Quote:
|
Originally Posted by HeavenLost
I have to tell you though, to think Chirst's teachings are valid without believing in the Holy Trinity is a futile venture.
|
followed by...
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by HeavenLost
Organized religion is one of the most insidious inventions mankind has ever made. To accept a regime where a few people dictate what your Creator has said is robing yourself of truth. No man can ever be truly selfless. God tells us to question, not just wander through life ignorant of the forces that try to control us.
|
equals somebody who's not actually thinking for themselves at all, but is still married to concepts and ideas which were told to them by somebody else.
The Trinity in all it's incarnations stems from the multi-God religions that pre-date Christianity, Judaism and the Bible as a whole. The Trinity was forced into Catholisism and subsiquently Christianity long after Jesus himself died, and was done so as a means to adapt and incorporate the beliefs of outside cultures who still believed in triune or multiple Gods. It's the same reason why December 25th is now celebrated as Jesus' date of birth when the reality is that date was chosen to merge with the pagan concept of Sol Invictus, the Invincible Sun.
Were it not for organized religion, the Trinity would have been a long forgotten pagan notion who's time had passed, which is probably as it should have been. Were it not for the pagan Trinity, Jesus would have never been linked to God in the manner he has been in the first place, and the belief of the Holy Spirit would have never came to fruition.
Incidentally, the Bible is a handpicked collection of writings brought together to form a story that, prior to Emporer Constantine, did not exist. A more true representation of religious understandings of the time would have to include the Gnostic texts and others which, obviously, were discarded by the Council of Nicea because they did not fit the story trying to be pieced together. It would be akin to removing some of the more fantastical concepts of Greek Mythology so that the people and stories appear to be more realistic and plausible. That's the Bible, a cleaned up version of the many fantastical writings circulating among believers of the time.