Islam and Christianity - are they really the same religion?

Barney2.0

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Depends on whether you want to classify any other spiritual entities as "gods."
The term gods is only used for rulers of the world or false gods. Yet we never see the old Gods in the Bible, because there’s only One God.
 
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Dave RP

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Are Christianity and Judaism the same religion or two different religions? Both Jews and Christians recognize that we have different religions; in spite of the fact that Christianity has its origins in the context of 1st century Judaism. Early on in Muslim history the Christian response to Islam was that Islam wasn't a different religion, but a heretical offshoot of Christianity, and was largely treated as such.

That gives some fluidity to the concept here; but nobody today thinks Islam and Christianity are the same religion just of different kinds; likewise the same with Christianity and Judaism.

Sometimes, because of shared ideas, religions have commonalities, as in the case of the Abrahamic religions. But simply because both Christians and Muslims recognize Jesus as having importance doesn't mean there are intensely significance differences.

If we try and find something of a highly minimalistic, kernel of an idea for Christianity, it would look something like this:

Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God of God, our Lord; who suffered under Pilate, was crucified, buried, dead, and rose from the dead. God sent Jesus to save us.

Even without getting into conversations about Christ's Deity, or what it means to say Jesus is the Son of God, or any of those things we have a kernel idea:

-Jesus is the Messiah.
-He is, in a unique way, called the Son of God.
-He is to be called Lord, having magisterial and kingly authority from God in a larger, even cosmic sense.
-He was tried before the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, who had Him put to death--and He died.
-After He died, He stopped being dead, being raised up from the dead.
-Jesus is our Savior, He brings salvation.

This kernel of what makes Christianity Christianity is not identical to what makes Islam Islam.

The core, or kernal, the defining feature(s) of Islam are:

-The absolute oneness of God.
-God sends messengers to mankind to return human beings to the true worship of the one God.
-Muhammad is the chief messenger of God, the Seal of the Prophets.
-The Qur'an is the full, final, and perfect revelation from God of what God desires of human beings.

Jesus has a role here, as a messenger of God. But the fundamentally unique quality which Christians ascribe to Jesus is not found here:

When Christians say Jesus is the Messiah, we are speaking of Him as more than messenger or prophet, but as King, even the King of kings. There can be no loftier person than Jesus here. Because He is also called Lord. He is also Savior, the redeemer of the world.

Christianity insists that Jesus is King and Lord.
Christianity insists that Jesus died by crucifixion and was resurrected.
Christianity insists that Jesus is the Savior of the world.

This makes Jesus, in Christianity, not merely an important player; but the chief article of our religion, the object of our devotion and religion. Jesus is absolutely at the center of our faith and practice, our tradition, our worship, our confession--everything about Christianity ultimately is centered upon the figure of Jesus.

Attempting to argue that Christianity and Islam are "basically the same" because we both refer to the figure of Jesus, and use some of the same words: Messiah, born of a virgin, etc; doesn't change the fact that the very core ideas of our two religions are markedly different; and that beyond superficial similarities we are saying radically different things about the figure of Jesus.

In Christianity Jesus is the center of our devotion.
In Islam Jesus is a messenger among many messengers, a very important messenger, but still another messenger among many messengers.

I don't think we can simply pretend that these sorts of differences aren't of such significance as to warrant the recognition of the two as distinct religions with radically distinct foci. It isn't the same thing as the distinction between Catholicism and Protestantism (especially since there is no such thing as "Protestantism", there are many Protestant groups); because at the very core the various branches of the Christian religion are still the Christian religion: the basic core, that the figure of Jesus is the center of our devotional and religious life, is there.

-CryptoLutheran
The point I am making is that the two religions share a lot, and it is only human interpretation of events and manipulation of prophesies that make them separate. The fact that Christians believe Jesus died and was resurrected, and Muslims don't is immaterial, no one knows what happened in reality.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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The point I am making is that the two religions share a lot, and it is only human interpretation of events and manipulation of prophesies that make them separate. The fact that Christians believe Jesus died and was resurrected, and Muslims don't is immaterial, no one knows what happened in reality.
It's not immaterial, because to say so is to then ignore the specific reasons that lie behind why each group has arrived at its respective interpretations of their religious sources. It also ignores how the authors who were involved in the writing of the various holy books perceived the nature of the world around them.

These things are not just trifling matters; they are a part of the overall structure of the hermeneutical dynamic involved in our individual understandings of each religion in question. These matters may, at the moment, seem irrelevant to you, but whether these matters register or not on your own personal "relevance scale" doesn't really indicate to any of the rest of us the extent to which these matters actually are or are not relevant.

Of course Christianity and Islam share some elements. But regardless, the specific ideological issues that cause the most friction between these two religions do so because of the priority values assigned to the specific conflicting tenets as they are found within each of these religions. We're not just looking at a mass collection of random bits of belief that all have more or less the same level of inherent ideological value.
 
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Silmarien

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The point I am making is that the two religions share a lot, and it is only human interpretation of events and manipulation of prophesies that make them separate. The fact that Christians believe Jesus died and was resurrected, and Muslims don't is immaterial, no one knows what happened in reality.

I think you're approaching this from a very atheistic perspective: neither Christianity nor Islam could accurately represent reality, so all we are dealing with is stories that can be viewed from different angles. When approached from a purely naturalistic point of view, these two religions are obviously very similar.

But from a theistic perspective, the question is whether or not the Incarnation is true. And this is actually a big deal. So you're basically saying that Christianity's central claim is somehow immaterial in distinguishing between it and Islam, which is more than a little bit odd. (I do think that Unitarian Christianity is closer to Islam than it is to orthodox Christianity, but that is beside the point.)
 
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2PhiloVoid

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The point I am making is that the two religions share a lot, and it is only human interpretation of events and manipulation of prophesies that make them separate. The fact that Christians believe Jesus died and was resurrected, and Muslims don't is immaterial, no one knows what happened in reality.

Dave, here's an interesting little experiment......of sorts. Listen to the following song, and tell me if it should be counted as an expression of Islamic sensibilities or of Western sensibilities. Which is it? :rolleyes: In a similar way, the way in which this song is constructed is similar (although by no means the same) as how Islam is constructed from Judaism, Christianity, and some local religious ideas that were contemporary in the time of Mohammad.

 
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Dave RP

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I think you're approaching this from a very atheistic perspective: neither Christianity nor Islam could accurately represent reality, so all we are dealing with is stories that can be viewed from different angles. When approached from a purely naturalistic point of view, these two religions are obviously very similar.

But from a theistic perspective, the question is whether or not the Incarnation is true. And this is actually a big deal. So you're basically saying that Christianity's central claim is somehow immaterial in distinguishing between it and Islam, which is more than a little bit odd. (I do think that Unitarian Christianity is closer to Islam than it is to orthodox Christianity, but that is beside the point.)
Your first paragraph summarises my point quite nicely.

All religions believe they have the magic interpretation, and everyone else has got it wrong, I'm saying that actually it is only human interpretation of similar events, mired in ancient history and/ or legend, that prevents Islam and Christianity from sharing the same beliefs.

I went to church a couple of weeks ago with my girlfriend and the sermon was on false teaching - beware false teaching - they've all got it wrong, only we have it right.

That's religion for you, each religion and sub religion within each religion has it right, all the others are false teaching, whereas maybe none of them have it totally right and all have subjected their own historic stories to human interpretation. As I've said before, if god exists it is the same god for all, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Shinto, atheist or whale worshiper.
 
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Dave RP

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It's not immaterial, because to say so is to then ignore the specific reasons that lie behind why each group has arrived at its respective interpretations of their religious sources. It also ignores how the authors who were involved in the writing of the various holy books perceived the nature of the world around them.

These things are not just trifling matters; they are a part of the overall structure of the hermeneutical dynamic involved in our individual understandings of each religion in question. These matters may, at the moment, seem irrelevant to you, but whether these matters register or not on your own personal "relevance scale" doesn't really indicate to any of the rest of us the extent to which these matters actually are or are not relevant.

Of course Christianity and Islam share some elements. But regardless, the specific ideological issues that cause the most friction between these two religions do so because of the priority values assigned to the specific conflicting tenets as they are found within each of these religions. We're not just looking at a mass collection of random bits of belief that all have more or less the same level of inherent ideological value.
Each group arrived at their position because they were (largely) indoctrinated from birth. If you had been born in Iran to a strongly Muslim family, you'd be a Muslim now - probably and you'd fell sadness for all the poor Christians going to hell and happy that you'll be with Allah in paradise - possibly.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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Each group arrived at their position because they were (largely) indoctrinated from birth. If you had been born in Iran to a strongly Muslim family, you'd be a Muslim now - probably and you'd fell sadness for all the poor Christians going to hell and happy that you'll be with Allah in paradise - possibly.

That's really a very poor argument; you're simply not looking at either the historical development of each religion, or at the interactions of the various groups of people who are in each region of the world, especially as they have interacted over the course of time. Neither are you acknowledging how the interactions of these groups have affected many of the various social thought forms, religious doctrines, and/or other cultural and/or scientific understandings that have seemingly cohered within any one people group that is associated respectively with the religions of Christianity and Islam.

In other words, your comment here is reductionistic and unrepresentative of historical and social reality as it actually is and has been in our world history.
 
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Abraxos

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Each group arrived at their position because they were (largely) indoctrinated from birth. If you had been born in Iran to a strongly Muslim family, you'd be a Muslim now - probably and you'd fell sadness for all the poor Christians going to hell and happy that you'll be with Allah in paradise - possibly.
This is a text book genetic fallacy while also attempting to invalidate a position by attacking a strawman, and it's obviously an invalid way of reasoning. A person may come to hold a belief for any number of reasons, for example it would be invalid for me to say atheists arrived at their position based on emotions and bad experiences without any evaluation to determine the validity of atheism or it's relevance (or lack thereof).

That's what happens when one is superficial.
 
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Silmarien

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Your first paragraph summarises my point quite nicely.

All religions believe they have the magic interpretation, and everyone else has got it wrong, I'm saying that actually it is only human interpretation of similar events, mired in ancient history and/ or legend, that prevents Islam and Christianity from sharing the same beliefs.

Then it should be obvious to you why virtually no theist of any religious group or none at all is going to agree with you. We reject your initial assumption that the only possible explanation for the origins of the various religions is human interpretation of normal events and/or legends. We may believe that interpretation plays a role in the formation of religious dogma, and some of us will stress that more than others, but a larger spectrum of possibilities is available to us than is to an atheist.

It seems that your real thesis here is not that Christianity and Islam are basically the same religion, but that all religious doctrine is irrelevant. That's a very different claim and certainly doesn't entail that different religions are interchangeable. Just that they're all wrong.

I went to church a couple of weeks ago with my girlfriend and the sermon was on false teaching - beware false teaching - they've all got it wrong, only we have it right.

That's religion for you, each religion and sub religion within each religion has it right, all the others are false teaching, whereas maybe none of them have it totally right and all have subjected their own historic stories to human interpretation. As I've said before, if god exists it is the same god for all, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Shinto, atheist or whale worshiper.

You seem to have very limited experience with religion, because not all religious groups insist that they have everything right and every other group has it all wrong. That sort of tribalism certainly exists, but it's not ubiquitous either amongst world religions or within Christianity itself. Historically Christianity tended to recognize that other religious groups could be closer or further away from the full revelation that Christianity represented, and you'll still see that approach in Eastern Orthodoxy and (to an extent) Catholicism. Similarly, Islam makes a big deal of People of the Book (i.e., other monotheistic faiths) and Hinduism is highly universalistic and has no problem at all accounting for other religions, at least in theory. When a religion gets ugly and violently exclusivistic, there's usually something else going on.

I'm not sure what you mean by if God exists, it's the same God for everyone, though. There is a religion that comes very close to what you'd consider appropriate: Bahá'í, but you can't really say that the Bahá'í have it right without saying that everyone else is falling short, so I don't see how this solves anything for you. If you just don't care for the idea of non-believers in the One True Religion being eternally damned, you're in luck because that's far from a universal belief, even in Christianity, where Inclusivism is very common and Universalism not exactly unheard of.

Each group arrived at their position because they were (largely) indoctrinated from birth. If you had been born in Iran to a strongly Muslim family, you'd be a Muslim now - probably and you'd fell sadness for all the poor Christians going to hell and happy that you'll be with Allah in paradise - possibly.

This is completely irrelevant to the point PhiloVoid was making, and also a pretty absurd generalization that doesn't necessarily match up to reality in the globalized 21st century.
 
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Dave RP

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Then it should be obvious to you why virtually no theist of any religious group or none at all is going to agree with you. We reject your initial assumption that the only possible explanation for the origins of the various religions is human interpretation of normal events and/or legends. We may believe that interpretation plays a role in the formation of religious dogma, and some of us will stress that more than others, but a larger spectrum of possibilities is available to us than is to an atheist.

It seems that your real thesis here is not that Christianity and Islam are basically the same religion, but that all religious doctrine is irrelevant. That's a very different claim and certainly doesn't entail that different religions are interchangeable. Just that they're all wrong.



You seem to have very limited experience with religion, because not all religious groups insist that they have everything right and every other group has it all wrong. That sort of tribalism certainly exists, but it's not ubiquitous either amongst world religions or within Christianity itself. Historically Christianity tended to recognize that other religious groups could be closer or further away from the full revelation that Christianity represented, and you'll still see that approach in Eastern Orthodoxy and (to an extent) Catholicism. Similarly, Islam makes a big deal of People of the Book (i.e., other monotheistic faiths) and Hinduism is highly universalistic and has no problem at all accounting for other religions, at least in theory. When a religion gets ugly and violently exclusivistic, there's usually something else going on.

I'm not sure what you mean by if God exists, it's the same God for everyone, though. There is a religion that comes very close to what you'd consider appropriate: Bahá'í, but you can't really say that the Bahá'í have it right without saying that everyone else is falling short, so I don't see how this solves anything for you. If you just don't care for the idea of non-believers in the One True Religion being eternally damned, you're in luck because that's far from a universal belief, even in Christianity, where Inclusivism is very common and Universalism not exactly unheard of.



This is completely irrelevant to the point PhiloVoid was making, and also a pretty absurd generalization that doesn't necessarily match up to reality in the globalized 21st century.

I suppose the point I was trying (very badly) to make is that I believe that if there is a god, an all powerful entity capable of creating universes just by wanting to do so (a premise I find ludicrous personally but that's irrelevant), it will be just the one god and the god of everyone.

Beliefs are just that, all religions have belief in their own religion, and therefore each will say that they believe in the correct god. I am saying that you may think you believe in the correct god because you were lucky enough to hear the correct scripture at the correct time, but the reality is that it is only human interpretation and dogma that has resulted in there being hundreds of religions in the world. In the end, when you die, I still say that if god exists, and if we humans have a "soul" that goes somewhere, you'll find that the god you worshipped was the same god worshipped by all believers of all faiths, and he/ she/ it won't be in the slightest bit bothered what you believed on earth because god will know tat religious faith is a result of education, indoctrination and the accident of location of birth or the community you were born into.

My partner was brought up in a Christian household, went to church every week, bible study, Sunday school, indoctrinated (or educated if you prefer) from birth, and lo and behold - she's a Christian, as are her children who had the same. If the Muslims are right, I bet their god won't punish her for eternity for having the bad luck to be born in Sussex to a Christian family as opposed to being born in Tehran to a Muslim family. That's what I mean by saying it's the same god.

I reckon the world would be a better place if believers said we all have the same god, but we interpret it in a different way to you.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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I suppose the point I was trying (very badly) to make is that I believe that if there is a god, an all powerful entity capable of creating universes just by wanting to do so (a premise I find ludicrous personally but that's irrelevant), it will be just the one god and the god of everyone.

Beliefs are just that, all religions have belief in their own religion, and therefore each will say that they believe in the correct god. I am saying that you may think you believe in the correct god because you were lucky enough to hear the correct scripture at the correct time, but the reality is that it is only human interpretation and dogma that has resulted in there being hundreds of religions in the world. In the end, when you die, I still say that if god exists, and if we humans have a "soul" that goes somewhere, you'll find that the god you worshipped was the same god worshipped by all believers of all faiths, and he/ she/ it won't be in the slightest bit bothered what you believed on earth because god will know tat religious faith is a result of education, indoctrination and the accident of location of birth or the community you were born into.

My partner was brought up in a Christian household, went to church every week, bible study, Sunday school, indoctrinated (or educated if you prefer) from birth, and lo and behold - she's a Christian, as are her children who had the same. If the Muslims are right, I bet their god won't punish her for eternity for having the bad luck to be born in Sussex to a Christian family as opposed to being born in Tehran to a Muslim family. That's what I mean by saying it's the same god.

I reckon the world would be a better place if believers said we all have the same god, but we interpret it in a different way to you.

So, by what you're saying, there are, at this time, absolutely NO Christians living among the many, many Muslims who reside in what are otherwise primarily Islamic nations-states. Is this what you're trying to imply, that there are no Muslims in India, and no Hindus in Pakistan; and no truly religious people in China, and no true Roman Catholics in Mexico?
 
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Dave RP

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So, by what you're saying, there are, at this time, absolutely NO Christians living among the many, many Muslims who reside in what are otherwise primarily Islamic nations-states. Is this what you're trying to imply, that there are no Muslims in India, and no Hindus in Pakistan; and no truly religious people in China, and no true Roman Catholics in Mexico?
No, what I am saying is that in majority Muslim countries it is highly likely that a random person being born there would be indoctrinated (or educated) in the Muslim faith from birth. if the population is (for example) 95% Muslim, the odds that you would be a Muslim in that country are therefore 95% +/- a very small percentage, and by Christian beliefs you'd be 95% certain to be going to hell (or whatever the punishment for not being Christian is).

I am fully aware that there are Christians in all majority Muslim countries.
 
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Dave RP

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This is a text book genetic fallacy while also attempting to invalidate a position by attacking a strawman, and it's obviously an invalid way of reasoning. A person may come to hold a belief for any number of reasons, for example it would be invalid for me to say atheists arrived at their position based on emotions and bad experiences without any evaluation to determine the validity of atheism or it's relevance (or lack thereof).

That's what happens when one is superficial.

The majority of religious adherents of any faith were born into that faith, not all but the majority.

Atheists just look at the world and conclude that god is not required, that there is no evidence for gods existence.
 
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2PhiloVoid

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No, what I am saying is that in majority Muslim countries it is highly likely that a random person being born there would be indoctrinated (or educated) in the Muslim faith from birth. if the population is (for example) 95% Muslim, the odds that you would be a Muslim in that country are therefore 95% +/- a very small percentage, and by Christian beliefs you'd be 95% certain to be going to hell (or whatever the punishment for not being Christian is).

I am fully aware that there are Christians in all majority Muslim countries.

...and then we might ask, why are there Christians in Muslim countries, even in Muslim countries where just asserting that Jesus is indeed the "Son of God" is grounds for imprisonment, or worse? See, it seems to me that you're kind of skipping around this awkward fact without explaining it. As for myself, I don't think it's enough to simply say, "Well, all things being equal, I suppose the odds are that there'd be a fluke of deviance somewhere in each social system, even in social systems as religiously rigid as those which espouse Fundamentalistic Islam."
 
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I suppose the point I was trying (very badly) to make is that I believe that if there is a god, an all powerful entity capable of creating universes just by wanting to do so (a premise I find ludicrous personally but that's irrelevant), it will be just the one god and the god of everyone.

Beliefs are just that, all religions have belief in their own religion, and therefore each will say that they believe in the correct god. I am saying that you may think you believe in the correct god because you were lucky enough to hear the correct scripture at the correct time, but the reality is that it is only human interpretation and dogma that has resulted in there being hundreds of religions in the world. In the end, when you die, I still say that if god exists, and if we humans have a "soul" that goes somewhere, you'll find that the god you worshipped was the same god worshipped by all believers of all faiths, and he/ she/ it won't be in the slightest bit bothered what you believed on earth because god will know tat religious faith is a result of education, indoctrination and the accident of location of birth or the community you were born into.

My partner was brought up in a Christian household, went to church every week, bible study, Sunday school, indoctrinated (or educated if you prefer) from birth, and lo and behold - she's a Christian, as are her children who had the same. If the Muslims are right, I bet their god won't punish her for eternity for having the bad luck to be born in Sussex to a Christian family as opposed to being born in Tehran to a Muslim family. That's what I mean by saying it's the same god.

I reckon the world would be a better place if believers said we all have the same god, but we interpret it in a different way to you.

I'll posit this to you:

If there is a God then He knows what He is and what He is not. If He communicates with human beings then He will communicate what He is and what He is not to them. This doesn't change, won't change, can't change because God is God, so God is an absolute truth.

In Judaism there are two ages, the age of the law and the age of the Messiah. Christianity makes the assertion that the age of the law has passed and the age of the Messiah has come upon us; that is the "good news" of the "Kingdom of God".. The Messiah has come and therefore the messianic age is here. The old (old covenant) has passed away and the new (new covenant) is here.

This belief in Christianity is predicated on the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Christ Jesus. Without all three of those things being true, you have no Messiah, therefore no Messianic age.

The Messiah overcame real death and rose bodily from the grave - This is how we know for a fact that He has the authority to forgive our sins. Because He conquered and His work was accepted by God (a simple way to explain). Every other thing is literally secondary to this fact, because if Christ didn't die and rise, living, from the grave there is no forgiveness for sin.

1 Corinthians 15:17 "if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins."

Of course Muslims teach there is no death on the cross, no ressurection of Jesus, and no forgiveness of sins except by the goodwill of a God.. entrance into heaven is, therefore, a hope, a maybe - not a promise.

And of you've ever tried to be good enough for God then you'll likely see the futility of that hope..

Muslims teach Mohammed as the Holy Spirit and put you back under a law rewritten in Mohammed's image instead of the God of Abraham's image.

Islam is therefore, devoid of salvation, devoid of all that Christians believe. Islam isn't just another way to understand the same thing, it's a belief that directly opposes all that Christians (and even Jews) believe.

You do have to understand the meaning of the Life, Death and Ressurection to understand that though..
 
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RDKirk

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RDKirk

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My first comment was reffering to Jews, Muslims don’t worship the God of Israel.

Well, nearly all Christians believe we worship the God if Israel--there was a whole Church issue about that 'way back in 140AD. They rejected the idea that they were not worshiping the God of Israel, and we believe to this day that we worship the God of Israel.

So if Muslims confirm, as you have said, that they are not worshiping the God of Israel, then indeed, Christians are not worshpping the god of the Muslims.
 
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Hazelelponi

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Well, nearly all Christians believe we worship the God if Israel--there was a whole Church issue about that 'way back in 140AD. They rejected the idea that they were not worshiping the God of Israel, and we believe to this day that we worship the God of Israel.

So if Muslims confirm, as you have said, that they are not worshiping the God of Israel, then indeed, Christians are not worshpping the god of the Muslims.

Are you willing to accept my answer? It's in the form of a question...

Would I be under penalty of death for apostasy if we all worshipped the same God?

for background, I'm a former Muslim.

Actions always speak louder than words, and we all know, on the deepest level, that we don't worship the same God
 
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