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Fnord
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08 Sep 2012, 10:08 pm

ruveyn wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
Awesomelyglorious wrote:
I mean, one issue to bring up is the trinity.
What confuses you about the trinity?
3 = 1 is a blatant contradiction. It is false and what is more, it is absurd. ruveyn

You could look at it this way...

There is Ruveyn the Awsome Stud, Ruveyn the Wise Philosopher, and the Ruveyn who gets the work done to pay the bills.

Three separate aspects in one person, without any contradictions; 3 in 1.

Now, if someone could please provide evidence that Ruveyn exists ... ?



;)


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Tequila
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08 Sep 2012, 10:27 pm

Fnord wrote:
There is Ruveyn the Awsome Stud, Ruveyn the Wise Philosopher, and the Ruveyn who gets the work done to pay the bills.;)


Why would anyone want three of the same person? Unless they're looking for a foursome?



Fnord
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08 Sep 2012, 10:50 pm

Tequila wrote:
Fnord wrote:
There is Ruveyn the Awsome Stud, Ruveyn the Wise Philosopher, and the Ruveyn who gets the work done to pay the bills.;)
Why would anyone want three of the same person? Unless they're looking for a foursome?

A long as none of them cheat at golf!

But is Christianity nonsense?

I submit for general consideration this version of "Poe's Law":

Quote:
Without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between sincere religious belief and an exaggerated parody of religious belief.


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Awesomelyglorious
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08 Sep 2012, 10:51 pm

Honestly, I think ruveyn's treatment is the most correct.

The trinity is this notion: "that in the unity of the Godhead there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, these Three Persons being truly distinct one from another. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15047a.htm

And in the same source, the problems with it were well recognized: "It is manifest that a dogma so mysterious presupposes a Divine revelation. When the fact of revelation, understood in its full sense as the speech of God to man, is no longer admitted, the rejection of the doctrine follows as a necessary consequence."

This problem is well recognized by Christian philosophers:
"As is well known, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity poses a serious philosophical problem. On the one hand, it affirms that there are three distinct Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—each of whom is God. On the other hand, it says that there is one and only one God. The doctrine therefore pulls us in two directions at once—in the direction of saying that there is exactly one divine being and in the direction of saying that there is more than one." - Michael Rea from "Material Constitution and the Trinity"

Also, JNathanK's answer is actually erroneous. Persons cannot be aspects. So, saying "the spirit is the relationship between self and other" and saying "the spirit is a person" seem to be conceptually confused.

I am unsure what "The_Walrus" is failing to understand as well. The trinity is a confusing doctrine. This is recognized by many Christian sources, and Christian intellectuals to this day. This is clearly evident from the definitions of it. Even the history of the Christian church bears witness to this as the trinity is one of biggest areas of contention within the church across history, whether we talk about the Arians and Sabellians in the early church, or even the Socinians of the 16th and 17th centuries, and the Unitarian movement, or even to this day with Jehovah's witnesses who reject the idea as nonsense.(And I'm not saying that I throw my lot in with them, only that few other doctrines are so heavily contested despite the clear orthodoxy)



Rudywalsh
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08 Sep 2012, 11:48 pm

How can Christianity be nonsense? It was taught to me at school in the form of religious education (England)
I asked my teacher who did Caine marry after being banished to the land of nod after killing his brother Able.
My teacher simply replied, back in those days people lived to be 800 years old.... So it must be true.

I wish I’d been smart enough at the time and said 100 years old or 800 years old, he still married his sister and committed incest.



TallyMan
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09 Sep 2012, 5:10 am

Rudywalsh wrote:
How can Christianity be nonsense? It was taught to me at school in the form of religious education (England)
I asked my teacher who did Caine marry after being banished to the land of nod after killing his brother Able.
My teacher simply replied, back in those days people lived to be 800 years old.... So it must be true.

I wish I’d been smart enough at the time and said 100 years old or 800 years old, he still married his sister and committed incest.


:lol: I asked the same question in RE when I was kid in school in England. The answer I got was that there were already lots of other tribes of men living on the earth and he married into one of them. So it raised the obvious objection from me: "So everyone didn't descend from Adam and Eve then?" to which I got no answer.

You should know that you aren't allowed to poke the holes in religion because it makes them bigger! It triggers more and more absurd responses from the religious to paper over the cracks. One of the classics is "The devil created fossils and buried them (at the appropriate depth and strata) to deceive people about creation/evolution and break their faith in God."



Tequila
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09 Sep 2012, 5:13 am

TallyMan wrote:
:lol: I asked the same question in RE when I was kid in school in England. The answer I got was that there were already lots of other tribes of men living on the earth and he married into one of them. So it raised the obvious objection from me: "So everyone didn't descend from Adam and Eve then?" to which I got no answer.


Keep poking those holes in religion - it causes merriment for us atheists.



ruveyn
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09 Sep 2012, 8:41 am

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
Honestly, I think ruveyn's treatment is the most correct.

The trinity is this notion: "that in the unity of the Godhead there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, these Three Persons being truly distinct one from another. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15047a.htm



And why three? Why not more. The Hindus have six million aspects of God.

But let us be modest. What about God the Mother, God the Uncle, God the Aunt and God the Cousin? Shouldn't the Virgin Mary be added to the Godhead? And what about Yahweh? God, the insane Uncle, we keep in the attic.

The more, the merrier.

ruveyn



Tequila
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09 Sep 2012, 8:42 am

ruveyn wrote:
The more, the merrier.


Now that's just being greedy.

If Jesus died for our sins, how did he know about them?



ruveyn
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09 Sep 2012, 8:48 am

Tequila wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
The more, the merrier.


Now that's just being greedy.

If Jesus died for our sins, how did he know about them?


Jesus was the Prefect Spotless Lamb of Sacrifice. He did not need to -know- sins. He just had to bleed to keep that bloodthirsty monster, God the Father happy. He wants blood.

ruveyn



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09 Sep 2012, 10:32 am

TallyMan wrote:
You should know that you aren't allowed to poke the holes in religion because it makes them bigger! It triggers more and more absurd responses from the religious to paper over the cracks. One of the classics is "The devil created fossils and buried them (at the appropriate depth and strata) to deceive people about creation/evolution and break their faith in God."

"But, teacher! You said last week that only God can create anything! And..."

"I know what I said, Fnord."

"But, teacher! That means that the devil can't create anything!"

"Fnord, do you know what happens to nasty little boys who question their teachers?"

"No, ma'am... what?"

"DIRE CONSEQUENCES, that's what!"

"But, tea..."

"FNORD! BE! QUIET! It's prayer time! "


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Alfonso12345
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09 Sep 2012, 10:54 am

Fnord wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
Awesomelyglorious wrote:
I mean, one issue to bring up is the trinity.
What confuses you about the trinity?
3 = 1 is a blatant contradiction. It is false and what is more, it is absurd. ruveyn

You could look at it this way...

There is Ruveyn the Awsome Stud, Ruveyn the Wise Philosopher, and the Ruveyn who gets the work done to pay the bills.

Three separate aspects in one person, without any contradictions; 3 in 1.

Now, if someone could please provide evidence that Ruveyn exists ... ?



;)


I'm not sure this is an accurate description of how the trinity works. A better description would be "Ruveyn, as himself, the child version of Ruveyn named Joey, and the invisible ghost that is also part of Ruveyn that spies on everyone and goes into people's brains and makes them feel good."



Jitro
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09 Sep 2012, 10:56 am

JNathanK wrote:
Vigilans wrote:
More importantly, could he create so much KFC chicken that the universe implodes in a delicious Big Crunch™?

Image



Is there a sandwich like that. I actually went to KFC asking for a Big Crunch after seeing that and didn't realize it was a joke cause I was just skimming. It looks so delicious.


No, the Big Crunch is not a sandwich. It's a candy bar.



The_Walrus
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09 Sep 2012, 11:48 am

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
Honestly, I think ruveyn's treatment is the most correct.

The trinity is this notion: "that in the unity of the Godhead there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, these Three Persons being truly distinct one from another. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15047a.htm

And in the same source, the problems with it were well recognized: "It is manifest that a dogma so mysterious presupposes a Divine revelation. When the fact of revelation, understood in its full sense as the speech of God to man, is no longer admitted, the rejection of the doctrine follows as a necessary consequence."

This problem is well recognized by Christian philosophers:
"As is well known, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity poses a serious philosophical problem. On the one hand, it affirms that there are three distinct Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—each of whom is God. On the other hand, it says that there is one and only one God. The doctrine therefore pulls us in two directions at once—in the direction of saying that there is exactly one divine being and in the direction of saying that there is more than one." - Michael Rea from "Material Constitution and the Trinity"

Also, JNathanK's answer is actually erroneous. Persons cannot be aspects. So, saying "the spirit is the relationship between self and other" and saying "the spirit is a person" seem to be conceptually confused.

I am unsure what "The_Walrus" is failing to understand as well. The trinity is a confusing doctrine. This is recognized by many Christian sources, and Christian intellectuals to this day. This is clearly evident from the definitions of it. Even the history of the Christian church bears witness to this as the trinity is one of biggest areas of contention within the church across history, whether we talk about the Arians and Sabellians in the early church, or even the Socinians of the 16th and 17th centuries, and the Unitarian movement, or even to this day with Jehovah's witnesses who reject the idea as nonsense.(And I'm not saying that I throw my lot in with them, only that few other doctrines are so heavily contested despite the clear orthodoxy)

I was merely seeking clarity as to what precisely was confusing you about the Trinity, why you thought it didn't make internal sense, or sense when interacting with the broader world. You could have said "it makes no sense for the Holy Spirit to be inside each of us", for example.

It is confusing, but it doesn't have to be nonsensical. I believe JNathanK's answer fits fairly well with established theology. My Philosophy teacher, who has an MPhil in Theology from Oxford University, gave a similar answer when explaining the issue to our class (she is an atheist, in case you were wondering). Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are all the same God... manifested in different ways.

It's a tricky metaphysical and philosophical conundrum, but it isn't unsolvable, unlike the problem of evil or the Euthyphro dilemma.



Etheros
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09 Sep 2012, 1:18 pm

I think that if you look past some of the close-minded and un-Jesus-like people who claim to be his followers, the general principles of loving others and doing good to people are pretty solid and practical advice for a reasonably happy life.



Fnord
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09 Sep 2012, 1:42 pm

Alfonso12345 wrote:
Fnord wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
The_Walrus wrote:
Awesomelyglorious wrote:
I mean, one issue to bring up is the trinity.
What confuses you about the trinity?
3 = 1 is a blatant contradiction. It is false and what is more, it is absurd. ruveyn
You could look at it this way... There is Ruveyn the Awsome Stud, Ruveyn the Wise Philosopher, and the Ruveyn who gets the work done to pay the bills. Three separate aspects in one person, without any contradictions; 3 in 1. Now, if someone could please provide evidence that Ruveyn exists ... ? ;)
I'm not sure this is an accurate description of how the trinity works. A better description would be "Ruveyn, as himself, the child version of Ruveyn named Joey, and the invisible ghost that is also part of Ruveyn that spies on everyone and goes into people's brains and makes them feel good."

But so far, no one has provided empirical evidence for the existence of Ruveyn, so how can anyone say he exists?






:wink:


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