My religious background has ranged from being raised Catholic in my youth. Then I became an atheist and then Christian and then atheist etc. All said and done my religions beliefs have gone back and forth between being Christian and agnostic throughout my life. Since 2000 I was mostly Christian. I've read the Bible cover to cover, twice. I plan on doing that several more times in my life. So that's where I'm coming from. So I know a great deal of Christianity and what their beliefs are.
Now comes to my question: Anybody who knows a Muslim or has studied Islam knows that Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship the same God. This is made explicitly clear in the Qu'ran. However it appears to me that the majority of Christians believe otherwise. It appears that they confuse the concept of having different beliefs about God with actually being another God altogether. If you're one of those Christians then I'd like to ask you what your thought process is on this point so that I can understand it.
First I'd like to explain my reasoning for it. In college I had to take several religion courses because it was a Catholic-Augustinian based school and as such we were force to. I took the general religion course and then a course on eastern religions. After that I've read a little about Islam in books on the subject. The most recent one is a world religion text called Ways to the Center - An Introduction to World Religion. In what follows let it be clear that the term Allah is not the name of God but is the Arabic word for "God." On page 99 the authors start off by saying
Those who read the Qu'ran see that the figures in those scriptures are the same ones that appear in the Christian Bible and as such some of them are in the Bible of the Jews, i.e. what we call the Old Testament.
Now comes to my question: Anybody who knows a Muslim or has studied Islam knows that Christians, Jews and Muslims all worship the same God. This is made explicitly clear in the Qu'ran. However it appears to me that the majority of Christians believe otherwise. It appears that they confuse the concept of having different beliefs about God with actually being another God altogether. If you're one of those Christians then I'd like to ask you what your thought process is on this point so that I can understand it.
First I'd like to explain my reasoning for it. In college I had to take several religion courses because it was a Catholic-Augustinian based school and as such we were force to. I took the general religion course and then a course on eastern religions. After that I've read a little about Islam in books on the subject. The most recent one is a world religion text called Ways to the Center - An Introduction to World Religion. In what follows let it be clear that the term Allah is not the name of God but is the Arabic word for "God." On page 99 the authors start off by saying
The God in the Qu'ran is the same God who they hold to be the one who sent Mary a messenger telling here that she's going to give birth to a holy child.Islam is an Arabic word that means "submission, surrender" (to the will of Allah, God). Muslim is another Arabic word, this one meaning "one who submits," in other words, a follower of Islam. Muslims understand this God to whom they are submitting to be the same God described in Genesis and to whom Jesus prayed.
Those who read the Qu'ran see that the figures in those scriptures are the same ones that appear in the Christian Bible and as such some of them are in the Bible of the Jews, i.e. what we call the Old Testament.