Same God?

Percivale said:

I've thought of a good analogy for the question whether Christians, Muslims, Confucians, and the rest believe in the same God or not.
Aristotle and Copernicus, Einstein and Newton, or Fred Hoyle and Stephen Hawking all talking about the same universe?

People who argue that different religions worship different gods generally prove their point by pointing out the differences in beliefs about God that those religions have. But one could point out that the universe of ptolemy or aristotle bears hardly any resemblance to that of hawking and other modern scientists, yet the only person that could use that argument to deny that they are talking about the same universe would be the idealist that denies that any universe exists.

It seems better in both cases to say that everyone is talking about the same god or universe, just have different understandings of it.

Of course this does not apply to polytheistic gods. There's no logical reason Zeus and Thor could not both exist; they are not in competition like concepts of the ultimate creator god, such as Allah or Brahma, are.

I'm sure someone will note that each concept of the universe successfully replaced the previous, unlike in religion where different concepts continue to coexist. This is because natural objects are more conducive to examination than intelligent beings are; it's the same reason that political science and psychology have made so much less progress than natural science.

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Songsmith said:

I guess I very confused. Maybe this has already been addressed, so I apologize in advance if it has.

You say that the universe of Aristotle looked vastly different than the one of Hawking. I don't know upon what you are basing that assumption. The constellations are the same, the stars are the same. What has changed so much? They saw more of it with the naked eye because there was less light pollution, but that is not a change with the universe.

When talking about God though, there are actual differences between the concept of the Christian God and those of any other religion. Those differences make them not the same God or the law of non-contradiction is voided. Christians say that Jesus is, in fact, God in human form. Every other religion in the world says that is not the case. He either is or is not. He cannot be both and logic still exist. They could not both be wrong about that point by itself, let alone whether he was actually crucified, whether he actually raised from the grave, whether he truly bore the sin of the world (all of which are specific claims that Christianity makes about our God). Either Christianity is correct or it is false. There is no middle ground for interpretative flaws. He either is those things or he is not those things.

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