But you're completely right. The followers (or, rather, the people much later, after the Temple's destruction) did stray. The Trinity is an attempt to reconcile Jesus' Godhead with monotheism. The reason it doesn't work is because Jesus never claimed to be the Incarnate God, Second Person of the...
To be fair, that issue comes from a misunderstanding, an assumption that the "Son of God" thing is to be taken literally, like when the Greek gods had "sons".
Yep! But there's a wide range. On one extreme, you've got Esther (which is brilliantly funny at points) and on the extreme you've got Lamentations (the name speaks for itself).
It's not 1+1+1=1.
It's more like (1/1)x(1/1)x(1/1)=1.
I still agree that it makes very little sense from a historical belief standpoint and it was basically fabricated to reconcile Christ's divinity with monotheism. But the Trinity IS monotheistic. There is only one God within it. Check the...
So... can I take your definition of "Piston" on good authority?
Or can you back it up with an external source?
Because I like it, but I need credible sources so that I can decimate peoples' arguments in the future.
A Muslim would say that the "Judeo-Christian" religion is a corruption of the original Islam. How do you know you're right and he's wrong?
I'll give you the answer: the same way he "knows" he's right and you're wrong.
There's nothing I can say to make you believe this, but Christianity really is monotheistic. Do you have an issue with the Trinity? No problem; so do I. But if you understand it, it's monotheism.
At some points, sure. Besides the huge amount of puns and wordplay (mostly untranslatable, unfortunately), it's got an entire book (see, it's a collection of books) within it dedicated to humour (and it's actually quite funny).
Are you seriously suggesting that the New Testament is the ultimate source of Christian and Jewish history? Take a course in World Religions (one that includes history), dude. In the meantime, read this article and learn about the events that split Christianity from Judaism and changed it from...
sincerly, I wonder what you think of the fact that Christians and Jews were sacrificing in the Temple together and obeying all the Commandments together until its destruction. This clearly means that they accepted Jewish Law and rejected the idea of Jesus as a sacrifice, does it not? How will...
My guess would be to believe that he is the Christ and to believe that his teachings are good, including ethical treatment of others, monotheism, and the coming of the Kingdom of God (supplied with the idea that this "Kingdom" is within us and not a physical "kingdom").
Christians, Muslims...
If this is true, then what about the rest of the world at the time of Moses, Noah, etc? How would the Indians and the Chinese and the Australians and the Pygmies have known about God? Would they have been abandoned simply because they're not Jewish?
You're right, but I don't think that the Afterlife should be one's main motivation to do good. It's an easy motivation, but would it not be better to do good for sake of doing good (even though it's so much more difficult)? To take advantage of every moment and praise God instead of focusing on...
And this is even more interesting when we realise that Israel is the country in which all of this Abrahamism originated! The ultimate Abraham-Nation has legalised same-sex marriage. That doesn't seem too bigoted, man.