Like Father Like Son: God's Relationship with Jesus Christ

The existence of God is a clear problem with the debate topic. You're resting the entire thing on an unsupported premise. I understand that your advocacy for Arianism is well supported in the younger texts and the later texts are strongly in favor of Trinitarianism. This is because the earlier books were Arian and the later works Trinitarian. Mark makes no mention of the Trinity and John pretty robust in the doctrine: John 10:30 "I and my Father are one.". Things like Colossians 2:9 "For in him [Jesus] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." start cropping up. A full understanding of the Biblical scholarship explains what we see in the text as a whole. Mark was written first perhaps as fiction or based off a general story. The gospels of Matt and Luke adding some details (from Q and M) to the story and fleshing out some of the prophecy requirements (if it says Jesus was born of a virgin add a virgin birth, if it says he'd need to be a direct descendant of David add a genealogy). John pushes a fairly distinct view, written considerably later than the other works. Arianism was an early heresy of the early church. The earlier books had a different religious understanding than the later books. Trinitarianism finally won out after First Council of Nicaea (the Emperor of Rome had some massive influence even with defining the relationship between Jesus and God and even when the Sabbath should be (remember it and keep it holy (Saturday))). So any argument on the subject is simply going to pit the earlier works against the later works, ignoring the underlying reasons why this occurs: they are fiction. One could have a lengthy argument as to whether Superman can fly through a star but without a good understanding of bronze age superman and post-crisis superman you aren't going to have a very good debate as both debaters could point out issues where that exact situation occurred and the man of steel could or couldn't do such a thing. Similar scars shine through with the earlier OT works showing henotheistic (many different gods but this God is our god) patterns where there are clearly many God but this the God of the Israelites is the one you need to worship. The depictions of God in the earlier OT texts contain stray reference to the Elohim (the gods) as well making humans like "us". The story of the Fall under the light of all-powerful all-knowing God doesn't make much sense. However under the light of reasonably powerful deities like those of the various Greek gods the story makes a lot of sense. Adam and Eve are created and told that if they eat the forbidden fruit they will die. The serpent comes along and says he's lying and you'll know the truth about good and evil. They eat the fruit and the serpent was telling the truth and God was bluffing. He boots them out of the garden in order to make sure they don't eat from the Tree of Life as well and be like the gods. This could be straight from Greek myth where betrayal of gods is possible and common. The later Pauline application of Original Sin to this story gives it a number of odd twists. Now everybody afterwards, who didn't do anything, are punished for the sins of others. In order to fix this problem God takes human form, lives a perfect life and He sacrifices Himself to Himself in order to give Himself permission to fix a problem He could have prevented. Because of the blood sacrifice of God to God for the forgiveness by God of crimes against God we can avoid needing to live a perfect life ourselves and exploit this now created loophole. In the end we have an odd barbaric sort of religion which will not punish you for your own sins but will punish you for the sins of other. The doctrines seem remarkably makeshift and held together by claims which fall apart upon a short review. However all of these things are required for a shift from an Arian view to a Trinitarian. If Jesus is simply a finite creation of God, below God but above the Angels, then the sacrifice of this creation is actually a sacrifice (rather than a day and a half before floating up to sit as his own right hand). Then if we overlook the odd reliance on the notion of blood sacrifice to atone for sins and the crimes of the parents befalling children we start to understand the underlying story and how it came to be. Which brings us back to my point about the non-existence of God. The Bible bears the scars of early heresies, different texts, beliefs which fell away, and beliefs which became central even after the canon was established (and couldn't incorporate them properly (free will, Trinitarianism, doctrines about Mary). There are a number of notably late additions to the Bible which prooftext the Trinity as well as a number of earlier texts which clearly show Arian influence. These are all exactly what you should see coming out of a slowly developing religious view and an during the evolution of the religion. The story is clearly established in the way it is to make it conform to Trinitarianism. As such, Trinitarianism is certainly an acceptable view. By attempting to make on the unacceptable acceptance of a Biblical understanding, the debate itself becomes incoherent. You would be pitting one part of the Bible against another part of the Bible while holding the inerrancy of the Bible itself. The non-existence of God is *CENTRAL* to the topic at hand. I understand the need not to have your beliefs challenged. If I based my life on a house of cards, I wouldn't want people blowing on them either. I care whether or not my beliefs are true and challenge them constantly and rely upon the evidence as that seems to be the best way to accept the most true things and the fewest false things as possible. However, I do ask that you understand that there is considerable importance to the objection I raised to the topic at hand. And, to concede this point is concede the debate.