The case against the trinity

Proponents of any theory tend to accept even weak evidence as vindication for their theory and dismiss even the strongest of evidence against their theory.

People in general also are more impressed by evidence confirming a theory (positive evidence) as opposed to evidence against a theory. This is a very well known phenomenon.

Nearly all people accept things which are part of their environment, customs and heritage uncritically. People are also caught up in trends and fashions and tend to mindlessly follow the herd, even though the herd may be palpably wrong. There are a great many examples of this. Communism lead to widespread poverty and living in fear of the authorities, yet the majority of its victims were adherents of communism.

When someone is dressed in the garments of an expert, his word is accepted as the gospel truth by the majority of people. From about 2001 to 2007 England was in the grip of an MRSA scare which was a 100% scam. Undercover journalists took swabs from window sills, stairwells and many other places in public hospitals. They got positive results for MRSA from just one "laboratory" - the garden shed, unaccredited laboratory of Dr Chris Malyszewicz PhD, and they ran with it. The word spread that this was the place to go for positive results and soon all specimens were submitted to this "laboratory." The newshounds got what they wanted - positive results. Thousands of reports on this MRSA scam were published in the UK in those years. The PhD held by Chris Malyszewicz was from a non-accredited correspondence course in the USA. He had no qualifications whatsoever in microbiology. He had never published anything in a peer reviewed scientific journal. Some people noticed this early on, but not the newspapers. He was soon Britain's foremost MRSA expert in the newspapers, as is shown by this article in The Guardian. When his specimens were examined by other real laboratories they found MRSA only in single specimens, and MRSA shown by DNA typing to not occur in the UK, but only in Australia from where Chris Malyszewicz also got work - yes, he was world famous by then. The vast majority of the specimens showed no sign of MRSA at all. Some showed bacilli which could even with a 100x magnification of a cheap, child's microscope be distinguished from a staphylococcus. When the newspapers could eventually not hide this anymore - they did ignore all reports of it for as long as they could - they cried foul and held themselves out as the innocent victims of this fiend. The evidence was there from before the first article was published. The trinitarian dogma relies on many such experts and many such gullible spreaders of the word.

As the trinitarian dogma is under the spotlight here, one has to ask, what exactly does this dogma claim? Let's look at just a few of this dogma's claims.

• The Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all three fully god
• These three are equal
• Despite the fact that there are three of them and each is fully god, they add up to only one god

This is not all that the trinitarian dogma claims, but these three claims are essential to it. If only one of them can be shown to be false, the whole thing falls.

A unique theory

The trinitarian dogma is unique, as far as I know, in that only in stating its claims, before one has even started to examine the evidence for and against it, it contains a serious irrationality. It claims that 1 god + 1 god + 1 god = 1 god and that 1/3 = 1. Note that they don't claim that Jesus god + Father God + Holy Spirit god = family god, like father Smith + mother Smith + Johnny Smith = family Smith. Or something else like 4 + 4 + 4 = 1 dozen. No, they claim that the entity type right throughout the equation remains the same - god. One doesn't even have to go beyond primary school arithmetic to know that this is nonsense.

Right from the start of this dogma this has been a problem for trintirians. As there is no rational way of getting past this, they invoke magic. They quote Isaiah 55:8,9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says Jehovah. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. That does not say that God endorses pure nonsense. To claim that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 and 1/3 = 1 is pure nonsense. Ask yourself, what cannot be made acceptable by invoking magic to get past its absurdities? If one has to invoke magic, one is dealing with hocus-pocus. That's what 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 and 1/3 = 1 are.

The above is enough to do away with the trinitarian dogma as a position that makes any sense. Anything more is just burying it deeper.

The evidence

What makes evidence weak or strong? Let's look at strong evidence.

• It is unambiguous, clear and straight to the point
• It is clearly relevant to the position it supports or contradicts

There is not one piece of evidence used in support of the trinity that passes those two tests. You are welcome to send on any you think passes those tests. We'll look at a few of the most commonly used passages and show how they fail the test.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. This is how it is in most English Bibles. Point one, as it's translated it doesn't make any sense unless "the Word" and "God" are one and the same entity. Look at this: in the beginning was A and A was with B and A was B. The only way that is possible is if A and B are two names for one and the same entity. That is one way some see it; Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit just three expressions of one being. That's called modalism and very few trinitarians subscribe to that. But that's the only way it can make sense. And what's more, it doesn't even come straight out and say "Jesus is god."

Point two, as it's translated is not the way it appears in the Greek of John 1:1. Here's a transliteration: In a beginning was the word and the word was with the god and a god was the word. Greek has the definite article, "the," but not the indefinite article "a." To get past it the "a" is assumed whenever "the" is not used. In the translated versions God is a proper noun - a name. In the Greek the word is "theos" and it is a common noun, like the words fish, human, apple and more. Theos can also mean a human of high position, an idol or even the one True God. Having so many meanings it's not a very useful word to determine exact meaning. Preceding theos with the "the" makes it one specific god, the Father. To get away from the fact that the Greek seemed to ascribe godlike qualities to Jesus - in fact, that's how some translations render it - the Colwell rule was invented. Not even all trinitarians say it can consistently be applied. John didn't use it as it didn't exist in his time. There is disagreement over how John 1:1 should be translated.

Taken together, the fact that John 1:1 doesn't make sense as translated, that the Greek seems to say something different, that there is disagreement over how it should be translated and that it doesn't come straight out and say Jesus is god makes it impossible to see John 1:1 as strong evidence in support of the trinity.

[ACV] John 10:30 I and the Father are one. Come on, that's an idiomatic expression. It does not even start to say that Jesus is god, unless you're a modalist. It's not even evidence supporting the trinitarian dogma.

John 8:58 Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I am. There is so much wrong with this verse as strong evidence, I'd better put it in a list.

• It does not come straight out and say that Jesus is god
• It's supposed to map to Exodus 3:14
  • Exodus 3:14 was written in Hebrew
  • John was written in Greek
  • Jesus spoke in Aramaic
  • To say that the translations could only have been to those words to make the mapping 100% sure, is ridiculous
  • The translation of Exodus 3:14 is by no means clear
• The exact Greek word translated here as "I am" is used many times elsewhere in John and the New Testament as well, but only here translated as I am. "I have been" would make more sense. Nowhere else is it seen as a claim to deity.

Acts 5:4 ...Thou have not lied to men, but to God. Lie to my emissary, and you lie to me. That's a valid understanding of the text. It makes sense. It does not unambiguously say the Holy Spirit is God, as it can be legitimately understood in other ways without adding or subtracting anything or changing it in any way. That's not strong evidence. In any case, if the Holy Spirit were God one would have expected something as important as that to have been mentioned more than once and very clearly, at that.

Please note that one can show up the weaknesses of the so-called pro-trinity evidence without changing them in any way. One does not have to add unspoken conditions or leave out or add anything.

The evidence against

Speaking to the Father, Jesus says: John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they should know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou sent. Now that's clear. If there's only one "true God" and that "true God" is the Father, there can't be any others. Jesus didn't qualify this statement. Trinitarians try to. They say it was just when Jesus was here on Earth that the Father was the "only true God." But what about the Holy Spirit, then? That's not what Jesus said. This is very strong evidence against the trinity.

1 Corinthians 8:6 yet to us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we for him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him. The difference between the quality of this evidence against the trinity and that usually cited as evidence for the trinity, is vast. This is strong evidence.

John 14:28 Ye heard that I said to you, I go, and I come to you. If ye loved me, ye would have rejoiced because I said I go to the Father, because my Father is greater than I. This speaks directly to the much vaunted equality of the members of the trinity. Where's this equality now? Yes, I know, blah, blah, blah. Jesus didn't introduce any conditions for this statement, but the trinitarians do.

Note that this is by far not all evidence in the Bible making rubbish out of the trinitarian dogma. To examine all evidence held as pro-trinity evidence, and that against it, will take a book, not a blog post.

Prophecy

Here I'm going to be a prophet and prophesy that this post won't change the mind of one staunch trinitarian. Isn't it amazing? They believe in the trinity despite the overwhelming strength of the evidence against it. That doesn't say much for the intelligence, or is it intellectual honesty?, of Christians.

Making money out of suckers

They were always there, those of low intelligence. And I'm not talking only of those labelled as metally retarded; no, I'm talking of the majority of people - the workers, the salt of the Earth. In the middle ages they were serfs and were nearly slaves of the property owner on whose property they eked out an existence. In many countries, like Russia, this extended well past the middle ages. In this disempowered state they were fair game to anyone in the right position. They were shamelessly exploited for their labour and given just enough to stay alive to work again tomorrow.

But things change. In some cases it took revolutions, led by con men and idealists, and in other cases the masters slowly developed a conscience and things changed. Then came democracy and each of these children of serfs had a vote. Unfortunately intelligence didn't come with the vote. As Robert Heinlein said, "when the monkeys find out they can vote themselves bananas, they'll never climb another tree." And find out, they did. They were stupid, not mentally retarded.

With democracy came a new kind of con man: the democratically elected politician. All they had to do was convince enough people to vote for them. Abraham Lincoln said, "there are some people who can be fooled all of the time." That's all a politician asks for. The "all people can be fooled some of the time" is a bonus.

Given the fact that these people of low intelligence make up the majority, it's no wonder laws changed to favour them - the politicians want to stay on the gravy train. These people, the ones who don't know the difference between "their" and "there" and "your" and "you're" and "its" and "it's" and use apostrophes to pluralise words, are now the politically correct elite. There is no way one can herd them together and put them to work for a pittance. But that doesn't mean some people don't want to take advantage of them and make money out of them. After all, they're still stupid. One just has to come up with the right formula.

Being stupid, these people can be suckered into wanting what is really of no good use and harmful to them. This can be sold to them at a huge profit. So, how does one trick a sucker? Why, every con man and politician knows: appearances. Dress it up, talk it up and tell them it's desirable. Why are politicians' speeches so flowery and full of fine sounding, empty rhetoric? They know their audience.

So these prospective con men employed statisticians to sort the milking cattle into groups to which different strategies will appeal. And, boy, did they come up with the right answers. Things harmful to these suckers, their families and society are so popular with them they will revolt if it's taken away. Think of drugs, smoking, booze, prostitution, and all the forms of gambling. Many of these are dressed up as the essence of having a good time, and it works. Some cigarettes were sold as the brand of the man's man - the Gunston man knows where he's going. Yeah, straight to the cancer ward. Some menthol falvoured brands were for "ladies." Some with expensive, imported tobacco were for people of refined taste. The same happens with booze. The ultimate con trick with booze is the wine connoisseur. Go online and search for double and triple blind wine tasting. You will see that all this sniff, sniff, taste, twirl, the far away look in the eyes like a dog busy evacuating its bowels, and then the wise pronunciation about the origin of this wine, its character, its merits, are all such a crock of... This masterpiece of deception fooled even many people who don't belong to this stupid group.

So, now you have these people clamouring for what's bad for them and the other group who proclaims itself as benefactors of these morons, selling it to them at a huge profit and the politicians pocketing the cash from these "entepreneurs" and washing their hands and asking "am I my brother's keeper?"

Now I ask you, seeing these morons are asking for it, shouldn't one get on the band wagon and milk these suckers for all one is worth while the going is good?

Local fuel prices

The other day I filled up with fuel. It wasn't cheap. As I drove away I wondered if there were a site where I could look up local fuel prices. When I got home, I did a search. There wasn't much. Not one of those I found could give me fuel prices at local filling stations. As you know, a few hundred meters between filling stations can mean a few cents per liter difference in price.

So I did a bit of research and came up with a concept. Basically it boils down to this: a site where filling stations can sign up for free and enter fuel prices and promotions. Users can search by postcode or postcode and suburb. Then I put some icing on the cake.

To show results, the page doesn't reload. Ajax does its magic. That means fast, really fast. Drop down select boxes populate from the database using Ajax as well. Clicking on the address of a filling station returned with the results will bring up a Google map showing the location of the filling station.

I knew from the start that getting filling stations to sign up would be difficult. I emailed all the fuel companies, handed business cards I had printed to some filling stations - nothing. It takes a while for anything online to take off, if it does. So, I'm still hopeful.

Go and have a look at Petrol Price Site and enter any Australian residential postcode - there are more than 16,000 in the database. Try 2100, 2300, 2320 or something like that.

The question is, how do I get filling stations to sign up?

The booze baron is your friend

When you took your first drink, who was it who saw to it that you grew up in a society where alcohol was part of everyday life and readily available? Why, the booze barons of course. And of course their booze baron fathers and booze baron grand fathers and... It took a lot of work over many centuries to see to it that the booze was there when you took your first drink. And society, then, as now, regarded booze as a grown up thing. And the booze barons made sure everybody knew it was a grown up thing - something for kids to aspire to. As you know, all kids want to be grown up. Why, you ask yourself now. But that's another story. Be that as it may, the booze was there when you took your first drink. You didn't like it at all, but hey, that was what grown ups and the cool crowd did. Remember the booze ads?

Then, when you were a young buck who drank with his friends after work and over weekends, who saw to it that the liquor stores were open seven days a week, from early morning to late at night? That didn't happen by itself, you know. The business hours of many other business concerns were not as liberal, even though some of them would have liked it to be. Those people didn't campaign with such diligence and persistence for their customers as the booze barons did. And their pockets were not as deep. There are always politicians for sale if the price is right. And the booze barons didn't skimp in their efforts to remove all barriers between their customers and their product. Remember how much of a man you felt when you managed to out-drink your friends? Those booze ads depicting a heavy drinker as a real man had something to do with that. Alcohol was the stuff showing one was a man and the essence of having a good time. The world was your oyster and your tankard was always full.

Every time one of your friends was fined for driving under the influence his notch went up in your estimation and your circle of friends drank to that. When one of your friends went to jail for causing an accident which led to severe injuries while drunk, you drank to that. Booze was never in short supply and society had nothing bad to say about the inebriate. On the TV, in the newspapers and magazines, the booze barons told everyone booze was what made the world go round. And, like everyone else, you swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.

When an acquaintance, as drunk as a judge, took on a truck on his motorcycle and lost, it didn't phase you one bit. Your circle discussed it over many beers and decided it had most likely been the truckie's fault. There was more than enought booze to smooth over these few rough patches in life. You all drank a toast to the recently departed acquaintance and forgot about him. This type of thing was never mentioned by the booze barons in their ads, so it must have been a fluke. No need to give it too much thought.

Remember when you got your first tattoo? You went to the bar and proudly showed it off. Yvonne, who was always at the bar, was very impressed by it. She had several tattoos and body piercings. Everyone had many drinks to your tattoo. As if they needed a reason. There was booze aplenty and life was good. That night Yvonne gave you Herpes - like a booze baron, Herpes is a friend for life.

Then you were fired from a job for the first time because of booze. What a bummer. You went to the pub and had a drink to it with your friends. There were several among them who had the same experience. One can always get a new job, they assured you. And you drank and forgot about being fired from your job. Thank you booze barons for the nectar of the gods which can make a man feel good when bad things happen.

An uncle on your mother's side died of alcoholic liver cirrhosis. You knew him well as a kid. He always used to be friendly with you. Well, a man had to die of something. That night you had a few to his memory. It was so good that there was always booze to give life a golden haze. With life as it was, one surely needed it. Running out of booze was not on the cards - the booze barons saw to that. Oh well, one thing less to worry about. Thank heavens for the booze barons.

Things at home slowly got worse and worse. Your wife couldn't understand why you kept losing jobs because of booze. In the end you went on an unemployment benefit and your wife left you, taking the kids with her. There was only one thing to look forward to - your next drink.

Years went by and there was just one thing you could depend on - there will always be booze to take the sting out of life. Thank you booze barons, you said, without you my life would have been lost.

It came on quite suddenly, your slide into near permanent sickness was fast. One week your liver still coped, with the occasional hiccup, then the whites of your eyes started turning yellow. Your GP felt your abdomen and said you had a four cm liver. He sent off some tests, which showed your liver was no longer coping. Your GP said you had alcoholic liver cirrhosis. Just like your uncle, you thought. But there were liver transplants, you thought. Not unless you had been completely off the booze for two years, they told you. Who could do that? You became sicker and sicker. You felt worse than a 1000 hangovers can make a man feel. Well, the booze was still there. And your unemployment payments which now increased because you were chronically ill saw to it that there was always more than enough booze in your house. Your family heard you were, what they called terminal, and your kids, now grown up, started to visit you. You had so much catching up to do. And then you were more in hospital than out of it.

Now, as you are drifting in and out of consciousness, you have the solace of knowing that the booze barons will be there, too, for your youngest son who dropped out of school and is showing all the signs of following in your footsteps. He is in good hands. You can close your eyes on a life well spent knowing your kids will be taken care of. Thank you, booze barons.

The drinking season

The drinking season is upon us again. Around the world, alcohol deaths will spike again. Unless the perception about drinkers, who are seen to be smart, manly, fun-loving, cool, adventurous, etc., changes, alcohol will keep on winning. Here are the facts:

Alcohol is a slow, slowly but strongly addictive poison which kills about 3000/year in Australia, a great many more world-wide. Its social costs run into billions of dollars annually. But that's not my point.

Those who benefit from the sale of alcohol know this, yet they keep on producing, transporting, advertising and selling it. The only possible conclusion is that they care more about the money they make from their dealings with alcohol than about the deaths and social cost incurred by imbibing. When confronted with these facts they have only the drug dealer's lament to offer,

"if I don't do it, someone else will do it."
That's not my point, either. There will always be rotters.

How should we label the act of buying a slow poison from people who couldn't care less if their customers lived or died and these customers themselves? Stupid, ignorant, moronic, idiotic, all these come to mind. Not one of the labels traditionally associated with drinkers fits.

So, moron, if you want to drink yourself to death, by all means, go ahead, enrich those who couldn't care less about you and drink yourself out of a job, a family and into your grave. Try not to kill anyone else while doing so. Oh, I see, you'll be drunk and can't guarantee that you won't take anyone with you.

Let's all thank the authorities involved for this state of affairs. Many of them are drinkers and many of them make a pretty buck from alcohol.

Change the perception of a drinker from a cool hero to a fool and see alcohol consumption declining. Nobody likes to be a fool.

Wikileaks

The politicians are confused: publishing things embarrassing to them does not put anyone's life or national security at risk. Moreover, invoking national security just to prevent the world from seeing their stupidity and arrogance is morally repugnant. Taxpayers pay for what these self important blockheads send to each other. One would think these taxpayers have a right to see what they pay for. Obviously not. The world over national security is most likely overwhelmingly used for documents that don't have any potential to harm the national security of the countries involved at all. Many of these documents will have the potential to embarrass politicians and bureaucrats, but that has nothing to do with national security.

It is strange, but fact, that wherever people are in power, they will be able to get an army of lick spittle toadies to do their morally repugnant bidding. In the Assange affair these empowered minions are not lacking in numbers. Shame on you! Yes, all of you. You are a stench in the nostrils of God and of mankind.

Julian Assange complains that he has been abandoned by his country, more specifically its government. Julian Assange should know better than to complain about that. He only had his country's, and every other country's, government support when he was a faceless member of the voting cattle and they didn't know him by name or in any way at all. That support only consisted of his government not working actively against him, if he really needed them he would have been on his own. In the cartoon strip of The Little King, the little king once said to one of his minions that kings don't kill each other. They send their people to kill each other. Politicians in every country have a far greater affinity for politicians of other countries than for the people of their own country. Like hyenas, they are of the same species. It should come as no surprise to Julian Assange that the politicians in his own country are willing to throw him under the bus to help out politicians whom Assange embarrassed, even if these embarrassed politicians are from other countries. This is just the way it is.

Some may find it strange that Wikileaks, and its public face, Julian Assange, is treated hostilely by the media. This is not strange at all. Wikileaks succeeded in doing what the world's combined media could not do, and they don't like that. So, the media of the world joined the lick spittle toadies in doing the bidding of the politicians. How absolutely and horribly disgusting they are. They should be ashamed of themselves.

In all my many years this is the first time I've ever heard of Interpol getting involved in apprehending a possible rapist. Note that there is no talk of aggravated rape, physical assault, serial raping, murder or injuries. Did Julian Assange decide that raping goes well with leaking diplomatic communications - might as well, in for a penny, in for a pound? Does he have a history of violence and rape? Or is this something cooked up at the bidding of a politician somewhere?

So, what can one do when these bullies behave like Nazis and communist dictators to silence a small group of people who embarrassed them? If they get away with it, it is another nail in the coffin of freedom of information, all in the name of national security. I believe they believe the odds are so overwhelmingly stacked in their favour that there is no risk to them at all in persecuting wikileaks. The only risk to them is in continued leaks. Are they right? What a sad state of affairs this world is in.

The alcohol non sequitur

More than three thousand people die yearly in Australia due to alcohol. That's just more than eight a day. Add to this the immeasurable social consequences of alcohol and you'd think the purveyors and producers of this harmful substance would be the pariahs of society. Not so. The booze barons are respected, very rich members of society even though their product causes several times the mortality and morbidity of illegal drugs. Compared to the booze barons, Carl Williams and his mates were very much in the junior league. The statistics may be some years old, but does anyone contend that the figures have significantly changed? The number of deaths dropped from 3000+ to maybe 1000, or 500, or 35?

Everybody knows alcohol causes death and destruction, even the booze barons. What can we logically deduce from the facts that they know this but still continue to manufacture and sell it? Obviously, they couldn't care less. The same goes for instances helping them to sell their slow poison by accepting alcohol advertisements - they know alcohol kills, too. I suppose one can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, fill up the four car garage without some suckers dying. As long as it pays.

One would expect the drinking public to have seen through this - they are enriching people who couldn't care less about them dying of the product they buy off these people. Of course, they shouldn't die quickly. They should drink heavily for twenty or thirty years before finally croaking. One would expect these booze hounds to say, 'no more, this is stupid'. I mean, everybody knows. But they don't say that. Do they deserve to die? After all, everybody knows. But still they keep on drinking.

And the attitude to drinking. If someone says he likes his beer he says it in such a way as if expecting credit for it. Instead he should be ashamed of himself for enriching people who kill 3000 a year in Australia. The whole thing doesn't make sense.

Now the booze hounds and booze barons will most likely say, yes, but cars and tobacco kill people, too. Road deaths are about half of what alcohol kills in Australia. And about 30% of those deaths are caused by alcohol. And in modern life the car is an absolute necessity. Alcohol is not. Tobacco kills several times the number alcohol kills. But does that make alcohol killing people right?

And all this takes place with the blessing of whichever government is in power. Shouldn't they be ashamed of themselves for allowing this? They are supposed to look after the people, even those too stupid to know any better.

Money, stupidity, utter disregard for the consequences of what they produce, sell, advertise, drink and allow, and what have we? What we have is that this will continue, even though it makes no sense at all.

Till next time.