I understand it better than the average Christian. It is polytheistic in its essence.
Then no, you really don't.
One God = One Person/Essence
That's a very physically constrained parameter. God is not bound by our physical finite limitation. He is one, not poly.
Worship God the Father (alone) just like all the believers before Christ did. They worship ONE supreme being that had NO parts or incarnations.
God has no parts, other than the incarnation, and that was for a specific reason.
I love this passage from the Bible for a lot of reasons:
John 4:16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
One of the reasons here, is obvious. Thin and proof-texting, but obvious.
20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
Arians agree with you. Both they and you are wrong. You are "reading into" the text what you want it to say, rather than understanding both what it actually does say, and what it actually
does not, say. Why? Frankly because you have to, in order to maintain, regardless of truth.
Just a little further: John 10:30
I and the Father are one!
John 14:9
Jesus said to him, Have I been with you such a long time and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father. And how do you say, Show us the Father?
24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Yes. She was debating with Jesus. The Jews and the Samaritans argued over worship of God. They were the rest of Israel that had been intermixed with other races. Such made their worship, necessarily about where else to worship God, and how else to worship God, much like your and my discussion here. Jesus told her that true worship would be through both Spirit and Truth.
25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
Well, good, you've gotten both that He wasn't just a prophet, and not just Messiah either. What else could He have been? Since you are reading John:
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:2 He was in the beginning with God.
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us. And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and of truth.
and
John 20:28 And Thomas answered and said to Him, My Lord and my God!
and
Rev 19:12 And His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head many crowns. And He had a name written, one that no one knew except Himself.
Rev 19:13 And He had been clothed in a garment dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.
27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.
Come on,you can't be serious. Christianity has literally thousands of denominations and they differ in fundamental or theological teachings - Christianity has no social, political domain - so no debate about law.
These are some FUNDAMENTAL controversies...
1) Who is deserving of worship? Triune God (Trinitarians) or God the Father (Unitarian)
There aren't many Unitarians. There are less than a million.
2) How are we saved? Work or faith?
This is the point of the Reformation. There certainly is a divide between these two. Does it amount to thousands? No, those are other issues like $, how the gifts are used, etc.
3) Are there two gospels? One for the Jews, and one by St.Paul to the gentiles?
You are letting a glimpse of TOL fool you. There are even less MAD than there are arians/Unitarians on the planet.
Yep, this is contested
5) Calvinism - determinism, the issue of free will
etc
There haven't been that many of us in the past, though that # is growing a bit.
Think too, that with these disagreements, we are all found in each others churches and getting along for the most part.
You will NOT find anything like this within Sunni Islam (85+% of Muslims)
Again, both because it isn't allowed, and because you have your blinders on.
Think as you like. Pure assertions don't really mean anything. It is simply indoctrination.
We go a little further and deny that God needs a Son, for us to have a personal relationship with Him.
Yes, of course you do. You have to or you lose the whole thing, same with us:
1Co 15:17 And if Christ is not raised, your faith is foolish; you are yet in your sins.
1Co 15:18 Then also those that fell asleep in Christ were lost.
1Co 15:19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
I never disagreed
Even with opposing doctrines of theology, it is good to see points of essential shared humanity.