My god is your God, your God is my god

Society Religion & Philosophy
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Title inspired by Woody Guthrie.

Recently, I got into a debate with a stringent Christian- Baptist. She was arguing that while we follow monotheistic religions, our gods are different. Most of the differences came from talks about Isa a.s. ( the rest were warped ideas about what she thought Islam was). Differences such as finding salvation through truly believing in Christ and he being the Son of God came up:

"The God of the Bible Condemns Muhammad..As we have seen, John 3:18 states: “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

She also attributed the differences to what each god claimed to be. Her’s was kind and benevolent (to which I gifted her the link to a reputable site which lists the 99 names of Allah which stated ours was as well), while the muslim god was a deceiver in terms of how he took away Jesus and made everyone believe he was dead. We then debated on the various translation of the ayah whist states Allah is the best of planners/schemers/deceivers. She got this:

Sura 3:54 In Arabic;
Wa Makara Allah wa Allah Amkaru al Makireen.
In Farsi, the word, “Makr” and “Makar” is from the Arabic, and it apparently is always negative.

And since I do not speak arabic, I did a quick search and got this:

http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/quran/003.qmt.html

003.054
YUSUFALI: And (the unbelievers) plotted and planned, and Allah too planned, and the best of planners is Allah.
PICKTHAL: And they (the disbelievers) schemed, and Allah schemed (against them): and Allah is the best of schemers.
SHAKIR: And they planned and Allah (also) planned, and Allah is the best of planners.

I doubt she changed her mind about that but hey I tried.

My point is, yeah, the ideologies attack each other in some ways but to me it seems that we are more alike than different. This may be because I am a hippie who justs wants everyone to get along. Is their god our god?

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Re: My god is your God, your God is my god

:salam2:

Islam is the only non-Christian faith, which makes it an article of faith to believe in Jesus (pbuh). No Muslim is a Muslim if he does not believe in Jesus (pbuh). We believe that he was one of the mightiest Messengers of Allah SWT, that he was born miraculously, without any male intervention, which many modern day Christians do not believe, that he was the Messiah translated Christ (pbuh), that he gave life to the dead with God’s permission and we believe that he healed those born blind, and the lepers with God’s permission.

Concept of God in Christianity:

One may ask, if both Muslims and Christians love and respect Jesus (pbuh), where exactly is the parting of ways? The major difference between Islam and Christianity is the Christians’ insistence on the supposed divinity of Christ (pbuh). A study of the Christian scriptures reveals that Jesus (pbuh) never claimed divinity. In fact there is not a single unequivocal statement in the entire Bible where Jesus (pbuh) himself says, “I am God” or where he says, “worship me”. In fact the Bible contains statements attributed to Jesus (pbuh) in which he preached quite the contrary. The following statements in the Bible are attributed to Jesus Christ (pbuh):

(i) “My Father is greater than I.”
[The Bible, John 14:28]

(ii) “My Father is greater than all.”
[The Bible, John 10:29]

(iii) “…I cast out devils by the Spirit of God….”
[The Bible, Mathew 12:28]

(iv) “…I with the finger of God cast out devils….”
[The Bible, Luke 11:20]

(v) “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgement is just; because I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.”
[The Bible, John 5:30]

Jesus Christ (pbuh) never claimed Divinity.

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Re: My god is your God, your God is my god

The God of the Bible is the same God that we beleive in, however it’s not the same God that the Christians believe in. Christians believe in a God which turned into a man to save mankind. Not only did he turn into a man, but also he is the father of the man. He is three people at the same time. LOL

@**blackforest_360](http://www.paklinks.com/gs/members/blackforest_360.html) **Do you believe in this God who turned into a man and is also a three in one god? I certainly don’t. So my God is not the same as the Christian God.

I would be quite offended If some Christian would come up to me and say that we believe in the same God and that Jesus is Allah.

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Re: My god is your God, your God is my god

When I say God I mean solely God, not Jesus. I too find the Father/Lord a tad confusing.

I wonder If Christians think of Jesus as a demigod, though it seems he is a central figure instead of God himself.

I found the girl's explanation of "being saved" a bit contradictory. At one hand she'd say good deeds mean nothing in the eyes of God, and on the other she'd say one should follow Jesus' path and truly believe in him. But if Jesus was without sin and did good deeds, then ideally so do the followers. But if "good deeds" mean nothing did what's the point of following Jesus? I don't get on what basis they think they'll be judged.

@zapatista Is it not Jesus who "saved mankind" and not God? But I suppose I do not believe in a god who is also the father of a mortal.
And even that concept I don't get. If Jesus was born out of immaculate conception then why is he the son of God, it'd make more sense if they worshipped Mary instead.

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Re: My god is your God, your God is my god

@blackforest_360](http://www.paklinks.com/gs/members/blackforest_360.html)

When you say God, to Christians it’s synonymous to Jesus. So you can’t say one without the other.

Jesus is not only the son of God, but also God the Father and the holy Ghost. They don’t believe him to be a demigod. But THE allmighty GOD. According to Christians God impregnated a mortal person, that being Mary (Nauobillah) and was born as a human, that being Jesus. Very confusing concept indeed.

You don’t seem to know alot about the Christian God. So before you are being a Hippie and ask us If our God is the same as their God, do a little more research on Christianity and especially the concept of Trinity.

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Re: My god is your God, your God is my god

Yes, I am aware that they refer to Jesus as Lord which is synonymous to God.

My mistake, I was a bit misinformed, but you seem to be as well. From http://geneva.rutgers.edu/src/christianity/trinity.html, I got that the Trinity is **not **believing that God is a three is one. So what the Trinity says is that God is both Father and Son. This doesn’t make him two Gods: these are two separate ways in which God experiences love, two roles or two ‘modes of being’."

Terminology wise: (from the same website) The Trinity says that there is one God, existing as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In order to talk about this, we need a word to refer to God “as a whole”, and a word to refer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit individually.

The only distinctions within God are the relations “begotten” (the relation between Father and Son) and “proceeding” (the relation between Father and Holy Spirit). Initially one might think that a relation implies at least two different things. However that’s not necessarily the case. There are relations such as “identity” that apply to just one thing. Thus begotten (Je and proceeding are not seen as relations that result in multiple gods. Rather, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are different ways in which God exists, i.e. different personal roles. But they are not separate things.

Christianity is overtly complicated IMO, with God playing different roles, Christ dying for humanity or Christ being the human presence of God on Earth. But I still think that there are many similarities between what the bible states and what we believe in. I.E the ten commandments (for the most part) sans #4 but we can replace that with offering salah. Or that Isa a.s will return back to Earth, albeit for different reasons in Islam and Christianity. It isn’t as if Christianity and Islam are alien to each other.

I guess we really don’t believe in the same God because Christ is inseparable from God. I shall remain a hippie.

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Re: My god is your God, your God is my god

Well Orthodox Christians believe simmilarly to ourselves.

They see as only one God, Jesus was his messenger, they believe Mary was a virgin and they believe in many subsequent saints and martyrs.

The next branch is the largest The Roman Catholics.... who believe principly in the fact that Jesus is God himself as well. Which to Muslims is blasphemy...

The final sect is the Protestant church and they are simmilar in view to the RC church...

There are many other sects of the Chritian faith but fundamentally these three are the big ones and obviously the Orthodox Christians like the Orthodox Muslims share the same God howver the difference is in the belief in finality of Messengers.

Co incedentally an Orthodox Christian friend of mine from Cyprus believes that Jesus had a Cousin the famous Jhon the Baptist and that Muhammad Salalho alayhi wassalam is of the line of tis same Jhon the baptist.... i am not an Alim nor am i an expert on this particualr aspect of History so i cannot say for sure but yeah...it's an intriuging viewpoint.

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Re: My god is your God, your God is my god

Peace blackforest_360

The Holy Qur'an answers this question of yours for us. This is actually one of my favourite topics. The answer is that 'yes' Allah (SWT) is readily calling us to confirm to the Jews and Christians that Allah (SWT) is their God as well. That Islam is the pure continuation of the Abrahamic religion. There is a verse in the 30th Juz somewhere where it states that "this was given in previous scripture"

There is a concept of "taghut" in all Abrahamic religions. This is called "false gods" the neo-con baptist Christians of today like to connect our concept of Allah (SWT) to the concept of "taghut" or baalim (the gods of the mushrikuun) ... they want to do this because our concept of tawheed is so strong that it totally defeats them unless they can say that our concept is pagan. Which in fact it is not at all. Rather trinity as a concept predates Christianity. The holy Qur'an also does tell us to say to you your religion to us ours, this is on the basis that common ground has first been sought and when no understanding is made then to state this as a way to say "then let's agree to disagree"

The concept of Trinity denies the true God of the Bible to be realised. The best way to argue with the Chrisitans on this is to bring about both 'good' or 'nice' things about God and then all the "harsh" things as well. This picture painted about God is really not what the Bible states. Rather He is fair. The concept that we say about God is that there cannot be more than one God. To state otherwise is a fallacy. There is only God and fake idols - charlatans, images, conceptual phantoms. The idea of them having a different God from our own should be itself an argument against their weak understanding of monotheism. The Qur'an tends to argue in a way that they can't deny ... it states things like, "We sent you rain" ... so you tell them we worship this God, you don't? The Qur'an tells us to seek refuge from Satan, you say that we worship the God of such a scripture, you ask them if they do or don't ... All will become clearer to them hopefully.

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Re: My god is your God, your God is my god

I’m not misinformed. You might want to check this out.

So what I said is exactly what they do. They can say that they don’t and claim to be monotheist. The common sense and logic does say something else though, except If their God suffers from Schizophrenia. Then they can claim that their God is only one person, but also three different ones at the same time. Does that make any sense to you? Christians will tell you that it makes sense and will give you examples such as a man who can be a son, a brother and a husband at the same time. However they don’t seem to realize that they can’t apply the same logic to their holy trinity, but end up doing it anyway.

Not only are they not monotheists, but they also practice idolatry. Funny how they slaughtered others for practicing idolatry though. Hypocrites

That’s not true. Orthodox Christians do believe in the holy trinity and also do believe Jesus to be the son of God and also God at the same time. You are confusing something here. Maybe your friend is an Assyrian, Aramaic or Unitarian Christian. I had a friend who was Aramaic christian back in school, and their believes are quite Unitarian. They also don’t eat pork either.

And btw maybe you didn’t know that, but Orthodox Christians are also knows as Orthodox Catholic Christians.

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