The Lemon Fool

As a non-believer, I find it sad that many members of the world's religions view each other with fear, suspicion or hatred. This is particularly true of Islam, Christianity and Judaism - yet these 3 major world religions are all Abrahamic and, in essence, believe in the same God (Jehovah, Allah). They came out of the same belief system, so why do they not celebrate their shared heritage and shared belief?

I don't want to minimise the role of Christ to Christians, nor Mohammed to Muslims, but the underlying God is the same - is He not?

Wouldn't it be a great thing for the world if the leaders of these various religions (not to mention all their sects) actually came together?

If they did, maybe human nature is such that they would find someone else to be suspicious of and persecute

Thoughts?

I think they'd need to agree amongst themselves first.

Sunni vs Shia, Protestant vs catholic, even the Jews have ultra-orthodox extremists.

If each individual sect cannot agree what is "right", I don't hold out any hope for the major faiths uniting.

Gryff

It is in the nature of religions to divide: hence the numerous different flavours of each of the "top-level" abrahamic religions. Egos and associated groups know better than the nonsense they were brought up with. So you state your new ideas, and are labelled a heresy. If you survive, you are a new sect.

Of course religious leaders do sometimes come together, make joint calls for mutual recognition, tolerance, etc. They may move the dividing lines, but there will always be sections - the True Believers - of their followers for whom they've gone too far, who will break away. I know a priest who converted from anglican to catholic over the ordination of women issue. Seems absurd to an outsider, but if your life revolves around a body of ancient mythology you have an altogether different perspective.

It's all about Us and Them. It has to be. And the ones who think themselves the most inclusive are the worst: look at Blair pontificating about "These people ... don't share our values ... want to destroy us." Start with a grain of truth and extend it to encompass the world, and justify every innocent Pashtun peasant bombed into the stone age, or beaten up and dragged off by the British army in front of his screaming kids.

Yes Uncle Ebenezer, sadly you are quite correct. Intolerance and religion seem frequently to go together.

This might be interesting.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... or-worship

Not an easy event to arrange it appears, but interfaith meetings between the three faiths are relatively common in the UK.

Regards
Hamzah

gryffron wrote:I think they'd need to agree amongst themselves first.

Sunni vs Shia, Protestant vs catholic, even the Jews have ultra-orthodox extremists.

If each individual sect cannot agree what is "right", I don't hold out any hope for the major faiths uniting.

Gryff

This is quite true. Christianity has hundreds of subdivisions, so asking for complete unity is probably not going to happen. If Christianity itself is not unified, how can we unify with Judaism or Islam?

Now, the three major religions could perhaps unite around the concept that we all think of ourselves as, and that is "a religion of peace". We all claim this, but at times it manifests itself in a way that is 180 degrees from peace. I am almost certain we, along with the non believer, can agree on feeding the poor, housing the homeless and the like. I am sure this happens a lot, but isn't as advertised as much as the divisions and errors.

I can't speak for Muslims or Jews, but as a Christian, or perhaps "Christian", if we as a religion can't agree on a fundamental concept like Baptism, it is hardly likely we would unite with Judaism or Islam. We should settle our differences first before we try and take on that task, imho. You can't ask for unity with a people that are hardly unified themselves.

RR

But the point is that you all believe in the same God! Simply celebrate that and accept your differences rather than focus on them. The world would also be a safer place.

Clariman wrote:But the point is that you all believe in the same God! Simply celebrate that and accept your differences rather than focus on them. The world would also be a safer place.

I truly wish we could. Focus on the common ground and ignore the differences. Those differences certainly aren't worth killing over. What a novel concept for the religions of peace.

Yes, I can be just as cynical as an atheist at times. It gets very depressing. Although I won't believe our God to be so, it can appear he is the author of confusion at times.

RR

Moving forward though, how do the believer and non believer unite?

While it is true that the so called religions of peace are hardly that, and we tend to gravitate towards that which divides us, the same can be said for the secular world. Surely a lot of problems in the world cannot be blamed on religion alone. It can be also pointed at political philosophies and the like that want to control the thoughts and actions of others too.

Perhaps a bit of common ground is a dislike for total power and control over the thoughts of others? If we can agree that an individual has no right to compel others to live according to his or her dictates, then how can we reasonably assume that right is suddenly given to governments?

Or, how can people authorize a government to undertake actions for which no single person has a moral authorization be it from a God or not?

This probably deserves its own thread I guess. Not trying to change the subject. The application of religion over time has been dreadful and counter productive imho.

Just a thought.

RR

Clariman wrote:But the point is that you all believe in the same God! Simply celebrate that and accept your differences rather than focus on them. The world would also be a safer place.

Erm, what god is that?

You say you're a christian? Feel free to enumerate a few characteristics of your god, and I'll find a biblical reference that directly contradicts them. That is, if you come up with anything more meaningful than "brexit means brexit".

by UncleEbenezer » December 23rd, 2016, 1:54 am

Erm, what god is that?

You say you're a christian?

by Clariman » December 21st, 2016, 2:16 pm

As a non-believer,

Erm...I don't think Clariman professes to be a christian

John

UncleEbenezer wrote:

Clariman wrote:But the point is that you all believe in the same God! Simply celebrate that and accept your differences rather than focus on them. The world would also be a safer place.

Erm, what god is that?

You say you're a christian? Feel free to enumerate a few characteristics of your god, and I'll find a biblical reference that directly contradicts them. That is, if you come up with anything more meaningful than "brexit means brexit".

As Redsturgeon has already pointed out, I am not a Christian. I am a non-believer. My point is that Judaism, Christianity and Islam all share the same God/Allah/Jehovah. They are all Abrahamic religions, borne out of the same fundamental belief .... ergo they believe in the same deity. That is a historical fact, not a personal opinion.

I don't see why that is a complicated concept to get hold of.

Of course, I understand that Jews, Christians and Muslims have different prophets (or are waiting for one) and have different views on how to praise God and live their day to day lives, but surely the most fundamental belief is in the one God? That is something that the could choose to unite around.

C

RowdyReptile wrote:Moving forward though, how do the believer and non believer unite?
RR

I think that respecting the beliefs (or lack of) of others is key, whether believer or non-believer. I am an agnostic/atheist married to a Christian, so it is something that we do every day of our lives. Our outlook on life and sense of morality is almost identical - even though it may be underpinned differently.

In terms of practical examples of how we live - I will participate in 2 church services over the festive period and Mrs C will not attend church on Christmas day because she believes it more important to show human compassion by visiting my elderly (atheist) father on Christmas Day.

It's not rocket science. It is about respecting others and understanding what is important to them.

Happy Christmas/Holidays/Saturnalia/Solstice

Clariman

Clariman wrote:As Redsturgeon has already pointed out, I am not a Christian. I am a non-believer. My point is that Judaism, Christianity and Islam all share the same God/Allah/Jehovah. They are all Abrahamic religions, borne out of the same fundamental belief .... ergo they believe in the same deity. That is a historical fact, not a personal opinion.

Beg pardon. I thought I was following up to another poster on this thread.

My point was that this same god is, like brexit, a lot of fundamentally incompatible visions. For example, the jealous and vengeful god who presides over Elijah's large-scale genocides, vs the loving, forgiving god of C0fE/New Testament. Or the remote "my kingdom is not of this world" god of the new testament, vs the interventionist horror who visits all the plagues on the Egyptians.

UncleEbenezer wrote:

Clariman wrote:But the point is that you all believe in the same God! Simply celebrate that and accept your differences rather than focus on them. The world would also be a safer place.

Erm, what god is that? Feel free to enumerate a few characteristics of your god, and I'll find a biblical reference that directly contradicts them. That is, if you come up with anything more meaningful than "brexit means brexit".

I concur. If you read the scriptures the basic nature of "God" is very different in the religions.

Jews/Old Testament - Fire and brimstone. Sacrifice and slay the enemies of the Jews
New Testament - Love and Forgiveness
Koran - Surrender to god and his will

Pretty hard to believe they're all about the same God really. "He" hasn't been very consistent in His messages to His prophets.

And that's just the main thrust. As UncleE says you can find examples of just about anything you want to find in all 3 books.

gryff

Gryff

Of course there are differences but I'm talking about stripping it back to the fundamental belief.

C

C

They're not just "a little bit" different though are they? The only absolute commonality is a single God. There's no common theme for what He thinks you should actually do.

Don't get me wrong. I think your ideal is a lovely one. Just can't see it. Nor even close. In fact, I think the likelihood is MORE fragmentation and more sects, rather than unification. After all, as I said before, IMO, religion is all about politics and control. And political leaders always have strong egos.

gryff

Clariman wrote:
I think that respecting the beliefs (or lack of) of others is key, whether believer or non-believer. I am an agnostic/atheist married to a Christian, so it is something that we do every day of our lives. Our outlook on life and sense of morality is almost identical - even though it may be underpinned differently.

In terms of practical examples of how we live - I will participate in 2 church services over the festive period and Mrs C will not attend church on Christmas day because she believes it more important to show human compassion by visiting my elderly (atheist) father on Christmas Day.

It's not rocket science. It is about respecting others and understanding what is important to them.

Happy Christmas/Holidays/Saturnalia/Solstice

Clariman

It is as simple as you describe and I agree. However, apparently it isn't easy.

You forgot Hanukkah.

Happy Christmas to you all...or whatever you celebrate, or don't celebrate. I am cool with that.

RR

RowdyReptile wrote:It is as simple as you describe and I agree. However, apparently it isn't easy.

You forgot Hanukkah.

Happy Christmas to you all...or whatever you celebrate, or don't celebrate. I am cool with that.

RR

I forgot to consult my reference resource http://www.godchecker.com/

Clariman, you can claim that all these religions worship the same God/god - that is your right.

Just as I can claim that the 'purple teapot' is an absolute fact, and the only 'truth'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

But you cannot claim to be correct, in light of all the evidence to the contrary.

So why do you persist?