comment of the month
This month sees a triple treat of truly enticing commentary on one of Christianity’s distinctly dotty doctrines: the Trinity. We’re going to start with an old favourite, move on to the young pretender, and finish with some hot air.
old favourite
The idea, that there should not be no other gods than just the one, and three separate forms of it are a clear logical contradiction. And if that is a contradiction, then what a contradiction it is to have pictures of Jesus all around churches when the Old Testament specifically says, one should not have “craven images”? However, logic is not a requirement for faith. Actually, if you have logical reasons for your beliefs it no longer is actual faith. Because having faith literally means believing something despite the lack of evidence.
The thing is, all religions are ecclestic. Even the most strict literal fundamentalists go cherry picking from their holy scriptures the stuff that pleases them, or fits their personal version of morality. And since no god interferes in personal interpretation of the scriptures, miracles, sermons, or doctrines, that god seems to be fine with the entire variety. If someone claims “god hates fags”, then it seems to be just as fine to this god, as “god loves everybody”. If someone says god hates infidells and wants you to kill them, it also seems just as fine with this god as “turn the other cheek”.
People believe in most obscure and strange stuff about their god(s), and it all seems to make sense to them on some level. What people believe about their own god(s) seems to be completely irrelevant to any god. What is more important to all gods is, that people believe. And not even that is so very important, since gods are not actively promoting belief, rather playing hide and seek. For some reason it is only humans who are promoting belief in any god(s). A game where most often people find them selves as “winners”, or “losers” based on their cultural heritage.
young pretender
The Trinity gets a reputation for being mysterious and esoteric, mostly due to overly-imaginative Evangelical preachers too lazy or too uneducated to accurately explain it. It’s not THAT complicated. For all intents and purposes, Christians believe in three gods. But since the three gods lack the rivalry, disparity, and other distinctives of polytheism a la Roman Pantheon, it’s more like worshiping one god in practice. That’s really all.
hot air
Crispyuns will swear that the Trinity is alluded to in the bible, but then they are all dickheads, so we don’t have to worry what they think.
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epilogue: the characters behind the wise words
old favourite is rautakyy – visit Raut’s blog if you want to learn some seriously thoughtful history. Entice Raut to your blog if you want heaps of interesting facts wrapped in beautifully expressed common sense. All delivered in a thoroughly well-mannered and delightfully charming style.
young pretender is physicsandwhiskey – visit PeW’s blog if you want to learn about problems with fundamentalist Christianity and explore an array of musings about the god God. Entice PeW to your blog if you want to hear *his* interpretation of the Bible and logic, mixed with a healthy dose of serious historical and scientific facts. All delivered in a sincere and enthusiastic manner.
hot air is Arkenaten – visit Ark’s blog if you want to learn why religion is wrong, read short stories, admire amazing cakes, look at pictures of lovely cats and wildlife, and many other exciting things. Entice Ark to your blog if you want to chance being heartily insulted or have someone swear at your religiously-inclined visitors. All delivered in a thoroughly entertaining yet sometimes frightfully rude manner.
I like the reasons for visiting ark’s blog.
The old favorite is great!
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I think the old favourite is going to be ‘comment of the month’ every month – he puts so much thought into what he says and it always screams good sense.
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Ah, bless you, dear heart! I am rapidly (rabidly?) becoming a Legend In My Own Lunchtime.
You have to be really special to get insulted so badly by The Ark. The dickheads are everywhere but those who achieved Silly Person status are a select few.
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Thank you! I think I’ve reached that status on at least two occasions, and I feel truly blessed. 🙂
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Hey, thanks for the mention! Even if it was a bit snarky.
Couldn’t pass this up:
If you have logical reasons for your beliefs it no longer is actual faith. Because having faith literally means believing something despite the lack of evidence.
Isn’t that just Raut’s interpretation? 😉
The trouble with choosing prejudicial definitions is that they work both ways. Suddenly, you can no longer censure people for having faith if you define faith as something other than what they have.
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You’ve lost me there. It’s Raut’s comment and it makes perfect sense to me. I don’t think I have faith in anything (in terms of the supernatural, which is what this specifically means). Would it be more helpful to state not having faith in an alleged entity that doesn’t reveal itself to any of my five senses?
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No, it was just an example of picking a prejudicial definition of faith. If belief-without-or-against-evidence is all he’s interested in discussing, that’s one thing….but I think he’s trying to talk about more than just that.
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Thank you of commending me violetwisp. I am honoured and flattered.
Yes, I am aware of the many Christians who think they have good evidence and reason for their belief in god. I only used the term faith in the meaning it has been presented to me by many of those very same Christians. The difference between these two terms, as I gather, is in that belief tells us what we find true because of evidence we actually think we have and faith tells us what we find true despite of evidence we might have. If they did not have different meaning, why the two separate terms, clearly used in totally different situations?
I have come to think of this as in English language they are two totally different words, but in my native Finnish, the two are derived from one word “uskoa” – “to believe”/ “olla uskossa” – literally “to be in faith”, or “to believe something without knowledge”. Yet, used in any relevant context, they have this clear disdinction between them. But, I am not going to bore you with the morphology of Finnish language here…
How, would you physicsandwhiskey define faith? If I have understood something wrong, I would appricieate it you would set me straight here. 🙂
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There are a few different ways the term can be used. Faith certainly can mean “belief without evidence” or “belief despite contrary evidence”. That’s what it means when someone uses it to end a losing argument.
But the more common usage means “depending on something you trust”. I have faith that my car will start, faith that my wife will still love me in 20 years, faith that my plane won’t crash….stuff like that. This includes “faith in God” inasmuch as the believer is talking about trusting God’s promises. This latter definition of faith doesn’t directly say anything about evidence either way, but just implies that there’s a good reason to have trust (which may or may not be the case).
Faith can even be used in reference to a system of beliefs. You know, like “The Christian Faith”.
As long as we keep the various descriptions straight, though, we’ll all be on the same page! Thanks for explaining which definition you were talking about.
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Well, languages are allways under change, as meanings to words change all the time and different individuals and groups of people seem to have different meanings and emphasis on their meaning. But as a usefull definition of faith in this respect of religious beliefs in supernatural entities, it seems very much, that the entire idea of requirement of faith by a particular god, is all about accepting the god to exist even when this god does not manifest in any way in reality. Faith is a subset of belief. Some specific kind of belief, and the main division line between those two seems to be how much evidence there is for us to form a belief.
In common use of language one may have faith in promises by a god, or a wife, but the big difference between those two is, that the wife is a real material being and a person that is known to the believer (hopefully), while the god is ultimately only a metaphysical concept.
There is a big difference in believing one’s wife, or that the plane in wich one sits is not going to crash, in comparrison to believing a promise made in a very old book, that has never been verified. There is actual evidence for the wife to show character, that she is either to be trusted or not, and there is evidence about how reliable the airplane one rides is, but faith as in the promises of a god is a requirement, even when the evidence would be contrary. Yes? Is that not what the story about Job is supposed to teach? So, when we speak about faith in the promises of a god and faith in a car to start, we are talking in very different terms and in fact what we have for the car, may or may not be faith at all, depending on how dependable the car actually is.
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