - it is impossible.I didn't think anybody had such a simplistic idea of the Trinity. I thought the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were supposed to be One, not just three parts fastened together somehow. Frankly, that kind of trinity is a great big "so what?", "who cares?, "why even waste time mentioning it?"

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

I think a lot of this discussion could be cleared up if we take into account that early Hebrews were probably henotheistic; that is, they believed in a multitude of gods but worshiped only one.So when Delta says: He's not that far off.Henotheism is sometimes viewed as a stepping stone from polytheism to monotheism. The Hebrews lived in an area that had a huge pantheon of gods, but they selected one god to worship as their 'true' god (which they would eventually view as the only god). How or why they chose that god, I can't say. (In fact, there's probably more than one god described in the Bible that was assimilated into a single God.)

I became intrigued with this idea of Henotheism and so I looked it up and found:

quote:

---

Belief in one god without denying the existence of others.

---

This carried me along a brief google search river to this topic and the problems between the ways that many of us think and believe. As an example, to a fundamentalist Christian, there may well be one God..be He able to interact in several personal ways or not. Any other manifestations of supernatural (or otherwise unexplainable) manifestation would be ascribed to Satan...since by golly there is One God that runs the show! On a practical level, however, how is this different than the Hebrews and their collection of idols when they were being rebellious?In other words, how is Henotheism any different from One God plus idolatry?

The Trinity is, in my opinion, not a major theological issue. In the depths of my soul, I believe that there is no doubt One God. Whether I make the "mistake" of worshiping Jesus (or the Holy Spirit in the Living Christ)or whether I am worshiping God through The Eucharist or even whether I am worshiping God while driving to work---I believe that the thoughts and intentions of my heart are what is important. All roads may not lead to God but God finds us down the road in which we live, IMB.

I think its more a matter of worship of only one god while not denying the existence of others.The Hebrews were suppose to only worship one god. It didn't mean they didn't know of other regional gods.Idolatry is worship of an image or idol instead of god. They are two totally different things.

The question for this topic is: Where does trinitarianism fit on the continuum?As Phat mentioned, many Christians do consider Satan, etc. to be "false Gods", so that smacks somewhat of henotheism. But the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all in the category of "true God(s)", aren't they?I talked about "other gods" because they illustrate our understanding of the nature of "God". Different societies understand their god(s) in different ways - hence, "different" god(s).Trinitarians think they have an understanding of "God" in which there are three (and only three) aspects.My main focus in this thread has been, why three? Why not more? Why not less?Why is Satan excluded from the Trinity? What's the difference between the Father and the Holy Spirit?How can three and one be the same, except as a cliche?If we can't come to a common understanding of how many gods there are, how can we come to a common understanding of how many aspects one god has?

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC

Well, it's the issue of this thread. Your quote draws an interesting distinction between Tritheism and Dualism. My question would be: Why does this "Satan" character have to represent a conflicting superpower? Why not - as many Bible references suggest - see Satan as part of the Godhead? If God is all-powerful, how can the Tempter, the Prosecuter, etc. not be a part of Him?

---

Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.
Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC