Hebrews 1:3

@kellyjay said
Firstborn is a right in a lineage, not just an order of birth. Coupled with all the other things written about Christ, He is not a created being. Everything not God was made/created by God, and there was nothing made without Christ.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
You don't think scripture points to God creating Jesus and then using him to make everything else?

@Ghost-of-a-Duke

As an atheist, I obviously believe there never has been a God, but as an academic am still able to objectively decipher the meaning of religious texts, such as the bible. In doing this with Hebrews 1, I conclude that Jesus was indeed the first thing made by God (the firstborn over all creation) but this does not equate as 'no allegiance is necessary to Christ.' After all, Jesus tells us in John 14:6 that 'No one can come to the Father except through me.'

Questions....

Where in the bible is the first and most clear cut scripture that says that Jehovah, Jesus and the holy spirit are all 1 God, not some vague, open to interpretation, maybe it does answer.

Why is the term Trinity never said in the Bible by anyone? Did Jesus not know about this word and not want to introduce this new teaching because up to that point the Jews and all of gods people before that never believed in any such thing?

Why do trinity believers deny the origin of the Trinity? KellyJay said he didn't want to look it up if I'm quoting him right. Why not?

I'm wondering if I could just get simple answers, not with scriptures that do not apply.

http://www.christadelphia.org/trinityhistory.php

Perhaps if you really want to make sure, absolutely sure you have this trinity belief right, you should take a day out of your life's and look this over. You just might change your minds. That is if your life and your relationship with God is really that important to you.

Here is just a sampling of what can be learned there:

Dictionary Of The Bible 1995 John L. Mckenzie

"The trinity of persons within the unity of nature is defined in terms of 'person' and 'nature' which are Greek philosophical terms; actually the terms do not appear in the Bible. The trinitarian definitions arose as the result of long controversies in which these terms and others such as 'essence' and 'substance' were erroneously applied to God by some theologians."

The Rise of Christianity W.H.C. Frend 1985

"For him [Clement] the trinity consisted of a hierarchy of three graded beings, and from that concept - derived from Platonism - depended much of the remainder of his theological teaching."

The Doctrine of the Trinity Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound 1994 Anthony F. Buzzard, Charles F. Hunting

"Eberhard Griesebach, in an acedemic lecture on "Christianity and humanism" delivered in 1938, observed that in its encounter with Greek philosophy Christianity became theology. That was the fall of Christianity. The Problem thus highlighted stems from the fact that traditional orthodoxy, while it claims to find its origins in scripture, in fact contains elements drawn from a synthesis of Scripture and Neo-Platonism. The mingling of Hebrew and Greek thinking set in motion first in the second century by an influx of Hellenism through the Church Fathers, whose theology was colored by the Platonists Plotinus and Porphyry. The effects of the Greek influence are widely recognized by theologians, though they go largely unnoticed by many believers."

". . . the Trinity is an unintelligible proposition of platonic mysticisms that three are one and one is three" [quote from Thomas Jefferson]

The Greek mythology and pagan religious beliefs were derived from Babylon.

Nouveau Dictionnaire Universel 1870

"The Platonic trinity, itself merely a rearrangement of older trinities dating back to earlier peoples, appears to be the rational philosophic trinity of attributes that gave birth to the three hypostases or divine persons taught by the Christian churches . . . This Greek philosopher's (Plato, 4th century BC) conception of the divine trinity . . . can be found in all ancient (pagan) religions"

The Rise of Christianity W.H.C. Frend 1985

"we find Christianity tending to absorb Greek philosophical values, until by the end of the third century the line between the beliefs of educated Christian and educated pagan in the east would often be hard to draw."

The early Christians began mixing Greek and pagan and Babylonian philosophical and religious trinitarian concepts with their Christian doctrine which lead them to begin considering the trinity, and after three centuries that thinking finally took hold. Acts 17:22 says that the Greeks were too superstitious, and I Corinthians 1:22 says that the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom. The Greeks were too intellectual in their approach to God's Word. They became wise in their own eyes and the truth of God’s Word became foolishness to them, so they grafted their own superstitious philosophical wisdom into God’s Word and changed the truth into a lie; they changed Son of God to God the Son.

@sonship said
Well, God gave you the very ability to argue in the first place.
Your ability to reason and argue at all has come from God.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
You don't think scripture points to God creating Jesus and then using him to make everything else?

@galveston75 said
Questions....

Where in the bible is the first and most clear cut scripture that says that Jehovah, Jesus and the holy spirit are all 1 God, not some vague, open to interpretation, maybe it does answer.

Why is the term Trinity never said in the Bible by anyone? Did Jesus not know about this word and not want to introduce this new teaching because up to that point t ...[text shortened]... Why not?

I'm wondering if I could just get simple answers, not with scriptures that do not apply.

@fmf said
Isn't this a logical fallacy of some kind? Begging the question? Circular argument? You're basically asserting that Ghost of a Duke's ability to tell you he doesn't believe in your God figure is proof that your God figure created him. I can understand how someone can use glib, informal fallacies like this when preaching to the choir or when preying upon the vulnerable and weak-mi ...[text shortened]... someone like Ghost of a Duke who is clearly more intelligent and thoughtful and self-aware than you.

@suzianne said
Are you asking everyone now if their argument is a "logical fallacy of some kind"? Is this your new schtick?

@suzianne said
Are you asking everyone now if their argument is a "logical fallacy of some kind"? Is this your new schtick?

@kellyjay said
I don't know what you think I said; I did not say I didn't want to look something up! I said, the word Trinity isn't in the Bible, so it isn't something, I or anyone can look up, it isn't there. It isn't the word that is important, and it is the doctrine, the explanation of God as God has revealed Himself to us. Three persons in one being, God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spir ...[text shortened]... y those who accept it as truth.

Genesis 1:
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."

@fmf said
Isn't this a logical fallacy of some kind? Begging the question? Circular argument? You're basically asserting that Ghost of a Duke's ability to tell you he doesn't believe in your God figure is proof that your God figure created him. I can understand how someone can use glib, informal fallacies like this when preaching to the choir or when preying upon the vulnerable and weak-mi ...[text shortened]... someone like Ghost of a Duke who is clearly more intelligent and thoughtful and self-aware than you.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Do you consider this as something made very clear in the Bible and something the early Christians would have accepted?

@deepthought said
He then went on to accuse Ghost of ingratitude, so moralizing without any actual content.