Do Jews, Christians, and Muslims all worship the same God? Meaningful?

[Abdul Alhazred]

Do Jews, Christians, and Muslims all worship the same God?

The answer of yes is heard from Muslim apologists, some Orthodox Jews and also from various liberal types.

The answer of no is generally heard from Christian fundies, but is probably not unique to them.

My position is that the question isn't even meaningful, unless said diety actually exists.

And He doesn't.

[dbuxtehude]

Originally posted by Abdul Alhazred
My position is that the question isn't even meaningful, unless said diety actually exists.

And He doesn't.


And even if He did exist, "... it would be necessary to abolish Him."

[mummymonkey]

A popular bumper sticker in Saudi Arabia has cruci-fiction written on it. As the crucifiction and subsequent resurrection seem to be central to the identity of the Christian god it would appear that they can't be the same. Certainly not in the opinion of those displaying that bumper sticker.
I read somewhere (can't find it just now) that Mohammed lifted his new god from one of many gods available in the god catalogue of his day. If true, then they are clearly not the same.

[ceo_esq]

Whether the God of Christianity can be identified with, for example, the God of Islam is largely going to depend on your conception of "identity".

I'm reminded of the other ongoing thread about Mother Teresa. Some people are writing about an adorable humanitarian who labored tirelessly for the brotherhood of her fellow human beings. Others are writing about an evil and selfish old woman who did many corrupt deeds. They'd probably all agree that they are writing about the woman born Gonxhe Agnes Bojaxhiu in the city of Skopje in 1910. But are they writing about the same person?

Likewise, Christians, Jews and Muslims might all say that they are worshiping the divine creator of the heavens and the earth, who spoke to Moses and made a covenant with Abraham. On the other hand, they all attribute somewhat different acts, motives and characteristics to that being. Are all three religions worshiping the same God, then?

It doesn't especially matter, for purposes of this question, whether God really exists. Did Sir Thomas Malory and Chretien de Troyes write about the same King Arthur?

[Cleopatra]

Originally posted by Abdul Alhazred

My position is that the question isn't even meaningful, unless said diety actually exists.

And He doesn't.

Yet, even if we agree that God doesn't exist and I think that most of us here agree on that-- it is meaningful to reply to your question if we want to explore the nature of deity and the psychological mechanism of deity in human's consciousness.

In my opinion,a comparative study in the perception of deity among the major religions shows that believers do nothing but believing to the same deity.

Let's see that.

Do the three Religions you listed attribute to God the same identities?

I think that more or less they do:

Jews, Christians and Muslims believe that their deity is:

Omnipresent
Omniscient
Omnipotent
Spirit
Life
Infinite
Immutable
Truth
Love
Eternal
Holy
Immortal
Invisible

So, I do not see why somebody cannot suggest that all of them believe in the same God... So, yes the question is meaningful because it leads to interesting conclusions.

Unless somebody suggests that apart from those identities God is something more, like a lifestyle... in that case we start talking about the essence of Religion :)

Of course I totally disagree with ceo_esq. If things were the way he describes them, History wouldn't exist but this is a different topic and I do not wish to derail the thread.

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by ceo_esq

Likewise, Christians, Jews and Muslims might all say that they are worshiping the divine creator of the heavens and the earth, who spoke to Moses and made a covenant with Abraham. On the other hand, they all attribute somewhat different acts, motives and characteristics to that being. Are all three religions worshiping the same God, then?


The historicity of Abraham is in doubt, but the Islamic claim of continuity from Ishmael is entirely fabricated by Muhammad.

There is no history whatever of enmity between Arabs and Jews before Muhammad, as would be implied by the supposed ethnic grudge concerning Ishmael.

When Arabs are mentioned by Jews before that time, The Arabs are Arabian, not fighting Jews or anybody else for territory.

However, the basic "oneness of God" doctrine is the same, whatever other doctrinal difference.

Christianity, on the other hand, believes in an incarnation. This is something else entirely, despite the historical continuity from Judaism.


It doesn't especially matter, for purposes of this question, whether God really exists. Did Sir Thomas Malory and Chretien de Troyes write about the same King Arthur?

You would have to define what you are claiming exists. That's not a problem with differening versions of King Arthur. Or for that matter differing versions of the same story within the Bible.

So you have Orthodox Jews saying that Muslims worship the same God as themselves, without being the least sympathetic to Muslims.

You have Muslim apologists and liberal Chistian and Jewish types saying they all worship the same God, so that we all can get along.

You have other Muslims who have no intention of getting along.

You have Christian fundies with their "moon god" shtick about Muslims.

If God exists, you can say they're all worshipping Him, but not all the right way. Or you can say that some of them are not worshipping Him.

But neither statement is meaningful if there's no "Him".

That's without even getting into the general non-exisence of the supernatural.

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by Cleopatra

Jews, Christians and Muslims believe that their deity is:

Omnipresent
Omniscient
Omnipotent
Spirit
Life
Infinite
Immutable
Truth
Love
Eternal
Holy
Immortal
Invisible


I'd question Omnipresent as a later addition, but let that pass.

I could say that my God is all those things, but that you're not worshipping the true God if you don't acknowledge Her One-hornedness and Pinkness, those being Her most important characteristics. If you say I'm being silly, we don't worship the same God.

Add Triune, Incarnate, Born of a Virgin, Dead, Resurrected to your list, or you don't have the Christian God, and Christians think those are very important.

Jews and Muslims think those characteristics are inconsistent with Divinity.

Note that were talking about the very nature of Divinty, not fine points of the law like whether He's OK with eating kielbasa.

[ceo_esq]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
Of course I totally disagree with ceo_esq. If things were the way he describes them, History wouldn't exist but this is a different topic and I do not wish to derail the thread. I'm not really describing anything; just formulating some queries about the nature of identity (historical or otherwise). I'm not sure I could even answer my own questions.

Your points are very good.

[Andonyx]

Well theoretically all three are supposed to be the same God that Abraham offered to sacrifice his kid to...that much is accepted by all three.

Then as was pointed out, Islam offshoots to follow the lineage of Ishmael, while Judao-Chrsitians followed Isaac's history.

But then The Christians went further and started actually worshipping Jesus as the Messianic son of God, and created the Trinity concept which kind of blurs the line as to how divine Jesus may or may not be...

The Jews do not recognize Christ as the messiah, regardless of his existence or teachings, and Muslims regard Jesus as "A" prophet, but not on the same level of prophetude as Muhammud.

But theoretically a good deal of the old testament is accepted by all three.

Just a footnote: I think I just realized that that whole sacrifice story with Abraham is the first time I ever thought, "You know this is all a bunch of horse puckey. What kind of power-drunk god would ask a man to kill his son just to prove his devotion? What a sicko."

[Cleopatra]

Originally posted by ceo_esq
I'm not really describing anything; just formulating some queries about the nature of identity (historical or otherwise). I'm not sure I could even answer my own questions.

Your points are very good.

You know, this is the problem I have both as a lawyer and as somebody who has studied History too :)

I am not comfortable with insignuations about the existence of grey areas. In my opinion the difficulties we have in defying certain things, like identity for example doesn't make them a grey area.

The same stands for History; the fact that you will hear 10 different opinions about Mother Teresa doesn't mean that the historians of the future will have difficulty in recording History :)

Also, what if Jews and Christians think that they believe in a different God. A third person-who doesn't need the differences in order to place himself in the frame of a religion -- and listens to "their stories" the similarities are so striking that cannot ignore them.


Abdul, I will be back to you .

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by Andonyx
Just a footnote: I think I just realized that that whole sacrifice story with Abraham is the first time I ever thought, "You know this is all a bunch of horse puckey. What kind of power-drunk god would ask a man to kill his son just to prove his devotion? What a sicko."

As history it's nonsense, but in it's historical context it makes perfect sense as a story. Child sacrifice was very common in that part of the world. Particularly in Ur, where Abraham was said to be from.

Sort of a "just so" story explaining why Jews don't practice child sacrifice, though there are some later echos of it.

[Andonyx]

Originally posted by Abdul Alhazred


As history it's nonsense, but in it's historical context it makes perfect sense as a story. Child sacrifice was very common in that part of the world. Particularly in Ur, where Abraham was said to be from.

Sort of a "just so" story explaining why Jews don't practice child sacrifice, though there are some later echos of it.

Well, yes, I understand the function it plays in the religion, but the fact that still here and now in the 20th (at the time) century that we would continue to worship such a cruel and capricious, or outright deceptive deity seems ridiculous.

Don't get me started on Job.

[whitefork]

I don't even think that the Catholics and the Lutherans worship the same god. Many Unitarians who belive in god deny the divinity of Jesus. Chickists consider Catholics to be idolators.

Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian Scientists have a whole other thing going.

As we used to say to the campus preachers "One Way. Mine".

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by Andonyx


Well, yes, I understand the function it plays in the religion, but the fact that still here and now in the 20th (at the time) century that we would continue to worship such a cruel and capricious, or outright deceptive deity seems ridiculous.


But less cruel and capricious that those other gods that accepted child sacrifice. The Bible isn't quite monotheistic at that point.


Don't get me started on Job.

Now there you've got cruel and capricious. Enter Satan, welcome to the family get-together in Heaven. God's meanly sportive but not disobedient son.

A much later story.

[Bentspoon]

I have a couple of thoughts on this:

1) If you start talking about identity – well then I’d have to say there are so many gods you can’t count them because everyone defines “His” identity their own way.
2) On another point: I think that the idea that we all worship one god is getting lots a airplay these days because it is politically convenient. We live in a pluralistic society. Yet all religions claim to be the only way. How do you reconcile that? How do you live with a mosque next door to your house knowing that it is a “false” religion worshipping an opposing god? Easy, just pretend we are all really one and the same. From Allah to the Great Spirit, it is all the same. It is so inclusive and, yet, properly exclusionary also. It certainly leaves atheists out and we don’t have to deal with those pesky Satanists. It is the BSA admissions philosophy. It makes absolutely no sense unless you are trying to make sense out of non-sense.

How do Hindus fit in all this? Do they worship the same god. I don't know about this one.

This brings me to the whole Judeo-Christian thing. It may not be new but since the challenge to the pledge and Judge Moore, conservatives have been using the term Judeo-Christian society to define America as a whole. It is another way to be inclusive with the proper exclusions, only this is more far reaching.

Bentspoon

[Yahzi]

Originally posted by Kullervo
I don't even think that the Catholics and the Lutherans worship the same god.
I'm with Kullervo. Religion is such a personal ego-driven expierence, I don't think any two people worship the same god.

[whitefork]

Originally posted by Andonyx
Don't get me started on Job. Job is the best book in the bible. Always bring Job into any discussion with literalists and claimants of the one true truth.

"The answer is, there isn't any answer. And you shouldn't have asked the question, either".

It must also be said that Yahzi and I are totally with.

[Cleopatra]

Ceo_esq, check the books of Norman Cohn, if you are not already aware of his work.

You must have a look particularly at this one: Europe's Inner Demons: The Demonization of Christians in Medieval Christendom (1993)

[ceo_esq]

Originally posted by Cleopatra


Ceo_esq, check the books of Norman Cohn, if you are not already aware of his work.

You must have a look particularly at this one: Europe's Inner Demons: The Demonization of Christians in Medieval Christendom (1993)

Okay, Cleopatra. Your recommendation is good enough for me. I've ordered this book and will share my thoughts in the next few weeks.

[DrMatt]

Traditional Jewish religion does not recognize the concept of Original Sin and either treats the exit from the Garden of Eden as a one-time-only event or as a metaphor for loss of childish innocence. Thus the most fundamental axioms of traditional Jewish religion are different from those of Christianity. I'm not sure what Islam's take on this is.

Judaism is the ethnicity, culture, and affiliation of all the Jewish people, including deists like Spinoza and Einstein, atheists like Freud and Golda Meir, and even a few followers of other recognized religions. Many followers of the traditional Jewish religion would like to disown this last category as Jews, out of fear that their apostasy threatens the future of Jewish identity. So among Jews, you're likely to get widely divergent views on who is Really Jewish (see the True Scottsman lurking here?), and even among the traditionally religious, it's not safe to say that Jews as a group worship the same god. Ask 2 Jews, get 3 opinions!

[DrMatt]

Originally posted by Kullervo
Job is the best book in the bible.

The only book that I find at all readable is Song of Songs.
I like Bloch and Bloch's translation, though I'm puzzled
by their translation of the last word as "cinnamon":
the Hebrew always has "qinnamon" at the appropriate
places, but not here. Anyhow, one of these days I'm going
to set the whole thingy to music, and I'll be sure to
ask them more about this one word when it happens.

[DrMatt]

Originally posted by Andonyx
Just a footnote: I think I just realized that that whole sacrifice story with Abraham is the first time I ever thought, "You know this is all a bunch of horse puckey. What kind of power-drunk god would ask a man to kill his son just to prove his devotion? What a sicko."

What's much more sick is the honoring of this guy Abraham for his willingness to obey such a command (supposedly rescinded through an intermediary at the last moment). If a god were to show up and command you to... say... fly a fully fueled airliner into a skyscraper, would you count it as better to obey that god or to defy it?

[Cleopatra]

Originally posted by ceo_esq
Okay, Cleopatra. Your recommendation is good enough for me. I've ordered this book and will share my thoughts in the next few weeks.

I think that you will appreciate Cohn's vast knowledge. He belongs to the old school that expected historians of all people to have a spherical approach to things.

I am currently finishing The Pursuit of the Millenium. Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, a huge book with thousands of information regarding various topics.

In the first chapter you can actually read something that is related to this topic. Cohn shows that the Apocalyptic Tradition of the Christian Churches in Middle Ages that constituted the ideological background for the Crusades, originates to the Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition.

Those who know a couple of things about the Christian Faith must be aware of the fact that the Apocalyptic Tradition is the hard core of the Christian Faith. If this core srpings from Judaism which is another Religion, then how can we doubt that at the end, all believe in the same God.

[Cleopatra]

Originally posted by DrMatt


The only book that I find at all readable is Song of Songs.


Do you have any explanation why the bloodythirsty Christians included an erotic poem in the Bible ?:)

BTW a famous Greek composer, Manos Hadjidakis has melodized parts of the Song of Songs. I find his music fascinating, if you are interested I can PM you the details.

[c4ts]

A'course nawt. Them Jews don't beeleeve in no Jeezus, ayand Jeezus is Gawd. Them Muzlems beeleeve in Awllah, which is really the Mune Gawdess!

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by Cleopatra


Do you have any explanation why the bloodythirsty Christians included an erotic poem in the Bible ?:)


Because the much more sensible Jews already had it in their canonical scripture.

But why did the Jews have it? Along with an interpretation that "the beloved" really meant the Jews?

In order to preserve it. Aren't you glad they did?

It's a great work of literature. Stop trying to find atheist proof-texts and just read the Bible!

Think of it as an ancient anthology, and stop obsessing on proving it's not for real. You don't read the Iliad that way, do you?

[Cleopatra]

Originally posted by Abdul Alhazred


Stop trying to find atheist proof-texts!

I like verbs in the imperative. Could you please explain to me what I must stop doing because I do not understand the sentence above.

Thanks.

[Abdul Alhazred]

Originally posted by Cleopatra


I like verbs in the imperative. Could you please explain to me what I must stop doing because I do not understand the sentence above.

Thanks.

Not you personally. It's an injuction to my fellow atheists in general.

There is too much assuming (not by you) that the Bible is to be interpreted and therefore refuted, on the basis of its interpretation by the stupidest of biblical woo-woos.

[Yahweh]

Allah:

http://www3.sympatico.ca/hicham.takache/images/allah.jpg


Yahweh:

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/avatar.php?userid=4115&dateline=1067710625


God:
Here's some nice shots of god (http://www.chick.com/tractimages26148/0082/0082_10.gif). (Image cant be posted for copyright reasons.)


We look nothing alike...

[JAR]

From what I know of those religions, they worship variations of the same god.

[triadboy]

Originally posted by Abdul Alhazred
There is too much assuming (not by you) that the Bible is to be interpreted and therefore refuted, on the basis of its interpretation by the stupidest of biblical woo-woos.

I understand your point - but it is the interpretation of the bible (and the Koran) that causes evil and war.

Is it a coincidence that this country has so many murders and serial killers - and we are the most puritanical country? I have no evidence about this - but it seems Europe, with their lax religious outlook, has fewer murders and serial killers.

A heavy dose of hell-fire religion from an early age MAY screw you up for life.

[sackett]

Originally posted by Yahzi

. . . . I don't think any two people worship the same god.

Okay, buddy, you're on my list. I was about to say exactly that.

Let me add this: Worshipers aren't consciously interested in being original, rather they crave the right real true good old-time orthodoxy, so that within a given religion at a given time the gods inside the skulls of individual worshipers (and I don't mean that metaphorically) tend to be very similar.

But deities change over time, and borrowed cult practices will often stick to them. (I'll hazard the guess that gods develop mainly by accretion.) For example, it's old stuff that the worship of the various Virgins in Italy includes features handed down from Venus/Aphrodite cults - and who knows where the Venus-worshipers got them? Simple folk are natural syncretists, unlike the grave doctors of theology, who'll maintain the crucial differences between Tweedle and Dum to the last iota; yes, and kill and die to maintain them.

My only point is that the gods of the various religions are complex. The God of Western Christianism by now is part Jupiter, part Thor, part John Wesley, part who knows what all. Same goes for the gods of the various Jews and Muslims.

My dream is to deal death to all the gods; I want to chase them out of the heads of the gullible and let them perish in the open air. Maybe pointing out that deities evolve (we can see how different Jehovah was 3,000 years ago) will do at least a little good.

[triadboy]

Originally posted by Yahzi

I'm with Kullervo. Religion is such a personal ego-driven expierence, I don't think any two people worship the same god.

I'll bet it would scare you how many people believe in a white-bearded old man God looking down on us. Like Burl Ives watching you shower.

[sackett]

Once when I was a kid, I remarked to a Catholic playmate that I didn't believe in "a great big man somewhere up in the sky." I was repeating something I'd read, of course.

The Catholic kid started back and rolled his eye at me like a spooked horse, because that was -exactly- how he saw God.

Decades later, he probably still does. We hear about theologians and others who have a non-anthropomorphic image of Gawd, but I don't much believe them. The idols and icons in use all over the world are like pornography: they're crude, garish, repetitive, and unimaginative -- and they work.

[whitefork]

There are those who claim that the Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel shows God as inhabiting a giant brain. Is that not more freaky than Burl Ives, I ask?

http://www.mentalhealthandillness.com/creation_of_adam.htm

[Matabiri]

Originally posted by triadboy

Is it a coincidence that this country has so many murders and serial killers - and we are the most puritanical country? I have no evidence about this - but it seems Europe, with their lax religious outlook, has fewer murders and serial killers.


That's because god allows us to drink.

"Drink! Drink is one of the curses of the world! It makes you fight with your brother! It makes you argue with your wife! It makes you shoot at your landlord... and it makes you miss him!"

Come on, the Vatican's here. How can you say Europe's "lax".?