Group Think

It's human nature for people to pick up ideas from each other, that's how our ancestors became human. If you hang around with the same people all the time, your exposure to different ideas are limited, and the group tends to turn inwards. One would think that, with all the communication technology that exists today, people would broaden their outlook, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Birds of a feather flock together as much in cyberspace as they always have done in regular space. Groups like ours are the exception that proves the rule.

A lot of those mass murderers seem to go in there with suicidal intentions, but I think that Texas shooter intended to survive and escape after he committed his crime. It was only when capture was imminent that he shot himself. Two local civilians were largely responsible for running him to ground, but maybe the cops would have caught him eventually. If somebody inside that church had been armed, he might have been stopped sooner, but maybe not. According to existing laws, the shooter should not have been allowed to purchase firearms, but those laws were not enforced. It won't do any good to pass more laws if they are not going to be enforced any better than the laws that are already on the books.

I don't think the Trinity is mentioned anywhere in the Bible. Although the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are mentioned separately, I'm not aware of any time they are all mentioned in the same sentence. It's not clear to me that Jesus thought of himself as God incarnate. He usually referred to himself as "The Son of Man", although He did say things like, "I and the Father are one", "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father", and "No one comes to the Father except through me". He also began the famous Lord's Prayer with "Our Father who art in Heaven". Do you suppose He was praying to himself? I think the concept of the Trinity was formulated to try and make sense out of such somewhat contradictory statements. I can understand the need to reconcile the Father and the Son, but I'm not so sure about the Holy Ghost (or Spirit). I have not been able to find a lot of information about the Holy Ghost, so I'm not sure how it fits in with the other two personalities. Somebody told me once that they thought the Holy Ghost was female, but I've not come across anything that confirms that opinion. The Hindus have something like our Trinity, but it's not exactly the same. It's possible that the Christians got the idea from them, or maybe it was the other way around. Uncle Ken and I have discussed this one before, but I don't remember us getting to the bottom of it. It certainly wouldn't hurt to bring it back to the table now that our membership has increased by 50%.