A Model of the Trinity--in a Basketball Arena?

Not necessarily, as I see it. Obviously that is what we do not agree on. I suppose we can both live with that and see what happens as time goes by.

Here's where we brush up against the subject of the trinity. Are the Father and Son one? If so, you're saying, "That is why after He asked Himself to allow Himself not to go through with it, He told Himself that He would do as He Himself wished."Does that make sense? Here's where we brush up against the subject of the trinity (again). Are the Father and Son one? If so, you're saying, "Why would God want this and not let Himself walk away from the suffering?"Does that make sense?God chose to come down to earth as a human. Suffering is part of being human. Do you think He would reasonably unchoose His own choice?As far as I can see, there is still no case for Jesus' death being the salient factor in His life.

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This forum is a place where a range of views are exchanged for a variety of personal reasons. At least that is how I understand what goes on here. One function of this participation is that it aids in clarifing what one thinks and how our ideas are best conveyed. I'm uncertain if any conversion goes on but I find some real learning happens. Welcome to the forum!This thread interests me particularly to puzzle out Christians differing with each other over words that don't have clear referents. I would first need to know what "nature" is before I could begin to decide who might have what kind of nature "divine" or "human". I believe religion has important psychological functions and represents important personal experiences, though psychology and personal experience are heavily conditioned by the social matrix, indeed they are in aggregate the social matrix.I will have to say that the death of a creature seems far more tragic than the death of God since it's always explained that the God's death is quite temporary. If the creator inflicts the sufferings of death, disease, war, famine etc. on it's creatures it seems to me only fair that the creator should be willing to at least have a taste of what he created.lfen

It depends on how you see it. Christians believe that man chose a destiny with death when he chose to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

I am a bit confused here. To begin with, do you believe the Trinity exists?

Well, He did, you know. He died on the cross for us. Because He feels sorry for us bumbling fools who constantly sin and bring death, disease, war and famine etc. on ourselves.

God does not inflict all these on us. We cause all this to happen and often He allows it to happen. I am sure if you can see my point. Inflicting is different from allowing since someone wishes to inflict it on himself.

For the purpose of this discussion, I'm using the scoreboard analogy from the OP - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the same "scoreboard" containing the same information. Depending on your vantage point, sometimes it's easier to refer to one or the other or the other.To you, are the Father and Son one?

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I'm peeking into off topic territory here so this is a brief notation.Christianity though Jewish in origin contains influences from mystery cults among other influences. As I've stated before Christianity doesn't make sense to me. It reads like a hodge podge of poorly grasped and misunderstood notions from a variety of incompatible sources.Although I find the mythicist position intriguing I also could see a historical Jesus who died so young that he didn't have the time to develop his disciples to understand his teaching. The phenomena of awakening is well documented in India, most recently Shri Ramana Maharshi is a very good example. But it would be very difficult for an awakened individual to explain the nondual state to Jews or Gentiles without the time to introduce new language or ways of thinking.There is another way to understand human and divine consciousness as present in an avatar but it is a profoundly differing view of divinity than that held by either the Jews, Greek, or Romans. I would guess that Christianity is pretty close to what would result if an awakened teacher had just begun to teach and then had his teaching cut short. The Buddha had over 30 years to teach in a time and place that was peaceful and accepted and supported his teaching so that he had time to develop the understanding in his followers.There is no evidence for this but I will add to the debate that Jesus wasn't any more God than we all are but that in him as in other avatars the divine conscious had awakened to realizing that it wasn't the conditioned human organism. However, there was almost nothing to connect his realization to and before he could fully impart his teachings he was killed.His followers ended up misunderstanding his teaching and Christianity evolved from there.My point is that it's possible to understand Jesus and God being one without accepting the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of Incarnation, or the Nicene Creed, or Christianity.lfen

He died on thousands of crosses, and in thousands of hospitals, on countless battlefields, in burrows, oceans, etc. And yet after all this death no one has died. The births and deaths cycle on and on and yet the birthless remains deathless and full of compassion for all the ignorance and the suffering that arises as a result.After all this birth and death no one was born and no one has died and That which was unbirthed and undying remains in perfect peace.lfen

I think that makes a lot of sense. The unfinished teaching was "explained" - i.e. butchered - by Paul and others, resulting in a lot of the misconceptions that "Christians" have today.

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Hard to see how that is relevant. You said He should suffer as we do and I pointed out that He did.

we could if you wanted to, but all that would do is just pick on the Bible passages and interpretations that allowed the Trinity doctrine to be developed. I know most of these already, I used to be a Trinitarian myself. My point is this:The Synods didn't 'prove' anyone wrong. They just affirmed their viewpoint, backed up by the appropriate biblical interpretation. If you talk to any knowledgeable JW, LDS or Christian of any other persuasion they will be able to affirm their own viewpoint (Jesus isn't God, oneness, etc.) by backing it up with the right passages and interpretation. They are not any more 'wrong' or 'right' than you are. That's the beauty of the Bible. That's why there are 200-odd Christian denominations all referencing the same book but believing different things. The Bible is what you want it to be. God makes the rules. God doesn't comply to someone else's rules. God makes a rule that condemns us all to hell. That's bad enough on its own. Then God makes a rule that demands blood sacrifice in order to circumvent rule #1, so there are two possibilities: A) God forgot that he's the one who wrote the first rule and that he doesn't need to abide by it if he so chooses (i.e. dumb) B) God is just cruel and enjoys pain and sufferring.do you think God is cruel? do you think God is dumb? If you know through your everyday experiences that God show His love in many ways, then why on earth did you ask 'How would God show his love?' on Message 27 (referring to Jesus' death) ?if you know God loves you then why does he have to kill himself on the cross to prove it to you ? why can't the message alone save us ? The message, in a nutshell, is 'love God and love your fellow-man'. In Matt 31-46 Jesus condemns the people who rejected the message and gives eternal life to those who followed it. So the message DOES save. No need for sacrifice.Speaking of sacrifice, tell me, what did God give up with the death of Jesus ?

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

It is quite hard to explain these things without fearing one might stumble and say something different from what they understand. I believe they are one but seperate, too. Like another expression of the same thing. It does not seem strange to me that Jesus was praying to His Father. His human side needed the aid of a prayer. He knew what He should do but this human side feared the suffering. So He decided to pray. Father and Son are made of the same "substance" but at that point, the Son was cloathed in humanity and was about to suffer. So it is not that weird that the Son was praying and th Father answered.
I need to tell you that I accept what the Orthodox Church supports. I have had several conversations on such subjects with people more involved than me, always persisting on "why". I am too young to know too much but I like to ask questions and so far the answers I get by people who study these matters have not disappointed me. I hope this does not make my view seem unimportant. Maybe it is not that as "trendy". I am telling you this because so far I detect a good will to discuss things calmly and I appreciate this.

It doesn't seem strange to me either. He would not have been human if he didn't have the same fears and anxieties that all humans have. (I think they should do a movie on the life of Jesus with Woody Allen as the star. )What seems strange is the idea that His death on the cross was needed to appease Him(self). Why would "the Plan" include killing Himself and then rising from the grave (since He was immortal anyway)? So you weren't taken in by the scary avatar?

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