Does God = Allah

CS I've tried very hard to clarify what might be a semantic problem here and there. I've tried to explain -- three or four times specifically -- what I mean by different Gods, how the fact that there are these contradictions amounts to the actual worship of different Gods. Your way of putting it, that it's just wrong ideas about the true God trivializes the problem. The problem IS as big as worshiping different Gods. No matter how you cut it ALLAH IS NOT JEHOVAH. You would have to explain to me how my position means this. No Christian denomination I know of contradicts the deity of Christ or the God-given inheritance of Isaac.

Modulous, I just DON'T get what you are saying if you are not saying what I've thought you're saying. I just have to give up. I'm sorry.

I'm not going there. I've answered that accusation dozens of times. It is a misrepresentation. Believe what you please, but I will not agree to it.

Some Standard Arguments with Christianity, per your Message 209: End Standard Arguments with Christianity example.I don't wish punishment on anybody, and said nothing that implied that I do.What two questions?If you mean the above, they are Standard Accusations of Christianity and off topic for this thread.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 07:03 PM

Funny how us demented fundies are the only logical ones while everybody else seems to be busy making contradictions into equivalences and sows' ears into silk purses.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 08:02 PM

JAR, the master of the unsupported dogmatic assertion.

El was the generic term for God in the Middle East in the time of Moses, which fits with the fact that most peoples had a general if often distorted concept of a Creator God over all gods, but it also got shrunk down to particular gods thanks to fallen nature and demonic activity.That term dropped out of use as time went on. The God of the Jews specifically gave His personal Name and was no longer known as El.The wind is a figure of the true God. A figure, a symbol, a type.A characteristic of heathen idolatries is that they have gods for every natural phenomenon, all part of the Fall when humanity lost the ability to commune with the one true God.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 09:57 PM

Another typical JAR post full of unsupported dogmatic assertions of his peculiar idiosyncratic beliefs.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-28-2006 10:40 PM

No. El was the generic term for "God" that all peoples in that area used. "Elohim" was the plural form.Then God gave the Hebrews His own Name.

Another totally unsupported assertion which has been proved false. The Koran presents a view of Moses and God that completely contradicts the Bible, using a name for God that the Bible doesn't know, and altering the Biblical report of Moses' striking the rock from which sprang ONE spring. Totally different God.

Please, jar, go to a Judaism site and tell them that Allah is their god. Call them silly too. Please.As usual you make no case, you make assertions. You proved this you said that, this is true that is true. It's all a bunch of nonsense.I have never mistaken the map for the territory in my entire life and your constant mantra to that effect is false and stupid.

By the holy books written for the purpose of elucidating their nature. The holy books contradict each other on crucial attributes and character of God. This is how they are proved to be different concepts and therefore the different religions are worshiping different Gods, and this is how it HAS been proved on this thread in a number of posts.

The contradictory written accounts of God amount to worshiping a different God. If one has a Son who is equally God with Himself but the other has no son, if one chose Isaac to father his chosen people and the other chose Ishmael, these are two entirely different Gods."What really happened" or what God is cannot be known apart from the written revelations of his character. If they contradict each other, they cannot all be true. We worship God as having the charater that is taught in these revelations, so if we are worshiping the false description we are worshiping a false God.The book is the only clue to God. Of course it's not God. What an absurd idea. But it is the only way we have of knowing anything about his character.Jar absurdly says that relying on the Bible is worshiping the map rather than the territory, but if it is a map it is to be followed because if it is a good map it will enable one to navigate the territory. If you ignore the map -- as he does, making up the territory from other sources and his own imagination -- you will only be totally lost as a result.Now the map may be a false map, and certainly at least two of the three major religions have a false map since they all contradict one another, so whichever those two are mislead their followers into alien territory, territory that is not the true God. Logically there can only be one true map. Of course it is possible the third map is also false, but there cannot be more than one true one.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-29-2006 02:39 AM

No, God is not a concept, but the only way we can know God is through concepts. And for that reason it is crucial that the concepts be accurate.As jar says, the Bible -- and by extension all the holy books of all the religions -- is the map to the territory. He says it implying that one worships the map if one takes it seriously, thereby ignoring the true God who is not the map. But this is absurd. He is the one who says the Bible is a map, after all, and maps are to be used to find the territory, but he sneers at it. Since there is no way to get to the territory without the map, the map is essential. He ignores it completely for fear of worshiping it, whatever that means, trusting in all kinds of other sources, and is of course lost as all get out.Since the existent maps or holy books of the three major religions describe three different territories, contradict one another on the most important features of the landscape, at least two of them will lead you away from God. Logically the third one might mislead as well, but in any case only one of the "maps" could possibly be a true guide to God.I said more about this in Message 251 to Dr. Jones.Again, God is not a concept. But we can't find God just looking on our own, we can know him only through concepts -- if you really want to know God it's important to have an accurate conceptualization of Him.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-29-2006 02:53 AM

I haven't read the sites but you are wrong, it is not at all hard to refute this as supposed support for the idea that Allah was not originally the moon god. When Mohammed forced Islam on the people he insisted on throwing out all the other gods but the one god of Islam. Islam overthrew the pantheism of the region which had previously prevailed. Mecca was a major shrine to over three hundred idols before Islam came in and made the worshipers monotheists. Mecca became a major seat of Islam, replacing the pantheism, and the name of the moon god, a prominent god in the pantheon, became the name of the God of Islam, now conceived as the one and only God.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-29-2006 03:03 AM