As the three religions we discuss do from each other. 
Same god, but differently understood.
First post here, hello ever one
I am a born Muslim, not much of religious man now.
I don’t think that we all worship the same God. The reason I say this is simple, all religions have a set of rules to follow, so to speak… given this than I’d say they worship Gods that demand much different from one another so therefore how can they be the same God? I get that it’s all Abrahamic thing, but look at it this way… Hitler (I know poor example) was a “man” followed by, more or less worshiped by many people, right - right. Say you ask one of his followers "hey man why not follow Bob over here, he is just as ‘human’ as Hitler” get the point. Saying “I’m a Muslim and I worship the same god as Christians but in a different way” well than I guess I am not worshiping the same God. I think each religion does not just PR their God but has an interpretation of what the God is. Therefore, IMO, if you are not following the strict set of rules such as say Islam has than you are not worshiping the God as intended and most importantly not the same God intended.
Each will tell you that their way is the right way when push comes to shove. To those that deny this - Let me ask why not just mix it up a little then? – Be a Muslim or Christian or Jewish for a day…
Christian (Protestant) here. Jews are certainly worshiping the same God. I’m not quite so sure about Islam. There are some Christians who claim that the Allah of Islam is actually the Jewish/Christian Satan/Devil.
I know a good number of Pentecostal Christians and at least one Southern Baptist who deny that Muslims worship their God. One of my sisters attended a class at her church once whose purpose was specifically to deny any connection between Jesus & Allah.
The Jews I know best are cultural rather than religious Jews, and as far as I know they simply don’t care.
Come to think of it, I can think of at least one Church of God in Christ minister who would say that observant Jews are not worshipping the God he does, but rather are deceived by Satan.
Welcome!
Jews for example, ask only that other people follow the Noahide laws to be Righteous.
I thought Islam regarded Jesus as a prophet, or at least a very self-actualized individual.
Couldn’t they use the same difference in belief of Jesus’ divinity to argue that Jews worship a different deity?
That’s my impression as well. I’m saying that some Christians deny any validity to Muslim teachings, not the reverse. In some Pentecostal churches you’ll hear the phrase “deceived by the enemy” bandied about a lot.
Can you expand here? Are you saying that Xtians could use that belief to make that claim, or that Muslims could?
A lot of it appears to rest on how liberal the given adherents views are.
From outside (raised Catholic, Jewish wife, currently agnostic Buddhist) they certainly share a lineage and commonality of origin, as well as many other traits.
From inside, it seems that the more inclusive sects of the respective Abrahamic religions, and especially the later ones, are more apt to accept that the others worship the same god (perhaps incorrectly) rather than believing different gods are involved.
Your Pentecostal associates should be able to argue just as Moslems do not worship the came deity as Christians because they not believe Jesus to be divine, Jews do not worship the same deity.
The traditional Orthodox view, to the best of my understanding, acknowledges Jews and Muslims as worshiping a common God, but does not extend that to Christianity due in particular to the problem of Trinitarianism. This is following the great medieval theologian Maimonides, who of course spent his life in Muslim-ruled lands. So you tend to get the following breakdown:
Orthodox Jews: Jews and Muslims share the same God, but Christians do not.
Evangelical Christians: Christians and Jews share the same God, but Muslims do not.
Islamists ( just to take a similarly conservative grouping ): All three share the same God.
I thought the Rabbis worked that out so Jews could do business with Christians during the Middle Ages. If you consider Jesus worshiped as a god, you couldn’t do business with them. If you got a lot of fine print (as Rabbis tend to do) about the Trinity, he was just a guy. My copy of Jewish Literacy is at home.
Doing business is one thing. Maimonides’ line as I understand it was that under threat it was permissible to pretend to convert to Islam ( as may have occurred with Maimonides himself when he was persecuted by the exceptionally intolerant Almohades in Spain ), because whatever their flaws they were still at least monotheists. But it would be better to die than to even pretend to convert to Christianity as they were idolators.
The Orthodox in general put a great deal of stock in Maimonides. But I wouldn’t necessarily extend those views to the Reform or Conservative movements of course. Nor even to every Orthodox rabbi, Judaism being notoriously prone to internal debate ;).
Christian here: Christians, Muslims, Jews, and others who worship a Supreme Being who created the world: Yes, we all worship the same God, though there are certainly differences in what we believe about God.
Which means that the argument for atheism I’ve been seeing a lot around here lately: “There are so many different gods, that no one of them is likely to exist”—doesn’t make any sense to me.
Isn’t that funny-I can’t seem to find that specific argument for atheism anywhere on this board at all.
I daresay that Thudlow is rephrasing (somewhat clumsily) a remark common among atheists that monotheism is closer to atheism than to polytheism. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it put like this:
That was the problem, you couldn’t do business with idolaters.
Some early Rabbinical argument showed that Christians were not.
I see…and that isn’t what it means at all, clumsily said or not.
Muslims don’t just believe that he’s a prophet.
They believe he’s the Messiah and that he will return on Judgement Day to do battle with the anti-Christ/anti-Messiah.
In fact, I don’t think he’s ever referred to as Issa(Arabic for Jesus) in the Quran, but is always referred to as Al Massiah.