Christians, Question, If You Will

[Hebrew Hammer]

Why do you personally believe Jesus was G-d? How can G-d be both human and G-d? I've heard of hypostatic union but I don't get it, like at all. Is it not blasphemy that Hashem would ever be mortal? That the creator is co-partner with the creature? Aren't we (Jews and Muslims) right on this? Is this not polytheism?

Anyone else with some "witty," comment on how all religion is silly piss off.

[Revolution starts with U]

Well, as far as I know, Jesus was never really mortal... he just kind of took on mortal flesh. According to catholic beliefs (mostly) he was there at the moment of creation. Think of it as the 3 faces of God.

[Le Socialiste]

Not all of us believe Jesus was the son of God, just a man with a vision built up and developed in the social/political conditions of his time. Hell, I could name some Christians who disregard the Bible entirely; I have friends who believe God is just energy - life-giving energy. I've had long conversations with friends of mine within the "Christian community" (:lol:) about this, many of whom don't know where they stand on the issue of Jesus. They admire many of his words and teachings, but are wary as to whether or not he was "divine". Personally, I think he was just a man. That doesn't mean I don't think his philosophy isn't sound, just that I doubt the myth that surrounds him. I've always thought the core pillar of Christian spirituality (or any religion, faith, or spirituality) is Love. So long as that remains true in my eyes, I don't care about whether or not a man was truly a "god".

[Octavian]

I hope you realize that just like the reply's above you're going to get a different answer almost every time. There's over 15,000 different sects of Christianity and all are divided on interpretation.

[Commie73]

Why do you personally believe Jesus was G-d? How can G-d be both human and G-d? I've heard of hypostatic union but I don't get it, like at all. Is it not blasphemy that Hashem would ever be mortal? That the creator is co-partner with the creature? Aren't we (Jews and Muslims) right on this? Is this not polytheism?

Anyone else with some "witty," comment on how all religion is silly piss off.

I dont understand how one can be both religious and a marxist (because marxism implys a materialist analysis of the world.) I think when it comes to these questions of religion, you can never get a clear answer, this is because varying traditions of christianity (well all religions.) have different hermenutical interpretations of scripture etc, and so not every christian believes in the trinity.

For an interesting marxist analysis of the life of jesus, check out Scott Manns Heart of a Hearltess world. It focuses on religion as ideology, and has some interesting ideas around the historical person of jesus.

[xub3rn00dlex]

Anyone else with some "witty," comment on how all religion is silly piss off.

All religion is silly. :D

I asked my parents this question, but all it did was confuse the shit out of them lol. To be honest it confuses me too, and I grew up a Catholic. It honestly never really occurred to me [during my religious years] that it was polytheism, not because it wouldn't make sense as what you're saying is true, but because we just weren't taught it that way in religious classes.

[Sir Comradical]

Why do you personally believe Jesus was G-d? How can G-d be both human and G-d? I've heard of hypostatic union but I don't get it, like at all. Is it not blasphemy that Hashem would ever be mortal? That the creator is co-partner with the creature? Aren't we (Jews and Muslims) right on this? Is this not polytheism?

Anyone else with some "witty," comment on how all religion is silly piss off.

Because it's religion and therefore fiction?

[Hebrew Hammer]

Because it's religion and therefore fiction?

Maybe you didn't understand my last sentence, if you're going to say "religion is silly," or "religion is fairytales," or "spagehteh monstorzzz, lawlz," then don't respond, I don't care to hear it, I've heard it 1.000 times before.

[ComradeMan]

I'll try to answer this from a theological point of view.

The Jewish precedent:-

The title "son of God" is not without precedent in pre-Christian Jewish scripture. The pious, religious leaders and even angels are described as "sons" of God - this would include kings and leaders as well as the Messiah.

Exodus 4:22-: "And thou shalt say to him: Thus saith the Lord: Israel is my son, my firstborn. I have said to thee: Let my son go, that he may serve me"
Job 1:6 "Now on a certain day, when the sons of God came to stand before the Lord, Satan also was present among them"

Psalm 2: 6-7 "But I am appointed king by him over Sion, his holy mountain, preaching his commandment. 7 The Lord has said to me: You are my son, this day have I begotten you. 8 Ask of me, and I will give you the Gentiles for your inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for your possession."

Psalm 88:7: "For who in the clouds can be compared to the Lord: or who among the sons of God shall be like to God?"

Wisdom 2:12-13: "12 Let us, therefore, lie in wait for the just, because he is not for our turn, and he is contrary to our doings, and upbraids us with transgressions of the law, and divulges against us the sins of our way of life. 13 He boasts that he has the knowledge of God, and calls himself the son of God."


Now if God is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient how can some therefore maintain there is something that he cannot do?

Moving away from the Abrahamic religions, Vedic traditions for example have little problem with the notion of being the son of God.
Srila Prabhupada:-"If one loves Krishna, he must love Lord Jesus also. And if one perfectly loves Jesus he must love Krishna too. If he says, "Why shall I love Krishna? I shall love Jesus," then he has no knowledge. And if one says, "Why shall I love Jesus? I shall love Krishna", then he has no knowledge either. If one understands Krishna, then he will understand Jesus. If one understands Jesus, you'll understand Krishna too"
(Srila Prabhupada - Room conversation with Allen Ginsberg, May 12, 1969 / Columbus - Ohio at http://www.harekrishnatemple.com/chapter27.html

Within Islamic tradition, albeit not the general tradition, we find the ill-fated Sufi Mansur Al-Hallaj and Ibn-Arabi "...the avatar is that highest status of God where God directly becomes man and lives on Earth as God-man."
Meher Baba, God Speaks, The Theme of Creation and Its Purpose, Dodd Meade, 1955. 2nd Ed. p. 160

In addition to this, the idea of God taking on a mortal form is also found in the Old Testament/Tanakh- Genesis 32:21-32 God appears as an old man and wrestles with Jacob, and it is here we find the "origin" of the world "Israel".

[hatzel]

I'll hit this one with a quote from Meister Eckhart, put into the mouth of G-d:

"I have made myself human, so if you do not then make yourselves G-ds, you do me an injustice"

The great legacy of Christianity is the shattering of the binary dichotomy, the divide between 'the Creator' on one side and 'the Creature' on the other. Although 'orthodox' Christianity, like many other frozen, theoretical religions, retains this concept of the 'inaccessibility' or 'unattainability' of the Divine, by suggesting that it occupies a distinct plane of existence, that it is removed from 'the Material,' the central lesson of Christianity, that is to say the Jesus narrative, is that the Creator and the Creature can and, in fact, do occupy the same plane, that they are not distinct, but symbiotic or, dare I say, synonymous. This is the central tenant of Christianity, as I see it. Such ideas are, of course, far from unique to Christianity, having emerged out of an earlier tradition, and continue outside of Christianity, too:

"In G-d there is no duality. In that Presence “I” and “we” and “you” do not exist. “I” and “you” and “we” and “He” become one.... Since in the Unity there is no distinction, the Quest and the Way and the Seeker become one." - Mahmūd Shabistarī.

[Zealot]

From my experience, Christians can't even explain it themselves. Trinitarianism was only one of many sects during the early stages of Christianity that eventually won out, because anyone who believed otherwise were killed, persecuted, exiled or labeled "heretics". Early Christians actually considered themselves Jews but trinitarianism was one of the main reasons they split away from them. My understanding is that the reason they believe this is because the Bible labels all three as God (Father, son, holy spirit) at some point (debatable), but since they can only believe in one God they arrive at the conclusion of the trinity. I've debated many Christians on this but the argument always ends something like: "This is what Church tells me, it's a mystery but I believe it, I have complete faith which makes all your arguments irrelevant"

[☭The Revolution☭]

*comes up with a witty comment on how religion is silly*

[Le Socialiste]

I've debated many Christians on this but the argument always ends something like: "This is what Church tells me, it's a mystery but I believe it, I have complete faith which makes all your arguments irrelevant"


Sadly, this is how most debates/arguments go. There's a reason I don't go to church anymore.



*comes up with a witty comment on how religion is silly*


Someone's feeling rebellious. :D

[Rafiq]

Is this what theologans debate, and discuss when they are bored? Christ, what kind of world is this.

[ZeroNowhere]

One interpretation that I recall is perhaps of some relevance to this thread. In the first place, the object of Christian ethics is the unity of man and God, in which man consciously serves as a means for God's realization in the world, in other words where man consciously enacts God's will (which therefore does not take form over and above him). God is seen as the universal subject as per idealism, and knowledge, for example, is the unity of man with God insofar as it constitutes the agreement of the thought of man, the particular subject, with the thought of God, the universal subject, and only as a result of this is true (because the world is God's thought). This is especially the case in knowledge of necessity (ie. dialectical knowledge, rather than simply that of the understanding), by which man is able to impose his will in the form of necessity, which presupposes in a sense the unity of man with God to the extent that man is able to actualize his thought, to treat the world as the objectification of his thought, and hence to act.

The highest form of this, however, is the knowledge of teleology, of the Good, which is the same thing as God's will; until this is understood, we only have limited freedom, and the world will act opposite to our intentions and thwart our wills. If known, we can come into unity with God and act simply as the enactor of His will, with the world appearing as the product of our thought in this unity; of course, it could be objected that we are unfree in that we must follow God's intention, but in the first place this unity presupposes a unity of our feeling with God, so that our will is in unity with the Good, hence with God, in other words we have seen what is good and strive to act consciously towards it. In this case, God's will cannot appear as an imposition, but rather it is our will that it occur, and therefore there is no question of having to restrain ourselves to obedience of God's will, but rather it is our will as well. It is not a matter of simply following a law or code of laws, but rather of transforming oneself; that is, not a set of laws but the law of faith, from which can come the only true law, to paraphrase Romans.

To use an analogy, when one produces something with a machine, one may only do so by following natural necessity, by which certain steps are necessary to come to a certain end result. To create a certain chemical, one must use certain other chemicals in certain proportions, under a specific temperature, and so on. In the Haber process, an acceptable pressure and temperature is only found through knowledge of the effect of these on equilibrium systems. So, in a sense, one is limited. However, only through this can one freely create what one needs to, as freedom consists precisely in the ability to impose one's will as necessity. One could choose to perform different actions, but this would simply lead a different result. However, this does not appear as unfreedom at all, but rather the manipulation of the world in accordance with one's will. Likewise with the unity with God represented by knowledge of the Good; one acts ethically, and hence the result of one's actions appears as the realization of one's own will precisely because necessity, God's will, is in harmony with it.

In a sense, God cannot 'enter' the world because he is not a physical being; in another sense, God is simply to be the universal subject, or notion of the subject, and is manifested in the world, and insofar as we are particular subjects we can be in unity with God to a greater or lesser extent, to the point where we take the conscious form of God manifested and materialized on Earth. Of course God is materialized in some sense, insofar as his will takes the form of objective movement in the world (the world is the thought of God, etc.), in other words changing the world, and indeed it would be more problematic theologically to try and rigidly separate God off from the world than not to do so, so that it's not particularly ludicrous within this paradigm to suggest that a human, in acting to change the world, may come into unity with God. Of course, this does not mean that God is transformed from existence as the universal subject outside of the world into this human, but rather simply means that God can have more than one aspect. This is not polythism, as unity with God may only be with the one God, and only with a will in accordance with this one God. It is quite clear that there is no formation of a new, autonomous God with his own divine will, but rather merely a unity containing different aspects. This much is more or less a corollary of Christian ethics, in some ways.

Of course, this is subject to the qualification that all men are sinners, and hence cannot come into complete unity with God, at least not unmediated. Christ functions as the God-man, in a manner related to that explained above, the unity of the particular subject with the universal subject, or, in more Hegelian terms, of the particular subject with its notion. This is related to the unity of man and God as previously commented on, albeit in this case it is the other side of the coin, insofar as man himself cannot come into a full unity with God but only one limited by his status as a natural being, and hence the unity in this case must come from the other side.

That was the basic idea, although we did discuss it a bit and I added in some subjects and formulations here which came up during this discussion.

[ComradeMan]

Saying 77 Gospel of Thomas: "I am the light that shines over all things. I am everything. From me all came forth, and to me all return. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift a stone, and you will find me there."

What intrigues me is that if this came from a Dharmic tradition there would be little or no surprise...

[Zealot]

In a sense, God cannot 'enter' the world because he is not a physical being; in another sense, God is simply to be the universal subject, or notion of the subject, and is manifested in the world, and insofar as we are particular subjects we can be in unity with God to a greater or lesser extent, to the point where we take the conscious form of God manifested and materialized on Earth. Of course God is materialized in some sense, insofar as his will takes the form of objective movement in the world (the world is the thought of God, etc.), in other words changing the world, and indeed it would be more problematic theologically to try and rigidly separate God off from the world than not to do so, so that it's not particularly ludicrous within this paradigm to suggest that a human, in acting to change the world, may come into unity with God. Of course, this does not mean that God is transformed from existence as the universal subject outside of the world into this human, but rather simply means that God can have more than one aspect. This is not polythism, as unity with God may only be with the one God, and only with a will in accordance with this one God. It is quite clear that there is no formation of a new, autonomous God with his own divine will, but rather merely a unity containing different aspects.


Impressive, too bad none of that is in the Bible. BTW, if I understand correctly, this interpretation of the unity of God is heretical in all major schools of thought.

[Astarte]

It is not so much that Jesus was claiming to be "God" himself as in YHWH or Allah or the Monad, but that he was the most perfect embodiment of the "Absolute", or the Barbello in the flesh, and was trying to teach people how to achieve the same - hence "the first of many brethren". This aspect of Jesus - the "Christ consciousness" to me seems much like Buddhist or Taoist enlightenment of the great sages. Jesus even can walk on water and perform miracles - something which in Buddhism is referred to a "Siddhi", or supernatural ability attained through profound and prolonged awaked consciousness.

A big part of Christianity is the idea of ascension, attaining a "spiritual body" (becoming a spiritual/energy being). Remember "doubting Thomas", when Jesus returned in spiritual form and showed him the nail wounds? At the same time though, inherent and almost contradictory in Christianity is the idea of re-unifying with God - it is really a hybrid of Egyptian and Abrahamic religion, in that the one major religion which devoted itself to ascension before Christianity was the ancient Egyptian religion of the ascension of the pharaoh to the status of a god (I think it had something to do with the fixed star Sirius, not remembering all the details right now).

One thing though, that at least the ancient Egyptian religion, Christianity, Islam, and even Hermes Trismegistus (not sure if Judaism does) all agree on is that when we die we are judged by the host of the Lord, what the Egyptians called the "gods" i.e. what Hermes refers to as "daemons", and in the Koran as what refers to it self usually as simply "We".

[ZeroNowhere]

Impressive, too bad none of that is in the Bible. BTW, if I understand correctly, this interpretation of the unity of God is heretical in all major schools of thought.Whereas the conventional form of the cosmological argument in Christianity was a product of a major school of thought, and just about as heretical as my own actual rejection of God, let alone any form of theism.

For reference, I wasn't talking about the trinity.

[ZrianKobani]

Why do you personally believe Jesus was G-d? How can G-d be both human and G-d? I've heard of hypostatic union but I don't get it, like at all. Is it not blasphemy that Hashem would ever be mortal? That the creator is co-partner with the creature? Aren't we (Jews and Muslims) right on this? Is this not polytheism?

Anyone else with some "witty," comment on how all religion is silly piss off. The idea of God and Christ being the same being is a creation of the Nicene Creed and, to my understanding, has no biblical validity.

I can't speak for other Christians but I will speak for the branch that I follow in saying God and Christ are two separate, physical beings united only in purpose but not in power.

[ZrianKobani]

I dont understand how one can be both religious and a marxist (because marxism implys a materialist analysis of the world.)
Are you talking political Marxism or philosophical Marxism?

[Rafiq]

Both.

[Queercommie Girl]

It is not so much that Jesus was claiming to be "God" himself as in YHWH or Allah or the Monad,


You forgot Tian/Tengri or "Heaven", which is the term for God in Confucian and Tengrist (e.g. Mongolian) cultures. In fact, in Chinese Catholicism, God or Deus is translated into Chinese as Tianzhu, or literally the "Lord of Heaven".

I believe Turkish Islam also translates Allah as "Tengri".



This aspect of Jesus - the "Christ consciousness" to me seems much like Buddhist or Taoist enlightenment of the great sages.
The Inquisition will surely burn you to death on the stake for this kind of heresy...

The Buddhist and Daoist scheme seems to make more sense - acknowledging the potential existence of a multitude of these "sages" rather than just staying fixated on one person.

In ancient China, there was actually a variant of Christianity that is syncretically combined with Daoism and Buddhism, which was actually quite popular during the Tang Dynasty. See:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jesus-Sutras-Rediscovering-Religion-Christianity/dp/0749922508/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308212262&sr=8-1

The Jesus Sutras: Rediscovering the Lost Religion of Taoist Christianity


In 1907 in China, explorers discovered ancient scrolls dating from the 5th to 11th centuries, recounting a history of Jesus' life and teachings in Taoist concepts unknown in the West. This book provides a popular history and translation of these texts. It recounts the story of the first Christian missions to China and explains how the Church of the East blended Eastern and Western spiritual principles, and how Jesus became a Buddha Christ. The contents of each of the sutras are detailed and Martin Palmer also tells the story of the Taoist Christians and their teachings as well as his own rediscovery of one of the earliest Taoist Christian monasteries, an intact 8th-century pagoda, and its amazing statues and artefacts.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Sutras-Jesus-Unlocking-Ancient/dp/0285636928/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1308212262&sr=8-2

The Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking the Ancient Wisdom of the Xian Monks

[Queercommie Girl]

What intrigues me is that if this came from a Dharmic tradition there would be little or no surprise...


There is a theory that early Christianity was actually directly influenced by Hellenistic Buddhism from Central Asia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism

Buddhism and Christianity

Although the philosophical systems of Buddhism and Christianity have evolved in rather different ways, the moral precepts advocated by Buddhism from the time of Ashoka through his edicts do have some similarities with the Christian moral precepts developed more than two centuries later: respect for life, respect for the weak, rejection of violence, pardon to sinners, tolerance.

One theory is that these similarities may indicate the propagation of Buddhist ideals into the Western World, with the Greeks acting as intermediaries and religious syncretists.[32] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism#cite_note-31)

"Scholars have often considered the possibility that Buddhism influenced the early development of Christianity. They have drawn attention to many parallels concerning the births, lives, doctrines, and deaths of the Buddha and Jesus" (Bentley, "Old World Encounters").The story of the birth of the Buddha was well known in the West, and possibly influenced the story of the birth of Jesus: Saint Jerome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome) (4th century CE) mentions the birth of the Buddha, who he says "was born from the side of a virgin".[33] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism#cite_note-McEvilley.2C_p391-32) Also a fragment of Archelaos of Carrha (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Archelaos_of_Carrha&action=edit&redlink=1) (278 CE) mentions the Buddha's virgin-birth.[33] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism#cite_note-McEvilley.2C_p391-32)

Early 3rd-4th century Christian writers such as Hippolytus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippolytus_of_Rome) and Epiphanius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphanius_of_Salamis) write about a Scythianus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythianus), who visited India around 50 AD from where he brought "the doctrine of the Two Principles". According to these writers, Scythianus' pupil Terebinthus presented himself as a "Buddha" ("he called himself Buddas" Cyril of Jerusalem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_of_Jerusalem)[34] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism#cite_note-33)). Terebinthus went to Palestine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine) and Judaea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iudaea_Province) where he met the Apostles ("becoming known and condemned" Isaia), and ultimately settled in Babylon, where he transmitted his teachings to Mani (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mani_%28prophet%29), thereby creating the foundation of what could be called Persian syncretic Buddhism, Manicheism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manicheism). One of the greatest thinkers and saints of western Christianity, Augustine of Hippo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo) was originally a Manichean.

In the 2nd century CE, the Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_of_Alexandria) recognized Bactrian Buddhists (Sramanas) and Indian Gymnosophists for their influence on Greek thought:

"Thus philosophy, a thing of the highest utility, flourished in antiquity among the ancients, shedding its light over the nations. And afterwards it came to Greece (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece). First in its ranks were the prophets of the Egyptians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egypt); and the Chaldeans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaldea) among the Assyrians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_people); and the Druids (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druids) among the Gauls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauls); and the Sramanas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sramana) among the Bactrians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bactrians) ("Σαρμαναίοι Βάκτρων"); and the philosophers of the Celts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts); and the Magi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magi) of the Persians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_people), who foretold the Saviour's birth, and came into the land of Judaea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judea) guided by a star (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_of_Bethlehem). The Indian gymnosophists are also in the number, and the other ancient philosophers. And of these there are two classes, some of them called Sramanas ("Σαρμάναι"), and others Brahmins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmins) ("Βραφμαναι")." (Clement of Alexandria "The Stromata, or Miscellanies"[35] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism#cite_note-34)).

[ComradeMan]

...

ekaṃ sad viprā bahudhā vadantyaghniṃ yamaṃ mātariśvānamāhuḥ

[Astarte]

It is more that Jesus is the "Logos" - the "word" of God, ie the messanger. That is why the Dove has always been a symbol for Him - it takes flight like the word, it ascends and descends, transmits knowledge from the sphere of the divine to the sphere of the mundane.
The confusion I believe arises when people think that in the Gospels he is actually the immaterial, ineffable Godhead rather than "channeling" the God-head to speak through him.

[ZrianKobani]

Both.

It depends on whether you go solely on what Marx said or include someone else's interpretation of Marx (Leninism, Maoism, Trotskyism, etc.)

[JustMovement]

(disclaimer: I am an atherist) However, Ill take a stab at this. I was raised a Catholic and I think the orthodox interpretation is that it fall under the mystery of the trinity, and basically God and his work is unknowable. Also it can be justified by saying that God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all different sides of the same coin. To use a crude example, although ice, water, and vapour all take radically different forms they are all the same substance.
One of the most beaufitul ideas of Christianity I think is the idea the idea of the passion of Christ. That God/Jesus sacrificed himself, and endured the torture of the cross, out of his LOVE of humanity, and because of this love He absolved humanity of its sins. Of course whether one believes this is a different story, but I can see its appeal.

[Zealot]

(disclaimer: I am an atherist) However, Ill take a stab at this. I was raised a Catholic and I think the orthodox interpretation is that it fall under the mystery of the trinity, and basically God and his work is unknowable. Also it can be justified by saying that God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all different sides of the same coin. To use a crude example, although ice, water, and vapour all take radically different forms they are all the same substance.
One of the most beaufitul ideas of Christianity I think is the idea the idea of the passion of Christ. That God/Jesus sacrificed himself, and endured the torture of the cross, out of his LOVE of humanity, and because of this love He absolved humanity of its sins. Of course whether one believes this is a different story, but I can see its appeal.

I've heard Christians provide many analogies and they always end in heresy. The point is, they are each FULLY god, not different sides of the same coin. The problem with the other analogy is that ice, water, and vapour cannot be ice, water, and vapour at the same time, only in each stage, a heresy referred to as Modalism. Had you made such analogies in the first century you would have been excommunicated. I think that the best thing they can do is say that it's a mystery or discard the idea altogether.

[xub3rn00dlex]

*comes up with a witty comment on how religion is silly*


Someone's feeling rebellious. :D

He's in cahoots with deh spaghetti monstarrrrz!:D

[JustMovement]

I've heard Christians provide many analogies and they always end in heresy. The point is, they are each FULLY god, not different sides of the same coin. The problem with the other analogy is that ice, water, and vapour cannot be ice, water, and vapour at the same time, only in each stage, a heresy referred to as Modalism. Had you made such analogies in the first century you would have been excommunicated. I think that the best thing they can do is say that it's a mystery or discard the idea altogether.

Well they wouldnt have had to excommunicate me because Im not a Christian in the first place. But I still dont really see the problem- I mean he/she/it is God, if he wants to be God and Jesus at the same time I think he can do it without problem.

I guess what Im getting at is what is the nature of the problem? Is it philisophical? How can one thing be 3?

[ZrianKobani]

I guess what Im getting at is what is the nature of the problem? Is it philisophical? How can one thing be 3?

This brings up another question, what is meant by 1 in 3 and what type of being is God?

For example, Jesus said four times in the Gospel of John that his disciples are to be one as he and the Father are one (John 17:11; John 17:21-23).

Now if we're to take this to mean that we're to all be a one-in-the-same being with each other, we're looking at a metaphysical impossibility and thus could say that it's not what Jesus meant and possibly not how God functions.