AHC: Unite the three major Abrahamic religions
- Thread starter Utahwriter15
- Start date
How boring would it be if we all agree on everything? Buddhism as the world's nemesis would be borderline ASB.
World's nemesis? Even in a world with only one Abrahamaic faith, there'd be a lot more religions than that.
(That said I have a huge timeline where Buddhism becomes Europe's nemesis, if that's your thing.)
I would amend that: secular westerners forget just how much religion and theology still matter.
The precise nature of the trinity was up do debate early on, yes. Arianism is likely the side you are referring to, as Arians thought that Christ was the Son of God but not an equal to God the Father. However they would have still viewed him as being more divine than Muslims, and in any case, making Arianism more succesful in supplanting other forms of Christianity - especially in the East, as it was Eastern Christians who first encountered Islam, would butterfly Islam out of existence.
Since Christianity is not united, nor is Islam, getting either to just unite itself together borders on ASB, let alone uniting with each other.
Sadly, that does seem like the most likely thing to produce a merger. You're right that some would doubt even then, but he could do a pretty clear and unambiguous display and ensure that it's shown on every TV, computer screen, and cell phone on earth, as well as in the sky for everyone to see.
Assuming one path this could take, imagine God and Christ appear a few hundred feet high in the sky and God booms, "I am God and this is my son and prophet. Here (producing a list in the sky) is a list of all the others I've ever recognized as prophets -- all others are liars." Then he says, "I hold no value to these places as holy places" and simultaneously blasts away every remnant of Mecca, Medina, and Vatican City as well as key sites for many other Christian Sects as well as various Caliphs, Imams, etc."
Unfortunately, if/when that occurs, we're probably talking the 'end of days' and all that so there won't be much to argue about.
Honestly, the only way to do this is to go back far enough for Christianity and Islam not to exist, and for Judaism to wipe out the Samaritans.
As a secular westerner, I find this quite offensive.
But more than this, considering the usual complaints atheists get regarding theology, it's kinda weird. Usually, we get complained at for taking people's religious beliefs at their word and taking their theology literally, but now can somehow be strawmanned into always doing that and never doing that.
As someone for whom religion is a passion (not religious myself), can we instead not generalise, presuming somehow the secular west (which quite literally includes people of all backgrounds and religious positions) doesnt understand X?
Have the Arabic conquests utterly fail and a Byzantine counter conquest succeed. Muslims are gradually Christianized, though some Arabic concepts are taken into Christianity.
This experience worries imperial officials enough that rather than be tolerant of Jews and a potential "Abrahamic Heresy" they turn the screws on the Jews to get them to convert. Such behavior becomes mainstream in other branches of Christianity gradually.
Eventually there are a few Jews left in places like India, but overall the Abrahamic faiths are "united".
This experience worries imperial officials enough that rather than be tolerant of Jews and a potential "Abrahamic Heresy" they turn the screws on the Jews to get them to convert. Such behavior becomes mainstream in other branches of Christianity gradually.
Eventually there are a few Jews left in places like India, but overall the Abrahamic faiths are "united".
Last edited:
Needs a 2 step approach I think:
1) A prophet extends Judaism to all 'sons of Abraham'
2) A final prophet to extend "Abrahamism" to all humanity
It'll be an umbrella faith so plenty of arguments between different sects
1) A prophet extends Judaism to all 'sons of Abraham'
2) A final prophet to extend "Abrahamism" to all humanity
It'll be an umbrella faith so plenty of arguments between different sects
You're free to be offended. But the vast majority fall under the description I made.
It's heresy, plain and simple. Christianity and Islam are the easiest to unite, in some world where Muhammad ends up a saint, the foremost of them next to Mary herself. Christianity and Islam together would regard such a compromise between faiths, and without a doubt a secular response (kill Muslims who don't agree, kill Christians who don't agree), it wouldn't resemble either faith. And since this after the Fall of Rome, these "Saint Muhammad Christians" would have to suppress Western Christianity as well, and even something like Justinian's Empire couldn't do that, since these "Saint Muhammad Christians" couldn't become the sole form of Christianity.
And I haven't even mentioned the Jews. Any way to unite Jews and Christianity has to go back to New Testament times. And to me, the New Testament shows Christians establishing themselves separate from Jews, with the Jews invited to join, which they clearly didn't, and why should they any more than Jews and Christians accept Muhammad's revelations and corrections to God's Word?
I think theology is an utter waste of time, having grown up in communities where people would read the Bible and come up with the stupidest ideologies and beliefs based on it, which seems to be a plague on sanity in many Evangelical Protestant communities (many of these Evangelicals themselves would agree with me on this). But that's the bias of my Protestant upbringing speaking, even if I appreciate theology in the historical context.
And I haven't even mentioned the Jews. Any way to unite Jews and Christianity has to go back to New Testament times. And to me, the New Testament shows Christians establishing themselves separate from Jews, with the Jews invited to join, which they clearly didn't, and why should they any more than Jews and Christians accept Muhammad's revelations and corrections to God's Word?
I think theology is an utter waste of time, having grown up in communities where people would read the Bible and come up with the stupidest ideologies and beliefs based on it, which seems to be a plague on sanity in many Evangelical Protestant communities (many of these Evangelicals themselves would agree with me on this). But that's the bias of my Protestant upbringing speaking, even if I appreciate theology in the historical context.
I'm still not sure that is true either (it's a very "sheeple" position), but I do wonder why you would have specified the below instead of just saying "most people forget just how much religion and theology still matter". Again, an odd position to take considering the overwhelkming majority of the globe is religious, but it is less insulting than just attacking the secular.
Becuae the topic of discussion was the secular west as a whole. In which, other than the broad cultural remnants of religion, the topics of theology, doctrine, and other such facets, are both ignored and, honestly, irrelevant.
I'm not attacking the secular by calling them ignorant, by and large, of the finer points of religion. Would it be an attack to say that America is ignorant of, say, Polish politics? Of course not, nor should an American on this forum, who could cite the grievances of the Solidarity movement, feel offended if that statement were made.
Which again just isn't true. At the very least, the existence of groups who go out of their way to identify as atheist because they don't like the influence that religion has would disprove that.
The analogy doesn't hold well because theology and religion is significant (for or against) to the western secular world. A closer analogy would be to call students at a high school ignorant of their sports team. Sure not everyone is engaged with the sports team, and many may not know much about the players etc, but they are unlikely not to interact with the sports team or people who do interact with the sports team.