I just realized....

I'm a Christian, but Ive recently been studying Islam(in a history class) and I came to the realixation that Jews, Christians, and Muslims are the SAME. We belive in the one God, have the same values, but here we are afraid of each other, killing each other....makes no sense to me. I do belive there is one central truth to all religions, faiths, etc. I find that the more I know, the more I just dont understand humanity.

 

What do you mean then when you say you are a Christian?

 

he/she believes in Christ I suspect.

 

This terrifies/angers me.

 

While I do agree with you in the sentiments that we all believe in the same God of Abraham, the strife comes from the fact that we are essentially blastheming their faiths by preaching the divinity of Jesus and the 3 Persons of God.

 

Really? Why would that terrify or anger you? I think that he was simply posing that question that if Christians, Jews, and Muslims are all the same what then would be the significance of calling oneself a Christian specifically. If all three are the same why not "I'm a Jew and a Muslim and a Chrisitian" what is there to differentiate? Why not say "I'm a Chrisjeulim" or some such thing.

 

Ok, I guess you have a point from that perspective.

I guess based on the rest of JLPMGHRS' posts i assumed it was a less direct "Are you born-again? did you say the magic Jesus prayer? Your aren't a Roman Catholic?" line of questioning.

I guess i really shouldn't have jumped on him like that. Thanks.

 

Although Jews, Christians and Muslims all descend from the same line of Abraham, to say they are the same is sort of like saying that the people who live where Philadelphia is today are just like the people that lived in that location in 1780, and they are just the same as the people that lived there in the 5th century A.C.E. Beliefs and culture have changed over time.


But you know that dollydagger. I'm not putting you down. You were noticing that the initial intentions in all three Abrahamic faiths were to preserve the success of the community through prayer, reading Scriptures, good works, and hoping for God's grace during times of strife. It's neat to imagine the nonviolence that could be if we could all peacefully co-exist :H

 

Well the Bible tells us that there is no other name under heaven given to men to be saved but the man Christ Jesus. Jews and Muslims do not believe that.

 

Religions make truth-claims about reality. Contradictory claims cannot all be true.

 

And I believe in who He is and what He has done....but the essential point Im trying to convey is that we are all worshipping the same God...think about it..
God spoke to Abraham... we screwed that up, so he spoke to Moses....we screwed up so he sent Jesus....we screwed that up, too, and he sent Muhammad. The beliefs and values are all the same. It is unity, brotherhood(in the general term). I even believ that Buddha was an agent of God, too. Buddha and Christ's teachings are EXTREMELY similar.

For the record, I am a "liberal" christian, so please dont confuse me with Bible-thumping, fundamentalist Jerry Falwell types. They are a mockery to me.

 

On the surface.

What you seem to be pointing at is very similar to the Bahai faith. http://www.bahai.org/ if you want info...

 

These religions teach contradicting views of reality. Campbell is correct in what he says. Jesus said that he was the only way to God, that he is The Way. None of these other views hold that to be true. The view of Buddhism and the view of Christianity are irreconcilably different.

 

I can't say that I agree. The similarities you have listed here are all very general and not necessarily accurate. Muslims for example do not believe in a messiah, and while Jews for the most part do, their view of what the messiah is/will be is very different from the Christian version. They have not all been in competiton with eachother from "day one" since they came into existence at very different times. Even once they all were around they were not always competing with one another. During the early crusades Judaism and Islam managed a fairly peaceful non-antagonistic co-existence.

That they came from the same region, are fucked up to some degree, and are continually exploited for various reasons is an irrelevant comparison. These are all incidental characteristics having nothing to do with the religious beliefes and/or practices of the faiths in queastion.

Of the similarities you've listed only the partiarchalism and common use of the OT are significant.

p.s. I might add more to this later but right now my battery is about to die.

 

but I feel a unity, an essential oneness with the philosophies of all major religions. take care of those who cant care for themselvess, be compassionate, giving, humble. love your brothers, neighbors, enemies. every major religion believes in these same values. and I believe we have been instilled with these values from the same being, God, Allah, Yahweh, whomever....but its the SAME

humans have deviated riginal messages. every faith has schisms because one guy interpreted a line differently than the other. what i really dont get is condemnation of the same faith to each other: Sunnis vs. Shiites, Catholics vs. Protestants, etc.

I quit going to church a long time ago and started doing my own readings and interpretations. My faith has never been stronger. I feel what I get from my readings is untarneshed by someone else's view, having it shoved down my throat on sunday morning.....my church is outside, in the water, on a mountain. I have friends of all faiths and beliefs, and we are brothers and sisters. I just dont get those who think that they are right, and the rest are going to hell. It states in the Bible NUMEROUS times that we are here to love and support each other, and that jugement comes from God alone----not from us.

i could ramble on....

 

I agree. But this doesn't mean that everyone worships the same God nor that every religion holds to the correct view of who God is and what He is like. They hold to contradictory views of reality, contradictory views of who God is and what He is like. Theoretically, they could all be wrong but not all right.

Religions make truth-claims that are exclusive. The Bible says that all men, all of us, are evil and the only way to be forgiven of our evil deeds is through Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, who became our substitute and took our punishment for our sins. God will carry out justice. The guilty will be punished. The punishment for moral crimes is Hell.

This is an exclusive claim of Jesus Christ. He claimed that he was the only way to God. Either Christ is wrong or all other religions are wrong, but they are not both correct.

 

what if they were both correct??? do you know what is correct and wrong? does any of us? so we differ on our views, but we shouldnt condemn them....we are here to love one another....read the letters of Paul. It states that over and over again.

so you dont think that Allah, Yahweh, and God are the same?? Because I know they are the same One God.

I think the Bible says that the punishment is death, not hell

 

No, no one "knows" 100%. If we did, we would be gods ourselves.

If you are interested in reading about meshing religious traditions, there's this book that tries to mesh some Hindu philosophy with Christ called "The Mystic Christ" by Ethan Walker. I recommend it. It was written by a follower of Amma, a Hindu guru who won the Gandhi-King award for nonviolence a few years ago.

 

I'm currently reading "Living Buddha, Living Christ" by Thich Nhat Hanh.

He also wrote a book (forgot the title) where Buddha and Christ have conversations as brothers...I am intrigued to read that one as well. Thanks for the book suggestion...I will check it out