LivingLife Posted April 25, 2012 Share Posted April 25, 2012 You have to be indoctrinated into this triune concept. I never was as a kid so when I first saw it as a deal breaker in belief I wrestled and debated it and showed the folk the bible did not support it. The pesky verse in 1 John 5:7 was The Proof Text till I later discovered that this was actually a forgery added much later. That put the triangle god to bed as the remaining texts allegedly supporting the trinity are so vague and inconsequential. The real evidence is in the salutations of Paul's epistles, and nowhere is the trinity inferred and just barely a binity. I am still of the opinion the the texts we see in the NT are carefully fabricated to support the invented religion and this really only becomes apparent when you study the gnostic texts, they did not manage to get all of them burned. But folk are lazy and will simply take that which their pastor teaches them as gospel and truth. I had endless debates with folk but this is a cornerstone of their beliefs, if you can rip this one away it is a start of the crumbling of their cocoon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Positivist Posted April 26, 2012 Share Posted April 26, 2012 First of all, it is so refreshing to be able to finally say that the Trinity makes no sense, without fear of burning in hell!!! This doctrine was a stumbling block to me for my entire life as a believer. I remember trying to get the "correct" idea of the trinity down because I thought it was essential to my salvation, including the idea of the nature of christ (fully man yet fully god). I tried to correct wrong interpretation because if someone had it wrong they were going to burn in hell. Indeed. God made it too hard. Why not just say (instead of the Trinity stuff to set the bar for heaven), "To be saved you must be able to do a rubix cube using your toes, and with your eyes shut, while singing the national anthem backwards. At least then some of us might have a chance! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FeelHappy Posted April 26, 2012 Share Posted April 26, 2012 For sure, if Jesus was god, then he'd know in the future people would argue and kill each other over the doctrine of his divinity / the trinity, surely a god man could easily explain these things and save 100s to 1000s of years worth of wars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackbauer Posted April 27, 2012 Share Posted April 27, 2012 Because when worded that way, it shows how absurd it all is. Sure, that's what they believe, but it's not supposed to sound as ridiculous. Therefore, to them it's a strawman. Doesn't make sense? Well Christians are special. They have different rules of debating and logic than the rest of the world. After all, we're all "spiritually blind" so our logic and reason is no match for their fallacious reasoning. I could start an entirely different thread just on how impossible it is to debate anything with Christians. A lot of them are simply too emotional when confronted with contradictions (except for strict Calvinists, they see everyone else as too emotional for being repulsed by their sociopathic theology). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
★ Citsonga ★ Posted April 29, 2012 Share Posted April 29, 2012 I was told I can't debate scripture since I'm spiritually discerned. I need to ask Jesus into my heart and accept him as my lord and savior before I can start understanding the Word. How convenient. So then they essentially are saying you can't look at any evidence they present to convince you of faith either, since you have to be saved in order to understand what the Bible says according to them. Why then do they have all these elaborate apologetics with which to defend the faith then? No one but them can possibly see the truth of them anyway, so why not busy themselves doing something productive instead? Ask them that. So they can sell books and videos that Christians plop down money for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted April 29, 2012 Share Posted April 29, 2012 I was told I can't debate scripture since I'm spiritually discerned. I need to ask Jesus into my heart and accept him as my lord and savior before I can start understanding the Word. How convenient. So then they essentially are saying you can't look at any evidence they present to convince you of faith either, since you have to be saved in order to understand what the Bible says according to them. Why then do they have all these elaborate apologetics with which to defend the faith then? No one but them can possibly see the truth of them anyway, so why not busy themselves doing something productive instead? Ask them that. So they can sell books and videos that Christians plop down money for. And why plop the money down when all you're going to say when challenged is you can only know it by being a believer first? Who are they trying to convince? Themselves? Must be since they've already said you can't believe unless you believe. If themselves then, why do they need convincing? I thought they believed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
★ Citsonga ★ Posted April 29, 2012 Share Posted April 29, 2012 And why plop the money down when all you're going to say when challenged is you can only know it by being a believer first? Who are they trying to convince? Themselves? Must be since they've already said you can't believe unless you believe. If themselves then, why do they need convincing? I thought they believed. Different Christians have different approaches, of course, and there is often a mental disconnect among them. On the one hand, many of them say that you can logically prove God and the Bible, yet when you show how wrong they are, they retreat back to "you just have to have faith." My personal opinion is that the apologetics arguments that are purported to be for the skeptics are really arguments for the believers in contact with skeptics. After all, who buys the apologetics books? The vast majority of sales are to Christians. So, basically, indoctrinated believers read the apologetics arguments through the lens of their dogma, and they often remain convinced that logic is on their side. However, the skeptics who get the apologetics arguments slung at them can usually see through the sham. So, it serves its real purpose of keeping the flock inside the fence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted April 30, 2012 Share Posted April 30, 2012 My personal opinion is that the apologetics arguments that are purported to be for the skeptics are really arguments for the believers in contact with skeptics. Agreed! A few years ago I tried telling someone--Focus on the Family, I think--that they were not taking the right approach for atheists, thinking that speaking as an atheist I had a very strong argument. I was told that I don't know that it doesn't work for their audience. Their audience was young boys testifying to atheist boys. And the person who replied to me was sure their method worked. One thing was clear to me, my method of communication with the fundy was not working. I think now it fits right in with what you are saying here--it was a feel-good tactic for the Christians and nothing more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted April 30, 2012 Share Posted April 30, 2012 I was told I can't debate scripture since I'm spiritually discerned. I need to ask Jesus into my heart and accept him as my lord and savior before I can start understanding the Word. How convenient. What is that supposed to mean--that you are spiritually discerned so you can't debate scripture? I've never heard it put that way. I thought they like to say scripture is spiritually discerned and that the atheist is not spiritual enough to understand. It's all bullcrap so far as I'm concerned but I'm curious what they think it means. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
★ Citsonga ★ Posted April 30, 2012 Share Posted April 30, 2012 I was told I can't debate scripture since I'm spiritually discerned. I need to ask Jesus into my heart and accept him as my lord and savior before I can start understanding the Word. How convenient. What is that supposed to mean--that you are spiritually discerned so you can't debate scripture? I've never heard it put that way. I thought they like to say scripture is spiritually discerned and that the atheist is not spiritual enough to understand. It's all bullcrap so far as I'm concerned but I'm curious what they think it means. I think he meant to say, "I was told I can't debate scripture since it's spiritually discerned," or something akin to that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thought2Much Posted April 30, 2012 Share Posted April 30, 2012 Indeed. God made it too hard. Why not just say (instead of the Trinity stuff to set the bar for heaven), "To be saved you must be able to do a rubix cube using your toes, and with your eyes shut, while singing the national anthem backwards. At least then some of us might have a chance! Let's see... Check... check... check... check! Oh, wait a minute. The Canadian national anthem? Dammit! Now I guess I'm going to hell! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Positivist Posted April 30, 2012 Share Posted April 30, 2012 Indeed. God made it too hard. Why not just say (instead of the Trinity stuff to set the bar for heaven), "To be saved you must be able to do a rubix cube using your toes, and with your eyes shut, while singing the national anthem backwards. Let's see... Check... check... check... check! Oh, wait a minute. The Canadian national anthem? Dammit! Now I guess I'm going to hell! So, the Holy Spirit didn't lead you to know how to do this? WTF? Also, please post a video of you doing the above..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cryptic Posted May 1, 2012 Author Share Posted May 1, 2012 I think he meant to say, "I was told I can't debate scripture since it's spiritually discerned," or something akin to that. No, he explicitly said "you're" in his message. He was just addressing me and I won't forget it. Probably because it makes no sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
★ Citsonga ★ Posted May 1, 2012 Share Posted May 1, 2012 I think he meant to say, "I was told I can't debate scripture since it's spiritually discerned," or something akin to that. No, he explicitly said "you're" in his message. He was just addressing me and I won't forget it. Probably because it makes no sense. I seriously doubt that he meant to say it that way. Look again at what you said following that: I was told I can't debate scripture since I'm spiritually discerned. I need to ask Jesus into my heart and accept him as my lord and savior before I can start understanding the Word. How convenient. Saying that you supposedly need Jesus in your heart before understanding the Bible implies that you couldn't debate scripture because you're not a Christian and therefore don't have the ability to discern spiritual things. That is an extremely common Christian argument, so that is most likely what he meant. Of course, it's also possible that he was a complete doofus who was trying to regurgitate that argument and jumbled it up, but even in that scenario, it was that common argument that he was attempting to make. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoftIce Posted May 2, 2012 Share Posted May 2, 2012 I was told I can't debate scripture since I'm spiritually discerned. I need to ask Jesus into my heart and accept him as my lord and savior before I can start understanding the Word. How convenient. This is higly ironic, considering that Christians themselves argue over what they see as the correct interpretation of the Bible. And many of these are hardcore Christians, not liberal ones as well. So there's no saying they don't 'believe' enough. Heck, Christians have been arguing almost from the get go, just look at some of the arguments early Church fathers had with each other. This is most likely why we ended up with 30,000 or so different denominations of Christianity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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