Christian priests, pastors, and leaders tell their flocks that they must believe in the Trinity, but that it is a mystery, and they can't hope to understand it. If you don't believe in the Trinity, then you are rejecting the Son of God himself. This is no different from the cad that tells a child to close his eyes and open his mouth. You just know he is going to put a slug or a caterpillar in that trusting child's mouth!
For years, I have wondered why people get so upset about the Trinity doctrine. Many Christians get upset if you don't believe in it. For a while I thought it had to do with preventing people from keeping Torah. Then I thought it was to promote the doctrine of original sin. Although the Trinity does both of those two things, they are side effects. They are not the central purpose of the Trinity doctrine.
This evening the answer came. The Trinity started out as a formula that would allow the Christians to worship Jesus as a God, which fit into the Roman culture of the time. In the Roman culture of the time, each emperor was God on earth. People sacrificed animals to the emperor in special churches built for the honor of the emperor. Julius Caesar, the first emperor, inventor of the seven day week and the solar calendar we use today, was worshipped as God the Father. Augustus Caesar, the second caesar, was worshipped as God the Son. The very concept and language of the Trinity was the basis for the Roman religion of emperor worship. By accepting the Trinity, we are adopting the Roman form of emperor worship!
However, by the time of Nicaea, 300 years after Jesus, a different reason for the Trinity came into being. Both Catholic and Orthodox branches of the Christian church used the doctrine of the Trinity to preserve the power of the priesthood.
Think about it this way. Staunch Trinitarians acknowledge that very few people in the world "correctly understand the Trinity". Truly educated Christians limit this number to a mere handful, less than twenty at any moment in time. The Trinity is a doctrine that contradicts many scriptures, and has to be read into the few scriptures used in its support. The Catholic church calls it a "mystery", which must be believed without evidence. In fact, the Trinity is a doctrine designed to be so contradictory and contrary to any logic, reason, or common-sense, that noone can HONESTLY say they understand it. At least, not at face value.
Now, imagine what effect this has on the layman. Suppose you study the word of God for yourself. You come to some conclusions. But you, poor naive, express yourself in Biblical language. You express yourself in a way that is ever so slightly different from the exact wording and phrasing of the Trinitarian Creeds of Nicaea and Chalcedon. Now the priesthood and church attacks you! You have denied the Trinity! You have denied Jesus himself! You must recant and repent!
This only needs to happen to you a few times before you realize that you better not study the word of God; if you do, you can always be accused of not believing in the Trinity, the single most important creed of the Christian faith.
You see, noone can understand the Trinity. So everyone who talks about the nature of Jesus and God is vulnerable to accusations that they are heretics. This is the perfect weapon to keep the people in the dark, and maintain the power of the priests. Tell people to believe in something that they can't understand, and which can't be found in the Bible. Then when they do, they are now trapped; if they go to the Bible, the priest can use the Trinity stick to beat them with and stop them from further study. If they persist in Bible study, then the priest pulls out the excommunication or disfellowshipping stick.
When you accept the Trinity "mystery" from a priest, you acknowledge the priest as the earthly representative of God, just like a prophet, speaking the very words of God. If then you have accepted the priest as a prophet, you must obey him as if he were God himself. Those are the rules. I didn't make them up. When a prophet speaks a word from God himself, you have to obey, or be smitten from on high. When everyone around you accepts the false prophet, you are in great peril if you find out that he is a false prophet. Very few people have the courage to acknowledge they have been fooled by a false prophet. So instead of exposing the charlatans for what they are, most people will pretend that the naked emperor is actually wearing clothes, as described in the fable, "The Emperor's New Clothes".
The Trinity doctrine is the Christian religion's equivalent of the Jewish Talmud. The Trinity doctrine makes the priests the final arbiter of right and wrong, the only interpeters of the Word of God. Just so, Rabbi Akhiva and his followers laid a foundation of Jewish doctrine that made their interpretation of Torah superior to Torah itself. A Jewish Rabbi can contradict the Torah; because of the Talmudic doctrine of Akhiva, the Jew must believe the Rabbi, not the plain meaning of Torah.
I have observed a close link between Christians and Jews for their entire 2000 year history. I believe the closeness of the link is that they both claim the right to interpret the Word of God any way they see fit. The Jews at least acknowledge they are Pharisees; the Christians are in denial about it.
I see hope for the future. Some Jews are coming out of Judaism and becoming Karaite Jews, reading Torah and taking it at its face value. Some Christians are coming out of Christianity and accepting the words of Jesus that "I did not come to destroy the law; not one little bit of it shall pass away until heaven and earth pass away". (Matthew 5:18) Last time I looked, heaven and earth haven't passed away. Torah, or the Law of God as delivered by Moses, is still in effect!
These are exciting times. We live in a time of spiritual awakening. God's people, Jew and Christian alike, are wakening from their long sleep and thirsting for His truth, for the yoke that is light and the burden that is easy. There is a prophecy that in the later days knowledge will increase and many people will do research. It has come true. This very internet that you are reading this on is a major move on the part of God to allow his knowledge to spread. Keep on with your studies, and I hope we can meet at some future Feast of Tabernacles in the Jerusalem that is to come!
So, why is the Trinity doctrine so important? Because it stops YOU from reading God's Word and believing it; if you do read and believe it, you will be cast out of your church. The Trinity doctrine is important because it forces you to stop thinking and reasoning on religious topics, and give over your power of reason to the church, which does with it as it wishes.
Isn't your mind your own? Does anyone have a right to stop you from thinking and considering? Didn't God give you the gift of reason? Doesn't the Bible say that your power of reason and discernment are developed and strengthened through excercise and use? So what then, if you are not allowed to use them? They atrophy, and you become slaves, feudal serfs to greedy homosexuals and powerhungry men who put on a saintly veneer to hide their wolfish personalities.
Of course, once you have agreed to the priests authority by accepting the Trinity as the defining creed of your faith, the word of the priest trumps the word of God. So you'll never really believe God when he says this:
Deuteronomy 6:6-7
6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
7 And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you travel in the road, and when you lie down to sleep, and when you rise up from sleep.