Do Christians and muslims worship the same God?

[Umbran]

As far as I can tell, that's an artefact of the development of the language, and not an inability to distinguish the two colours - colour-blindness appears to be no more prevalent in Japan than elsewhere.

It isn't that simple. For example, how many bands of colors are there in a rainbow? The answer to that question depends upon your language. Your eye may not be different from a person who speaks another language, and you both can actually discern about a million colors. But, you will still perceive the rainbow in bands of colors, and what those bands are depends in large part on your native language and its words for color.

So, now we have a problem when all we have is reports of a phenomenon. We know that people with different perspectives will see different things, and report different things. Sometimes, they will be looking at the same reality, and reporting different things. Sometimes they will be seeing different realities or phenomena, and reporting different things. And, we can't tell the two cases apart.

Now, for light, we have the recourse of stepping back and saying that it's all really electromagnetic radiation, and that the structures described in the rainbow are an artifact of language and perception, and have no reality - that is still oversimplified, because such perceptions have cultural impacts, but let's go with it for now. We don't have that for God. Even if we are looking at it all as merely historical mythology, the amount of cultural mixing and change going on leaves us with no clear and objective reality to fall back to like we do with light.

It comes down to a question that gets asked in other forms in other places: What does it mean to have an identity? How much change does a person (or a god) have to undergo before we recognize that we are not really talking about he same person any more?

 

[Ryujin]

Yes. Those are certainly aspects of the Christian God. And you say they all worship the same god. Therefore...

That's what I mean by it being reductionist. You are reducing a possibly complex problem into only one axis of simplified logic.

As Christianity grew it adopted aspects of other religions, I would say in an effort to be more palatable to local populations. That also doesn't change its origins.

 

[delericho]

It comes down to a question that gets asked in other forms in other places: What does it mean to have an identity? How much change does a person (or a god) have to undergo before we recognize that we are not really talking about he same person any more?

Which is exactly the point I've been trying to make:

By the same token, a trinitarian and a unitarian both put the same label on the being that they worship (God). But if the traits that they ascribe to that being are significantly different, there comes a point at which it's hard to say it's the same being.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

By the same token, a trinitarian and a unitarian both put the same label on the being that they worship (God). But if the traits that they ascribe to that being are significantly different, there comes a point at which it's hard to say it's the same being.

As I quipped earlier, that is one thing that means most Christians would be the actual odd man out in this discussion- Islam and Judaism, at least, don't have trinitarianism in their theology.

But even so, one could ascribe traits to a being and simply be incorrect, so still talking about the same being.

If 2/3 of people think Steve is a self-taught computer programmer, and 1/3 think he's Electrical Engineer with an MIT degree, when it is revealed that the latter is the case, everyone could still be talking about the same guy if they're all talking about the guy who lives at the house on 1122 Boogie Woogie Avenue.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It comes down to a question that gets asked in other forms in other places: What does it mean to have an identity? How much change does a person (or a god) have to undergo before we recognize that we are not really talking about he same person any more?

The Ship of Theseus question, in living form.

Well, I still think of my 6mo old self as "me", but I'm clearly different than I was back then. And the "me" that I will be 15 seconds before I die will also be "me"...and who knows what that iteration of myself will be like?

 

[delericho]

But even so, one could ascribe traits to a being and simply be incorrect, so still talking about the same being.

Absolutely. I'm not claiming they're not the same being, just that we can't be certain they are. We could have three blind men describing an elephant, or we could have three blind men describing three elephants.

 

[tomBitonti]

I gotta ask: How does the answer to this question help us? What utility is there in the answer?

Also, don't all the Abrahamic faiths have as a core belief that the is only one God? Then either, the several faiths worship the same God, or, several of the faiths have empty beliefs.

I'm more interested in a slightly different questions: Do the several Abrahamic faiths believe, either as canon, or as a commonly held belief (I'm presenting those as distinct questions) that they believe in the same God?

Thx!
TomB

 

[Morrus]

I gotta ask: How does the answer to this question help us? What utility is there in the answer?

Curiosity and learning does not require utility. It can exist for its own sake. Knowledge has a value all of its own.

 

[tomBitonti]

Curiosity and learning does not require utility. It can exist for its own sake. Knowledge has a value all of its own.

Sure, sure. But in this case, I'm finding the question really really thin. What it's teaching me is that there are a lot of nearby questions which are a lot more interesting.

YMMV, of course.

Thx!.
TomB

 

[Ryujin]

I gotta ask: How does the answer to this question help us? What utility is there in the answer?

Also, don't all the Abrahamic faiths have as a core belief that the is only one God? Then either, the several faiths worship the same God, or, several of the faiths have empty beliefs.

I'm more interested in a slightly different questions: Do the several Abrahamic faiths believe, either as canon, or as a commonly held belief (I'm presenting those as distinct questions) that they believe in the same God?

Thx!
TomB

Knowledge and understand always have the potential for utility, whether it is ever realized or not.

Specifically, in Islam, followers of Judaism and Christianity are referred to as "people of the book"; essentially people who follow the same teachings, but interpret them incorrectly. They are not necessarily denied salvation.