Warning: The following content is WAY off-topic, but for those of you who know me, I rarely talk about Perl anyway. ;) Rest assured that I continue to appreciate and work with Perl, though.
At Sunday School a few days ago, we talked about other religions (for the record, I am a Protestant Christian), mostly Islam and how each religion was trying to convert outsiders into their own fold.
The bigger question that I find myself asking is "Why is one better (or more right) than the other?" I brought up the point that we mostly follow what we believed when we were children, meaning our parents beliefs were our beliefs and someone in class pointed out that it's our own experiences that lead us to our own faith and what we believe as well.
So now I look at my life and it's very easy to see how well that God has blessed me and while I haven't had a divine intervention, I do recall this memory that has stuck with me and further leads me to Believe:
I was pretty young ... maybe 12? I was riding my bike to a friend's house (I remember his first name was Rocky) and crossing a major street. I thought I looked both ways and was looking to my right when I started pedalling and then WHAM! I was thrown to the side of the street - a car had hit the front of the bike, causing it to fly back & me with it.
I wasn't hurt at all and my bike wasn't even hurt, either. I was really shaken by the experience and I remember all that I was thinking about at the time was 'Please don't let my Mom find out - she won't let me ride to my friend's house anymore and they will make fun of me'.
A slight change in some of those variables (speed and time, mostly) and I might not have survived or have been seriously maimed. I believe that God's hand stayed a more serious result and it's that experience that solidifies my beliefs in God, Jesus and all things Christian.
Jason
Re:a couple of points
Purdy on 2002-07-23T15:47:53
Answering your post (without digesting the rest yet), as I understand Islam and Christianity, they worship two different Gods. In Christianity, God is worshipped as a Trinity, which is a stark contrast to Islam, where the Qur'an specifically states that God had no son.I agree with your statement that my beliefs would be different under different circumstances, but I find it hard to believe that if God were Islam, he would have cared about someone that didn't believe in Him enough to bless his life.
Jason
(If you want to know what's my personal point of view, I'm a complete atheist with a very strong interest in anthropology and history of religions.)
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jdporter on 2002-07-23T14:48:34
the other religions have the same God [as Islam]...
I have heard this argument before. And, interestingly, it's usually atheists who make it.
Well, it's bogus. I'm sure that from an atheist's point of view, a logical identity relation exists between all religions that have the quality "Num_Gods==1". But that's silly. If anything, an atheist should be more inclined to distinguish between various purported all-being entities, since they're all fictitious!
In any case, it is fallacious to draw an identity between Allah and the Christian god, for the simple reason that they have different, incompatible, characteristics. I.e. "The God" cannot be described by both theologies. At most one is accurate; the others (and possibly all) are false.
And taking a more social angle, if you were to poll all the Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and ask them if they share the same god, you'd likely get a strong concensus that they do not. And so who are you to say, as a non-believer in any of these religions, that all these adherents are wrong?
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TeeJay on 2002-07-23T15:22:50
The whole idea of incompatible gods is ridiculous. How can you say 'my god is true and yours is false'. The problem with this is that man is faliable and therefore all religions are flawed by their intepretation by man.
The other problem with this attitude is that different cultures have the same view of say 'the sun' and use different words for it. For example God being referred to as Allah or JHVH is a language rather than religious issue.
The characteristics of both God and the sun are also different according to your culture and location. In the southern hemisphere the sun is to the north, and in the desert the sun is harsh and unforgiving - rather different to how the sun is characterised in say europe or canada. The same applies to any deitie - it will look different according to culture, perspective and location.
If you were to poll Muslims they would claim to share the same god because they said Jesus was his prophet. Christians share the jewish God because the whole old testement of the bible is based on jewish beliefs and a jewish god.
You make the mistake that interpretations of God are mutually exclusive - you should take a leaf from the Hindu books - in particular the blind men trying to describe an elephant - all give incompatible and and different characteristics but its the same elephant.Re:bless $_, 'UNIVERSAL' foreach @religions
jdporter on 2002-07-23T18:32:38
How can you say 'my god is true and yours is false'.
That boils down to religious belief. But that's not the issue here.
God being referred to as Allah or JHVH is a language rather than religious issue.
Of course; that's also not what's under discussion here.
God and the sun are also different according to your culture and location.
You miss the point.
According to "my" world view, the Earth is flat, and if you sail too far, you'll fall off the edge.
According to "your" world view, the surface of the Earth is actually the inside surface of a hollow sphere.
Two different -- incompatible -- descriptions of what should be the same object.
Which one is right? They can't both be right, and they may both be wrong. In any case, "my" Earth and "your" Earth are not the same Earth.
You make the mistake that interpretations of God are mutually exclusive
No, because I am not talking about interpretations, I'm talking about descriptions, or characteristics.
...all give incompatible and and different characteristics but its the same elephant.
No, that's false -- and therefore your analogy doesn't work -- because the descriptions given by the blind men are not incompatible. They may all be combined to form a (part of a) picture of the whole. Notice, none of the blind men said "the animal has soft, fine fur, cloven hoofs, and a small, delicate nose.".
Another example. You and I discover that we both know someone named Larry Wall. The Larry Wall I met is 6' 1" tall, has glasses and a moustache. The Larry Wall you met is 5' 9" tall, has red hair and a goatee. Same guy? I think not.
The only thing that's different in the case of God is that, unlike Larry Walls, There Can Be Only One. (Hmm. Highlander Gods.) But that just means that one (at most) of the Gods is real, and the others fictitious. It does NOT mean that they're all the Same God!
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pdcawley on 2002-07-24T08:14:06
Actually, I think the analogy with the blind men and the elephant is bang on. At least for the people of the Book. Consider the history of the three religions (ignoring for the a moment the Shia/Sunni and Protestant/Catholic/Orthodox schisms).
In each of those three religions God is revealed through the teachings of a prophet (or prophets).
Moses comes down from the mountain with his tablets of stone and does the whole "The Lord thy God is a jealous bastard, do what he says or get smited, for ye are his chosen people!" Which is probably why you don't meet many (any?) Jewish evangelists.
Then, a few hundred years later, up jumps Jesus and tells the world that Moses was right about God, up to a point, but actually we are all the sons and the daughters of God and if we would just be nice to each other, pay our taxes and follow Jesus' teachings then we'd be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven where everything would be lovely and shiny and everyone would be all smiley and happy, all the time. However, you were only going to get salvation if you came to God through the teachings of Jesus. (Hence the evangelism, after all damnation is pretty horrible so get out and convert everyone else, you've got to save 'em from hell...)
600 or so years later, Mohammed comes out of the wilderness to tell everyone that, actually, Jesus wasn't entirely right either, God was nobody's father, God was like (insert patronizing description of Islamic belief here, I'm not entirely up on the doctrines of Islam what with being brought up in Britain which is still vaguely Christian agnostic. Imagine I was as rude about Mohammed as I was about Jesus and Moses.)
Note that each of these prophets claims to be revealing the word of the same God. Each venerates the words and teachings of their predecessors while altering their teachings in more or less subtle ways. It seems to me that you can claim that one or more of them is wrong about God, but I don't see how you can claim that Mohammed is talking about a different God to the one that Jesus and Moses talked about. After all, it appears that that's what Mohammed himself believed.
Of course, that doesn't mean that these differences in doctrine haven't been used as excuses for everyone to kill each other in ludicrous numbers, nor that they won't be used that way again (hell, they are being used that way).
Personally, I believe that there is no God. There's no heaven. The time we have on Earth is all we get; death is the end. So it really pisses me off to see idiots who believe in God, motherhood, apple pie and suicide bombing (delete whichever is inapplicable) killing each other and innocent bystanders over a disagreement about who was right about a non existent god. When three score years and ten is all you get, cutting some poor bastard's life short at 15 is just obscene.
I'd better stop now or this will really turn into a rant against the dying of the light.Re:bless $_, 'UNIVERSAL' foreach @religions
TeeJay on 2002-07-24T13:03:24
I think one of the biggest problems is that the words of Mohammed, Jesus and Moses are unreadable by most of the people posting here given that if you are very educated you will have read all three faiths religious texts only in translated form.
For example if English is your native language then all the scriptures referred to would have to be transposed from one alphabet to another and then translated. The King James Bible - and worse still the Good News Bible are chinese whispers of the original gospels.
The arguments that Jewish, Muslim and Christian Gods are different are directly contradict the teachings of those religions. Jesus and Mohammed both claim to have spoken to the previous faiths god.
Unless you are very well versed in Aramaic, Greek, Ancient Hebrew and Ancient Arabic then you are not in a position to argue over such petty details.
As I have said before there are bigger differences between schools of thought in Hindu and Buddhist faiths than between these three religions.
You also have to bear in mind that each scripture was tailored for each race seperated by hundreds of years and different cultures and customs and heritage, and that there will be differences according to their needs. If you don't understand this concept then you should study the sufi.
Most importantly all these scriptures remain 'the word of god' filtered through several peoples memories and then translated - much of the gospels weren't written until decades after Christ taught, and each of the authors including the people that Mohammed dictated to were flawed human beings.
Bearing this in mind you have to put aside symantics and small philosophical differences and see that they all refer to the same god but from different perspectives and with different interpretations and in different languages and probably to meet different needs.Re:bless $_, 'UNIVERSAL' foreach @religions
jdporter on 2002-07-24T15:42:42
Unless you are very well versed in Aramaic, Greek, Ancient Hebrew and Ancient Arabic then you are not in a position to argue over such petty details.
That brings to the question of what constitutes a religion. One could argue that the true religion (e.g. "true Christianity", "true Islam", etc.) are inscribed in books, and there they sit, available for anyone to learn and accept. Or, one could argue that a religion is the existing, operative, body of belief in a person, or group of people. Given that the latter is a more practical definition, "you" are in a position to argue of "such petty details" if "you" have a familiarity with these religions as believed and practiced.
...there will be differences according to their needs.
Right. That brings us back to the original point of this thread -- What makes one religion "better" than another? My response was that one "works" better than another, depending on cultural context.
each of the authors including the people that Mohammed dictated to were flawed human beings.
And yet, a central tenet of Islam is that the word, as written down, is a perfect rendition of what Allah spoke to Muhammad. Like J. Smith and his magical spectacles, Muhammad was granted a special, temporary, mystical dispensation - the power to remember the exact words of Allah long enough to dictate them to the scribes.
Of course, some Christians have a similar view of the Bible...
...they all refer to the same god but from different perspectives
At the risk of sounding like a dead drum, I must reiterate that this conclusion is unjustified. It would require that the deity have multiple, incompatible, characteristics. Perhaps we could admit this in a human, but we're talking about perfect, infinite characteristics of a (supposedly) infinite, perfect being.
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TeeJay on 2002-07-24T20:21:27
But the old gem of 'can god create a boulder so heavy he himself cannot lift it' gives a similar puzzle to God having incompatible characteristics. If god can create something that he then cannot lift, desteroy, etc then what is stopping him from having characteristics that would not be possible in a finite creature but are possible in an infinite omnipotent deity?
Whats more the idea of a Jealous and wrathful god is contradictory to a God of mercy and love, yet Islam, Judaism/Zionism and Christianity all share a god that claims to hold these mutually exclusive virtues and vices.
Surely the same idea that God, Jesus and the holy spirit are one but different can apply to Allah, Jehovah and the god of christ.
Hindus are capable of recognising multiple gods being emanation or part of but different to ( acintya beda beda tattva ) the one 'source'.Re:bless $_, 'UNIVERSAL' foreach @religions
jdporter on 2002-07-25T18:48:25
can god create a boulder so heavy he himself cannot lift it
Well, from my personal point of view, that isn't a conundrum, but rather, has a very simple answer: No. Of course, it depends on what one thinks God is; but from my point of view, it is not accurate to say that there is nothing God can't do. God himself (in some revelations, at least) says as much. In particular, God can not do anything which is untrue to his nature. God cannot feel temptation. But that's just my opinion.
the same idea that God, Jesus and the holy spirit are one but different
Not familiar with that idea.
Basically it boils down to this one critical question:
Is it possible for the various descriptions, or characters, to be part of the same being, or not?
This is what makes the "different gods" question different from the "blind men and the elephant" story.
I for one don't see how the three religions' characterizations of God can be reconciled so as to allow one being to have all of them. It's like saying "He is perfect; and He is not perfect" or "He is pure, and He is impure" or "He forbids wickedness, and He allows wickedness". They can not be simultaneously true, even in an infinite, omnipotent being.
But maybe that's just my finite human logic restraining my imagination.
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jdporter on 2002-07-24T15:17:54
I think the analogy with the blind men and the elephant is bang on.
I don't see how it can be. It boils down to this: the perspectives given by the blind men are not contradictory. Put together, they form a picture of the whole beast (or at least a part of the beast). That picture is consistent -- an animal with a head, a tail, four legs, etc. This does not work for the various religions' perspectives of the deity.
Consider the history of the three religions...
With all due respect, the histories are irrelevant. In some/most/all/? cases, the historical connection was an ex post facto grab for legitimacy, or at least relevance.
The fact that Muhammad claimed that Allah is none other than the God of Abraham, is, unfortunately, insufficient to establish his identity as such.
Look at it this way: the prophecies of the Old Testament are incompatible with the word delivered by Muhammad. Both religions depend upon the inerrancy of prophecy; yet if the two bodies of prophecy are to be reconciled, the integrity of prophecy itself is destroyed, to both religions' detriment. In short, the god who spoke through the OT prophets can not be the same god who spoke through Muhammad.
The situation with Christianity vs. Judaism is not quite so stark, I'll admit.
...while altering their teachings in more or less subtle ways.
I'd say in entirely unsubtle ways.
After all, it appears that that's what Mohammed himself believed.
Strange, isn't it? To believe, and teach, such a thing that clearly (to anyone with a lick of sense) can not possibly be. Yet, that's what religion is all about, eh?
I believe that there is no God.
As I said before, I think it's interesting -- significant, even -- that the only people who try to argue that all monotheistic deities must of necessity be the same god are atheists.
From the perspective of a believer, all other religions' gods (whether nor not monotheistic) are false, fictitious, and "different", similarities and historical connections not withstanding.Re:bless $_, 'UNIVERSAL' foreach @religions
rafael on 2002-07-23T16:11:12
I don't know a religion where Num_Gods != 1. All religions present a first cause to all effects; this cause is essentially indivisible. For so-called polytheisms, there's often the "god behind the gods" (the "unknown god" of one of the Epistles -- perhaps II Corinthians -- I'll have to look this up).I'm sure that from an atheist's point of view, a logical identity relation exists between all religions that have the quality "Num_Gods==1".For incompatible characteristics of gods in different religions, I see that TeeJay already quoted the relevant excerpt of the Upanishads. If you read carefully the Bible you'll find similar ideas. (The book of Job or the Qohelet come to mind.)
And as a post-scriptum : as an atheist I don't deny that religious experiences are valuable. As I mentioned before I'm interested in history of religions and in mythologies. (That's also why I don't like the Silmarillion that much : faked mythology without religious content.) As far as I can tell, the only difference between an atheist and someone who has a religion (or who is simply an agnostic) is that the atheist supposes that the source of the human genius is somewhere in the very human beings, not in another sacred space or time. But this is also a belief. Call it "faith in humanity". And sometimes I feel blessed too. (My wife, who is catholic, says that our kids are truly gifts from God. Honestly I have to agree, even if I prefer to replace God by Chance.) (I'm sorry if I did hurt you, this wasn't on purpose.)
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jdporter on 2002-07-23T18:53:16
I don't know a religion where Num_Gods != 1.
Actually, in human history monotheism is a late development. And certainly many polytheistic religions survive.
An argument could also be made that the nonexistence of God is a religious belief (like your "faith in humanity") no differently than other religions, and that therefore religions in which Num_Gods==0 also exist.
For so-called polytheisms, there's often the "god behind the gods"
Even granted your "often", it is not always, and that leaves true polytheistic religions. And taking Hinduism's Brahma as a case in point of your argument, it is a very late development, and surely one which is embraced by but a fraction of Hindus.
(the "unknown god" of one of the Epistles
While Paul makes great rhetorical use of the "unknown god", it is an unjustified stretch to say that the Greeks who erected the monument "to an uknown god" considered that god to be an uber-god, the omnipotent creator/sustainer/destroyer/redeemer/etc. There is no evidence (that I'm aware of) that the ancient Greeks ever believed there to be such a god. Such a concept was completely contrary to their polytheistic belief system.
If you read carefully the Bible you'll find similar ideas.
I do read carefully the Bible, and I find the same theme throughout: that God is a jealous god, and Thou shalt have no other gods before me, and Beware the teachers of false gospels. I do not see where Jehovah desired his people to identify him with Baal or any other god. Quite the opposite!
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vsergu on 2002-07-23T20:12:14
In any case, it is fallacious to draw an identity between Allah and the Christian god, for the simple reason that they have different, incompatible, characteristics.
By the same, argument, it seems to be incorrect to refer to the Christian god then. Some people think that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (the People of the Book) share a god because of the shared ancestry of the religions. But if you reject that idea, should you not also reject the idea that all Christians share a god because their religions share roots? Perhaps the god of Jerry Falwell is more like the god of Osama bin Laden than it is like the god of some other Christians.
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Purdy on 2002-07-23T20:47:31
Hmm... maybe we need to:
unshift @NAMES_THAT_KILL_THREADS, 'Osama bin Laden';Anyone who thinks that Christianity & Islam share the same God is mistaken, as previously stated. From the Qur'an:
I'm not as knowledgable about Judaism (except that they don't accept Jesus as the Son of God, which probably means that they don't accept God as a Trinity, which would also mean that their God != the Christian god)."They do blaspheme who say Allah is one of three in a Trinity, for there is no god except One Alah". Surah 5:73Now all (true) Christians do believe in the same God, which is the Trinity. That's just the definition of what it means to be Christian.
Jason
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vsergu on 2002-07-24T01:06:26
Okay, bringing up ObL was unnecessarily provocative.
I'm still not sure that everyone who believes in the Trinity believes in the same god. Is that really the only significant characteristic of God? Other differences in one's view of God don't matter, as long as trinitarianism is there?Re:bless $_, 'UNIVERSAL' foreach @religions
Purdy on 2002-07-24T20:49:20
Well, specifically the Trinity of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit/Ghost - as long as someone else believes in that Trinity, they share the same God as I, as described by the Bible.There are other characteristics of God (as jdporter points out below) that some 'sects' of Christianity focus (or distort, imo) on more than others.
Jason
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jdporter on 2002-07-23T20:52:43
In principle, yes, I would say that is the case.
In particular, some "Christian" sects (which I'd rather not name here) contend that, for example, Christ has already Come Again, and is, as we speak, Reigning Over the Earth. Others say that Jesus of Nazareth was not divine, or was not born of a virgin, or did not rise from the dead. Some Christian sects hold that God is not triune. Some hold that all of humanity shall be saved, sooner or later, regardless of anything (including whether or not they Take Jesus as their Lord and Savior). In some sects, they believe that their salvation can be secured through leading a life of pious selfless love; in others, that the list of who shall be saved was immutably writ at the beginning of time.
Clearly they can't all be right.
But it's not just a matter of one (at most) religion being the True Religion. All of these belief systems are theologically founded; they all depend on a precise characterization of the deity. In short, they all have (perhaps subtlely) different gods.
Perhaps the god of Jerry Falwell is more like the god of Osama bin Laden than it is like the god of some other Christians.
I see your point, but I would caution you that that is a provocative, even offensive, thing to say. I don't believe that Falwell has advocated violence against infidels, or anyone else. (Except maybe abortionists... not sure about that one.) Don't believe Falwell has ever told his followers that if they kill in the name of Christ, a place for them in paradise is guaranteed.
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vsergu on 2002-07-24T01:12:13
Well, I did say "more like", not "identical to". I was mainly thinking of the shared idea of a God who smites the United States for its sins, though admittedly Falwell doesn't seek to actively help God do the smiting, and is sorrowful rather than joyful about it.
Still, it was a bit over the top.
