Christian Math (3×1=1)
13 05 2008Christ, according to the faith, is the second person in the Trinity, the Father being the first and the Holy Ghost the third. Each of these persons is God. Christ is his own father and his own son. The Holy Ghost is neither father nor son, but both. The son was begotten by the father, but existed before he was begotten–just the same before as after. . . .
So, it is declared that the Father is God, and the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God, and that these three Gods make one God.
According to the celestial multiplication table, once one is three, and three times one is one, and according to heavenly subtraction, if we take two from three, three are left. The addition is equally peculiar, if we add two to one, we have but one. . . .
Nothing ever was, nothing ever can be more perfectly idiotic and absurd than the dogma of the Trinity.
– Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899), “The Trinity” (from “The Foundations of Faith,” The Works of Ingersoll).
No wonder Christians believe in intelligent design, if you can be convinced that this absurd idea is true then ID will sound absolutely inspired.
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It’s interesting that the Trikaya - the “Three Bodies” of the Buddha-state - predates the Christian concept of the Holy Trinity by a long shot… And it’s also interesting that the Buddhist interpretation of Trikaya actually makes sense in the context of Buddhism when the Christian one doesn’t really make sense in the context of Christianity.
Hermeneutic evolution, perhaps?
Interesting? I’d rather use the word “telling.”
Judeo-Christians took the idea of a great flood from Sumerian Myth.
Judeo-Christians took the idea of man made from clay from Egyptian Myth.
They took the idea of Woman loosing evil onto the world from Greek Myth.
They took “the golden rule” from Confucius.
They took the seven headed beast in Revelations from Tiamat in Babylonian Myth.
So why is it “interesting” they took the idea of the Trinity from Buddism?
The Trinity also has an explanation in Gnostic beliefs. According to the Gnostics, the actual existence of Jesus Christ is irrelevant. Christianity symbolizes “Spirit or Pneuma/Nous, Soul or Psyche and Body or Physis”. Thus the comparison to the Trinity. All is one and one is all. The concept of a “trinity” can be traced by to ancient Greece and Plato. For more details, you can read the book “Jesus and the Lost Goddess”.