Does God = Allah

Why? The trunk of the elphant is not the tail. Why? The leg of the elephant is not the ear. We are just blind men feeling at an elphant.. and can not see the totality. The road into a city looks different coming from the north side of the city than the south side.. but they both end up at the city. Why do all men's perception of God have to be the same? Why must follow the same path to God?

Yet the two things you brought up are not crucial points related to GOD. You claim in Message 36First, not one of those has anything to do with either the identity or character of GOD or of Her message to mankind. In fact they are trival differences totally unrelated to the question and topic of this thread.Second, they are also not mutually exclusive. Was George IV or George Washington the chosen successor to George III?Does not believing in Jesus divinity change the nature of Jesus?Does not believing in Jesus have anything to do with GOD?Maps must be tested against the reality and the user also has to be able to use and interpret the Map correctly. Even an accurate Map is worthless if the user is reading it upside down.So there are definitely errors in all three Maps. There are also differences in the ability of the users to orient the Map correctly and to identify those key datapoints that can only be found in the Territory itself.BUT...that still has nothing to do with GOD and GOD's Message, which is the Territory itself. Nor do errors in the Map mean that the Map is useless as a guide through the Territory. Some may be more accurate than others, but the explorer must constantly check the Map against the Territory and where the Map has errors, believe the Territory, not the Map.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

as long as we can all agree that it is an elephant and not a giraffe!

Well, I have to take that back. I had the impression that in the Bible the terms El and Elohim eventually stopped being used even as alternate terms for God -- apart from its persistence in names -- but I looked up the list of names for God and the ones with El in them continue throughout the history of Israel.Each name on this list of Biblical Names of God links to a discussion of its usage in the Bible:El Shaddai
El Elyon
Adonai
Yahweh or Jehovah
Jehovah Nissi
Jehovah-Raah
Jehovah Rapha
Jehovah Shammah
Jehovah Tsidkenu
Jehovah Mekoddishkem
El Olam
Elohim
Qanna
Jehovah Jireh
Jehovah Shalom
Jehovah SabaothIt does persist in names as you say, Immanuel being just one of many, such as Michael, Daniel, Gabriel, Ezekiel, Joel, which are just as common as the names that incorporate Yahweh or Jehovah -- SarAH, AbrAHam, IsaiAH, JeremiAH, MicAH, ZedekiAH, ManassAH etc.This is unrelated to whether El has any part in the name "Allah" -- completely different language.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-29-2006 01:27 PM

No, but your model is false. We aren't talking about parts of an elephant. We are talking about the difference between whether Isaac or Ishmael was God's chosen heir for Abraham (crucially defining point for two religions), whether Jesus Christ is God incarnate or merely a prophet (crucially defining point for Christianity). Clearly your analogy does not apply to these examples. The elephant's trunk does not contradict his tail or he'd be in very bad shape.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-29-2006 01:32 PM

quote:

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This is unrelated to whether El has any part in the name "Allah" -- completely different language.

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But it is not a completely differnet language. It is a related language. Even if it were not words spread between languages by cultural contact. Morer - the only source for the argument we are discussing - states that the terms are linked. So you are arguing with your own source.r

I haven't given a source. I have yet to read Buz's or track down my own.

So far as I can tell Morer is the only source. His claims are repeated by Christian anti-Islam websites. And that is it. Nothing else.

El and Al are both common roots for God among the semitic peoples and languages. In addition, since vowels were not written it is an understandable area of confusion.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Just another bald Unsupported Assertion from jar.I've pointed out umpteen times with supportive reasoning about known facts that the three maps contain entirely different information, concerning God's choice of a people, intrinsic to Judaism and Judaism's concept of God, concerning the nature of Jesus Christ as God, intrinsic to Christianity. The maps DO NOT DEPICT THE SAME TERRITORY. They lead in different directions.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-29-2006 02:03 PM

And as I have pointed out numerous times, most recently in Message 272, the things you mention have NOTHING to do with defining GOD.But I'll repeat it again for you.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Hold your horses, I want to show the stupidity of your post properly and that will take some time.This message has been edited by Faith, 04-29-2006 02:26 PM

So these things are important in your opinion. Fine, there are many others who disagree. We will never know who is right unless you have the hubris to suggest you know god's mind

Again, in your opinion. You keep claiming these things are facts when they are opinions.

There are many problems with all the maps. Not only among themselves but with other sources, historical, scientific, archeological evidence.These maps are early attempts by human beings living on the same earth in the same universe to understand their relationship to the whole. It's very big territory and the books were written at a stage of very early knowledge.The maps are functional for their cultures, what anthropology studies: marriage, customs, laws, kinship and they are setting their cultures in terms of the entire universe as they knew it. They just didn't know how big it was or how diverse.They are all early approximations of the same territory. They are not talking about different species of humans, or different planets, or different universes. It's one and the same totality. It's just a very long term challenge for us to map it.But they are all talking about the source and ultimate nature of themselves, being, the universe and the source.lfen