Do Christians and muslims worship the same God?

[tomBitonti]

The approaches seem to be working from a sense of there being a concrete deity, or deities, which can be compared for identity.

Another approach looks at God as an abstract construct which is composed from various followers beliefs. Then individual beliefs will need to be compared. As well, church cannon is perhaps not the best guide, if it doesn't match commonly held beliefs.

Thx!
TomB

 

[Umbran]

Aye. I know we've had some ridiculous arguments on here, but I really didn't expect to have so much dispute over a statement that was little more than: this and this are different!

Because that's not what we are arguing. We are not arguing so much about the differences of blues - we arguing about the *analogy*, which you framed in color terms, so we are trying to keep it in those terms.

 

[Umbran]

What isn't clear is whether the differences matter in this case.

If we take God to be an actual entity and that the descriptions are for the most part accurate, if not complete, then any assertion of which differences matter for telling us whether the Abrahamic religions are actually following the same entity are non-falsifiable. It is not clear whether the differences matter, and it will never be clear.

If we take God to be a construct of human psychology and mythology, then we can quibble over details on that basis.

But, in either case, the texts of Islam admit they are the same entity, and the dogma of the largest single Christian denomination also says they are.

 

[tomBitonti]

Yes, and they're given different names because they're different human experiences. And while a person may not be able to tell the difference for various reasons (low light, a defect in the eye, whatever), when they're measured objectively it will be found that, sure enough, there are differences.

Is "different things are different" really a controversial statement around here?

The quibble was with the analogy, which was poorly chosen: carefully placed, sky blue and midnight blue may be indistinguishable. The problem with using color as the analogy is whether the subject is the color that a physicist would measure (wavelengths) or color as perceived by a person, which is understood differently. Artists will deal more in the second. Having looking into the physics of color, and having done a bit of miniature painting, the physical understanding was less practically useful.

Edit: take a look at the cover image:

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?isbn=0300018460&cm_sp=mbc-_-0300018460-_-all

Thx!
TomB

 

[pickin_grinnin]

All the Abrahamic religions worship the same deity. There has never been any doubt about that.

 

[Umbran]

There has never been any doubt about that.

With respect, that's not true. Early Christianity doubted, and rejected, the idea that the followers of Muhammad were following the same god as they. The current Catholic catechism dates only to 1964, IIRC.

And the Jews will still tell you that the Christian God is a false one, as YHWH is indivisible, not a trinity...

There's been lots of doubt about that.

 

[Riley]

I'm not sure that any two people are worshipping the same god - let alone any two sects or two religious groups.

People seem to vary so widely in their definitions of what their god is, wants, and does - and objective evidence to clarify the matter is desperately lacking.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

With respect, that's not true. Early Christianity doubted, and rejected, the idea that the followers of Muhammad were following the same god as they. The current Catholic catechism dates only to 1964, IIRC.

And the Jews will still tell you that the Christian God is a false one, as YHWH is indivisible, not a trinity...

There's been lots of doubt about that.

You're right, I should have worded that differently.

There has never been any real doubt about it among the vast majority of people who are knowledgeable about the history of religions and theologies. Religious insiders who have vested interests in proving the contrary don't really count because they are not objective.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

I'm not sure that any two people are worshipping the same god - let alone any two sects or two religious groups.

People seem to vary so widely in their definitions of what their god is, wants, and does - and objective evidence to clarify the matter is desperately lacking.

That has more to do with personal interpretation of the deity than historical development of belief in it.

YHVY, God, Allah, etc. all derive in part from the same root deities from earlier pantheonic religions (El and Yahweh). Aspects of them were combined to form a deity in monotheistic Judaism. Christianity and Islam sprang from those same roots, much later on. Just as Zeus and Jupiter are essentially the same deity, so are YHVH, God, and Allah.

 

[Ryujin]

With respect, that's not true. Early Christianity doubted, and rejected, the idea that the followers of Muhammad were following the same god as they. The current Catholic catechism dates only to 1964, IIRC.

And the Jews will still tell you that the Christian God is a false one, as YHWH is indivisible, not a trinity...

There's been lots of doubt about that.

I can deny my parentage. Hell, I'd like to. That doesn't change my source. As I said previously the three fork from the same original stories. They differ in interpretation, not source.