I've seen the question tossed around before, and James Taranto says the following, in the context of quoting President Bush:
Last week in Britain, a reporter asked President Bush if "Muslims worship the same Almighty" that he does. Bush replied: "I do say that freedom is the Almighty's gift to every person. I also condition it by saying freedom is not America's gift to the world. It's much greater than that, of course. And I believe we worship the same god." The Washington Post reports that the president's ecumenism prompted a kerfuffle among evangelical Christians. ...Bush is right. Christianity, Islam and Judaism are all monotheistic religions, united in the belief in a single God. (Muslims often call God by the Arab name Allah, but then so do Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews.) The three religions conceive of God differently, and Muslims and Jews do not share the Christian belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ. A Christian may well believe that Islam's conception of God is wrong, but if you believe in only one God, it makes no logical sense to describe a fellow monotheist as worshipping a "different" God.
To an unbeliever, that may be a perfectly satisfactory answer -- since he wouldn't believe in any God, the details are inconsequential. It's true that as a monotheist I believe there is only one God, but it doesn't follow that anyone else who is also a monotheist worships the same God I do; the alternative is that they don't worship God at all, but rather a construct of their own imagination. For example, someone who woships a rock or a tree and claims it is the one and only "god" may also be a monotheist, but the characteristics of their "god" are entirely different from the characteristics of mine; we may both be monotheists, but at least one of us is wrong in believing that our god is the one and only.
Similarly with Muslims and Christians. Both are monotheists, but the two concepts of "god" are so completely divergent that they cannot both be true, and both "gods" cannot exist as conceived. At least one of the religions is wrong (and both think it's the other guys', whereas unbelievers think it's both).
Typically, only unbelievers (and functional unbelievers) are willing to make the claim that Jehovah and Allah are "the same". Why? Because they don't believe in either, and it's convenient and "enlightened" to lump everyone together. Why quibble about differences between two imaginary beings?
More:
In the next day's Best of the Web, Mr. Taranto continues:
A Bush supporter's conception of Bush's "constitutional makeup" is utterly at odds with that of a Bush hater. Not all conceptions about Bush are equally true; Paul Krugman, for example, is totally wrongheaded, while this column generally is the model of verity. But whether Krugman is writing about him or we are, George W. Bush is the same man.By the same token, to say that all monotheistic religions worship the same God is not to say that they are all equally valid. Indeed, since Christianity and Islam make competing claims about the nature of God, it would be logically incoherent to argue that both are true. Yet to say that they worship the same God does not contradict either religion's claim to be the one true faith. As to which religion is true, that is beyond the scope of this column.
Mr. Taranto is still not seeing the big picture, because he isn't recognizing what Christians and Muslims see to be fundamental attributes of their gods.
To carry my rock-god and tree-god example further, if I believe that some specific rock is the only god, and you believe some specific tree is the only god, it's meaningless to say that we both believe in the same "god" just becuase we both believe there's only one. If you're right, then the rock I believe is god is really just a rock and my god doesn't exist; I'm so fundamentally wrong about tree-god's nature that I'm worshipping something entirely different, something that isn't real.
The belief that there is only one god is one fundamental characteristic of that god, but not the only fundamental characteristic.
Update:
The Muslim claim that they worship the "God of Abraham" is fallacious; the origin of the Muslim religion can be seen in its modern symbolism: Allah was originally the fertility-/moon-god of Muhammad's tribe, and Islam carries the crescent moon symbol even still. In my (limited) experience, most Muslims are not aware of this aspect of their history, but it is pretty well supported by official Islamic historical records.
Update 2:
Donald Sensing gives more details, with all of which I concur. ["with all of which I concur"? ick -- Ed.]
For me, the monotheistic Hindu, of course you are worshipping the same God. The problem is that both Christians and Muslims do not correctly conceive of God in his infinite entirety, so they have chosen a certain projection of Him that has limited qualities to make Him easier to understand. The only problem then is that these projections are not always the same :(
Michael, you are forgetting one point about Muslims and Christians. Regardless of the "attributes," both worship the God of Abraham. So do the Jews. In that respect, then, the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim faiths all worship the same God, whether He is called God, Yaweh or Allah.
The differences are in interpretation.
Heather-
- To the christian, Christ Jesus is God (hence the name "christ"ian). In the christian faith, the God of Abraham took the form of a created man so as to accomplish for mankind what they could not do for themselves... remove their iniquity and restore themselves into a holy relationship with God. Muslims deny the deity of Christ, and therefore do not worship the same God as christians.
- Of course, now the question turns to the jews- don't they also deny the deity of Christ? Well, yeah, otherwise they would be christian jews. The jews are simply mistaken in their understanding of God's accomplishment of his prophecy... They believe there is a messiah to come that will redeem and restore His people, they just don't understand Jesus to have been that messiah. They look for the messiah to come, but in rejecting Jesus as the incarnation of the God of Abraham they misunderstand how all of their history has pointed to the coming of God himself to restore all nations from the curse of sin. The result is that they worship an essence of the same God, but incompletely.
- Well, don't the muslims also worship "an essence of the same God"? No, the God of jews and christians has promised from the fall of man to bring restoration to all mankind through a promised messiah. So far as I know, there is no redeemer in islam, only a "prophet". Man is on his own to try to appease allah, and this is done primarily through "jihad". Allah is a god of oppression and murder, the God of the christian is a god of life and liberty.
Ankur-
you are worshipping the same God...Christians and Muslims do not correctly conceive of God in his infinite entirety
- True, we don't percieve the fullness of his infiniteness (is that a word?), but we do understand that He is not self-contradictory. Otherwise, how could we ever truly worship him in our mortal state?
Further contrast-
- allah is a god of retribution and punishment
- Jehovah is a God of forgiveness and mercy
I think what Michael is leaning towards, is that while Christian, Jewish and Muslims' faiths spring from the same source - the God of Abraham - how we/they define "God" differs as the religious details diverge.
Instead of the rock/tree analogy, I see it as this:
Say all the people in a land worship the Sun in the sky - they're heliotheists. They believe the Sun warms them, gives them life, makes crops grow, brings the rain and changes the seasons. All that stuff that makes life possible.
But group A believes the Sun is benevolant - through a series of prophetical and historical records the Sun has made known that it will send a piece of itself to live among them. Group A believes this has happened and the Solar Flare/messenger/ taught them that the Sun's power was inherently the power of peace and goodness for them.
Group B believes in similar writings but is still waiting on their divine "Solar Flare".
Group C, however, believes through their various writings and prophecies that it's up to them alone to prepare themselves and the world to receive the Sun's power and to harness it. There's no "messenger" from the Sun itself, just very revered people who have received messages straight from the Sun itself, and through his writings believe the Sun demands sacrifice and subjugation to its power.
Three Groups - A, B, C - worshipping the same God but interpreting its essence, messages and manifestations in different ways.
And there, I'm sure, are more flavors besides A, B, and C as well.
Does that make sense?
Heather and others: Read up on the history of Islam, and it becomes pretty clear that the bit about Allah being the "God of Abraham" was sorta tacked on in the end. At the beginning, Allah was an instantiation of Muhammad's tribe's moon-god, as evidenced by the crescent moon symbol the Muslims still use.
Barry: Your analogy is similar to Mr. Taranto's, and I disagree with its premise and conclusions. The Christian and Muslim conceptions of God are mutually exclusive, and both cannot exist.
Interesting analogy, but it doesn't address the issue of truth. They cannot all be true, as they are mutually exclusive.
- If A is true, then C cannot be. If the sun of A has indeed revealed itself as a personal, benevolent sun, then that is what it is... It is NOT the impersonal retributive sun of C. Likewise, if the sun of C has revealed itself as such, then the sun of A is a falsehood. Something that is cannot be the same as that which does not exist.
If two different people claim to know a guy named Bill, but argue over whether he's 5'10 or 6 ft. tall, it doesn't follow that they're talking about two separate people just because he can't be both heights at once. It would be more accurate to say that they're talking about the same person, but that one of them is mistaken about some of his attributes.
As for the God of Abraham vs. moon god thing: Michael, you could raise the same problems with the Yahweh worshipped by the Hebrews under the judges, and say he can't be the same God described by Thomas Aquinas because of all his anthropomorphic attributes, his historical ties to the Canaanitic El, etc. None of the monotheistic gods emerged full-grown like Athene from the brow of Zeus.
If identification of Allah as God of Abraham was an afterthought, then most of the Quran was also written as an afterthought. Abraham is not the only interface between Islam and the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Quran refers to a single God who created the first human couple, and sent a long series of prophets called Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Isaiah, etc., culminating in Jesus as the greatest before Muhammad. This makes quite a bit of sense, given the influence of not only the Jewish community at Medina but the associated tradition of Arab monotheism there even before Muhammad.
I forgot to add, the messianic understanding divides Christians and Jews more than it unites them. Christians don't just disagree with Jews over whether Jesus happened to be the Messiah. Their undertanding of what the Messiah, as such, entails is quite divergent from that of Orthodox Judaism. The belief in the simultaneous humanity and divinity of the Messiah (not to mention complications like the Trinity) would make it seem equally doubtful whether Christians and Jews worship the same God.
Kevin: You're factually incorrect on many details, most obvious of which is that Medina, Mecca, and all of Arabia were entirely polytheistic before Muhammad unified the various tribes through warfare and imposed the universal worship of his moon-god.
I think I understand a little bit better now. I was considering that the arabs are considered the "sons of Ishmael" who was a son of Abraham by Sarah's maid, Hagar.
I have always assumed that the Allah the Muslims worship was the same as Abraham's Yahweh. I stand corrected.
Considering God's warning to Abraham about the enmity that would rise up between the sons of Israel and Ishmael, I suspect that there will never be peace in the Middle East.
Well Heather, you're not the only one confused, and I don't mean to imply that there's universal acceptance of my position. However, the history and origin of Islam indicate that at least at the outset the two "gods" were not the same.
Michael--going back to your mention of "jihad"--do you even understand the different levels of jihad? Jihad is, in addition to the rabid slaughter of non-Muslims as you seem to want to phrase it, the individual's inner struggle to submit to God. This is a big oversight on your part. One might well argue that the God of the Hebrew Bible was as violent.
In terms of your reference to the Jews "misunderstanding" what their scriptures have been pointing to (Christ), I say this: the Hebrew Bible is different from the Old Testament. After Christ came along, Christians went back to the HB and REORDERED it in order to fit their notions of who Christ was. Of course the Old Test. points to the coming of Christ--it was the order of the books were rearranged to support Christianity!!
I didn't mention jihad, gaw did, as well as most of the things you're responding to.
That said, I fail to see how reordering the books in the OT significantly affects their meanings. I've seen some Bibles with chronologically ordered books, and other variations by division (minor prophets, major prophets, history, &c.). I don't think anyone claims the book order, chapter divisions, or verse numbers are inspired by God.
Beth-
- I did not describe jihad as the "rabid slaughter of non-Muslims" you refer to, but if the shoe fits...
- Seriously, I did not address the different renderings of jihad intentionally, as either view still addreses the point of my statement. Whether it is the rabid slaughter of infidels, or the inner struggle to attain righteousness, these "struggles" are allah's demands upon humanity. The God of scripture declares these struggles to be useless and unneccessary(sp?). The just shall live by faith, and the Annointed of God shall make an end of sins.
-As for the ordering of the old testament scriptures, it seems to me that the ordering of books make not a lot of difference. The Law is still the Law, and the Prophets are still the Prophets. Whichever way they are read, Christ came to fulfill them.
"with all of which I concur"
The made-up rule against ending a sentence with a preposition is one up with which I cannot put.
Thanks Winston :)
Michael,
I believe you are wrong about the Crescent moon. At least, according to Britannica, the crescent-as-moon was the symbol of Byzantium.
The Ottomans adopted that style after taking Constantinople, but had been using a non-moon-crescent beforehand - a crescent "formed by the base-to-base conjunction of two claws or horns" seen on infantry banners of the 14th century.
The crescent spread as a result of the Ottoman empire, which is why it's on the flags of Islamic countries.
I note this other mention in Britannica: "In adopting the crescent sign, however, about 1250, the Ottoman Turks apparently were reverting to an Assyrian sacred symbol of the 9th century BC and probably of greater antiquity than that." Prior to that, Muslims used simple solid-color banners.
So your assertion that "Allah was an instantiation of Muhammad's tribe's moon-god, as evidenced by the crescent moon symbol the Muslims still use" is not consistent with the facts, because the Koran long predated adoption of the crescent, and Muhammad wouldn't have been adopting a symbol of Assyrian origin, because Assyria was not active in Arabia.
The crescent was earlier a symbol of Astarte, but that deity was worshipped more in Mediterranean coastal areas than Arab areas.
There may be some moon-god mojo involved in the selection of the crescent, but that came long after Muhammad and the Koran.
Jon H: Interesting, I'll have to look into it more.
A little more looking, and I note that Arab states don't use the crescent in their flags, while Turkey does, Turkmenistan does, some North African countries do, Pakistan does, and Brunei does.
That, I think, *might* be consistent with the Arab states being more cognizant of having thrown off the yoke of the Ottoman Turks.
The Arab states tend to have flags without much ornamentation.
One other curious thing.
I found that Byzantium took the crescent symbol that was common in their region, and added a star, for Venus, which they associated with the Virgin Mary.
The Turkish flag still retains that star - though they probably have a different interpretation for it.
Not all Christians accept your definition of Christianity (You have to believe in the Trinity).
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=trinity+debate
The man who invented the Moon God Theory, has been discovered to be a liar, by both Christian sources and Muslim:
Christian Source: http://www.apologeticsindex.org/f12.html
Quote:
"He made false and ignorant accusations, and
tried to justify them by misquoting texts
from the Quran"
Muslim source: http://www.examinethetruth.com/morey_challenge.htm
Quote:
"If Dr. Robert Morey can prove my evidence as
false by showing that his statements against
Islam are true, I will offer him CASH awards
(which is $500.00)"
NA: I don't know enough about it to speak much more on the topic. I've heard from other people that agree with you, and so I'm now skeptical of the moon-god idea.
Bekief in 'God' / the Creator is an itellectual matter.... not as is commonly stated in the West just a matter of 'faith'. There are hundreds of verses in the Qur'an calling out to humanity to use their reason, their intellect, to come to the conclusion with certitude that there is but One God and that He is the Creator of all. He is not born, nor does He give birth. He is eternal and without limits. It is in these attributes of the Creator where the Christian faith and Muslim belief in God diverge.
A Muslim believes that the Quran is the word of Allah revealed to prophet Muhammad through the Angel Gabriel. The Quran was revealed from Allah on various occasions to answer questions, solve problems, settle disputes and to be man's best guide to the truth. >>>>>>>>>
After Christ's death and resurrection, there would never be a need for future revelations and revisions.
Muhammed was deluded by evil demonic posession and that is how Islam was borne.
g'day
out of all the holy texts,wich one is only original till this day QURAN
Islam is peacful
every other so called religon is based on man.
Michael Willams you have put your fAITH in the hand of man not the one and only god,how
Please give me the surnames of the four gosspels that you belive they were spritually guided,like LUKE,PAUL JOHN AND MARK all i want is the surname.
2.where does the bible metion the bible even ONCE.
3.where is the trinity mentioned in the bible so called gods word,did god forget to mention he was three?
4.where does jesus mention he is god or about the trinity?
5.try to find any human christian that knows the bible of by heart just one,you watch these religous shows about christ and they cant let go of the book and their ment to be revrens or preist,they dont know gods word oo.
5.miilions of muslims know the hole Quran of by heart,so if a day comes when every book will be burnt christianty,judasiam and aLL OTHER religous texts will be gone expect THE HOLY QURAN.
6.ALL religon ave the same god,but some go astary.
its like when you y a suite,you halfto do some alterations,just like ALLAH,he is one,does not begot nor begotton he does need any associates to him.
Islam is the fastest growing religon why?
that why the west is in fear
The bible of today was complied 70 80 years later,and kow have of 74 differnt versions its like star wars nevers ends always a new updated version,2004 model then 2005 model then soon george w bush version ha ha a .
HOW CAN PEOPLE FOLLOW A RELIGON WHERE THEIR OWN CARDINALS ARE COMMITTING THE MOST EVIL SIN,PEDOPILER AND THEIR MENT TO BE RELIGOUS.
ALLAH KNOWS BEST
amerislam
thanks for the fact john H....it explained a lot..
i more into looking science fact in koran and bibble....i belive god created this universe....there must be a bit about it in this books aeee..i heard once my friend tell me that there is a fact in koran tell about life start rise from the water...wow.... i dont understand koran becouse it is in arabic..but i do know there is a fact in bibble that US gonna atack iraq someday...(heard it from a priest)
care to talk about it m william..or somebody!
Well,Well.The human race.In a quandary, all because we were given the ability to think on our own.To envision the ability to see outside of ourselves.To perceive that we are not alone,and that there is more than just the good or bad of how we see each other.If we don't self destruct,perhaps we may allow those to come after us a clean and respectable place to live.We are all bound to each other like siamese twins.Who is in control?How do we accept God-if we do not know yet how to accept ourselves and each other?.Help one another instead of yourself ,group,race,nationality.Become acutely aware that we are bound.This may free us to think unfettered, of a creator to whom we may give ourselves freely - with out restraint.