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I mean technically Jesus is a human embodiment of God (according to the Council of Nicaea) so he is both himself and his Son. That whole story is a mindfuck and

by moate 8y ago

I mean technically Jesus is a human embodiment of God (according to the Council of Nicaea) so he is both himself and his Son. That whole story is a mindfuck and a logical nightmare. Right up there with the Tower of Babel when it comes to "What the fuck is this omnipotent, omniscient being fucking doing up there?!"

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
And then there's the Messiah going around saying we are all 'children of God'. So how is he different? Either he's the only son, or we're all daughters and sons, can't have it both ways. So when any of us sacrifice ourselves for others, we've done exactly as significant a sacrifice as the famous one. Or more so - because when we die, its permanent and not a sort of symbolic dying where you get to walk around and talk with your buds again for days.
- walljm 8y ago
  Jesus would be the first born, and has preeminence (https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_216.cfm https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_...). Christians, when they enter into the family of God are adopted (in the roman sense). Jesus is different because He is God, because He was first, because when He lived on this earth He did no sin and thus when He died his sacrifice was sufficient for sins that were not His own, and because He was God, His sacrifice was sufficient for the sins of all mankind. Our deaths must atone for our own sins and can't be applied to another. According to Christian doctrine, our deaths are not permanent, as all people will be resurrected, either to live with God or to suffer punishment for rejecting Him.
joshuacc 8y ago
According to Nicea and the Christian tradition, there is one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus is the Son incarnate, but not the Father. You may not think this makes sense, and that's fine, but it is quite different from what you are claiming above.
- moate 8y ago
  >>I mean technically Jesus is a human embodiment of God (according to the Council of Nicaea) so he is both himself and his Son. I'll just assume it was my pronouns that got ya on this one. God is Jesus. God is God (or Father God, or Allah, or I Am, or whatever your preferred term for the overbeing is) "he(God) is both himself (Father God) and his son (Jesus)" It's exactly what I said above.
xamuel 8y ago
I'm a logician and I wouldn't call those stories a "logical nightmare". I'd even go so far as to say they have a profound deep inner logic. It's a bit arrogant, given a book which alleges to reveal divine secrets of reality, to assume said book should all be perfectly intuitive and easy to understand. "Sacred Hidden Truths for Dummies"? :)
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  Be fair. They use normal language, make no attempt to explore any subtlety involved, and so its reasonable to take it at face value. And at face value, it appears to be a pretty lame patch on an appearance of paganism (multiple gods, oh wait, its really one).
  - xamuel 8y ago
    Think of it this way. Imaging you're immortal, and you're going to go to a deserted island for all eternity, and you can take one book with you. Suppose you want to maximize the probability that the one book you take with you will provide you value as long as possible. You could take a practical book about how to survive on a desert island. But, since you're gonna live forever, everything in there is stuff you could figure out on your own eventually. So this book's value is only short-term. You could take a new age book with lots of feel-good, intuitively-pleasing platitudes. But, again, you could just invent all that by yourself. Probability of eternal-term value: 0. A collection of stories like the ones in question at least has some chance of providing eternal-term value, precisely BECAUSE on the short-term they seem so absurd. If they were intuitively pleasing at first glance, then you could just come up with them yourself eventually. This same reasoning would apply to any similar collection of stories, but the stories in question at least have a lot of precedent / test-of-time / reputable endorsements.
- moate 8y ago
  Why? Why is that arrogant? God loves you. Why hide the keys?
  - xamuel 8y ago
nathan_long 8y ago
> That whole story is a mindfuck and a logical nightmare. The Christian belief of the Trinity is readily admitted by Christians to be mind-boggling. We do not therefore consider it false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%80%93particle_duality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%80%93particle_duality is also a "logical nightmare". If the Creator of such phenomena Himself fit neatly into our logical boxes, wouldn't that smell like fabrication?
- moate 8y ago
  I mean religion as a whole smells like a fabrication, but that's just me. I never said anything about truth or not in my previous statement, just that it's a logical nightmare, which you're admitting it is.
- jmcqk6 8y ago
  Wow that is a misleading argument. Wave particle duality is not a logical nightmare. It might be to someone who only has an extremely superficial understanding of it, but the more you dig into the topic, it becomes easier to understand. There is no analogue to this in christianity. You just have to accept it as mysterious, and then you claim that if there weren't such mysteries, it would seem fake. That's a rationalization. There is no logical reason for there needing to be mysteries to god. You need there to be one because in the reality of your beliefs there are mysteries.
unit91 8y ago
> Jesus is a human embodiment of God (according to the Council of Nicaea) so he is both himself and his Son. What you've described is called "modalism" (aka "Sabellianism", after a guy named Sabellius) and is taught against in Scripture and rejected by the Church under all non-cultish denominational flags. The doctrine of the Trinity is difficult to "wrap your arms around" but very easy to state: 1. The Father is God. 2. The Son is God. 3. The Holy Spirit is God. 4. The Father is not the Son. 5. The Son is not the Holy Spirit. 6. The Holy Spirit is not the Father. 7. There is one God. From this the language of the Trinity (1 being, God, who consists of 3 persons, the Father, Son, and Spirit) was developed by the Church to describe what is taught in Scripture.
krapp 8y ago
The logical fallacies of the Bible are only a problem if you expect the Bible to be logical, to possess a singular coherent narrative, or feel it must be taken literally. It's much easier to tolerate if you take it for what it is, an anthology of ancient mythology and poetry.

by moate 8y ago

JoeAltmaier 8y ago

And then there's the Messiah going around saying we are all 'children of God'. So how is he different? Either he's the only son, or we're all daughters and sons, can't have it both ways. So when any of us sacrifice ourselves for others, we've done exactly as significant a sacrifice as the famous one. Or more so - because when we die, its permanent and not a sort of symbolic dying where you get to walk around and talk with your buds again for days.

walljm 8y ago
Jesus would be the first born, and has preeminence (https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_216.cfm https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_...). Christians, when they enter into the family of God are adopted (in the roman sense). Jesus is different because He is God, because He was first, because when He lived on this earth He did no sin and thus when He died his sacrifice was sufficient for sins that were not His own, and because He was God, His sacrifice was sufficient for the sins of all mankind. Our deaths must atone for our own sins and can't be applied to another. According to Christian doctrine, our deaths are not permanent, as all people will be resurrected, either to live with God or to suffer punishment for rejecting Him.

joshuacc 8y ago

According to Nicea and the Christian tradition, there is one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus is the Son incarnate, but not the Father. You may not think this makes sense, and that's fine, but it is quite different from what you are claiming above.

moate 8y ago
>>I mean technically Jesus is a human embodiment of God (according to the Council of Nicaea) so he is both himself and his Son. I'll just assume it was my pronouns that got ya on this one. God is Jesus. God is God (or Father God, or Allah, or I Am, or whatever your preferred term for the overbeing is) "he(God) is both himself (Father God) and his son (Jesus)" It's exactly what I said above.

xamuel 8y ago

I'm a logician and I wouldn't call those stories a "logical nightmare". I'd even go so far as to say they have a profound deep inner logic. It's a bit arrogant, given a book which alleges to reveal divine secrets of reality, to assume said book should all be perfectly intuitive and easy to understand. "Sacred Hidden Truths for Dummies"? :)

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
Be fair. They use normal language, make no attempt to explore any subtlety involved, and so its reasonable to take it at face value. And at face value, it appears to be a pretty lame patch on an appearance of paganism (multiple gods, oh wait, its really one).
- xamuel 8y ago
  Think of it this way. Imaging you're immortal, and you're going to go to a deserted island for all eternity, and you can take one book with you. Suppose you want to maximize the probability that the one book you take with you will provide you value as long as possible. You could take a practical book about how to survive on a desert island. But, since you're gonna live forever, everything in there is stuff you could figure out on your own eventually. So this book's value is only short-term. You could take a new age book with lots of feel-good, intuitively-pleasing platitudes. But, again, you could just invent all that by yourself. Probability of eternal-term value: 0. A collection of stories like the ones in question at least has some chance of providing eternal-term value, precisely BECAUSE on the short-term they seem so absurd. If they were intuitively pleasing at first glance, then you could just come up with them yourself eventually. This same reasoning would apply to any similar collection of stories, but the stories in question at least have a lot of precedent / test-of-time / reputable endorsements.
moate 8y ago
Why? Why is that arrogant? God loves you. Why hide the keys?
- xamuel 8y ago

nathan_long 8y ago

> That whole story is a mindfuck and a logical nightmare. The Christian belief of the Trinity is readily admitted by Christians to be mind-boggling. We do not therefore consider it false. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%80%93particle_duality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave%E2%80%93particle_duality is also a "logical nightmare". If the Creator of such phenomena Himself fit neatly into our logical boxes, wouldn't that smell like fabrication?

moate 8y ago
I mean religion as a whole smells like a fabrication, but that's just me. I never said anything about truth or not in my previous statement, just that it's a logical nightmare, which you're admitting it is.
jmcqk6 8y ago
Wow that is a misleading argument. Wave particle duality is not a logical nightmare. It might be to someone who only has an extremely superficial understanding of it, but the more you dig into the topic, it becomes easier to understand. There is no analogue to this in christianity. You just have to accept it as mysterious, and then you claim that if there weren't such mysteries, it would seem fake. That's a rationalization. There is no logical reason for there needing to be mysteries to god. You need there to be one because in the reality of your beliefs there are mysteries.

unit91 8y ago

> Jesus is a human embodiment of God (according to the Council of Nicaea) so he is both himself and his Son. What you've described is called "modalism" (aka "Sabellianism", after a guy named Sabellius) and is taught against in Scripture and rejected by the Church under all non-cultish denominational flags. The doctrine of the Trinity is difficult to "wrap your arms around" but very easy to state: 1. The Father is God. 2. The Son is God. 3. The Holy Spirit is God. 4. The Father is not the Son. 5. The Son is not the Holy Spirit. 6. The Holy Spirit is not the Father. 7. There is one God. From this the language of the Trinity (1 being, God, who consists of 3 persons, the Father, Son, and Spirit) was developed by the Church to describe what is taught in Scripture.

krapp 8y ago

The logical fallacies of the Bible are only a problem if you expect the Bible to be logical, to possess a singular coherent narrative, or feel it must be taken literally. It's much easier to tolerate if you take it for what it is, an anthology of ancient mythology and poetry.