I know that. I was wondering what Voyager was taught as a tyke. Besides, the origin of angels is relevant to the issue, I think. If they are gendered and related to God in a physical sense, it argues against the God of Isaiah being the God of Muhammad, no?
I think ultimately, it all comes down to how different people define “God”. For instance, I would say that I worship the entity who created the Universe. If a Jew or a Muslim or a Hindu or a Wiccan or whatever makes the same claim, then I would say that I am worshiping the same God that that person is. If, on the other hand, someone says “I worship the God that made himself manifest to Moses in the Burning Bush”, then I can’t honestly say whether that person is worshiping the same god I am or not. Maybe the Creator spoke through the burning bush, maybe not: I don’t know. Then, of course, someone might say “I worship the Creator of the Universe, and that god manifested to Moses through the Burning Bush”. Now, I can say that that person and I are worshiping the same god, but that the other person has some additional ideas about God which may or may not be correct. And if I meet two people, one of whom says “I worship the Creator, who is unambiguously male”, and another says “I worship the Creator, who is unambiguously female”, then we all three worship the same God, and at least one of them has an incorrect notion about Es nature.
Orthodox beliefs are not that they are related to God in a physical sense (“son of God” is an honorific in Judaism, not statement of literal descent), and I don’t see how that argues against Muhammed and Isaiah having the same God anyway? What possible difference would it make? I’m not being glib, but I really don’t understand your reasoning there. Could you explain? Let’s say angels really are physical, biological, be-cocked sons of God. How does that argue against one of them giving a revelation to Muhammed?
I was not speaking of Orthodox theology; I was wondering what Voyager was taught as a child. Often persons are taught things, informally, at are at odds with their faith’s theology.
To your latter point: if the “sons of God” were related to Yahweh as Hermes was thought to be related to Zeus – i.e., being the product of intercourse with another entity – then Yahweh has to be a physical being (sometimes, at least), which is very at odds with the notion of Allah, no? To a Muslim, God has no body, and there is nothing akin to him in any respect.
To Jews too. There is no Jewish belief that God has any physical or body or literal offspring.
I was just trying to avoid nitpicking about the existence of sons of Gods in Jewish lore.
Whatever they were, they were nothing like Jesus. And I thought angels were not into the shtupping stuff these guys were.
I was taught nothing about them - they are one of the many interesting surprises I found when I actually read the Bible from cover to cover, and not the edited versions I got in Hebrew School. However, we were never taught that things pre-Abraham counted as history.
I was raised Conservative, and I’ll have to consult my Siddur, but I don’t recall any mention of “sons of God” as an honorific or anything else. Children of Israel, or Israel, or descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, yes. Back then my Hebrew was good enough that I would have noticed such a blatant difference between the Hebrew and English. Anyhow, the context makes it clear that they were not human.
Not that it would have been a major theological problem. If God could make people, God could create sons also, and no mention of Mrs. God survives in the Bible itself.
Has any connection been established between Ahuramazda and YHWH? I was under the impression that early Judaism and Zoroastrianism developed independently.
It seems to me that Aten, the Sun God, would be a definite counterproof to the claim that all monotheistic religions worship the same God. On the other hand, that worship did not last very long.
That is out of my league. I do know that they share similar basic ideals and thematic elements. Since they evolved in the same general area and time period, I was taught that it is commonly believed they influenced one another to the point that the deity is probably the same being. The differences being regional and etymological rather than any practical distinguishing traits.
That wouldn’t preclude them being “about” the same deity in the metaphysical sense that Chronos was talking about.
We are all trying to describe the unexplainable in language that suits our culture. There are many paths to God.
There are roads that lead to Paris, roads that lead to Pittsburgh, roads that lead to Portland and roads that lead to Port-au-Prince. Now, while all these roads may lead to something called a “city”, in no way do all these roads lead to the same city with different names.
There are two ways to go about this.
The first is that the exact nature of God is outside of human comprehension. The best we can do is make up our own very human set of metaphors to help us make a little more sense of the world and hopefully grasp a glimpse of God. God is ultimately indescribably, but religion can get us a set of tools that can help us understand or experience God. The exact approach we take is not as important as the destination. Indeed, all of them might be useful.
You can think of this as a book with different translations. Each of the books will be different from each other, but (if the translations aren’t completely bad) will essentially be the same book and contain the same truths.
The Abrahamic version of “one God” is a bit different. It’s based on the idea that each religion represents a step in human understand of God’s nature, and a new agreement with God.
Think of it like a book with new editions, with each edition claiming to supplant the old. In some way they can be thought of as the same book, but each edition’s advocates can be pretty defensive of their position on the truth.
But this is assuming that all the books lead to God, isn’t it? Are you prepared for the possibility that some of the books might not lead to God at all? If so, then you must consider the possibility that your own personal book might be one of those.
I can understand this “all roads lead to God” philosophy-it absolves one from both feeling doubt about the path taken, and feeling pressure about “saving” others.
Sure. It’s possible, to extend the metaphor, that there are some books that are just utter gibberish, or just horribly flawed translations, or about something else entirely. This would be the equivalent to a religion that does not lead to any understanding of or experience of God. If what you call your “religion” consists of typing “Ooga Booga” one hundred times every morning, I think we’d all agree that won’t lead to any actual interaction with any sort of divine.
But you can believe that “Ooga Booga” will not lead to any knowledge of or experience with God, while believing that meditation, prayer, Catholic Mass, Hindu temple ceremonies and and Sufi poetry might.
For the record, I am not religious in any meaningful way. I am the kind of agnostic who believes that the nature or existence of God is so unknowable that it’s not worth wasting too much time thinking about it.
Well here’s the problem, while people with Abrahmic beliefs all believe in a God derived from the God of the Hebrews, religions such as Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and et. al all deny a significant part of God ie the Trinity or that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, without which God is not really the same God.
Yep, that is the quirky thing about Christianity, isn’t it? When it reintroduced polytheism into the mix, it was sort of a step backwards, which caused the others to step back and say, “I thought we had gotten past that bit??”
Just want to say about the whole “Why do Christians associate more with Judaism than Islam, when the latter recognizes more of christians’ beliefs?”.
I think it’s the difference between root and branch. Judaism is considered a root on which Christianity is based, whereas Islam is considered a separate branch. So similarity doesn’t enter into it.
This is just the same as how many Christian denominations consider other denominations (such as Mormonism) flat-out wrong, but still consider Judaism a close relative.
And Muslims do a similar thing with say the Shia and Ahmedi denominations.