Is Christianity a monotheistic religion?

[Someone here]

7 minutes ago, RedLine said:

Isn´t is the same that people say in this forum? that Reality is God which is One or not separated (on an Asolute level) but at the same time they refer, at Relevative level, separe thing: me, you, it, etc.

 

 

No it's different. We are not talking about some arbitrary number of small gods . Christianity insists that its 3. Only 3. And that is a core belief in the doctrine. 

[Someone here]

@Adamq8 I can't read it. The words are foggy . Low resolution.

Can you please copy paste it and post it as a reply .

[Adamq8]

 

Skip to 14.00 sound issues in the beginning. 

This will make more sense i can assure you.

And this : https://youtu.be/meE1Ocwiv4A

[interim]

I'm not trying to enter religious discussion, just answering the author.

First, I wouldn't advice you to think too much on such theological question. It's complicated and modern day Christianity is not famous for attracting thinking people...

The so called trinity is a canon law. People that call themselves Christians must believe in it. That's it. Many things is Christianity, have ancient numerological meaning. Like 3 (the holy trinity, the 3 kings at the birth) , 4 - the cross, earth, 6 - humanity / the beast, 12 (the apostles, Jewish tribes, the zodiac). The true meaning of many of these symbols is lost for most. Now there is just dogma and repetition. 

Christian theologists are extremely touchy to call them dualistic, or that they are not monotheistic. And there is reason for that. It's Gnostic Christianity, that is actually the more ancient belief. From their perspective, the trinity makes more sense. Gnostics (note that there are all kinds of Gnostic sects also) believe in a Brahman like transcendental source. This is not a "person" that tell them what to do like in Abrahamic religions, it's really very close to Hinduism. This is the "Father". The "Son" is simple - it's the human being (not just Jesus, any human), the "Holy Spirit" is what animates the body. It's that part of "Brahman" that enters the corporeal realm. In that sense, Gnostic Christianity is actually very close to Hinduism/Buddhism. The "not self" / Maya / Illusion is the Son, the true\spiritual self is the "Holly Spirit", Brahman is the Father. All of these aspects create this reality, but they all come from the same one transcendental reality. 

Note that modern Christianity will deny this view. Just like Buddhists try to make themselves "unique" and deny that they are rehash of Hinduism, by badly translating their own books, and denying the transcendental self. This is why both modern Christianity and modern Buddhism have really hard time explaining some aspects of their beliefs.

 

[Adamq8]

 

Great video as well.

 

 

[Adamq8]

@interim Well you have read shit modern thinkers in that case, to me and in orthodoxy there are an impressive amount of great thinkers.

One has to distuingish between protestants and orthodox theologians, they are like night and day imo.

Brahman has nothing to do with Christianity tho ?

 

[snowyowl]

My take on the trinity (& I'm not a Christian btw) is to make an analogy with us humans. I am one person, a single unit, but I sometimes think of myself as body/mind/soul. In the symbology of Christianity; body = Jesus, mind = God the Father and soul = Holy Spirit. 

I think what was unusual (but not unique) about Jesus was that he realised the unity underlying the apparent difference between himself, God and Spirit. Saying "I am God" is only heretical if you haven't had this realisation and believe in real separation. 

Also note that Judaism and Islam both originated as polytheistic religions - Jehovah and Allah were originally part of pagan pantheons - so Trinitarianism isn't so strange in the ancient religious landscape.  

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, snowyowl said:

My take on the trinity (& I'm not a Christian btw) is to make an analogy with us humans. I am one person, a single unit, but I sometimes think of myself as body/mind/soul. In the symbology of Christianity; body = Jesus, mind = God the Father and soul = Holy Spirit. 

I think what was unusual (but not unique) about Jesus was that he realised the unity underlying the apparent difference between himself, God and Spirit. Saying "I am God" is only heretical if you haven't had this realisation and believe in real separation. 

Also note that Judaism and Islam both originated as polytheistic religions - Jehovah and Allah were originally part of pagan pantheons - so Trinitarianism isn't so strange in the ancient religious landscape.  

Again that's a new agey esoteric interpretation of the trinity which is not taken seriously by orthodox Christianity.  They take the trinity literally. That God is divided into three parts. Which makes Christianity not a monotheistic religion .

First lets define  monotnotheism.  It is to believe and worship only one god which is the only one who deserves to be worshiped.

Lets try this definition in islam ,Judaism and Christianity

Islam believe and worship only one god which is allah

So islam is a monotheistic religion

Judaism believe and worship only one god they called him yahwah and he is the same god in islam but with different name maybe because of the diffrence in languages between the quran and the torah .but what is certain is that he is the same god

So Judaism is monotheistic also

Christianity believe and worship three characters

One of them is a human prophet called jesus and he is unquestionably not Divine but Christians worship him

The second is the holy spirit (angel Gabriel) and he is an angel not divine but Christians worship him and there are other sects who worship mary mother of jesus instead of holy spirit and of course both of them is without doubt not divine

The third they called him God with big G letter which is the same god of islam and Judaism ..despite that he is the only one deserves to worshiped but Christians prefer to create this mess and worship the three characters at once

and try to convince people that 1+1+1=1 which is tottaly nonsense

Conclusion:Christianity is not monotheistic but rather polytheistic

 

 

[hyruga]

Catholics worships Angels and Mother Mary as a gateway to God. They also worship God directly.

Christians (in most churches) worship God only.

There are many Angels according to the Bible.

 

Quote

Only three angels are identified by name in the Bible: Gabriel (Daniel 8:16), Michael the archangel (Daniel 10:13), and Lucifer the fallen angel (Isaiah 14:12). Yet angelic beings are mentioned at least 273 times in 34 books of the Bible. While we don’t know exactly how many angels there are, we do know from Scripture that an exceedingly large number of angels exist.

The book of Hebrews describes a multitude of angels in heaven that are too great to count: “You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering” (Hebrews 12:22, NLT). Other Bible translations use terms like “innumerable” (ESV), “myriads” (CSB), and “thousands upon thousands” (NIV) to quantify this enormous throng of angels. The impressive picture expands in the book of Revelation: “Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders” (Revelation 5:11). Other Bible versions use “myriads of myriads” (ESV) and even “millions” (NLT) here to express how many angels there are in heaven.

While the Bible leaves the precise number of angels unspecified, some believe there could be as many angels in existence as the total number of humans in all of history. This theory is based on Matthew 18:10: “Beware that you don’t look down on any of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels are always in the presence of my heavenly Father” (NLT). The passage seems to suggest that individual people, or at least children, have guardian angels to protect them. It’s possible, though, that Jesus was speaking here only in general terms regarding the function of angels as protectors of children. In any case, Scripture is clear that angels do guard and protect human beings (Psalm 34:7; 91:11–12; Matthew 18:10; Acts 12:9–15). 

https://www.gotquestions.org/how-many-angels-are-there.html

[Someone here]

27 minutes ago, hyruga said:

Catholics worships Angels and Mother Mary as a gateway to God. They also worship God directly.

Christians (in most churches) worship God only.

There are many Angels according to the Bible.

 

https://www.gotquestions.org/how-many-angels-are-there.html

 

  All Christians believe there are trinity, one God in three persons, being the same substance, but there is also the “Paraclete”, literally “the comforter”, who is in early christianity identified with the Holy Ghost, but later also called “a gift of the Holy Ghost” or “another Jesus” (the earthly presence of Jesus) The paraclete is a rather confusing concept. The Catholics (both Roman and Greek) are worshipping Mary as the mother of God, and prayers go regularly to Mary . She could not be more prominent in the adoration. Protestants however give no place to Mary. mainly because they are horrified by the Catholic view, which is in their eyes contrary to the Ten Commandments: (you shall make no images nor bow for them or serve them). Nevertheless Catholics reject these critics. So there you have got 5 deities. Then comes a large quantity of saints, who are prayed to and who are supposed to perform guardance and miracles, each in their own field. So the christian pantheon is actually as filled as the ancient Greek, and looks more like hinduism, with a lot of minor gods. Many scientists argue, that the concept of a Father God, a son God, and a Mother of God reminds too much to the Egyptian Isis - Horus - Osiris worship to be a coincidence

[snowyowl]

6 hours ago, Someone here said:

Again that's a new agey esoteric interpretation of the trinity which is not taken seriously by orthodox Christianity.  They take the trinity literally. That God is divided into three parts. Which makes Christianity not a monotheistic religion .

Ok yes that's my interpretation and probably not popular among mainstream Christians. But a little research (wikipedia) tells me that the Trinitarian Christian theology (and not all Christians are Trinitarian, some are Unitarian, or Arian, Socinian etc), has God in 3 persons with one essence. And I remember Alan Watts talking about the etymology of "person" as deriving from the old Greek theatrical tradition of the actors wearing masks through which they expressed their characters.  One essential actor wearing many masks to be different people. So why shouldn't God be a kind of shape-shifter. I think Leo's had a video about shape-shifters, the problem with Christianity IMO is that it doesn't go far enough: if it said that ALL forms are the same essence then it would be onto something.  Islam has 99 attributes of God, I don't get why you're making such a big issue out of person rather than attribute. 

Edited May 21, 2022 by snowyowl

[BipolarGrowth]

This only has to do with the intellectualization of Christianity rather than the actual practice. You connect to God through Jesus and connect to Jesus through the Holy Spirit. This thread is like a philosopher evaluating Buddhism while never meditating in his life.

 

Do the practice and feel it’s effects or don’t do the practice and don’t feel it’s effects. It’s that simple. This line of inquiry is not a very good use of your time. 

[Adamq8]

@Someone here I just have to say that without going deep into Christianity you can't possibly say Jesus was not God etc, do you really believe that people way smarter then you who have devoted their life to Christianity and investigating its claims still come out as Christians proclaiming Jesus is God incarnate?

Jesus even changed history, a guy from a little place called Nazareth, in an pagan culture which killed other people for refusing their gods, or his own tradition of Judaism, they killed their own Messiah, do you even comprehend the journey Christianity did and became the actual practising religion in almost the whole West?

You do have a arrogance about you when you speak about a topic you dont seem to have a handle on at all.

You seem deeply confused about your own worldview but you think that you can easily debunk the philosophy and metaphysics of a 2000 year old religion which shaped Western Civilisation?

Many have tried.

The best example is the Apostle Paul, who absolutely hated Christians and helped arrest them so they ended up killed, and yet Jesus appeared to him and he ended up one of the most important figures in Christianity's history, converting greeks and what not.

The claim is that Jesus rose again from the dead, the Apostles died HORRIBLE deaths for proclaiming Jesus rose from the dead, and before that they ran away when he got arrested and crucified and even denied being followers of him. 

Just check out the monks on mount Athos in greek, orthodox Christians who have significant spiritual writings aswell.

There is Father - Son - Spirit in both Catholicism and Orthodoxy, there are not other gods which is worshiped, the difference being that you can venerate the saints and pray for them or ask them to pray for you, just as you can ask christians to pray for you or anyone you know who might be sick etc, thats out of respect for their profound life, but they are never worshiped, so I truly wonder where you get your sources from.

 

 

[Someone here]

3 hours ago, Adamq8 said:

@Someone here I just have to say that without going deep into Christianity you can't possibly say Jesus was not God etc, do you really believe that people way smarter then you who have devoted their life to Christianity and investigating its claims still come out as Christians proclaiming Jesus is God incarnate?

Jesus even changed history, a guy from a little place called Nazareth, in an pagan culture which killed other people for refusing their gods, or his own tradition of Judaism, they killed their own Messiah, do you even comprehend the journey Christianity did and became the actual practising religion in almost the whole West?

You do have a arrogance about you when you speak about a topic you dont seem to have a handle on at all.

You seem deeply confused about your own worldview but you think that you can easily debunk the philosophy and metaphysics of a 2000 year old religion which shaped Western Civilisation?

Many have tried.

The best example is the Apostle Paul, who absolutely hated Christians and helped arrest them so they ended up killed, and yet Jesus appeared to him and he ended up one of the most important figures in Christianity's history, converting greeks and what not.

The claim is that Jesus rose again from the dead, the Apostles died HORRIBLE deaths for proclaiming Jesus rose from the dead, and before that they ran away when he got arrested and crucified and even denied being followers of him. 

Just check out the monks on mount Athos in greek, orthodox Christians who have significant spiritual writings aswell.

There is Father - Son - Spirit in both Catholicism and Orthodoxy, there are not other gods which is worshiped, the difference being that you can venerate the saints and pray for them or ask them to pray for you, just as you can ask christians to pray for you or anyone you know who might be sick etc, thats out of respect for their profound life, but they are never worshiped, so I truly wonder where you get your sources from.

 

 

Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Many times in the Bible Jesus’s followers and other witnessing his deeds exclaimed in Jesus’s presence that he was the Son of God. Christians do not believe that Jesus was the offspring of relations between Mary and God. Christians believe that Jesus was God who became man. In this he is both Son of God, and Son of Man.

I'm just confused about who Jesus was exactly.  Was he God himself or the son of God?  Because Christians believe two contradicting things about him .

[Someone here]

@Adamq8 

Also to a christian, God had to take human form to understand temptation and human suffering, but the concept is not based on any clear words of Jesus. In contrast, God does not need to be tempted and suffer in order to be able to understand and forgive man’s sins, for He is the all knowing Creator of man. 

 

God forgave sin before Jesus appearance, and He continues to forgive without any assistance. When a believer sins, he may come before God in sincere repentance to receive forgiveness. Indeed, the offer to humble oneself before God and be saved is made to all humankind.

[Adamq8]

@Someone here I totally understand that you are puzzled by Christianity, I was too and in some sense I still am, the thing with Jesus is that he is the Eternal Logos, the Universal Mind who is ordering and structuring the world into a coherent whole, but as promised by God in scripture he would enter or send the Savior/ his son, because humanity had lost its way and it still has since the Fall of humanity, one has to see the red thread going through the bible.

Can you not feel that something is missing or something is actually wrong, like it could be another way which feels better in your spirit.

Truth is a person and not a concept, you and me are persons and so is God.

He is the living God.

Jesus entered his own creation to lead the way to Salvation and Eternal Life.

He explicitly says that NO ONE comes to the Father except through him, he is the light of the world.

The divine hypostasis assumed a human nature and in so doing he deified human nature so that we can become divine too, thats theosis in orthodox faith, if we follow Jesus, by his grace, we will become christ with a little c, God will be God for all eternity and we will be god, we were created in order that we might live with God always in harmony and bliss and without death. 

Thats what the fall is all about, Jesus set the record straight, he is the second Adam.

Jesus defeated death, he said he would die and said he would rise again and he did.

Read the new testament, try to keep and open mind and contemplate and especially feel into it, listen to podcast who deepens your understanding of the history of the faith and what its all about.

You have : Search the scriptures by Jeannie Constantinou 

Lord of spirits podcast

Bible in a year podcast

Jays analysis is also a great source, he will explain the Orthodox faith and he goes deep into everything related with philosophy, theology, debates etc.

and lastly Church of the Eternal Logos youtube channel.

Also the Orthodox Study Bible, its on Amazon, great resource as well.

There are alot of great channels and podcasts, Christianity is the most profound tradition ive ever encountered, if you can see past the shallow version of it, which unfortuneatly is what alot of people see when they investigate Christianity, you have a deep and profound wisdom from the Church Fathers, its ancient but profound. 

 

I have hundreds of books about Christianity, and even Islam, I enjoy Islam alot, but still i truly believe that Jesus is God, been investigating this for a year now, and I was born and raised atheist, found Leo after profound insights from trips etc, then I found Christianity as the last stop and investigated it, trying to keep away my biases and see past the low level tier of evangelists and some protestants and found Eastern Orthodox Church, which had it ALL, mysticism, theology, philosophy, practical, profound churches, awesome people following Christ and was truly living a good life in Christ so to speak. 

I deeply recommend the Chosen tv series, it is free as an app that you can watch, to get the feeling of Jesus and what he actually did, it is the most crowd funded tv series in the history of films, it is awesome, season 3 is in the making, I deeply recommend that for you brother. 

I am still a baby and new to this, so I am not the best to answer all your questions, but I provided good sources you can investigate for yourself, and keep in mind your own biases as well, which is extremely hard i admit.

I still respect and listen to Leo tho, and read about other traditions, but Orthodoxy felt like coming home in my honest opinion.

But since I started praying, my life has improved alot.

You are a sinner and you know it, we all are.

There is no figure in history who was like or is like Jesus, thats my conclusion after investigating all the different mystical traditions around the world and doing different practices. 

Sorry for the long rant bro ?

 

 

 

 

[gettoefl]

3 hours ago, Someone here said:

 

I'm just confused about who Jesus was exactly.  Was he God himself or the son of God?  Because Christians believe two contradicting things about him .

neither ... god can't be a person or have people offspring ... god isn't any person period

jesus is the dude who showed us the way incarnation works ... namely god is in all of us and we need to end ego to bring god to fruition

confusingly we don't have to die like jesus did, we have to die to self which is precisely what he did

the path jesus revealed was false self to true self to no self to all self ... all self is how god is

i am being sloppy of course ... to fill in the details bernadette roberts has documented this in great detail ... all her books are online and all are free ... ive read all 8 of her books, just finished the last one on friday

she doesn't just explain, she has done it ... i posted a great youtube in the resources section of this site where she powers through the whole journey in a mere 3 hours

Edited May 22, 2022 by gettoefl

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, Adamq8 said:

@Someone here I totally understand that you are puzzled by Christianity, I was too and in some sense I still am, the thing with Jesus is that he is the Eternal Logos, the Universal Mind who is ordering and structuring the world into a coherent whole, but as promised by God in scripture he would enter or send the Savior/ his son, because humanity had lost its way and it still has since the Fall of humanity, one has to see the red thread going through the bible.

Can you not feel that something is missing or something is actually wrong, like it could be another way which feels better in your spirit.

Truth is a person and not a concept, you and me are persons and so is God.

He is the living God.

Jesus entered his own creation to lead the way to Salvation and Eternal Life.

He explicitly says that NO ONE comes to the Father except through him, he is the light of the world.

The divine hypostasis assumed a human nature and in so doing he deified human nature so that we can become divine too, thats theosis in orthodox faith, if we follow Jesus, by his grace, we will become christ with a little c, God will be God for all eternity and we will be god, we were created in order that we might live with God always in harmony and bliss and without death. 

Thats what the fall is all about, Jesus set the record straight, he is the second Adam.

Jesus defeated death, he said he would die and said he would rise again and he did.

Read the new testament, try to keep and open mind and contemplate and especially feel into it, listen to podcast who deepens your understanding of the history of the faith and what its all about.

You have : Search the scriptures by Jeannie Constantinou 

Lord of spirits podcast

Bible in a year podcast

Jays analysis is also a great source, he will explain the Orthodox faith and he goes deep into everything related with philosophy, theology, debates etc.

and lastly Church of the Eternal Logos youtube channel.

Also the Orthodox Study Bible, its on Amazon, great resource as well.

There are alot of great channels and podcasts, Christianity is the most profound tradition ive ever encountered, if you can see past the shallow version of it, which unfortuneatly is what alot of people see when they investigate Christianity, you have a deep and profound wisdom from the Church Fathers, its ancient but profound. 

 

I have hundreds of books about Christianity, and even Islam, I enjoy Islam alot, but still i truly believe that Jesus is God, been investigating this for a year now, and I was born and raised atheist, found Leo after profound insights from trips etc, then I found Christianity as the last stop and investigated it, trying to keep away my biases and see past the low level tier of evangelists and some protestants and found Eastern Orthodox Church, which had it ALL, mysticism, theology, philosophy, practical, profound churches, awesome people following Christ and was truly living a good life in Christ so to speak. 

I deeply recommend the Chosen tv series, it is free as an app that you can watch, to get the feeling of Jesus and what he actually did, it is the most crowd funded tv series in the history of films, it is awesome, season 3 is in the making, I deeply recommend that for you brother. 

I am still a baby and new to this, so I am not the best to answer all your questions, but I provided good sources you can investigate for yourself, and keep in mind your own biases as well, which is extremely hard i admit.

I still respect and listen to Leo tho, and read about other traditions, but Orthodoxy felt like coming home in my honest opinion.

But since I started praying, my life has improved alot.

You are a sinner and you know it, we all are.

There is no figure in history who was like or is like Jesus, thats my conclusion after investigating all the different mystical traditions around the world and doing different practices. 

Sorry for the long rant bro ?

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I will try to present counter arguments and questions concerning is Jesus God himself in a man image or just the son of God.  From a quick Wikipedia research I found verses in the bible where Jesus clearly states that he is not God himself but rather only the son of God. 

Nearly all Christians believe Jesus is God. That is what the institutional church has always taught. Christians professedly rely strongly on the Bible for this belief. Yet there is not a single Bible verse which states unequivocally, “Jesus is God,” or the like. Moreover, the New Testament  gospels have no statement by Jesus in which he identifies himself as God. In fact, there are many Bible verses which indicate Jesus cannot be God by declaring that only the Father is God or by distinguishing Jesus from God. 

First, and foremost, is one of Jesus’ sayings recorded only in the Gospel of John. The setting is the Last Supper, right before he was arrested and crucified. He prayed for his disciples, saying, “Father,… This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17.3). So, Jesus tells the Father that he is “the only true God” and then distinguishes himself from that one God. Both of these points clearly indicate that Jesus himself cannot also be God.

Two other times  Jesus identified the Father as the only God. Earlier, he told his Jewish opponents that the Father is “the one and only God” (John 5.44). And again, at the Last Supper, Jesus distinguished himself from this one and only God by commanding his disciples, “believe in God, believe also in Me” (14.1).

The other two  passages which irrefutably establish that only the Father is God and distinguish Jesus from God are in Paul’s letters. He writes to the church at Corinth, “There is no God but one…. yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him” (1 Corinthians 8.4, 6). Here, Paul clearly declares that for Christians there is one God, who is the Father, and there is no other God, so that Jesus is not God.

[Someone here]

27 minutes ago, gettoefl said:

god can't be a person or have people offspring ... god isn't any person period

Well..most Christians will definitely disagree with you on that one. 

[gettoefl]

3 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Well..most Christians will definitely disagree with you on that one. 

not christian carmelite contemplative mystic bernadette roberts

in any case belief is for children we have to arrive at the truth