Do we worship the god of the Quran?
The latter two series I listed earlier are rarer ones that came to mind then, specifically the cases of Iran (polytheism to Zoroastrian to Islam) and some groups in central Asia (polytheism/shamanism/animism to Buddhism to Islam). This time I was trying to pick which series were most common, to my knowledge.
No, we worship the God of Abraham. Moses, and Elijah.
And who is Abraham? Actually? What is his relevance to God as He is? The God of Abraham nuked Sodom and Gomorrah. In allegory of course… What the allegory is for…?
Yeahhh.
Aristotle conceived of God as outside of the world, as the final cause of all motion in Nature, as Prime Mover and Unmoved Mover of the universe. He was the crowning objective of all dynamic development in the cosmos from matter to form and from potentiality to actuality. He stood outside the Great Chain of Being yet was the source of all motion and development. Aristotle did not attribute mercy, love, sympathy and providence to God, but rather eternal self-contemplation. Yet Aquinas and the medieval theologians achieved a synthesis of Aristotle’s God and Christianity. For Aristotle, metaphysics ultimately culminates in theology.
Flew was overwhelmed by the bogus fine tuning argument, aged 81.
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I do like the response to the self-selection effect argument linked in the following:
The claim that Allah and Yahweh are the same god is–of course–nonsense.
- Why, if they are the same god, didn’t Allah remember that He has a name?
- Why, if they are the same god, would Yahweh condone Jews and Christians calling Him “Father” and Allah disapprove of even the metaphorical characterization of “Him” as “Father”?
- And why would Yahweh inspire the Tanakh and turn around, later, as Allah, and promote the charge that “the People of the Book” had corrupted the Scriptures given them?
Allah is simply the word for God in Arabic. Christian Arabs (such as Palestinian Christians) address God as “Allah.”
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Whether you’re open to having your opinion changed or not is up to you, but … you’re wrong.
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Allah or Yahweh - A Conversation About The Name and Nature of God
- “This conversation brings to light several points in this discussion that bring clarity to the nature of God and shows that a god by any other name… may not be the same god…”
- “…in one of the Islamic classes that I was in a female Christian student from the Middle East stood up and in response to the discussion on the status of Allah and Yahweh stated that the attribute that we were talking about described the “Allah of the Bible,” but it did not describe the “Allah of the Qur’an.” In other words, even though she grew up with the word “Allah” in her Arabic Bible, she understood that the “Allah” that she was worshiping was not the same as the “Allah” that the Muslims worship.”
I would approach it the other way around to say only Muslims, Christians and Jews with insufficient epistemic humility would assert that the version they worship is importantly different from the one the others do. Sure the traditions and stories are different but if God were some sort of independent being apart from ourselves, how in the world could we be so sure that being isn’t the very same one?
Multiple >50 σ lottery wins? 
(Infusing unmistakable coordinated meaning into otherwise disparate events.)
Although your opinion and your attempt to appeal to “epistemic humility” are irrelevant, I will attempt to point out your lack of relevant information which is essential to an recognition of the differences between the three religions and an understanding of why folks who insist that all three religions worship the same God are wrong.
- It is a fundamental fact that orthodox Muslims believe that Allah was the author of the Qur’an, and that the Qur’an is Allah’s ipissimum verbum: the very Word of God itself".
- There are, in fact Ultra-Orthodox Jews, as well as many less Orthodox Jews who believe the same thing about the Torah, i.e. the first five books of what many of us call “the Old Testament”. And there are many Christians who believe the same thing about the Christian Scriptures, from the first words of Genesis to the last words of Revelation.
- I suspect that you would search official “Ecumenical gatherings” in vain for Jews and Christians who believe such things. Only the naive and uninformed involve themselves in such gatherings.
- Muslims have yet, so I understand, to engage in an adventure into investigating the reliability of the text of the Qur’an. Ultra-Orthodox Jews likewise are not open–so I understand–to a similar investigation of the Torah’s reliability.
- Personally, I do not hold such a "high view of the Christian Scriptures. Any attempt to offend me by burning or destroying a Bible would not distress or anger me. Burn or destroy a Torah or a Qur’an in the wrong crowd and you’d better have your running shoes on. On the other hand, you won’t find me interested in or attending an Interfaith/Ecumenical gathering.
- Clearly, you couldn’t be sure.
- Me? I could be sure, and I’d stake my life on it.
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The aforementioned multiple >50 σ lottery wins actually take it beyond the realm of chance and are quite compelling and clear to those with sufficient epistemic humility.
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When talking about the God of Abraham, it is good to remember the difference between God and our image of God.
There is one true God. We believe that our understanding (image) of God is much closer to the truth than that of Muslims. Yet, our image of God is always incomplete and often wrong in details.
The key point is not how correct our image is, it is what God wants from us and how we can get peace with God. Christianity and Islam give crucially different answers to these questions. Answers to what God wants may be closer than answers to the question how we can get peace with God (be saved).
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Kind of like what the Bahaullah taught?
The Baha’u’llah taught a noxious stew of mish-mash, and the Baha’i embarrass themselves by touting their claim that he was the latest Messenger of the God of Abraham, proving that they have no idea who Yahweh, the God of Abraham, was or is and that they think that having a correct knowledge of the Bah’u’llah is more important than having a fuzzy knowledge of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
What I find amusing is that even semi-aware Jews, Christians, and Muslims agree on this: the Baha’u’llah and the Bahai are fixated on interfaith ecumenism and are confused.
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I agree. There’s no way The Buddha and Moses are prophets of the same god.
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Well colour me epistemically arrogant. My late C20th onward God has evolved from being that of a Judaized throwback inerrant infallible fundamentalist, seeing the Bible as a flat cookbook where each recipe is good, here a little, there a little. To being what’s left when all of that is deconstructed and whatever can be reconstructed rationally on desire.
There are three major errors I find made consistently by critical scholars in this regard, if helpful:
Firstly, no one, no evangelical scholar or believer, discounts the idea that there is, indeed, a “pantheon” of deities in the broadest sense of the word, of which Yahweh is the head. This was embraced in the ancient OT, it was embraced throughout the New Testament, I believe it myself. It wasn’t Yahweh himself that announced the birth of Christ to Mary, and of John to Zechariah, but a lesser deity known as Gabriel, who in his own words, stood “in the presence of God.
And Jesus himself knew that had Yahweh so desired, Yahweh could have sent “legions” of these lesser deities to help him.
So yes, I believe in a pantheon of supernatural beings of which Yahweh is the ultimate head, ruler, and authority. Why then is it at all’s urlrising to find this identical perspective in the OT.
(For that matter, people make this big deal about the book Job, and how somehow Satan at the time was conceived so differently… he had access to go right to God and have a conversation… which of course is totally different than what we find in the New Testament… where Satan walks right up to God incarnate and has a long drawn out conversation….)
Secondly, critical scholars make a big deal about the ancient Israelite belief in other deities, those of other societies or cultures, as being in fact real deities, that has real powers, that were in conflict with Israel’s God.
And again… is this somehow something different than what we believe today, or that is reflected in the NT? Jesus certainly seemed to believe in the reality and power of these other lesser deities that were not subservient to Yahweh, yet who he claimed absolute power of. Paul warned that participating in the idolatrous worship of the pagan Roman culture would be… well, “What pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God.” Demons believe in Yahweh “and shudder.”
Thirdly, I have seen times where critical scholars point to actual worship of multiple deities within Israel, and claim this reflects a certain polytheism. Again, as if this would be in any way noteworthy. The OT tells us that the people regularly sinned by embracing the worship of foreign and false gods. How exactly does this impact in any way whatsoever the basic core orthodox belief of scripture that there is only one true God over all things and all other lesser supernatural powers, who alone is to be worshipped? That is like using the example of King David’s adultery as evidence that Yahweh must not have given there command “do not commit adultery.” The fact that false, syncretism if worship existed is no evidence whatsoever that there wasn’t true, orthodox worship prescribed.