I don't think so.
Posted on 06/28/2005 12:47:49 PM PDT by forty_years
Asked if Muslims worship the same Almighty as Jews and Christians, President Bush replied some months ago, "I believe we worship the same God." The Islamic deity, known as Allah, in other words, is the same Supreme Being to whom Jews and Christians pray.
The president's statement provoked widespread dismay among Evangelicals; one poll found 79% of their leadership disagreeing with this view. Pat Robertson pungently explained why, observing "the entire world is being convulsed by a religious struggle. … whether Hubal, the Moon God of Mecca, known as Allah, is supreme, or whether the Judeo-Christian Jehovah, God of the Bible, is Supreme."
Muslims at times agree that God and Allah are different. Irshad Manji has recounted how her teachers at a madrassah in Canada taught her this. And a Jewish scholar, Jon D. Levenson, finds the claim that Christians and Muslims worship the same God "if not false, then certainly simplistic and one-sided."
This debate plays out at many levels. In the American scouting movement, Muslims promise "I will do my best to do my duty to God"; their British counterparts instead do their "duty to Allah."
This might seem like a minor semantic quibble, but the definition of Allah has profound importance. Consider two alternate ways of translating the opening line of Islam's basic declaration of faith (Arabic: la ilaha illa-la). One reads "I testify that there is no God but Allah," and the other "I testify that there is no deity but God."
The first states that Islam has a distinct Lord, one known as Allah, and implies that Jews and Christians worship a false god. The second states that Allah is the Arabic word for the common monotheistic God and implies a commonality with Jews and Christians.
The first translation is 40 times more common in a Google search than the second. Yet, the latter is accurate. Mr. Bush was right. There are several reasons to use the translation that equates Allah with God:
Scriptural: The Koran itself in several places insists that its God is the same as the God of Judaism and Christianity. The most direct statement is one in which Muslims are admonished to tell Jews and Christians "We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you; our God and your God is One, and to Him we do submit" (E.H. Palmer translation of Sura 29:46) Of course, the verse can also be rendered "our Allah and your Allah is One" (as it is in the notorious Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation)
Historical: Chronologically, Islam followed after Judaism and Christianity, but the Koran claims Islam actually preceded the other monotheisms. In Islamic doctrine (Sura 3:67), Abraham was the first Muslim. Moses and Jesus introduced mistakes into the Word of God; Muhammad brought it down perfectly. Islam views Judaism and Christianity as flawed versions of itself, correct on essentials but wrong in important details. This outlook implies that all three faiths share the God of Abraham.
Linguistic: Just as Dieu and Gott are the French and German words for God, so is Allah the Arabic equivalent. In part, this identity of meaning can be seen from cognates: In Hebrew, the word for God is Elohim, a cognate of Allah. In Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus, God is Allaha. In the Maltese language, which is unique because it is Arabic-based but spoken by a predominantly Catholic people, God is Alla.
Further, most Jews and Christians who speak Arabic routinely use the word Allah to refer to God. (Copts, the Christians of Egypt, do not.) The Old and New Testaments in Arabic use this word. In the Arabic-language Bible, for instance, Jesus is referred to as the son of Allah. Even translations carried out by Christian missionaries, such as the famous one done in 1865 by Cornelius Van Dyke, refer to Allah, as do missionary discussions.
The God=Allah equation means that, however hostile political relations may be, a common "children of Abraham" bond does exist and its exploration can one day provide a basis for interfaith comity. Jewish-Christian dialogue has made great strides and Jewish-Christian-Muslim trialogue could as well.
Before that can happen, however, Muslims must first recognize the validity of alternate approaches to the one God. That means leaving behind the supremacism, extremism, and violence of the current Islamist phase.
http://netwmd.com/articles/article1056.html
Depending on which denomination of Hinduism - some are monotheistic and some are not.
It's all about worshipping make-believe fictional deities anyway. However, I don't believe they are all the same 'character'. Even between the OT and NT the nature of the 'God character' of both changes radically.
Mormons have a 'Jesus' in their stuff, but he's not the same character as he is in the NT. These books are not history or non-fiction.
Yes, well...I just wanted to establish that, before I replied. You note that I call myself "Oberon" here...yet I am most assuredly not the king of the elves. What does that tell you about the validity of naming?
I say again...the moon god of the Q'aba may well answer when his worshipers call the name "Allah"...but that doesn't make him equivalent to JHWH any more than calling me Oberon makes me king of the elves.
I don't expect you to agree; I simply hope that I have communicated effectively, and that you understand my point.
This is a both yes and no question. Allah, apparently is just the title. Obviously Islam has no concept of God revealing His name as in Judaism where He revealed Himself as Yahweh to Moses (a word that pious Jews dare not say because it's too sacred). Jesus being a Jew and who was preaching to Jews didn't have to reveal anything of this matter because it was already known. He did urge his followers to call God--- Abba "Father" but this was to stress a not readily recognized attribute of God...that of a loving father.
What kind of god was Hubal the Moon God of Mecca...I am clueless. It seems as though Allah is some kind of amalgam of Hubal and Jehovah (in His more stern form). Allah seems to have something of a whimsical nature and Muslims are extremely fatalistic. There seems to be nothing of the loving father image that jesus tried to teach or even the "just" God in the Old Testament. Even if you don't believe in Jesus as divine, you have to acknowledge that He was a Jew that was educated in the rabbinical tradiition and that there was a continuum of some kind from Judaism to what developed into Christianity. Muhammad on the other hand was a pagan, a merchant (not even a religious personage in the paganism of Arabia at the time)...and the only contact he had with Jews or Christians was probbly in a mercantile capacity. It appears that he saw that Judaism and Christianity were much more cosmologically developed than the paganism of Mecca. He took was he could and left the rest.
So, to reiterate Allah is a mish-mash God with many of the attributes of Yahweh or the Father (in Christianity) but not quite exactly the same. In a general sense we can say to Muslims that we worship the same God...but the essence of Allah and the essence (ousia in greek) is different upon scrutiny.
If that's the case, then you'd be hard pressed to find any two people in the world who worship the same god...because each worships his own idea of what his god is, and no two are alike. And that would be true even of a pair of Episcopalians sitting next to each other on a pew.
If the deities involved are make-believe and fictional, then the whole question of what "the same god" means becomes kind of meaningless.
Do Catholics, Presbyterians, and Mormons all worship the same God?
It is fairly meaningless. Angels on a pinhead style debate. Everyone's personal idea of what their deity is like is all that counts. It's not like they are thinking about some real being. It's just an idea.
Are you suggesting that because I profess belief in the Trinity that I worship more than one God?
No. But it makes a nice talking point for Muslims who don't know the difference between the real God and a false god.
Granted your initial assumptions, I agree. Of course, as you can probably tell by my other posts on this thread, I don't share your assumptions, and therefore can't agree with your conclusion. =]
Interesting question. I say that "Different book = Different God".
According to that formulation Jews and Christians don't worship the same God.
Christians and Muslims don't worship the same God.
And Christians and Mormons don't worship the same God.
But Catholics and Presbyterians are at least working from the same book; so they worship the same God...... differently.
But what the hell do I know about it (other than having read the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Koran and the Book of Mormon)?
I don't think so.
To me it's like 3 people who think there's a giant pink bunny on the far side of the moon that controls the world.
One guy calls him Stan, and he's a good bunny that's responsible for the good things of the world and if you're a good person, you'll live with him when you die.
Another guy calls him Stan too, but the bunny is fairly cruel and demands you to believe in him, or else you go someplace away from the bunny when you die.
A third guy believes in a pink bunny, but calls him Robert. Robert the bunny will offer you a planet of your own to watch over when you die.
I'm making analogies here of course to world religions.. It's all based on different interpretations of different fairy tales.
Islime bears ZERO (as in "nada," "zip," "zilch," "kein") resemblance to either Judaism or Christianity. "Halal" is a corruption of kosher. Jesus is a mere prophet to them, not the Savior and Son of God....AND ABRAHAM DIDN'T RAPE, PILLAGE, MURDER, COMMIT INCEST, COMMIT CHILD MOLESTATION OR ORDER THOSE WHO CAME AFTER HIM TO KILL THOSE WHO DIDN'T SHARE HIS BELIEFS!
Islime is a fraudulent cult of death made up out of whole cloth by an illiterate camel herder who heard Old Testament stories third or fourth hand, and whose exposure to Christianity came from heretics. Abraham had NOTHING to do with Mohammed's fevered ravings. Judaism is an ethical faith which requires obedience to God's law.....Christianity is a religion which commands it's adherants to love thy neighbor.....ISLAM COMMANDS IT'S FOLLOWERS TO KILL ALL WHO AREN'T MUSLIMES AND ENSLAVE THE SURVIVORS!!!!
See the difference? Allah is no more God than is Jerry Lewis.
Oh...and good day to you, sir...I have to be going offline for a bit.
Which one is supposed to be Christianity?
It doesnt matter, chs68...he doesn't believe in God anyhow.
It doesn't matter, chs68...he doesn't believe in God anyhow.
My first thought was that, while inconceivable, it is analogous to St. Paul coming to Rome and smashing all the gods in the Pantheon and declaring Zeus to be the "one God."
If my analogy is valid, would the "Pauline deity" as decribed be the same as the God of Abraham?
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