trinity

inactive in jersey

hi, i became inactive fifteen years ago. there is a lot that i just don't believe. that is why i left. in the last fifteen years i have gone back and forth many times where i would start to attend meeting again for a little while and then leave again. i am at the point again where i miss the bible study and learning about god. i have tried churches but they all seem to believe in the trinity. i don't, maybe i just need to get that witness thinking out of my head. do any of you believe in the trinity now that your not witnesses anymore?

LittleToe

Yup.

Most Christians do. You've gotta wonder why that might be, huh?

AgentSmith

The trinity is a big issue for me as well. However it is not as ' bent' a thought as it may appear. I asked a minister at the local Methodist church to explain it. Mostly I read as much as possible about it.

My understanding is this. You are born and love your parents. (1) ,You are a child. You grow up, marry, you are (2)a husband/wife. You have children, you are a (3) parent. You are 3 things now. Child,(parents still alive), Husband or wife, and a parent. Still one person. However we show our love differently in each situation.

Maybe God 'shows' or explains himself to us in a form we can understand. Just happens to be three ways he uses. Am I off the mark here?

Narkissos

welcome iij

Perhaps just make sure that whatever the church you're considering attending officially believes, youare not meant to agree. That will keep you away from the worst. Then give yourself time to sort your own beliefs out.

My opinion, fwiw, is that the Trinity doctrine as taught by most churches is certainly no more unscriptural than the WT teaching about Jehovah, Jesus and the holy spirit. Neither fully matches the diversity of Bible texts, and no consistent doctrine can. If Bible study is what you are mostly interested in, instead of using Bible verses as prooftexts to support a dogma, the trinity will hardly be an issue imo.

AgentSmith

God must be undestandable to YOU. You DO NOT have to conform to someone else's understanding or pre determined doctrine. It is a personal thing between you and your creator, and a God of love surely will not be angered if you percieve his personality in a way that you can understand.

The trinity does not make a lot of sense as three personalities in one. I am not sure if I understand it yet.

Take your time....

(...just fixing my awful spelling)

megsmomma

There is a great site to some info for Bible reasoning for former JW's. I found it very helpfull to listen to them as I was figuring out what to believe. Enjoy exploring it!! I can't seem to paste it here, so go to MM outreach (google it) and you will see the link. It also has many testimonies that you can listen to. Hope it helps!

BTW....has anyone else used the site?

LittleToe

The Trinity debate almost tore Christians apart in the early centuries. Finally they decided upon a formula that made the best sense of the scriptures as they saw them, and most likely their own experiences. The result was the Trinity doctrine. It kept the Church together for hundreds of years.

Though there have continued to be folks on the fringes who wanted to be dogmatic about a variant view, the majority of Christians kept to this orthodox view and it saved a lot of strife. Our misfortune was to have been indoctrineated by just such a fringe group.

How can mere words and formulas, even the very text of the bible, truly encapsulate a description of what God is supposed to be (in concept or actuality)? It cannot, and hence we all give it our best shot. To that end I concur with Narkissos' comments and offer you the reasoning behind my terse (but hopefully thought-provoking) comment.

LittleToe

Smith:
That would be the Modalist view. The orthodox view is more akin to [three persons / one substance]. Otherwise, who the heck was Jesus praying to?

Mondo1

It isn't so much that the Trniity has been kept, but if you rejected it and got caught, you could forget about much else.. often including your own life.

AlmostAtheist

Perhaps just make sure that whatever the church you're considering attending officially believes, youare not meant to agree. That will keep you away from the worst.

That's great advice! If you want to drop any "Witness thinking", it's the idea that everyone must think and believe exactly the same, and that there's a "truth" about everything. If it was all so clear and could be labelled "truth", there wouldn't be so much debate on it.

1+1 = 2 No Debate

1+1+1 = God Lots of debate, no way to claim victory

Good luck!

Dave

trinity

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