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Is God universal?

Blake Bowden

Administrator
Staff Member
Is God universal? For example, is the God of the Jews and Christians the same as Muslims and other faiths?
 
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jonesvilletexas

Premium Member
Re: Is G-d...

That is an honest question.
If you believe in one true G_d and none other, then the god’s of others must be distorted. This could be answered in a lot of ways and I will not go into it here.
 

Traveling Man

Premium Member
Re: Is G-d...

Is G-d universal? For example, is the G-d of the Jews and Christians the same as Muslims and other faiths?

From all of the research that I've done; all the Mosaic/Abrahamic beliefs share the same G_d. It's only the ardent extremist that believe differently.
 

HKTidwell

Premium Member
Re: Is G-d...

From all of the research that I've done; all the Mosaic/Abrahamic beliefs share the same G_d. It's only the ardent extremist that believe differently.

The Jewish God, Muslim God, and Christian God are all the same from my research too. They all believe in Abraham and so are the same with some technical differences.
 

drapetomaniac

Premium Member
Premium Member
I've always thought if there is one Supreme God and 1 billion people address that Supreme God as God, even if they do it differently, that doesn't change the being they're addressing.

That's why you can find multiple biographies of one individual - sometimes with very different pictures. If you think I'm a crook, my mother thinks I'm a saint, my boy scout troop sees me as a leader, my nonprofits see me as resourceful, my ex-girlfriends as a knave or gentlemen - then what is my true entity?

People are looking in the same place - God.

I suppose you can ask people to describe the Queen of England and get wildly different results based on their opinion, personal life and knowledge of different parts of the Queens life. Even if you end up with a dozen wildly different accounts, it doesn't mean there is suddenly more than one Queen of England. If people have multiple views of who or what I am and what I want to do - I don't multiply into multiple beings or cease to exist.

I understand the question, but always found it an odd one. People around the world point to the same supreme throne and say "God."

While this is a common question, notice nobody asks if the God of the Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterian are the same. If we're going to divvy God up based on the mechanics of how he is viewed, these denominations split for a reason. And I imagine many of us wouldn't join another vastly different church in the Christian family over certain beliefs.
 

JTM

"Just in case"
Premium Member
sure. i'm fine with it being the same. especially if you call it "the god of abraham"
 

ctp2nd

Premium Member
The universality of God depends on the groups one wishes to encompass when using the term universal. Limit one's scope to the God of Abraham, you find a universal deity. Expand that scope to include the several pagan, naturalistic, asian, and new-age religions, and the universality becomes more complicated. One might argue that Man's various names and definitions of God are necessary to help His people develop a closer and more personal relationship with Him. At the same time, a "Good Baptist" will, at times, damn a "Good Catholic" to hell for not following his specific Christian denomination's set of rules.

The thing that makes Freemasonry so attractive to me is that we set aside, or should set aside, our religious particulars while in lodge and get to know each other for who we are.
 

drapetomaniac

Premium Member
Premium Member
The universality of God depends on the groups one wishes to encompass when using the term universal. Limit one's scope to the God of Abraham, you find a universal deity. Expand that scope to include the several pagan, naturalistic, asian, and new-age religions, and the universality becomes more complicated

It sounds more like an Abrahamic deity than a "universal deity." How can one group BC have a universal deity that excluded everyone else?

I've had people argue with me to tell me that even though I believe in a Supreme Being, the source of all creation and life and from whom all things flow - I did not believe in the actual God.

The reasons were "the dogma of God" because:
1) Jews don't believe in the Trinity
2) Christians do
3) Muslims don't

In an anthropological sense we all worship the God of Abraham, but, if, as a Christian, I don't believe in the Trinity in the traditional sense - I won't be considered a Christian by a healthy number of folks.

Yet, Jews don't believe in the trinity and they worship the same God in most any Christian's opinion.

If the Trinity isn't a separator on being the same God, what is?
 
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JTM

"Just in case"
Premium Member
it's true. jesus himself said that, according to christians.
 

Dave in Waco

Premium Member
I think God is universal. The diversity comes in the belief systems man has built around him. Kind of like comparing Masonic Ritual. The are all based on the same thing and share parts, but they all vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
 

Raven

Registered User
My feelings are that, Religion is like a multi-colored lantern. Each person will chose the color glass that they wish to look through,... but the Flame is the same!
 
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Stewart Cook

Registered User
http://www.torahveda.org/

There is always the possibility that Abraham, if he existed, was himself an adherent of a religion far older than all of the ages of the "big three" put together. This link raises some interesting questions, whether one chooses to believe the content and assertions or not.
One other point that is almost always glossed over, ignored and even violently denied is the undeniable fact that most tenets of "Christianity" proper are derived not from Judaism, but from Orphic (and Hellenic) tradition. A lot of people were murdered to keep that little fact under wraps back in the day, as they say.
 

LarryC

Registered User
It sounds more like an Abrahamic deity than a "universal deity." How can one group BC have a universal deity that excluded everyone else?

I've had people argue with me to tell me that even though I believe in a Supreme Being, the source of all creation and life and from whom all things flow - I did not believe in the actual God.

The reasons were "the dogma of God" because:
1) Jews don't believe in the Trinity
2) Christians do
3) Muslims don't

In an anthropological sense we all worship the God of Abraham, but, if, as a Christian, I don't believe in the Trinity in the traditional sense - I won't be considered a Christian by a healthy number of folks.

Yet, Jews don't believe in the trinity and they worship the same God in most any Christian's opinion.

If the Trinity isn't a separator on being the same God, what is?

I would like to interject here that the problem seems to be that we are not starting at the beginning. Before considering anything dogmatic or addressing any specific "beliefs" about the Deity, the question should first be considered: What is the nature of God? In other words, what kind of God do you believe in. Asked in a more philosophical form: What must God Be, in order to Be at all?

I think you will discover that most people express an understanding of Deity in one of about five ways:

-Theism
-Deism
-Pantheism
-Panentheism
-PanenDeism (a term I coined in 2001)

Discussing the nature of Deity allows us all to begin at the same level of understanding without addressing any specific religious beliefs.

Larry
 

PeterLT

Premium Member
One has to be careful when answering the question. Is it the concept of "god" we are talking about or the concept of religion? All religions hold something sacred above all else, be it a deity or a state of being and in this respect God is universal (a Supreme Being). When we get into the "God of Abraham" we are now discussing theology and the mechanics of how a religion interprets God to be. If one looks at religion as something man has created to deal with something none can understand (God) then yes, God is universal, religion is not. And if we look at religion with a critical eye, one can say that through religion, man sets the conditions under which God exists and is accepted.

Yowza!
 

rhitland

Founding Member
Premium Member
No matter where you are born or how you are raised you bodily makeup is made from the same stuff as mine and I believe the same God who loves us all no matter what we call Him is nothing less than universal.
Below are the basic elements in the make up of the Human body.
02_01HumanBodyElements_T.jpg
 

owls84

Moderator
Premium Member
In the words of an 18 year old candidate that came into my Lodge for information, "We are all traveling to the same city, we are just taking different roads." Sad thing is he never petitioned. Something I will never forget.
 
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