So, two groups assign differing characteristics and differing emphasis on those characteristics to an invisible, unknowable entity, so there must be two entities?
You could perform a similar inane test with each Christian denomination and get a staggering bullpen of deities. Hell, you and I could conclude there were two John Lennons based on our individual remembrance of the man.
Go back and look at the origins of these multiple deities in the religious texts, and I think you will find that you are one of the blind men describing the apocryphal elephant.
MC Master- actually, no, the Quran (Sura 4:157-158) that Jesus was not crucified but only appeared as such to his enemies, while actually he was taken up to Allah- thus, no Crucifixion or Resurrection, but an Ascension to Allah.
I’m getting this from second sources, but don’t they believ that he also appeared on earth after the crucifixation?
Hypothetical: If I made a religion based on Christianity, same Bible and all, and added some new gospels that made God a racist bastard according to some new prophet, would he still be the same God?
Seige
When i was little, I used to go to a Catholic church.
I wasn’t a christian back then, but I recall looking at the chalice and thinking
“He’s really IN There!!”
This is not necessarily true. See my entry above.
The important distinction is that if either Christianity or Islam is right (regarding the status of Jesus), then the other must be wrong.
A high school student’s editorial in the local paper attributes this misconception to the practice of translating all other languages’ word for God into the English word God but not doing it for Arabic.
Historically, they worship the same continuous idea of “God”, but each religion branches out and starts doing it’s own theological thing at some point.
Spiritually, this is just another attempt by some Christians to co-opt every religion in the world. To some Christians, there is no such thing as not believeing in their God. There is only accepting him, or knowing him and rejecting him. Thus just about everyone recognizes the same “god”, but the non-Christians have rejected his “salvation”.
Hmm. I’m not so sure. I worship Peter Sellers as Dr. Strangelove. My girlfriend worships Peter Sellers as Clare Quilty.
It’s true that we both worship Peter Sellers, but I have a hard time focusing on that commonality after my girlfriend super-glued my fingers to my eyeballs while I was asleep. She did that because earlier that night I forced her to watch Dr. Strangelove instead of Lolita.
Come to think of it, I have a hard time focusing on anything now.
I think they are relevant from every point of view, even atheist. They show a big problem at the heart of religion. In today’s world, it is politically necessary to accept differences. Bush’s response showed this - whether he truly believes it or not does not matter, and this is one of the few things I’ll give him credit for. But the heart of almost any theism is a direct line to absolute truth, though some sects might say there is some noise. This comes with monotheism - polytheists seem to have no trouble accepting other gods, just not that these other gods are exclusive.
Anyone saying that their direct line is right had better put up some evidence, since faith does not work against faith that someone else’s directl line is the true one. So we have exclusive gods without evidence vs. agreement on a shared delusion, or as Dylan said “you can be in my dream if I can be in yours.”
:eek: His repsponse to what?
The question in the OP is an interesting one, but, imho, ultimately pointless. Even if there were a 100% convincing argument that the statement “Christianity and Islam worship the same god” were either true or false, and everyone who read that argument instantly agreed, what would that prove?
Even if the answer is that they do worship the same god, there would still be terrorists in the world, many of the professing to be of the Islamic faith. People would still hate and kill each other for religious reasons. And if the answer was that they do not worship the same god, it would still be possible for reasonable individuals of both religions, along with reasonable individuals of neither religion, to get along, work for peace, and recognize each other’s shared humanity.