The historical origins of the Christian notion of the Trinity

Write4U said:
I am adverse to scriptural History, it is unreliable to say the least......:)

But I have read a fair bit of the King James Bible (standard edition), although I have 3 other versions of the bible and curiously they don't agree on many historical biblical events.

Did you know there are three version of the "loafs and fishes" story, each offering supposedly factual accounts, but all three describing different numbers of loafs and fishes.

You suppose it was a miscount by illiterate storytellers?
Eyewitness? Hearsay? Rumor? Tall Tales? Mythology makes great heroes, real or not.
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In your hyper vigilant determination to discredit religion, you've clearly lost track of anything anyone is discussing in this thread. Feel free to enter an empty room and start an argument with your self.
 
So it boils down to this...folk came up with the idea of the trinity liked it because they made it fit ... one God even if there are three ... and so we have more made up stuff with nothing more in support than the mob decided to believe it.

The history is interesting to get an understanding of why it was made up but made up it remains because it fits well with the other made up stuff.

Alex
 
Xelasnave.1947 said:
So it boils down to this...folk came up with the idea of the trinity liked it because they made it fit ... one God even if there are three ... and so we have more made up stuff with nothing more in support than the mob decided to believe it.

The history is interesting to get an understanding of why it was made up but made up it remains because it fits well with the other made up stuff.

Alex
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Historiography doesn't function on the premise that because one thing is made up, two or all things are made up. A critical flaw in all your ruminations about religious history is that it never dawns on you that you are just making things up in order to float a preferred world view (the very crime you accuse historical figures of!).

To be fair, there was a certain standards dominant in recounting history that has long since fallen out of vogue (or at least, the overt expression of them has). One is tweaking events so that a certain moral or didactic narrative presents itself. The other is attributing one's thoughts and ideas to one's predecessors or teachers as a sign of modesty. In times of antiquity, these things were common amongst orators or historians, and to record events as such was considered to be "good history" as opposed to some malefic infidelity enshrined by regressive academia.
 
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Musika said:
Historiography doesn't function on the premise that because one thing is made up, two or all things are made up.
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Perhaps it should.

I am afraid I approach things this way.

If I read a book and if it contains a mistake I can not have confidence in any of it.

If in court a witness is found mistaken on any one point their testimony is disregarded.

If a man tells me one lie I wont trust him again.

If a man does not do what he says he will do I write him off...

That is my standard...an athiest demand for truth.

If we dont know the only honest answer is "I dont know" and yet this trinity thing ( to name but one example).... they claim to know and so make believe becomes the made up reality.

Its all like that.

Not on for me I am afraid.

You cant work out the mind of an unevidenced entity and believe thru logic you have it all worked out...you dont know because you do not have a single fact to indicate God exists in a three state form (for example)...its just made up and has no credibility.

Tell me something that is not made up...just one thing that is not made up...I bet you can not.

And so we have our good book that has not just one but numerous aspects that are just wrong...and one could think that as it is presented as God's word and that God guided the folk who contributed we could expect perfection and that it could be taken literally.

Perhaps explain why my expectation is not reasonable...can you?



Page one...made up...no witness to creation yet a detailed account presented as if the author had a ring side seat. And the account is not in keeping with observable facts...what will you accept modern tested science or a made up story from a unidentified bronze age author with no reference to qualifications or observation to pad his made up yarn.

The great flood is obviously wrong for many reasons yet there are folk who believe it because its in the book...

It is not fact and no more than fiction but feel free to provide support for the flood story if you accept it as true.

Parting of the Red Sea...I would like to see that....

Why would you believe anything once you find stuff that is simply wrong...

Or as Bill Maher put it in relation to the good books credibility ... "even if there is just one turd in the pool are you still going to swim in it..."

You say folk like me have no idea because we have not studied the subject...what is there to study...an evolution of how made up ideas progressed into more acceptable made up ideas.

The God idea lacks any reasonable evidence at all and theists know that but come out with " you dont understand etc"...that is crap...logic tells me if there was a God and humans are his thing then we would have more sources that he she or it or is would provide...

Honestly would a God talk to only a handful of folk in one little agricultural society...really?

It makes no sense at all.

And what about the countless God inventions since year dot...all wrong except yours...you must be kidding.

Jan has yet to define his God which will be one of many that humans have invented...all invented...not one God has appeared and communicated his thoughts even though you imagine such to be the case...or if you want to go christian we have a God who came down to be killed to enable humans to be forgiven and given attributes posssessed by at least ten similar characters in history...you know your Eygpt explain Horus for a start.

So how do we build this faith from a book that is wrong...pick what suits I guess...adapt the trinity idea and just make up stuff.

You said the bible was not your thing perhaps you could tell me what God you believe in so I know which one we are talking about.

Can you do that?

Alex
 
Musika said:
Given that there was an already established preponderance of thought over two things, the son and the father, one has to wonder whether moving on to three things is not just the logical consequence of having unsatisfactory categories as time and tide brings forth new demands.
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See how easy that was? All it took was me leading you to the relevant information so you could develop an informed opinion and express it here in this thread. Good for you!

Now next time maybe you can do it all by yourself.
 
Musika said:
A critical flaw in all your ruminations about religious history is that it never dawns on you that you are just making things up in order to float a preferred world view (the very crime you accuse historical figures of!).
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What have I made up?
What?
You made the claim back it up or withdraw it...Your claim implies that I have told a lie...show it to me...if a lie I will fix it and appologise.
Alex
 
Capracus said:
See how easy that was? All it took was me leading you to the relevant information so you could develop an informed opinion and express it here in this thread. Good for you!

Now next time maybe you can do it all by yourself.
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See what can be forthciming when one is permitted to discuss issues contemporaneous to early christianity ...
 
Musika said:
In your hyper vigilant determination to discredit religion, you've clearly lost track of anything anyone is discussing in this thread. Feel free to enter an empty room and start an argument with your self.
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No, I have just looked past the BS and found the entire discussion preposterous.

Until you define your god, you have no standing in this discussion at all.
In your zealotry and self righteous hubris, you've clearly lost track of rules of debate in this forum.

Feel free to kneel and pray to your fictional mental caricature.
If that makes you happy, I'm glad but also kinda curious....:(....what is it you tell your elusive sky friend?

As to being hyper vigilant, it seems that the nation is more than a little concerned about religious zealotry. We have created an entire Federal department to monitor and track religious terrorists (Jihadists). It's called the NSA.
Jihadism - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihadism
The term "Jihadism" (also "jihadist movement", "jihadi movement" and variants) is a 21st-century neologism found in Western languages to describe Islamist militant movements perceived as military movements "rooted in Islam" and "existentially threatening" to the West.
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That Department was created after we were "surprised" by the 911 religious terrorist attack on the nation. Apparently we were not quite vigilant enough. Lost some 3000 lives, remember?

No atheists involved in that piece of history! Just theists.
 
Xelasnave.1947 said:
You said the bible was not your thing perhaps you could tell me what God you believe in so I know which one we are talking about.
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And what history is our friend talking about? Has to be either Scriptural or General history, no?

A Third history? The concept of a Trinity seems to demand three separate histories....:)

Reminds me of the age-old questions; "Who's on first ? What's on second ? I_Don't_ Know is on third" ? It just gets curioser and curioser and now, triply curious..........:?

walterscott1-2x.jpg
 
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Why does religion remind me of the fable; "the emperor's new clothes" ?
"The Emperor's New Clothes" (Danish: Kejserens nye klæder) is a short tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent – while in reality, they make no clothes at all, making everyone believe the clothes are invisible to them. When the emperor parades before his subjects in his new "clothes", no one dares to say that they do not see any suit of clothes on him for fear that they will be seen as stupid. Finally, a child cries out, "But he isn't wearing anything at all!" The tale has been translated into over 100 languages.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes


p.s. An atom consists of three particles, a trinity! Eureka, problem solved!.....:rolleyes:

The analogy actually works at a philosophical level and the history of each particle is fairly well known. And we already have discovered the God particle (Higgs), so we have a well established history of the Trinity aspect in Physics.
 
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Write4U said:
And what history is our friend talking about? Has to be either Scriptural or General history, no?

A Third history? The concept of a Trinity seems to demand three separate histories....:)

Reminds me of the age-old questions; "Who's on first ? What's on second ? I_Don't_ Know is on third" ? It just gets curioser and curioser and now, triply curious..........:?

walterscott1-2x.jpg
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Religion practising for 2,000 years
Still not got it right

:)
 
Musika said:
Case in point in this thread, where you have an atheist raving about the apparent connection between trinitarianism and egyptian polytheism.
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That appears to be a speculation on the part of whoever wrote it, or whoever the writer is accepting as their authority.

From the point of view of somebody who is actually up to speed on the historical development of Trinitarian theology, it's almost certainly going to sound crankish.

It is like anything and everything is permitted, except presentations in accordance with mainstream historical and philosophical ideas.
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Or at least the history of theology in this case. (I'm not sure how relevant philosophy is to the question.)

Here's what I think is happening:

1. This board is populated overwhelmingly by atheists.

2. Most of the Sciforums atheists think that "religion" is bullshit. (Christianity in particular.)

3. They don't feel that there's any need for them to put any effort into studying what they already believe is bullshit. From their point of view, there aren't any 'facts of the matter' in religion for them to study.

4. Which they believe justifies the idea that there aren't any intellectual standards in the subject of religion.

5. But... even if we agree (for the sake of argument) that there isn't any 'fact of the matter' about the content of revelation. there obviously are facts of the matter about how those ideas evolved over time and came to be what they are today.

6. So even ideas that particular people insist are bullshit can still be very much parts of intellectual history.

My personal opinion is that we we can't really understand our contemporary ideas unless we know something about their histories. That applies just as much to ideas that we believe are false as it does to ideas that we currently accept. I'm very much a champion of the history of ideas.

I was arguing with MR on precisely that point in post #103 in the thread below, when MR insisted that astrology isn't a legitimate subject of study (and UFO's and ghosts are?) and I argued that it is, if only for historical reasons. We can't really understand the history and origins of our modern mathematical science without considering it.

http://mail.sciforums.com/threads/t...really-should-read.161124/page-6#post-3537700
 
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Yazata said:
2. Most of the Sciforums atheists think that "religion" is bullshit. (Christianity in particular.)
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Speaking just for me you are 100% correct with your observation on this matter

Yazata said:
3. They don't feel that there's any need for them to put any effort into studying what they already believe is bullshit. From their point of view, there aren't any 'facts of the matter' in religion for them to study.
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Au contraire. I would put it to you most atheist are more than willing to study the facts of the matter

However in all religions FACTS are in short supply along with companion EVIDENCE

Yazata said:
there obviously are facts of the matter about how those ideas evolved over time and came to be what they are today.
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True enough but that aspect is merely a history lesson

Atheists are interested in the meat of the subject

Yazata said:
I'm very much a champion of the history of ideas
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Good for you. But if someone tells me they believe in Leprechauns I'm not going to ask them if they has been to Ireland. It might be where the idea came from or it might be a TV documentary. Both history both irrelevant to their belief if not to their assessment of authenticity

Yazata said:
I was arguing with MR on precisely that point in post #103 in the thread below, when MR insisted that astrology isn't a legitimate subject of study (and UFO's and ghosts are?) and I argued that it is, if only for historical reasons. We can't really understand the history and origins of our modern mathematical science without considering it.
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.when MR insisted that astrology isn't a legitimate subject of study

It is if you wish to practice it

if only for historical reasons. We can't really understand the history and origins of our modern mathematical science without considering it

For historical reasons ✓

Otherwise not needed

As a trainee nurse we studied blood a lot. In my own time I studied (or at least read about) bloodletting

Formal training, used a lot - private reading never came up in 40 years as a Registered Nurse

:)

PS if you do know of any FACTS backed up by EVIDENCE about god and associated stuff please post and I assure you atheist will study the hell out of them
 
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I am here strictly to warn theists that their world view has been corrupted by organized religion.

Yazata said:
From the point of view of somebody who is actually up to speed on the historical development of Trinitarian theology, it's almost certainly going to sound crankish.
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History also teaches the evolution of a thing and the influence it has had on humans and the environment.
The more you learn about the evolution (history) of religions the crazier its influence on the human community.
 
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