But what about mkaply’s excellent point above about Zeus worship?

“…and my considered opinion that the differences are trivial compared to the common ground. Again, I’m talking about the concept of God here, not the relationship between God and human.”

So you are talking about how humans think about God, not how they relate to him? The two are rather hard to divide, surely?

Christianity and Islam (for example) differ in matters as key as creation, sin, heaven, hell, and salvation. Not trivial matters. There’s a great poem called “Creed” here (not written by me) which has a verse expanding on this point: http://www.gerv.net/poetry.html

This is such a straw man. How could I be asserting that I had seen the whole elephant if the “elephant” is the infinite ineffable God?

“If you are in the dark, what makes you so sure it’s actually an elephant, and not a rug, a trumpet and a pillar?”

The strength of my belief in the unity of God and my considered opinion that the differences are trivial compared to the common ground. Again, I’m talking about the concept of God here, not the relationship between God and human.

No you’re not - because you have to be able to see the whole elephant to tell the story. Otherwise, you can’t tell the difference between an elephant, and a rug plus a trumpet plus a pillar, and so you can’t tell a story which asserts that it’s definitely an elephant.

If you are in the dark, what makes you so sure it’s actually an elephant, and not a rug, a trumpet and a pillar?

“Christians and Muslims are describing a God which is not quite the same as the one I know, but similar enough that it sounds like part of the same elephant.”

Perhaps you’re not listening carefully enough to the Christians Certainly the picture you’ve painted of God in your comments thusfar is not at all the same picture as this one: http://www.ramblinations.com/blog/2004/07/kudos-to-gerv.html

Gemma has followed aebrahim and jesus_x with her thoughts on the recent discussions about the nature of God. A must-read. I sometimes think of learning about God by studying the Bible as like climbing a mountain. It’s hard work, but…

To extend the story a bit, suppose some of the king’s wise men had walked straight past the elephant without finding it. One said “There is nothing there”. One said “There’s something there, but it’s impossible for human beings to make any contact with it.” One said “It’s a small, pink, furry rodent with a long tail”.

Those would all just be wrong, but the ones in the original story were all accurately describing part of the elephant. Their mistake was to think that they had discovered everything there was to know about it and that the others were wrong.

I’m not saying I’m the person who can see the whole elephant, I’m saying I’m in the dark with you and everybody else. Christians and Muslims are describing a God which is not quite the same as the one I know, but similar enough that it sounds like part of the same elephant.

Indeed not. I never said he was. I said that it was possible to have a correct or an incorrect understanding of God, and if you have an incorrect one, that is what people mean when they say “a different God.”

If I understand an elephant (to take a random example) to be a small, pink, furry rodent with a long tail, I think it’s reasonable to say that I’m thinking about a different elephant to the rest of the world!

Simon said: “like the old story of the elephant in the dark”

The thing about the elephant in the dark story is that the thing they are examining is actually an elephant. It’s not a rug and a trumpet and and a pillar, all at the same time. It’s an elephant. So contradictory beliefs are never “both right” as you say, they are (in the case of the story) both wrong.

Secondly, anyone who tells that story is basically saying “you lot are blind - you can’t see the truth. Only I can see the whole elephant, which puts me in a position to tell you that you are wrong.” Simon - what makes you the person who can see the whole elephant?

That’s exactly where we differ. God is not determined by our understanding. I would even say that God is so far beyond our understanding that contradictory beliefs can *both* be right, as far as they go — like the old story of the elephant in the dark: http://perkunas.vtu.lt/psichologija/elephant.html

Again, the nature of salvation is only “vital” to us. God is neither diminished by our sins nor reinforced by our repentance.

That rather glosses over an important difference, doesn’t it? Who were “the prophets that succeeded Abraham”? Judaism doesn’t even recognise Jesus as a prophet, and Islam recognises him only as a prophet, but not the Son of God, God Incarnate. Neither Christianity nor Judaism recognises Mohammed.

“so the different beliefs on [two extremely important topics] are really irrelevant to the fact that all three religions worship the same God.”

When someone says “this God is not the same as that God”, what they are really saying is “my understanding of God is very different to this other understanding”. If the understandings are incompatible, then at most one of them can be correct. If Islam and Christianity have different understandings of God on such vital matters as the nature of salvation, then it seems perfectly reasonable to say that they are relating to different Gods - one of which is the true one and one of which is false.

Greg said: “If these accounts are contradictory, they cannot all be real. Which particular accounts one accepts as real is a matter of personal choice.”

What is real is a matter of personal choice? If that’s true, step in front of a bus and choose that the bus doesn’t exist. See what happens.

If the accounts are contradictory, at least one is _wrong_.

That is an incredibly flawed statement. I can create a monotheistic religion and decide to worship Zeus. That doesn’t mean that Zeus and the God of the Bible are the same.

Judaism and Christianity worship the same God - the God of the Bible - His name is Yahweh.

Islam worships a different god - Allah. Allah is the name of the god they worship.

Yahweh and Allah are not the same - they have different names in the same way that you and I have different names.

If you read the Qur’an and the Bible, you will see that they have two completely different characters associated with them.

Given that all three religions are decidedly monotheistic, they must all be worshipping the same God. Assuming that there is one God, if three religions claim to be worshipping different Gods, then the followers of at least two of these religions must simply be lying.

Three religions cannot worship different monotheistic Gods; there can only ever be one monotheistic God (by definition).

This isn’t to say that each religion understands God in the same way - they clearly don’t - that’s why they’re separate religions. I think the distinguishing feature of a religion is not which God they worship but how they worship Him/Her/It. (Unfortunately, this doesn’t answer the question of why Catholicism is the same religion as Protestantism, but not Judaism.)

The religions may (and do) differ on what God has said and done. If these accounts are contradictory, they cannot all be real. Which particular accounts one accepts as real is a matter of personal choice.

This includes fairly important accounts, such as whether the Messiah has turned up yet and who it was; as well as one’s own accounts of religious experiences. i.e. just because Jews don’t believe Jesus was the Messiah doesn’t mean they worship a different God - they worship a different understanding of God, thus in a different way.

If that counts as a different God, then God is reduced to an anti-real entity - merely a concept - which I doubt either Christians or Jews would find acceptable.