Question about God

[FreyaJade]

Is it true that Muslims, Christians & Jews all worship the same God (the God of Abraham, and is that why they're known as the Abrahamic religions?

From what some people who identify as Christian or Muslim say you would think that the 3 religions worship completely different Gods, for example I've seen a comment in a newspaper site from a supposed Christians who says "Allah is evil but Jesus is good".

I didn't want to comment that Allah & the Christian God / Jesus are the same thing in case I was wrong.

(And if you then were to argue, hypothetically, that God is directly responsible for all those acts of violence, then you would have to admit that human beings are in fact very different creatures than we think we are - mere puppets played by God. However, that is not, and never has been, the Christian view, which sees our free will as central to what we are as human beings.)

"But the Qu'ran is over 1000 years old. Science, our observations, our reasoning and our understanding of the universe has moved on considerably since then. God made sense when humans had no knowledge of the universe. He makes a lot less sense now."

It took 1400 years for muslims to understand why Muhammad (pbuh) was not a prophet with miracles like Jesus or Moses or Abraham. in the Quran over and over again it reiterated that Muhammad was an ordinary man, a plain warner, not with special powers or miracles like the prophets of old, even whilst talking about the miracles of the earlier prophets. on the existence of God the Quran urges one to use their reason and intelligence when asking the question does God exist. By this it made the faith of muslims not dependant on miracles or supernatural occurances, but on pondering the world with curiosity, attentively, and so see the signs of God in the creation of the earth, the diversity of life, in space and the universe. thats from the Qur'an, my primary text, and as it has been unchanged for over 1400 years, thats not a new argument to win over modern 21st century readers exposed to scientific discoveries, it was present from the beginning.

"Verily! In the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the alternation of night and day, and the ships which sail through the sea with that which is of use to mankind, and the water (rain) which God sends down from the sky and makes the earth alive therewith after its death, and the moving (living) creatures of all kinds that He has scattered therein, and in the veering of winds and clouds which are held between the sky and the earth, are indeed Ayat (proofs, evidences, signs, etc.) for people of understanding.Those who remember Allah while standing or sitting or [lying] on their sides and reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth, [saying], "Our Lord, You did not create this in vain..."(3:190-191)

"They know what is apparent of the worldly life, but they, of the Hereafter, are unaware. Do they not contemplate within themselves? Allah has not created the heavens and the earth and what is between them except in truth and for a specified term. And indeed, many of the people, in [the matter of] the meeting with their Lord, are disbelievers." (30:8)

"Were they created by nothing, or were they the creators [of themselves]? Or did they create the heavens and the earth? Rather, they are not certain." (52:35-36)

that was the wisdom in not having a religion based on a prophet who could perform miracles. the criteria that the Qur'an tells me to prove that God exists is many more such statements that take the form 'have you not seen....', 'have you not considered'. this is what led muslims to build a big tradition of scientific and mathematical discovery at the time that Europe was in the dark ages. faith was not just a comfort but a push to expand human knowledge and understanding of the world primarily first and foremost, to understand the majesty of God in the complexity of creation.

mere puppets played by God.

God wasn't bothered about our free will when he was drowning is in the great flood.

The Abrahamic religions do all seem to be the philosophies that put humans at the centre of things (or at least Homo sapiens - influenced by the book Sapiens there). The live query there always seems to be, how is your relationship with God? Are you obeying, praising, submitting, forgiven? If God is taken out of the picture then Homo sapiens suddenly shrinks to equivalence with any other organism. There is also the great release of never having to worry about the problem of suffering again - if God is not involved there is no anger or testing or supplication or failure, suffering just is, as it is for any animal.

A God who loves all his creation, all the life-forms that have evolved through natural selection, and to whom they are all good, will love the virus and the mosquito as much as the human being.

But that goes against everything in the bible. When God so loved the world that he sent his only son to die for its sins - that was human sin, not mosquitoes. When he made Adam in his own image and put him in charge of all the other animals - that was creating hierarchy, with people at the top. It was considered blasphemy to suggest that animals had souls. The pope has recently decreed that your beloved pets can go to heaven, but for the whole of Christian history, eternal life has been solely the preserve of humans, because they are special to God.
In Islamic tradition, Satan was kicked out of heaven for refusing to bow down to Adam - God made his angels bow down to mankind!

Abrahamic religion puts humans at the centre, to throw that out throws out the whole religion - even if your going to pretend that he started natural selection (the God of the gaps) and that the garden of Eden is just an allegory, its still an allegory that sets up God's hierarchy.

So from an organised religion point of view a loving God is allowing terrible things to happen. Hence why people reject him (also that whole pesky lack of evidence, scientific understanding thing.)

I'm afraid i don't really understand your post bluedemilune. I get your point about Mohammed not performing miracles so Muslims weren't reliant on them to believe, but that doesn't actually prove the existence of God. I understand he was encouraging them to look around and find him in nature - but like I said, he was easy to find when you didn't have any basic understanding of how the world worked.

You say thats not a new argument to win over modern 21st century readers exposed to scientific discoveries but you haven't actually put forward an argument - just an explanation that they look to the natural world and use their own knowledge and understanding and reasoning to prove his existence. But their knowledge and understanding and reasoning was fatally limited by it being 1400 years ago.

The proof (I guess its supposed to be) that you quoted (3:190-191) is all easily explained with science, no deity is needed. Considering that most people didn't know the earth was a sphere and certainly didn't know that the earth went round the sun and probably didn't have 100% accuracy on the water cycle - there isn't any actual science in that paragraph, just praising natural occurrences that these days even primary aged children can explain easily.

Rain is not evidence of God.

"Has anyone ever thought about what the heck all the space/nothingness is? Outer space yes, but I'm talking about the space on the earth and in us. The actual amount of matter there is."

all of our physics, all of our chemistry, all of our maths and biology it doesnt encompass even 5% of what makes up the universe. there is so much humanity has learnt but still 95% of the total matter and content of the universe is unknown to us. and even within that 5%, there is still a heck of alot we dont know, even within ourselves. great article here in the Scientific American about how little we our science has helped us unlock, even here on earth let alone the universe.

icantreachthepretzels, it doesnt have to be science or God. one can understand the science and still appreciate God as Creator, God as Originator.

one really quick example. the Quran, Chapter 88, Verse 17:
"Have you seen the camel, how it is made?"

In the 6th century AD a desert Arab would have heard that verse from the Quran and looked at a camel and seen the hump on its back and thought thats what made it more resilient in the desert over horses.
and they would have said 'praise God'.
now in the 21st century, i know by science just how suited the camel is to its environment, that they are incredible animals with unique physiology to other mammals. a camel's red blood cells are oval shaped not circular like in other mammals so when the camel drinks alot of water those cells much less likely rupture due to the high osmotic variation. they can drink up to 100litres at a time. they are adapted to withstand high body temperature or water deprivation that would kill other mammals. they do not sweat unless their body temperature reaches 41 degrees celsius. they can chew thorny desert plants and have long eyelashes, ear hairs, and sealable nostrils, to form a barrier against sand. They have wide feet to have a larger surface area so they don't sink into sand. that camel antibodies are smaller than other mammals which makes them more durable and some cancer researchers even want to model them for drug delivery research.
and i still say 'praise God'.
why? because the sophistication of this animal is evidence to me of the sheer wonder and the creative genius of God. no supernatural theatrics, just awe at the wondrousness of life around us.
Science helps us to know and understand a process, devise the mechanism. but the meaning of a message is not going to be found in the physics and chemistry of the paper and ink. (Roger Sperry). people of faith assume that the universe and nature have laws, because of belief in a Law-Giver. Science fills the gaps in of how things work/ function/ how they can be fixed because there is an assumption that there is a purpose in all things. I don't reduce God down to living in the gaps, the gaps are the ignorance of myself or of science as a whole.

as for made in God's image, that is one of the areas the abrahamic faiths differ, in islam no such thing. its even on the level of blasphemy. how we understand ourselves in relation to God is as His servants, slaves, God is Lord, Master, Majesty, never father, our purpose in life and on this earth, as stated in the Quran is as his viceregents/stewards, not his children to play and frolick but as workers to tend and take care of the trust God has given us which is this earth we are upon. The earth is called an amanah (trust). We believe in islam that we are created with free will in order to choose by our own volition good actions, life and death the test for how we conduct ourselves. We are given the tools, intelligence and understanding, more superior than to what was given to other creation on this earth - even over the angels and the jinn - but in that is great responsibility and is judged by God on the Day of Judgement.

In my earlier post on suffering, I mentioned psychological pain. It’s also a kind of alarm produced in the brain and shares some of the same circuitry in the brain as physical pain. Sometimes it accompanies physical pain but it can also arise on its own in response to social circumstances or even through thinking of a stressful situation.

Whatever the nature of the pain, it is only useful if actions can be taken to counteract whatever is triggering the sensation. There are many situations in which this is the case. (Think of someone with an injured shoulder that lifts a heavy bag, experiences pain and quickly puts it down again.)

But again, as mentioned earlier, there is not always something that can be done to defuse the initiating circumstances, nor a way to will your mind to switch the pain off in that case, so the pain mechanism is imperfect. (Think of someone who is terminally ill.)

So I would never say that pain is useful in every circumstance in which it arises.

Yes, I agree, there is no actual matter. I don't think we should feel small though like the article suggests. I believe we're part of the whole.

The more I think about it, I come to the conclusion that God is part of human consciousness. We understand evolution and physical development somewhat but we don't understand the human spirit and mind. God is a metaphor for goodness and Satan is a metaphor for evil. It is in our minds. As far as I know all human societies have this idea of goodness and evil which gets personified ( Or "spiritualised" as (a) more powerful godly or satanic being(s) respectively). It's the way we conceptualise good and evil. People who wrote the scriptures verbalised this in the way they could at the time. So I believe in God but as a product of our consciousness and our understanding of goodness. This conceptualisation seems to be universal to all humans. Some conceptualise goodness as one God, others as many Gods. The use of this conceptualization to organise societies differently through different rules and protocols is interpretation and sometimes for political control. The real feeling and understanding is personal and largely innate though produced through evolution and society.

because the sophistication of this animal is evidence to me of the sheer wonder and the creative genius of God.

But it isn't actually evidence of God - it's evidence of natural selection. You're looking at whole load of science, that you recognise as science, and giving the credit to God.

Once upon a time people thought we lived on the disc of the earth and above us was the bowl of the sky and there was a was a light in it that travelled across the sky and disappeared at night. They thought someone must have put it all there because that was the most likely explanation. We have a better explanation now, so we keep the character they used to explain it?

Once upon a time it was believed that this character created the whole world in seven days, he created all the animals at once, and then the people and that the world was only 4000 years old.

Then it turned out that the world wasn't 4000 years old and hadn't been made in 7 days, oh well that was just a metaphor. oh and some of the animals he created have died out so long ago nobody ever saw them - well mass extinctions was probably part of his plan. And then other species developed, species can take thousands of years to develop, they were not created whole. Oh well he probably just started the ball rolling on natural selection, he didn't create a whole camel from scratch or anything, but it's still pretty much all his work.

A natural selection God is a God of the gaps. Its bending God to fit around new ideas and understanding and making him work in a scientific context. He is the omnipotent creator of all the universe - we should not have to contort him into a new shape every time a new discovery is made.

I assume that you accept that the camel evolved into his current state, and not that God created him that way the day he invented camels? If the camel evolved via natural selection then that isn't evidence of a creative genius, its evidence of a very slow, arduous and often random process. A camel on day one would be evidence of creative genius. But science tells us we didn't get that.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? - Epicurus

as for made in God's image, that is one of the areas the abrahamic faiths differ We are given the tools, intelligence and understanding, more superior than to what was given to other creation on this earth - even over the angels and the jinn - but in that is great responsibility and is judged by God on the Day of Judgement

That's still an anthropocentric view of God though. it is a God that has created a hierarchy and put mankind at the top of it. It isn't a God that, due to his role in natural selection, loves the virus and the mosquito every bit as much as the person that they will kill.

There is a poster, who I think identifies as a Christian though i might be wrong, arguing for this natural selection God and using that as explanation for why he lets children contract malaria.

But that isn't the Christian God. This idea of God throws out the teachings of the Abrahamic tradition, which are all anthropocentric. You can have the Abrahamic God, or you can have the virus loving God, but you can't have both. To claim to be a Christian, whilst explaining the occurrence of diseases in children as 'God loves all organisms equally', is having your cake and eating it. But it isn't following the Christian faith.

(sorry to keep quoting you bluedemilune I'm just finding your posts interesting.)

Exactly justanother ! I've been thinking of posting that, but I couldn't remember who the philosopher was.

I've recently read Karen Armstrong's biography of the Bible. In all her books she is persuasive in denying that holy scriptures were seen as objectively factual until one day they weren't due to the Enlightenment or Darwin. Scriptures in the Abrahamic faiths had a much more complex role than supposedly accurate histories of the world, an idea that exists only to please fanatics or to be debunked by atheists. They were an expression of humanity's relationship with God and a way of being closer to God. Armstrong always writes with particular passion about the Jewish relationship with the Torah and the mystics who studied for years and described glimpses of the divine through religious ritual and study combined. This makes total sense to me if you think how rare and special events the ability to read was in the age of scriptural writing.

Aagh even the ability to read

That makes sense annadale. I think it fits in with what I was trying to articulate that God and Satan are in the mind as spiritualisations of good and evil. what matters are individual relations with good (God) or evil (Satan). We see glimpses of pure goodness - a new born baby, beautiful country side, an act of kindness, hearing evensong at church, reading the bible and appreciating a message beyond the literal and we feel joy and the spirit of God (goodness). Sadly some may for some reason (do not know why but that is probably psychology coming into play poor upbringing etc) feel joy for bad things (Satan, evil). That is why we have good and bad things in the world. But maybe my view is unconventional because I am seeing God and Satan merely as spiritual constructs to represent good and evil which exist as part of the human condition

thats fine pretzel for you to focus on my posts I hope you can see the digression im making is to explain to you my earlier claim that the argument for a Creator is separate and easier to accept than the argument for religion. you asked me how is the argument for a Creator easier to accept there is no evidence. and so I tried to explain to you that alot of the evidence atheists would use from science to close off God, religiously minded people see that same evidence as bolstering belief in God. Dawkins would just say 'isnt it amazing how nature gives the illusion of design'.

"I assume that you accept that the camel evolved into his current state, and not that God created him that way the day he invented camels? If the camel evolved via natural selection then that isn't evidence of a creative genius, its evidence of a very slow, arduous and often random process."

any farmer, pastoralist, bedouin, could observe and understand natural selection and survival of the fittest, it did not need literacy, book knowledge or scripture, and it did not repudiate amongst them the existence of God. there is no young earth creationism in the Quran and itself easily accomodates natural selection and some passages even hint at it. it was noted in previous centuries how different this was to the church view: In his 1874 book titled History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, John William Draper, a scientist and contemporary of Charles Darwin, criticized the Catholic Church for its disapproval of "the Mohammedan theory of the evolution of man from lower forms, or his gradual development to his present condition in the long lapse of time." page 126. in the atheist worldview, natural selection and evolution is its own agent, in religious worldview, it is merely mechanism.

Well said Trishan and Anna

So much time and energy goes into arguing and analysing closely or not close enough into the books, the basic message gets missed, we carry so much baggage the weight of it distracts us. Plus the stuff added by man for it's own benefit doesn't help.

I loved Karen Armstrong's 'A History of God' anna and it helped me understand the context of the Hebrew prophets and the Old Testament. Judaism had a far harder start than Christianity or Islam in that, coming in during the Bronze Age in the Middle East it was establishing monotheism amongst the most advanced peoples on earth at the time. I had never considered that side - history - in understanding the strategic choice of the Middle East for Abrahamic monotheism. to me, a muslim where the Hajj pilgrimage is one of the 5 pillars, I considered the birthplace of Abrahamic monotheism to do with geography. but the Middle East was called the cradle of civilisation because before the Ancient Greeks, the Chinese, the Indus valley peoples, the people of the Middle East were already building cities, creating writing, practising animal husbandry, had social hierarchy, etc. so the complexity and the philosophical nature of the Old Testament to me was because of its setting and environment at the time.

"So much time and energy goes into arguing and analysing closely or not close enough into the books,"

thats to explain it non emotionally to people outside of the faith. within the faith religion is guidance, succour. its not about natural selection, how the earth was created etc. Its not about filling in the gaps to explain why things happen, as a placemarker for science later on.

religion is about the extending the social ties of kinship out to non family, strangers, its about laying foundations down of trust. cooperation. the attraction of monotheism to those early bedouin was that belief in the oneness of God led to the belief of the oneness of people. Unity of God, Unity of man. God stands as surety over each human being, either to reward for doing good between each other or to avenge for bad done between each other, it doesnt matter about the usefulness or status of the individual who asks for help, or their ability to reciprocate back. belief in an All Seeing All Knowing God meant that the action of helping and supporting is not lost but recorded in ones book of deeds as a good action. religion made trust grow between large groups of strangers from different tribes, ethnicities, family groups etc because of a common belief, and that was seen as more important than race or class or status.

some people only join religion for social benefits. having a larger group of people to share food and shelter with and watch your back and who can help you in difficult times. not based on blood or language ties but on rituals and belief in the One God, not just the poor, the weak, but lonely people, or people without the membership of a strong warrior tribe (then) or a rich noble family with lots of connections. religion persists in the modern age because of this.

and of course, religion is a great crutch to me as an individual. it helps make me self sufficient because a large part of my emotional security is based on God, not people etc. it most benefits when there is little to no hope, or change. its closest example in secular terms is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. as i grow older, this is what draws me most to my religion and keeps my faith. islam - peace through submission to the will of God - is about accepting, committing, and persevering when there is difficulty, pain, boredom, holding firm on values and knowing that even if no one cares, God cares, God watches, God comforts. God guides. Thats the spiritual emotional side for me of faith.

Thanks blue, fascinating post.

you asked me how is the argument for a Creator easier to accept there is no evidence. and so I tried to explain to you that alot of the evidence atheists would use from science to close off God, religiously minded people see that same evidence as bolstering belief in God. Dawkins would just say 'isnt it amazing how nature gives the illusion of design'.

This statement assumes that atheists have just decided they don't believe in God and then chose to see any scientific discoveries about the world around us to affirm that belief. That us just not true. Most atheists I know are in fact ex- theists from various religions, their doubts started when they started honestly and truly lifting that god- damn bible fog from their eyes and thinking truly rationally. Proper rational thinking is to consider evidence based facts as unbaised-ly as is possible.

Deciding god exists and the Quran is true as a starting point is the pinnacle of irrational thinking, its a logical fallacy called 'poising the well' It clouds your judgement because god is a given, so everything must fit.

Dawkins would not 'just say' "Isnt it amazing how nature gives the illusion of design?" (He's right) but that point of view came from years of dedicated research in zoology, evolutionary biology and gene theory. He was actually a deeply religious teen, when he found his passion studying zoology first, he realised more and more how a belief in god and certainly religion, serves no purpose at all.

The term 'bible glasses' was coined by creationist moron; Ken Ham. It means to remember what is written in the bible when considering information. The same can be said of followers of the Quran.

in the atheist worldview, natural selection and evolution is its own agent, in religious worldview, it is merely mechanism.

This is where you are going spectacularly wrong. There is NO 'Atheist world view'! An atheist is someone who does not believe in any deity. By assuming atheism is a world view creates an allusion that it is a religion, with certain rules of thought and action.

Your statement is so general its almost painful! What good does the word 'merely' do in there as well? Ditch the Quran and read some books about evolution and natural selection, proper science books, even text books will do.

Blue I can understand what you're saying but can you also see the books make other people feel alienated or turned off or away from it.

Ollie What's your view of a person that believes there is a god/source/soul/existence but doesn't follow any particular religion or book?