ARE YAHWEH AND ALLAH SAME, HOW DO THEY COMPARE?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Madhukar Kulkarni on January 22, 2012 at 5:10am

the christian and the jewish god NEVER sent mohammed the quran.

This is a very good point to distinguish the two gods to be seperate entities, that is, if they exist at all.

Permalink Reply by Andrew Wiggin on January 22, 2012 at 8:30am

> the christian and the jewish god NEVER sent mohammed the quran.

The Hebrew god of 100 BCE would never have sent Jesus.  The god of Moses, who took His time leading the Egyptian refugees back to Palestine, would never have just accepted the refugees returning from Babylon.  It's like the elephant and the blind men, peoples' ideas shift around.

Somebody on the first page of this talk said, yes they are all the same, because they are all imaginary.  I'll go there.

But if you posit the existence of these gods, then you have two choices:

1.  Theological: they are the same, but people approach them differently in different times and places.

2.  Behavioral: because people approach them differently in different times and places, they must be different.

The first seems absurd on-face because the followers of the different religions obviously regard themselves as distinct groups.  But the second becomes absurd when you consider my examples above, that the conflicts of Catholics v Protestant, English v Spanish, Baptist v Anabaptist, Sunni v Shiite, and so on, all imply that each group worships a different god.  That is obviously false, as Orion proved above.

The major monotheistic religions all claim to be the true and pure form of one idea, which was invented in Iraq after the last Ice Age - that there is One Single All Powerful Creator God, and the smart money is on that guy's followers.  Don't waste your time with lesser deities.

I'm going with same God, different people.

Permalink Reply by Susan Stanko on January 22, 2012 at 10:16am

I almost forgot, Jerusalem wouldn't be such a big deal if three religions weren't fighting for access.

Permalink Reply by Madhukar Kulkarni on January 23, 2012 at 1:33am

Orion

Your stance presupposes that they are the same to begin with.

If you look carefully, you will notice that I have not taken any stance. There are some sentences in the Quran that suggest that there may be some commanality, so I have merely asked some obvious questions. Besides, this is not a new subject and some experts also have given thought to such questions, so I thought of refering these questions to atheists here. Most seem to have understood this.

 

Permalink Reply by Andrew Wiggin on January 23, 2012 at 8:08am

Orion, You win :)

Permalink Reply by Madhukar Kulkarni on January 22, 2012 at 10:39am

God and Allah,

Is Allah more powerful?

Bible

John 3: 16: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…

Quran

Surah 32: 13:If we so willed, we could have brought every soul its true guidance, but the word from me will come true: ‘I will fill Hell with demons and men all together.’

Permalink Reply by Andrew Wiggin on January 22, 2012 at 11:13am

It's tough to know how to answer that.  Allah certainly has the more militant voice.  But despite that, Christianity is still ahead on numbers, and Western countries still run the show.  Neither claims many big miracles in the last 2k years; all the flooding and laying-to-waste happened in the old time.  Muslims do seem to have the edge in fervency, but Christians always come through in a pinch.  The chessgame is still in progress.

Permalink Reply by Jason Fleming on January 22, 2012 at 11:29am

I say we knock the board over and play a different game.

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on January 22, 2012 at 12:02pm

That's a definite suggestion.  The whole idea is a bit of a cluster-fuck.  Do the Catholics and the Southern Baptists worship the same god?  One god accepts you into his happy, shiny place if you accept him as your personal savior.  The other demands works.  In my mind, they worship different gods, because the basic character of their gods is different.

Which starts us down that road.  Do the Southern Baptists, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Freewill Southern Baptists worship the same god? ... because the behavior and personality they ascribe to him varies wildly.

Certainly, Allah and Yahweh started as the same god, but the two different groups morphed him significantly.  I'd argue that he's still the same god, more or less, but there are differences.  And the line you draw is going to be completely arbitrary, if you're inclined to theological chalk marks.

What about the Mormons?  They still worship Jesus.

Permalink Reply by Andrew Wiggin on January 22, 2012 at 1:21pm

There can be only One!

Permalink Reply by Jason Fleming on January 22, 2012 at 1:42pm

Heresy! Are you claiming that Christopher Lambert and Adrian Paul are really the same Duncan McLeod?

Permalink Reply by Andrew Wiggin on January 22, 2012 at 2:09pm

That is the only possible conclusion based on evidence.  We must be true to our reason.

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