What leads you to believe that the Trinity is supposed to represent the family?

God represents the Father. Jesus represents the Son.

Father and sons do not pop into existence by themselves.

Perhaps not; but freedom of will is one of those articles of faith which people first believe and then try to prove..

cool....Finally someone who can see the missing piece that isn't there...
The early church was built upon the contributions of women; but the established church, with its dogmas and hierarchies, denegrated the contribution and influence of women completely... Take that women!!!.Get on your knees.... It won't be long and we will be torturing and burning you as witches... That is just our way of saying thanks...

Explaining the Trinity is easy to do once it is understood, though understanding it may be the hard part. The trinity is the same God taking on 3 different forms. We can look to water as an example of that. Water takes on such forms as liquid, ice, and vapor, and though they are all different and may serve different purposes they are all water.

GOD THE FATHER-The Father is like a cube of ice in his characteristic. Like an ice cube, the father does not take the shape of his container. He is broader even than the heavens. Like a cube of ice, the Father is solid and unchanging.

God

Explaining the Trinity is easy to do once it is understood, though understanding it may be the hard part. The trinity is the same God taking on 3 different forms. We can look to water as an example of that. Water takes on such forms as liquid, ice, and vapor, and though they are all different and may serve different purposes they are all water.

GOD THE FATHER-The Father is like a cube of ice in his characteristic. Like an ice cube, the father does not take the shape of his container. He is broader even than the heavens. Like a cube of ice, the Father is solid and unchanging desiring death and death alone as the sacrifice for the sin that he hates.

GOD THE SON-The Son is like the liquid version of H20. Like water, the son is able to take the shape of whatever he is contained in. The Son came to earth and took the form of a man. Some say that he took the form of Melchizadek, the King of Salem in Genesis in the days of Abraham.

GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT-The spirit is like the Vapor version of H20, which not only takes the shape of its container but also fills the entire container, no matter the size of it. The personality of the Holy Spirit is mysterious, and similar to a vapor or gas, the presence of the holy spirit is often undetected by men who are not seeking. (Read Jacob's Ladder)

As a simple question from the peanut gallery: Why...Why would that be necessary??? Why should God have to change form; and why would he want to??? I understand why people would want him too...As they evolved God had to evolve, or be left in the dirt... In fact, the trinity is one more example of People changing their forms by way of change.... What humanity is it is.... We cannot change our biology, our being, or our needs.... So when humanity progresses it progresses through changes of forms...We cannot live without our forms, so when one fails us we graft a new form on old stock....

God doesn't change form from Father to Son and then to Holy Spirit. A God by definition must be infinate. All three forms of God have always existed. A very good question was asked which is "Why would it be necessary for God to take so many forms?". My opinion is that God takes these forms for OUR sake. How could we in our finite minds understand a God so enormous and infinate the heavens cannot contain him? Through the man Jesus we are able to Understand God. God never evolved into anything. God cannot become any more or less powerful or complex. The way God is, is in essence the way he has always been. :a-ok:

Just because God is represented figuratively as the Father of mankind does not mean that the Trinity is supposed to be a model for a human family. If we look at the history of the Trinity we find that the Trinity was not developed as a model for the family, but instead as a meditative tool for better understanding the nature of God.

Be hold;...

God is beyond definition as an absolute; but if you have your trinity you must feel differently...Did I happen to mention that I just picked up a copy of Leibniz' Theodicy... I have poked around in it just a little, but in the intro discovered that from that book, Voltaire took his pangloss... Everything for the best in this best of all possible worlds.... I would bet that was a bitter pill for that logician...And I see little wrong with his logic; except when he reaches a point of making a tentative conclusion upon the identity of God as a perfect being...Well then this world must be the best possible if the perfect being created it since, why would he settle for second when he could have first... It is all meaning in mud...There if you see it and not if not..
From what vantage point in time and space can you pronounce upon the essence of God, or even if God needs an essence???

Fido....

I disagree that God is beyond defining....I do believe he has several definitions. Even the Jewish God mentions "False Gods" that are still "Gods" because men have deemed them as such. Though Voltaire was a great logician, he did say the bible would pass away soon after his death.....After his death his printing press was used as a factory to print bibles. We all have our faults. Many people ask the same question that you've attemptem to answer. "If God is perfect why isn't the world?" Simply put, because we are NOT perfect. Even Adam had his limits "Before the fall of men". Hey I've got to go to work! Look forward to chatting later.

Define your head off...I respect Leibniz, but he made a fool of himself on just such a point; so fools rush in... I'll get the door...

I fail to see how the trinity is logically impossible. The belief is that there is a plurality of hypostases (persons) in a single divine Substance. There's nothing contradictory about this belief.

Do not skim read the ranting of inconsekwenshul for fear the blinded wrath of scorn.

Concerning the status of "creation" i suppose there is necessity of debate to make sense of the various positions held by no uncertain persons. Discerning the profundity of God is near to impossible I imagine when the naturalization of what is divine is coupled with the exaltation of the natural.

That is, humanity is natural and tangible to humans; theism is not because none of us have experienced any dimension of divinity. To confine the possibility of life to what we can physically encounter and define is foolish. Following the logic, I can only conclude that any part of life from animals to historical figures which i have not personally defined and experienced is a falsification engineered by the ideas presenter to achieve whatever end he desires.

Thus, in that no tangible evidence suffices to me as pertaining to the existence of plankton I reject that plankton exists. Instead i subject that sea life is sustained because its tendency is to exist, provided that sea life desires to continue i postulate that it will never cease.

Also Aristotle was not real, rather he is a figure created by philosophers to lend imaginary credibility to their claims, in order that they might have significance in the qualification of their beliefs; thus becoming the god's of their own particular worlds.

Concerning the definition of either God or the trinity, supposing that either need be even understood or defined by humanity for validity is to presume a need into the nature of the being. Insomuch that God is only describable by humans in human terms I submit that no definition will suffice.

While any in particular may satisfy the needs present at the time of the formulation of said definition, none can by nature elucidate the totality of God. When we do not observe something directly, the best we can offer is conjecture. To suppose that our conclusions, inextricably contingent on our presuppositions, are therefore accurate is to infer that we have irrevocable authority concerning the matter of conjecture.
Concluding such beliefs is the destruction of scholarship; based exclusively on opinion, harbored in emotion, and presumed to be factual. The presentation of these beliefs to arduous or aggravated circumstances in light of a conflict imposes division between groups. This division coupled with the presumable dissension between the conflicting parties is cause for the upheaval of otherwise not foreboding altercations.

That said, in an attempt to value myself i must either castigate or impinge upon the views of another. As Winston Churchill said, "let a man look as he please, for no matter the direction he faces his back is turned to half the world.
If you disagree this is what will happen. . . me:poke-eye:you
then. . . me:bigsmile: you:brickwall:

finally you. . . .:surrender:

Contradiction is not really a test of logic... We are used to nature being free of contradictions, and nature teaches logic...If you buy a God, you buy a being big enough to resolve all contradictions within itself.

Logic is the science of the Law of Non-contradiction.

Incon
Just like Chrichill to not figure out that the world is round.... Which every way you are facing you are facing all of it...

Logic is not a science at all... Where are you coming from???

Fido,
Indeed the world is round, and it is true that to look into any direction is to see into the direction opposite you because of the curvature of our planet. However it is impossible to see clearly around the whole circumference of the planet even figuratively speaking. Let's say your looking east and I am one mile west of you, you would have to look24,900.55 miles to see me (What is the circumference of the earth?, 2009 sic).

The point of Churchill and myself is that because whatever you see to the east blocks your ocular if you will, what is indeterminately west of you is unclear. So our perspectives, even when diametrically opposed, are both perhaps accurate concerning the abstract or ambiguous arena of philosophy and religion.

Short of an absolute the relative nature of life commands that all and none are correct. the we are both wrong and right at the same time based on the variables in our processes. However, I hold that some absolutes are true and these represent the control or constant in our experiment and hypothesis.

That said I am unsure as to what it means to be right, or if what is right is defined either by a person, whether the one or the many, or by a creator. I lean toward a creator because of the objectivity of a third party deity. I think confusion is manifested when the parties (deity and humanity) trade party roles and alter the power dynamics.

the naturalization of God and the exaltation of the individual have led the population of those concerned down a crooked path; myself included. The Bible refers to this as sinful nature, or simply the predisposition to unrighteousness.

I do not aim to devalue life, i hold mine and many others in the highest regard ascribable to each (according to me). however I am admittedly not altruistic, and do not pretend to care about or understand all of creation because my face is set in the direction I face and my back is to the others.

hows that for poking your eye with a stick

just kidding:poke-eye: