so like, what is the holy spirit?
the father i get, thats god. the son i get, thats jesus. but where does the holy spirit come from??? i asked a bunch of my christian friends in high school and the only good explanation i got was that it’s jesus’ ghost, and that the reason it still exists after he revived is bc he exists outside of time?? so he’s a time-traveling jesus force-ghost?? which doesn’t really make sense to me bc it seems kinda sci-fi-y. so like. what is the holy spirit?
is it a specific community of christians or the community consisting of all christians? is it the abstract concept of the community itself or is it the material makeup of the community, ie the people and churches and ritual objects and whatnot, or maybe is it both? in what way is it god? what does it do?
Being an atheist, the Holy Spirit for me simply represents any gathering of humans in which we decide collectively to believe that love for one another (for its own sake) is good.