georgec said:
Akwat Kbrana said:
That depends on which book you believe.
Islam talks about all of the previous prophets including Jesus, whom it says was not actually the Son of God. Whereas Christianity has the Trinity concept, Islam addresses this and means to restore the emphasis of divinity on God himself.
If someone is a Christian then of course he/she will not agree with this. But to a Muslim or even to a non-believing observer who might read the texts but not form opinions on what is true and not true, the Islamic God is the Christian God.
Of course it does. If you hold to the Qu'ran and the Hadith, you will deny Trinitarianism. If you hold to the New Testament--and your exegetical approach is roughly consistent with that of historic orthodox Christianity--then you will hold to Trinitarianism. That's precisely the point that I was making. For anyone, Muslim or otherwise, to claim that the Islamic God is the Christian God, is both arrogant and fallacious. Religious communities must be allowed to define their own beliefs. Muslims would be highly offended if Christians went around claiming that Allah is a Trinity, so it is similarly out of bounds for Muslims (or anyone else, for that matter) to claim that the Christian conception of Yahweh/Jehovah is not Trinitarian.
By saying that the Quran's presentation of the "One God" being the same for the three monotheistic religions is arrogant and fallacious, aren't you therefore essentially debunking, denying, and defining the beliefs of Islam? Your response seems defensive...
I thought your observation that each respective religion's deity is the same being was apt. All those religions believe there is one deity but have different views about the nature of that deity and our interaction with 'him.' Additionally, good point about the shared history of these religions.
Catholics and Protestants have varying notions about God and our relationship with him, but that doesn't mean they worship different gods, one side just thinks (for the most part) the other is 'doing it wrong.'
It is only by ignoring the shared history of the 3 monotheistic religions and viewing each concept as fiction that one can say they worship different gods. Even if one personally thinks any deity is a fiction, it is arrogant and fallacious to attribute that view to those who believe (which is what Akwat essentially does).
A Muslim does not think a Christian believes in a different god - because there is no different god! And to say that the Christian or Muslim or Jew does not believe in any god (because his conception is fallacious from the point of view of the others) is arrogant and wrong. The only conclusion is that if there is a God, they believe in the same one differently.