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Religion — Page 6

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It's natural to see some common threads in various religions. I agree that some of the claims in the links I provided were erroneous.

But, if we think about the monotheistic religions as essentially the same lineage of teaching at different times (or in different regions), it wouldn't be a stretch to extend the familiarity to religions preceding monotheism.

Maybe God has been fine tuning how he reveals himself to people over the years (not sarcastic, honestly).

 

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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georgec said:


Maybe God has been fine tuning how he reveals himself to people over the years (not sarcastic, honestly).


I think the Baha'is subscribe to the notion.

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A slob like one of us?

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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 (Edited)

georgec said:

I agree that some of the claims in the links I provided were erroneous.

I just want to make it absolutely clear, MOST of those claims in your first link  were not erroneous; they were flat out fabrications.

 

 

But, if we think about the monotheistic religions as essentially the same lineage of teaching at different times (or in different regions)...

Uhh... Do we think that?

 

Maybe God has been fine tuning how he reveals himself to people over the years.

In which case he probably needs to drop the claims of all seeing, all knowing, and perfection in the next iteration, because if he is responsible for all of them, he's really been sucking it up big time for quite sometime now. Something that is all seeing and all knowing doesn't need to fine tune.

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CP3S said:

georgec said:

I agree that some of the claims in the links I provided were erroneous.

I just want to make it absolutely clear, MOST of those claims in your first link  were not erroneous; they were flat out fabrications.

 

 

But, if we think about the monotheistic religions as essentially the same lineage of teaching at different times (or in different regions)...

Uhh... Do we think that?

 

Maybe God has been fine tuning how he reveals himself to people over the years.

In which case he probably needs to drop the claims of all seeing, all knowing, and perfection in the next iteration, because if he is responsible for all of them, he's really been sucking it up big time for quite sometime now. Something that is all seeing and all knowing doesn't need to fine tune.

The Bible is an extension of the Old Testament, and the Quran discusses Judiasm and Christianity quite extensively because the God of Islam is the same as the Christian/Jewish God. I'd say there's a lineage there.

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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I'll leave the issue of the relationship between Islam's and Judaism's conception of God to someone else. All I want to stress is that Allah is quite distinct from the Christian God. Islam has no place for Trinitarianism, which is central to historic orthodox Christianity. Islam denies the Fatherhood of the Father, the Deity of the Son, and the person of the Holy Spirit. Thus, Allah cannot be reasonably equated with Christianity's conception of Yahweh/Jehovah.

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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.

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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There is a lineage there though, one that can be traced back to the Canaanite Pantheon where Yahweh is just one of many Gods.

There is also a lineage to Satanism I doubt if many Jews, Christians or Muslims would associate their religion with Satanism.

Marcion Of Sinope thought Yahweh was just a Demiurge and not the true God of peace, love and knowledge but saw himself as a Christian.

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 (Edited)

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.

Marcion Of Sinope thought Yahweh was just a Demiurge and not the true God of peace, love and knowledge but saw himself as a Christian.

True, he did see himself as a Christian, but the community of faith itself disowned him. Again, you must allow communities of faith to define their own religious beliefs. Marcion was ruled a heretic and excommunicated because his beliefs were more in line with Gnostic philosophy than with Christian doctrine. That Marcion's allegiance to Christianity is questionable is also evidenced by the fact that he had to establish his own stripped-down New Testament canon in order to retain his peculiar viewpoint.

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That's the point I was making, these different iterations have points of origin and points of divergence.

If Marcion had managed to establish a firm enough footing and wasn't exterminated by warriors of the king of peace like the other Gnostic Christian sects there may well have been another world religion with an entirely different complexion but also sharing aspects of the same lineage.

There is a degree of natural selection in the development of God.

Ideas mutate and if the adaptation fits the environment it has a chance to survive.

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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...

Nobody said the Christian God isn't Trinitarian or that Christians aren't allowed to believe that. The Islamic God, as portrayed through the Quran, is the Judeo Christian God. The Quran is meant to be God's final revelation to people. Is it? I don't know. But that's what it's meant to be.

If memory serves me correctly the angel Gabriel is the one who appears to Muhammad and has him recite passages from the Quran. The Quran also mentions Lucifer and all of the preceding prophets (from Abraham to Moses to Jesus) multiple times.

By explaining that Jesus wasn't actually the son of God, The Quran surely conflicts with Christianity. But again, like Christianity like a continuation of Judiasm, Islam (via The Quran's text) is a continuation of both of those religions. For example, The Quran says something like God wouldn't allow his son to be sacrificed (I think it says Judas was crucified in Jesus' place). Again, if you prescribe to Christian beliefs this is offensive. However, The Bible has at least two different mentions of Judas' death (hung himself vs. his bowels bursting out in a field of blood).

Well, what's true? Which is the correct account of what happened? That depends on what you believe.

The point is you can't say that explaining what a holy book says is arrogant and fallacious. That in itself IS fallacious. There is a difference between saying, "This book says that," and saying, "This is true, that is not."

By saying that Muslims can't believe that God is one and there is no Trinity, you're saying Muslims can't believe in Islam. By saying Christians can't believe that Allah is not their God who exists in a Holy Trinity, you're saying Christians can't hold to their beliefs.

These disagreements inherently exist. While you might say that these disagreements refute the claim that the one God is the same among the three monotheistic faiths, that claim is part of the Islamic belief, which again Muslims believe via The Quran is an extension of the preceding faiths.

My explanation that the Islamic God and Judeo-Christian God is not me saying the Christian Trinity is not true. It means that The Quran, as it says within, is presented as a continuation of those religions. Is it? I don't know. But I'm merely illustrating the progression of monotheistic belief from Judaism --> Christianity --> Islam, if one interprets each successive text as a continuation of the previous one, as each claims.

The Bible continues The Old Testament and even disagrees with some Old Testament laws. Hell, one of the main reasons Jewish people don't believe Jesus was the Messiah is because Christianity developed the idea of a Trinity, whereas The Old Testament says the Lord is one. The Quran essentially revisits this notion.

What you find fallacious depends on what view to which you prescribe. But if you do not have stakes in any of these three religions, you see the similarities and differences among them, acknowledging where the disagreements are and how the overall arc of belief in one God has evolved.

The overarching theme is that The Quran means to revisit The Old Testament and correct what it says are some of the misguided beliefs in Christianity. Again, true? I don't know. But that's what The Quran says, and it's said to be the word of God himself. Muslims will say it's true, Christians will say it's not.

I read a book a long time ago called "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong. It's quite a good, balanced detailing of the history of religion and development of the three primary monotheistic beliefs.

 

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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 (Edited)

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.

The blue elephant in the room.

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Mrebo said:

A Muslim does not think a Christian believes in a different god...

Two Muslims do not think forcedly the same... As for two Christians.

 

M' enfin.

 

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XyZ said:

Mrebo said:

A Muslim does not think a Christian believes in a different god...

Two Muslims do not think forcedly the same... As for two Christians.

 

M' enfin.

Which other god might a Muslim think a Christian believe in if the Muslim doesn't believe there is another god?

The blue elephant in the room.

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... A pagan one. A sacrilege one, maybe. It happens a lot (unfortunately).

As long as hate and ignorance (including politics) still remain in the heart of men, their beliefs mostly distorted will blind them rather than enlight them and will stay as they are *ie* a cultural background, and their faith diluted in never ending discussions.

= I agree with you 100%. But that's not the obvious Ric Olie will observe every day.

 

 

 

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XyZ said:

... A pagan one. A sacrilege one, maybe. It happens a lot (unfortunately).

As long as hate and ignorance (including politics) still remain in the heart of men, their beliefs mostly distorted will blind them rather than enlight them and will stay as they are *ie* a cultural background, and their faith diluted in never ending discussions.

= I agree with you 100%. But that's not the obvious Ric Olie will observe every day.

 

 

True.

The blue elephant in the room.

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Georgec: I think you're missing my point. I don't deny that Islam claims to be the continuation (actually, the "abrogation") of Christianity, nor that Christianity claims to be the continuation (actually, the "fulfillment") of Judaism. My point is simply that from the perspective of a study of comparative religions, each of the three communities of faith ascribe to God characteristics that are mutually exclusive of the other two ascriptions. Therefore, to claim that the Muslim's God and the Christian's God are the same, is really unacceptable to both faiths--assuming we allow each faith community to set its own terms. So if the Christian God is described as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, equal in essence yet distinct in person, that definition will fall short of a Muslim's definition of God. And conversely, if the Islamic God is defined as a singular essence and a singular person, and nuanced in such a way as to explicitly deny divine status to Jesus, then that definition will fall far short of a Christian's definition of God.

The differences are therefore irreconcilable, and my comment about arrogance and fallaciousness was directed against those who would claim that they (the differences) are not.

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Akwat, then what do we say about the different views of Catholics, Baptists, and Mormons? To put it roughly, Catholics believe priests are a necessary conduit to God, that saints may be prayed to, that relics and idols have some importance, etc. That isn't reconcilable with the protestant view of God.

There is no denying the major conceptual differences between the monotheistic religions but despite the divergences, they do have a common history. At what point do Orthodox and Reformed Jews believe in different gods? At what point to Catholics and evangelicals? Sunnis and Shi'ites?

The blue elephant in the room.

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I explained in my post that Islam is defined in the Quran as the very continuation of teachings in Judaism and Christianity. Loosely summarized, the Quran says that Christians mistook Jesus to be divine.

The Quran does not say, "Everything before this is crap. Here's the truth." It says, "We continue the teachings of the previous faiths, but here are a few corrections to what they believe." Again, very loose generalization intended to give the big picture that Islam, as defined in Islam, is a continuation of Judaism and Christianity. It doesn't adopt everything 100% from those religions, but it is a continuation.

Thus, to say that the Judeo-Christian God is not the God of Islam is actually in opposition to the central teaching of Islam.

Whether the differences are irreconcilable or not would depend on the point of view. To Christians they are irreconcilable because the Quran disagrees with what Christianity says is the alpha and the omega. However, to Muslims much of Christianity (sans the Trinity) is an accepted and necessary precursor to the teachings of Islam.

“Grow up. These are my Disney's movies, not yours.”

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Frankly, I tend to think the farther away two takes of the same god are, the less they are "takes" than actual seperate personages.

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 (Edited)

Bingowings said:

Maybe God is evolving.

 So maybe we are part of its Evolution. ;)

... And "maybe" it just depends on Our Will...

 

So maybe rather than begining here...

 

 

... It should beging with this:

...

If you could join both approaches I'd say you're winner. Still, better begin where you are now, with what you have. The PRESENT and your PRESENCE is what makes you the closest to what you really are (... I'm not saying you're God here).

So TV's Frink, what if God was all of us, making each one of us a potential part of it, and in such perspective, one part doesn't worth the whole but rather sums it up. Don't we say Man is God's reflection ?

... But Man benefits of Free Will, so as I said already maybe it just depends on it.