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@curiousdannii Who are those weird lookin' guys in the background? ;-)

@LeeWoofenden As I said, I'm happy to replace the background image if you don't want to be in it :P

@curiousdannii Doesn't matter to me.

@curiousdannii Besides, it's just truth in advertising: if they come in here, they'll probably have to deal with me, or @fredsbend, or both. :-P

@LeeWoofenden In context and with the use of language it is clear that he is not saying that God never gave them the laws about sacrifices, but that he didn't give them merely about sacrifices but also about inward heart attitude. How do you deal with that statement? Is it a contradiction?

@curiousdannii ^^^^

@fredsbend I just updated the tag wiki again, this time ripping off the Wikipedia disambiguation page for the summary and using my own version for the longer speal.

Arguably we could rename trinity to trinitarianism to play nicer with non-trinitarianism (which we also have) and that would make my data-normalization sensibilities happier but I think with the most common use being topical just "trinity" will be what people expect to see.

@Caleb Wouldn't it make sense to have trinitarianism refer to the belief system (i.e., the group of people that believe in the doctrine of the trinity) and trinity refer to the actual doctrine?

Many questions would thus have both tags, but I can imagine some overview questions or specific christology questions that could use trinitarianism in such a scheme without it making sense to have trinity.

@Nathaniel Possibly. That makes sense although I think it would lead to confusion in the end. But here's the thing — do we have any questions that even need the former? I merged it because all the questions that I saw that had the tag were actually asking directly about he latter and just slapping on every tag they could find in the list.

@Nathaniel I can imagine them too, but I didn't find any.

Let me see...

And if we go on imagination then I could see Peter's point that it lend itself to abuse as a catch-all scope for issues that aren't even related to that.

Here are a few: 1, 2, 3. And this one is a perfect example.

@Nathaniel qns 2 and 3 are the same? And putting any doctrinal scope on qn 4 isn't really needed or helpful, it's an overview question

I don't see how those would benefit at all from a trinitarianism.

Sorry, this should be 3.

Now a nicene-christianity and/or chalcedonian-christianity might be useful, I've argued for those being useful and under-employed scopes for overview questions before.

@Caleb Yeah, I can see why those would be better. That's what I'm thinking of with trinitarianism but those titles are certainly better.

The reason I dropped the case is that as a tag it didn't seem to match up with an area of interest or expertise that was meaningful enough to merit wading through the confusion.

They do kind of set the stage for orthodoxy vs. all-the-heretics, but at least saying Nicene Christianity defines roughly whose versions right and wrong belief you're working under.

@curiousdannii But we put protestantism on protestant overview questions

@Nathaniel sure, when that's a useful scope. I don't see any useful scope to question 4

@Birdie In the context and with the use of language it's clear that God said:

> For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them, "Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you." (Jeremiah 7:22-23, italics added)

It certainly does say that God gave them no commandments (or laws) about sacrifices. That's exactly what it says.

Maybe you don't want it to say that, but it does say that.

@Birdie It is common enough in the Bible for the people, and even the biblical writers, to attribute to God things that don't actually come from God. But it is necessary for the people to believe that they come from God because they must have some religion and some basis for building a conscience for obeying God.

An especially clear example of this is David's numbering of the people. In 2 Samuel, in is God who tells David to number the people:

> Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, "Go, count the people of Israel and Judah." (2 Samuel 24:1, italics added)

But in the telling of the very same story in 1 Chronicles, it is Satan who tells David to number the people:

> Satan stood up against Israel, and incited David to count the people of Israel. (1 Chronicles 21:1)

Now, you can try to finesse the issue by saying that God told Satan to tell David. But the story doesn't actually say that. One says God incited David. The other says Satan incited David.

God does not move or incite people to do evil. That's what Satan does. But it was common for people of those cultures (and even today) to believe that God incited people to evil, and so they commonly attributed it to God in the Bible, even though it was actually Satan doing it. This was necessary so that they would believe that God is all-powerful (for both good and evil) and would respect and obey God.