Summations Only

Not everyone understands that the plural of you is you'all.

It wasn't very clear I see that. In retrospect, my wording should have been better.Kind of like "us" somehow means Trinity when trinity wasn't even made up for several hundred years. So before Trinity was made up, the poor guys reading the bible thought "us" meant multiple gods. But when multiple gods are really suggested, they don't really even mean that apparently.
Unfortunately, those confused believers are all dead and went through their life believing the bible words were what they said.It takes the astute literalists to clear this mess up and apologize to the dead folk believing just what the words said.

I was just pointing out that the Reformation was about political power; I didn't exclude any other reasons. If you'll notice, I acknowledged jar's reply when he added wealth.

Not sure how many guys are familiar with Mormonism. I have many in my area and have researched this a lot.
The point being the Book of Mormon (BoM) is called the most true book ever written.
It's not, it's vivid imagination and likely some plagiarism from the prophet Joe Smith. It's pure fiction.
Mormons have another book of scripture called the Book of Abraham. Now this book was considered true and literal up until last year. The book was written by Joe, shortly after BoM, in early-mid 18th century.
The book was translated by Joe, from the papyrus of an Egyptian mummy show, fortuitously travelling in the area.. Later when Egyptian could actually be read by scholars. What scholars found, was what Joe wrote was in no way related to the papyrus.
But that certainly never kept the apologists from making up all kinds of reasons as to why it was still true.
Last year, after 180 years of being true and literal, the Mormons back pedaled on the Book of Abraham. Now with some careful wording to not admit any wrongs anywhere.. it's an inspired translation.
What that means is it's not actually literally true but spiritually. Who knows what that means by the way, but a person no longer has to believe the Book of Abraham as literally true.
Despite this, many Mormons still believe the Book of Abraham is literally true.What Faith is showing has similarities. The devout believers must have believed for many years things that simply were not true because of believing the bible words. That is " us" meant Trinity and "gods" meant demons. So the poor believers born too early, unfortunately believed bunk by Faith's own claims.Like the poor early Mormons who believed bunk that was later corrected by the leaders of the most correct religion.
The poor early bible writing believers, believed bunk and it was later corrected by the esteemed scholars of the true religion.

I'm not sure it was ever really clear what the plurality in Genesis meant. In the early Genesis, the we, our, us, certainly is addressed to entities all on the same team. But I don't see much evidence of the "we" stuff outside of the creation story in Genesis.As for the Trinity. It is wholly made up by people who are not described in the Bible. If I had to guess at the reasons, I would suggest that it was done to address accusations from Jews and others that Christianity was poly-theistic and did not properly worship Yahweh. The doctrine is contradicted by Jesus own words.

So I become a believer and conscientiously spend the next couple of decades learning a lot about what the great minds of my faith taught over the last two millennia, the faith that built western civilization though that is now denied along with all the rest of it. My effort includes a lot of study of the various false religions and cults that try to imitate Christianity, along with sermon after sermon and book after book that bring the whole thing together into a magnificent revelation of spiritual things nobody could ever imagine on their own.But it was all for naught. Now upstarts come along and call my belief a cult of all things, anything in the Bible that is even held by all believers is just "made up" and all the best reasoning anyone could give for something like the Trinity is also dismissed as invented, no matter that it has pages and pages of Biblical sources for it which I've linked in other threads.Is this just an artifact of the weird situation of the internet where any old self-appointed "expert" can say any old thing he wants, or is this just another sign that the world is being engulfed in a chaos that's going to take us all down to The End?Wait and see I guess.

I agree. The 'we" thing implies the same team. Not sure if it occurs outside Genesis, I don't think so. The Trinity is not a convincing argument but one born out of necessity.

I can understand why you would hope for the end of reason. Reason is your enemy. One you call "unforgivable" and "evil"/For instance - while you may not like it - the "best" reasoning for the Trinity isn't that good. The Bible simply isn't clear on the issue.

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Is this just an artifact of the weird situation of the internet where any old self-appointed "expert" can say any old thing he wants

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As opposed to only self-appointed experts who say things you like ? Or is it that you claim sole authority to "appoint" experts ?

No matter how many times Percy explains that the time spent studying over millennia of a religion is not a valid argument, you still think it's an argument.
Buddha, Hindu, Muslim are based on millennia too. By your own admission, that must be wasted study.
Why would you possibly think you'd be different when you don't have any different evidence. You have the same evidence.. unfortunately it's amounted to none.I consider all religious beliefs as cults though. Or cult like thinking if that helps. The only difference between a true defined "cult" and a religion, is after we get to a few million or so believers then it becomes more appropriate to call it religion rather than a cult. It's more socially acceptable. Christianity was called a cult initially by non-acceptors. Once we get a few million, and it's more common, then it's religion and the others are cults. You just did it on this quote here.
I'll avoid that connotation if it's too insulting.The world has been gulfed in chaos and going to end for 2000 years. You say nothing your brethren didn't state 2000 years ago. It was wrong then and has been wrong every generation since. But it doesn't go away because we don't live long enough. New "upstarts" keep repeating the same thing that never happened before but will soon. Then press the replay button.Edited by Golffly, : No reason given.

I claim the ability to read and understand, and find it very odd that it seems others are having a problem along those lines, although I always start out with the best of hopes for you all. I can only conclude that "these things are spiritually discerned" although that gets me accused of being arrogant,. Is it really that hard to find common ground on simple questions of fact with unbelievers? I guess it is. Oh well.

You don't understand any of this I'm afraid. I read a lot of Buddhism and Hinduism on my way to Christianity and there is NO comparison. WHATEVER. Christianity is HISTORY above all, history that is intended to demonstrate the nature of God so that we might believe in Him.The others are DOCTRINES and Buddhism doesn't even acknowledge God. Even Islam which is a ridiculous rip-off of Biblical religion is mostly a bunch of doctrines, like "Kill Jews" and that sort of inspiring bit of dogma.But you believe what you believe and facts aren't going to change your mind.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Just what would a Muslim be like if you were debating him on his religious validity?
We do no different than you would do with another religion.

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I claim the ability to read and understand, and find it very odd that it seems others are having a problem along those lines, although I always start out with the best of hopes for you all.

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Unfortunately you are very poor at reading and understanding. That is one of your problems. And claiming "spiritual discernment" to try to pretend you are right is just arrogant boasting.

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Is it really that hard to find common ground on simple questions of fact with unbelievers?

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If they were actual demonstrable facts it would not be. If they're not - or worse - obviously untrue - why would you expect agreement ?

You are making untenable equations between religions that aren't true in actuality because you don't think things through. Satan is very clever and knows how to imitate God's truth enough to fool people who have no common sense or spiritual discernment, but that possibility doesn't even exist in your worldview so what's the point of discussing any of this with you?

See post above.