How can the God of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims be the same God? Christians believe in the trinity which is very different from the Jews and Muslims.
Because they are all inextricably intertwined both historically and scripturally. Differences over items such as the Trinity can be laid at differences of interpretation ( or revealed mysteries if you prefer ). While the Judeo-Christian religions may differ over the nature of God, they all agree it was the same guy talking to Moses ( well, a few folks might argue that technically it was the Metatron, but you get my drift )…
- Tamerlane
But it seems the nature of God becomes so different, that to speak of it being the same God makes little sense.
I would go even further: The god of the socalled “non monotheist religions” is the same as the one of the Christians,Jews or Muslims. Perhaps an Indian can help me, but from reading the Bhagavad Gita I have the impression that there is only one God (Krishna) and the other 33,000,000 Gods are aspects of Krishna.
I guess different religions have different emphasis, and that appears like differences. I am educated catholic but I do believe in reincarnation. My wife is Muslim, and in contrast to many other muslims she does believe in reincarnation and says she does so because of the coran. Other muslims tell me that reincarnation is incompatible with Islam.
Personally I believe in Jesus and I think that Jesus did not want to stress the fact that we live multiple lives, he wanted us to concentrate on this life.
I think “reality” is so complex that we can’t grasp it with our tiny intellect. In other words, what we perceive as differences may not be differences at all.
Trinity: That is a concept which is very complex and I don’t think a human can fully understand it anyway. What does it mean, all three of them are God? It’s possible that we lack the intellectual power to understand reality, and the three religions uses 3 different “approximations”?
A comparison:
It’s like watching a 3D world from a 2D point of view. The fact that two objects do not touch each other physically but their images or shapes (what you see) do touch each other is contradictory from the 2D point of view. As soon as you look at it from a 3D perspective by adding another dimension, you see that one object is occluded by the other only, and that there is no contradiction.
Why?
It’s not like we’re talking about the difference between a god of the sea vs. a god of agriculture. All three regard God a the singular, supreme diety and further all regard said God as being the same God that the Jews turned to. All three use elements of the same scripture, with Christianity adding to Judaism and Islam adding to both ( or from the Islamic perspective, correcting both ). All three recognize, for example, Moses as a prophet.
From my perspective ( and no doubt some would disagree ), whether God has a triune nature or not falls under the general heading of “minor details”. On such matters religions diverge from one another - But common threads remain that tie them together. The fact that at least one of the three, Islam, explicitly states that it is the same God for all three, would seem to imply that there is nothing philosophically outre about making that intellectual jump ( or hop ).
- Tamerlane
Heres a quick and hopefully not too error ridden rundown from a scriptual perspective-
Okay, first you have the God of the Jews. At first he revealed himself to one person. And then he pretty much became that group of people’s god. He said that they wern’t to worship other gods, and that they were to do all sorts of stuff related to him, since they were specifically chosen to worship him. He never expected to be worshipped or understood by anyone other than the Jews, and to this day religious Jews worship him in the ways he laid down and don’t much care what other people do.
Then come Jesus. Jesus was Jewish and worshipped the God of the Jews in the Jewish manner (try saying that five times fast). Then he died, was ressurected and Christianity formed. Christianity states that Jesus made the Jewish God the God for everyone, not just the Jews, and that everyone was responsible for following him now. Jesus also made it so that God was to be worshipped in different ways, and that his laws were changed. But it’s still the same God. Christians see themselves as the “next step” of Judaism (Jews certainly don’t though) and will say that they are worshipping the same God, just in the new, Jesus-approved manner.
I don’t have too good of a background on Islam, but I’ll give it a shot. Mohammud had a dream where Gabriel (the same angel who told Mary she was pregnant, amongst other things) took him up to see heaven and hell. Then Mohammud realized he was a prophet, and made all kinds prophetic statement that were taken as the new and direct word of God. These statments also made the God of the Jews the God for everyone. He was still talking about the same God as the Jews, and regarded Christianity as kind of an interesting side note. He did not believe that Jesus was the savior and changed all the rules (since Mohammud would claim he changed all the rules) but Islam does look upon Jesus was a prophet who worshipped the same God as them (although they look at Christians as idolatures, since they worship Jesus along with God). So in the end Muslims will argue they are worshipping the same God, just in the "correct’ way.
So on a purely scriptural basis, they are all decendents from one person’s God- Abraham’s. The three religions just disagree about how the story ends.
Close, but not quite. To some extent Muhammed considered himself to be restoring the original faith that had been corrupted over the centuries - i.e. Islam wasn’t new, but old, the religion of Abraham.
Not quite, again. See above. The Muslim conception of Jesus is that he was doing in some respects the same thing Muhammed ended up doing, but that the Jews refused to listen and Christians garbled the message.
- Tamerlane
quote:
God of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims
How can the God of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims be the same God? Christians believe in the trinity which is very different from the Jews and Muslims.
-Major Kong
Because Abraham, Moses, and Peter are all descended from the same early humans looking up at the sun and going, “I wonder where that comes from?”
Tamerlane,
Let’s set aside the supposedly garbled messages contained in the copious amounts of Jewish and, less copious, Christian holy writ. The message from the Koran is in many respects very garbled as well, as even a cursory reading of the Koran would reveal. (Let’s not delve into the Hadiths for the moment).
But throughout those pages of Koranic garbledom, all those who read the Koran, without receiving a prior briefing from a good Muslim, and browse through the multifarious utterances of the Prophet Mohammed (sbuh) would most likely conclude that he was a psychotic, murderous, thieving , genocidal, misogynistic, child raping nutball.
What makes the whole system of Islam so breathtakingly admirable and impressive is that muslim communities throughout the world can be observed to conduct themselves with a sense of quiet decency and tolerance.
In fact, no one on this planet, including the unbeliever, who lives next to or even within a Muslim community needs to have any fear for his or her life. The simple reason for this is that in their day to day life Muslims make no sincere attempt to follow the behavioural patterns of the Prophet as described in the Koran and the Hadiths.
Provided, of course, that there is a pre-existing system in place to ensure the maintenance of law and order.
After all, if Muslims in general tried to make a determined effort to emulate the Prophet Muhammed (sbuh) you would see Muslims committing murderous atrocities all over the planet, and we don’t see this, do we?
No doubt - I have no stake in any direction, as personally I am an atheist :). I was just describing the Muslim take on it ( since even sven seemed to be trying to write from the point of view of the various Judeo-Christian religions ).
Hmmm…Lot of highly debateable verbiage there. But I’ve argued a few of them before and I think I’ll pass for now.
That’s pretty debateable, too. The fact is that like all religions, proper observances are open to an enormous degree of interpretation.
Nah, not going to do it ;). I’ve argued with Kalt et al over whether Islam is inherently bloodthirsty and whether all “proper” Muslims should be out butchering folks for God several times already. Suffice it to say I think that argument is garbage.
But you can do a search on my name and Islam if you really want to read my opinions on the matter :).
- Tamerlane
Tamerlane,
Ho hum. Looks like I’ll have to wait for Aldebaran (sbuh) again.
But he’s such a plodding dud.
Oh well, here’s my current signature quote, just for you.
sbuh?
Kong:
Is it really necessary to start two active threads in GD trying to disprove that the Muslim God is not the same God worshiped by Christians?
Actually, if I remember right, the Ultimate essence of God in Hinduism is based on the Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.
Vishnu, I believe, is the one that is said to be reincarnated as Krishna.
This is quite close, but Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (called the “trimurti” in Vedantic Hinduism) are still just different aspects of Brahman, who is the ultimate, unknowable and impersonal truth. Brahman isn’t a formal deity the way we think of them, it’s the reality beyond all realities and is completely unknowable.
Brahma (not to be confused with Brahman) is the Creator (who created the universe), Vishnu is the preserver (and I, Brian is correct that Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu) and Shiva is the Destroyer. All of these gods have their own avatars and manifestations but ultimately, it’s all just Brahman.
I’m not trying to do this at all. In the other thread I said I don’t really know that much about Islam. In the other thread I was asking a very specific question about the origin of the name Allah and the relation of Allah to a moon god.
In this thread I was asking how the God of Jews, Christians, and Muslim is the same God. I could see the God of the Jews and Muslims as the almost the same God, but the nature of the Christian version seems very different.
The nature may indeed seem different, but let us perhaps draw an analogy.
Let’s take Mt Everest for example (actually I am doing so because at least two cultures attribute godhead to it). Now, we see it as a mountain, the highest in the world. Easy huh?
But, the Nepalese call it Sagarmatha, goddess of the sky, and attribute to it dirfferent qualities. The Tibetans, on the other hand, call it Chomolungma, mother of the universe.
We all mean the same mountain. Yet we all mean different things. In the same way, I would suggest that the Judeo-Christian-Islamic trinity do the same with their god
The same way you can have a whole bunch of people arguing about what constitutes “true Star Trek”. Consider this analogy:
[ul]
[li]Jews think “Star Trek” should refer only to the original television series, and the first six movies (which feature the original crew)[/li][li]Christians think “Star Trek” should refer to all movies and tellevision shows with the “Star Trek” name on it, but dismiss the novels, comic books, and animated series as non-canonical.[/li][li]Muslems think “Star Trek” should refer to everything with the word “Star Trek” on it, including the afformentioned comic books and cartoons, even when they contradict each other.[/li][/ul]
One name (“Star Trek,” “God”), three (or more) interpretations. Ta-da!
Me thinks “god” became subverted or misunderstood by people having direct experiences with something they interpreted as an encounter with god and by those with hidden agendas.
IMHO…….the teachings that come from India, Buddha, Christians, Toltecs, Greeks-from societies all over the world-come from the same truth. They talk about redeeming one’s divinity and finding god within you. God is in everyone and is everywhere. Just as happiness is within and not outside you. No one can make you happy. That is something else. You will not find god outside of you. When people say, “Oh, God will save me”, no, God has come to tell you – to tell the God in you – to be aware, to make a choice, to have the courage to work through all your fears and change them.
There’s only one God and he’s in us all, and he has nothing to do with sin or suffering, religion, Israeli’s, Palestianians, or whoever. IMHO, the reason there appears to be differences between the different gods is because I don’t think they are gods. That is, gods in the sense of omnipotent, all know-ing, all-seeing, with human-like reasoning. Those are something entirely different. There are theories on who/what those entities were; which, opens up a whole 'nother can of worms.
And, you’re not the first person to notice that. There was a debate within Judaism a while back (about a thousand years ago) as to what exactly the status of Christians and Muslims were, and whether Christians and Muslims worshiped a false god.
It was pretty clear to the people discussing it that Muslims and Jews worshiped the same God, but it was less clear that Christians and Muslims did.
That’s why, even today, for a devout Jew, going into a Christian church is less ok than going into a Muslim mosque.