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I suppose it's a qualitative statement, but Muslims believe in many of the same things as are in the Old Testament.  They have modified some of course to fit their heritage, like who was the son of Abraham that was the father of their people, so to speak.  I see quite a bit of overlap.  And quite a few major differences.

Prophets Ishmael and Isaac are the sons of Prophet Abraham. They, along with their father, form the link between the world’s three major monotheistic religions, Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Together these religions are often referred to as the Abrahamic faiths.

Ishmael is identified as the father of the Arabs, an ancestor of Prophet Muhammad, and his half-brother Isaac is the ancestor of both Prophet Moses and Prophet Jesus.

The stories of these two great founding fathers, Ishmael and Isaac are remarkably similar in both Islam and in the Judeo-Christian traditions. However, having said that, significant differences exist.

Prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son for his faith is the story that looms large in the religious consciousness of Muslims, Christians, and Jews.
The biblical story of Abraham’s sacrifice is told in the Old Testament, in the 22nd Chapter of Genesis. God tests Abraham by instructing him to “take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love” to a mountain where he will be slayed, burned, and offered to God.


On the journey, Isaac wonders about the purpose of the kindling wood and is told that God will provide a lamb to be sacrificed. Then he is tied to the wood and his father raises the knife. At that moment an angel tells Prophet Abraham to stop and that he can slaughter a ram instead.
In the Quran, the name of the child is not mentioned, but other Islamic traditions tell us distinctly that the child to be slaughtered is Ishmael.
Islamic scholars also stress that Ishmael understood and was willing to comply with God’s commandment.

Thanks. And honestly I don't want to get too deep into religion. I spent enough time being the "angry atheist" online in the BBS world 30 years ago when I lost my faith. Rehashing it now is silly.

I'll add a few points, and then we can table it.

The god of the monotheistic religions seems to "change his nature of what he did and didn't reveal to us across time"  (I admit I'm a bit confused by that one, but maybe it's just a wording thing.

This was just a statement about--as I understand it--the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all being the same God. Just that during the pre-Jesus time the texts understand him one way, Jesus changed the Covenant and thus God should be understood another way, and then Islam declared that Jesus was just a prophet (false prophet?) and the understanding of God should now be superseded by the prophecies of Mohammed. (Oh, and then the Mormons came along--same God, dismissed Islam, added a bunch of malarkey).

I don't want to get into the specifics, but that was what the statement was trying to convey. Not so much that God is changing the revelations over time, but that as time passes new people seem to keep coming up with new versions of the same god. And oddly those new versions always seem self-serving.

The problem, I've found, when conversations go this direction, is that often a person isn't really asking me to answer those things.  They're voicing frustration about things that seem unfair and hard to understand. 

Yes. And not so much "unfair and hard to understand", but I've reached a point where I'm not really asking you to answer those things. They are things I find frustrating about religion, yes. But I'm not asking for an answer, because I don't believe the existence or nonexistence of God can be logically proven. Therefore sometimes when I ask questions it's about learning something new because I'm a nerd (i.e. Molinism), but hashing this out in detail with the goal of changing my mind on the question of god's existence is not something I'm really interested in doing. No proselytizing needed.

People who aren't believers either have logical objections, or emotional objections (or some combination of both).  Answering questions like those mentioned above might get me somewhere with a person with logical objections.  Emotional objections are a whole different story.  Those folks don't want Christianity to be true, and data shows that evidence and arguments don't move their needle.  You've told me two very key things.  First, that it's a very personal level that gets you.  Second, that some things don't sound like a God you would want to believe in.  Pardon my frankness, but as someone who is not new to this discussion, these are indicators--if I've understood you correctly--that the main problem is not the questions about God you don't understand, rather it's what you think you do know, and don't like. 

I'm over the emotional portion. As mentioned, I think most people who lose their faith go through the "angry atheist" phase. It's a natural reaction to getting to a point where you come to the conclusion that what a bunch of people have been shoving down your throat for [in my case] the first 13 or so years of your life is something that you think is BS.

The most annoying person in the world is the recent convert. Whether that's the recent convert to religion, away from religion, to CrossFit, to becoming vegetarian/vegan, etc. My "conversion" was 30+ years ago, and I've made my peace with it. I'll keep my annoyingness to proselytizing for Peloton, not to my atheism, tyvm 

I don't want to make assumptions, so I'd ask you to carefully consider that and then tell me what you want next.  Do you want me to try to make a case for Christianity, or at least point you to some resources you can dive into for yourself?  Or do you want me to know that the whole thing falls short based on what you already know, and leave it there? 

Yes, and we should leave it where it is, because I'm not really trying to get you to make a case for Christianity. About the only thing I can think of that would change my mind on the existence of god would be direct revelation.

There's a simple question that's always worth asking people when they more or less challenge me to defend my faith and prove it to them (I don't think that's what you're doing, btw....challenging me, that is).

Yeah, and again it's a reason we should leave it where it is.

Because I don't really want to challenge you, but in the context of this thread, i.e. "How do you know what you think you know?", it's probably impossible not to challenge you.

Because essentially I think you'd say at this point that you "know" that both tenets are true: God exists (the Christian one) and Jesus rose from the dead. However my experience in past discussions of this type is that often so much of the justification for both tenets come from the book that is itself asserting both tenets. And that's not evidence that I would allow to be inserted into evidence lol...

For me, I don't have any direct evidence of God that I consider compelling, and I don't consider accounts--even if they were firsthand accounts--of a resurrection >2000 years ago to be compelling.

So if we continue, it will probably be both ugly and pointless. I've had enough of those debates in my life. No need to bring them up here. Especially since I don't think either of us are moving from our position on the matter.

I might be interested in the Molinism thing you bring up, from a philosophical perspective. Sometimes I do have interest in philosophy of religion, even if I don't adhere to any religion. 

What I will say is this: I know that there are a LOT of really really smart people who believe things I don't believe. Unlike OAM, I'm not going to sit here and belittle them or claim they're morons just because we don't believe the same thing. I might be the one who is wrong... And if so, I sincerely hope your god is merciful.

Egad. One thing I'm fairly certain of is that no one here will convince anyone else here to make a significant change about their religious beliefs, whatever they may be. And that trying or criticizing is even more likely to blow things up than whether to run someone down in your car. But I will note that BRAD and MDT seemed to have a nice exchange on the topic. Kudos.

Yes, that has a high probability of being true.  I'm obviously speaking in Bayesian terms of probability, not frequentist.  To my knowledge, I've never changed someone's mind online, on any platform.  And I'm under no illusion I'd change BRAD's.  Like Cincydawg said, it's exceedingly difficult to talk about stuff like that online.  

But you have to realize that's not my goal.  What I am mainly trying to accomplish in these situations is just to put a stone in someone's shoe.  Just hopefully say even one thing that sticks with them, over time, that they wrestle with and muddle over in their head....something that's hard to ignore, even if they don't know where to place it, what to do with it, or how much it even matters to them.  

Data certainly suggests that most people who change their mind about something like that don't do it through arguments that convinced them.  Due to the way different personalities work, this type of thing might get somewhere with about 20% of the population.  Out of those, the number that actually become convinced to change their mind about something is even smaller.  Of those, it's rare for anyone to do it quickly.  i.e., most people don't get into a discussion with someone and suddenly decide "Hey, you're right.  I hereby rewire my worldview here and now, and I'll be *insert religion* from here on out."  If their holdup was honest, logical objections, and they deem a set of facts worth changing their mind over, it's typically over a period of time whereby they chew on something and attack it skeptically from every angle until they believe it holds up according to whatever standard they have.  

Really, the most mileage I get out of stuff like this is 1) showing non-Christians that the Christian faith is rational, and plausible, even if they never agree with it.  That, I've succeeded in a number of times.  2) teaching it to other Christians to help them have a stronger, more robust, reasonable faith....one which stands up to scrutiny and doesn't collapse into doubt and disillusionment the second they go off to college and hear a professor say something they never thought of before. 

Ultimately we are all presuppositionalist.  We all have certain, unproveable to an absolute fact, beliefs that we build our worldview on and how we live.  It is why in logic and mathematics with have postules.  When we assume these postales are true, we are able to develop systems in which to operate.  We can't prove them, but our systems fall apart if they were not.  I don't have the inclination to write a disertation (as some of you like to do), my days of academic pursuit are over. It is too much work to lay out a complete presentation on presuppositionalism.

I have to admit, when I first discovered presuppositionalism some years ago, I was appalled.  I thought it was circular reasoning.  The way it kept being presented to me came off like "The Bible is true, and the Bible says that the Bible is true, so since the Bible is true, we can know that the Bible is true."  

It wasn't until way later that I actually met a trained, academic philosopher who is a presuppositionalist, and he explained it to me much better, and I realized I had shortchanged their system.  tbf, though, I have to say, many of them didn't explain their system very well and imo, represented themselves poorly.  

Anyway, these days I'm not hostile to it anymore, and in fact I no longer see it as a competitor to classical and evidential apologetics.  I used to think their foundational differences made them exclusive.  As I now understand it, it seems like a tool anyone can use if a situation calls for it.  I don't, but it's because I have very little experience or understanding of any specifics.  

 But I'm not asking for an answer, because I don't believe the existence or nonexistence of God can be logically proven.

I'm in agreement with you there.  I try to never use the word "prove," because it really only applies in math.  Everything else is a reasonably justifiable belief based on some judgement calls.  That's the distinction I always want to highlight.  I don't "know" God exists, but I "believe" it based on evidence I find reasonable.  I don't "know" my wife is at the grocery store right now, but I'm justified in "believing" it and acting and behaving accordingly, based on evidence.  But I certainly can't prove it. 

Yes, and we should leave it where it is, because I'm not really trying to get you to make a case for Christianity. About the only thing I can think of that would change my mind on the existence of god would be direct revelation.

Well, I admit, that's unfortunate for me, because I think there's a ton of that to get into that you may have never considered.  But at your request, I'm tabling it, and only trying to explain myself from here on out so that you don't misunderstand me or my views.  I also find the desire for direct revelation reasonable, and take no qualms with anyone for wanting it.  Quite the contrary. 

Because essentially I think you'd say at this point that you "know" that both tenets are true: God exists (the Christian one) and Jesus rose from the dead. However my experience in past discussions of this type is that often so much of the justification for both tenets come from the book that is itself asserting both tenets. And that's not evidence that I would allow to be inserted into evidence lol...

For me, I don't have any direct evidence of God that I consider compelling, and I don't consider accounts--even if they were firsthand accounts--of a resurrection >2000 years ago to be compelling.

No, although from RiffRaft's presuppositional approach, that might be the route someone from that branch of philosophy would take.  I would not.  I'm a combination of an evidentialist/classicist, and if someone wants me to give a defense of my faith, I do it completely from outside the Bible.  I wouldn't ask someone to just simply trust what they already object to in the first place.  I start from things that we can both agree on and work from there.  The Bible comes way later, and in fact, in the classes I teach, I never use the Bible.  Not because I don't value it, but because it doesn't apply to how I go about making a case for Christianity.  Again, it's a shame for me, because this only increases my suspicion that I may have been exposed to things you may not have come across before, and who knows where it would go, but I said it was tabled and it will be. 

Second paragraph, again, there's a ton of fascinating academia on how historians view firsthand accounts of old documents, including the Gospels, but ones even older than that.  I'm talking about all historians, atheists, agnostics, other religions....not just historians who are also Christians.  Learning how historians "know" history was a great study for me, and I'm glad I did it, because it very much plays into my original topic here, how we know what we know.  

I might be interested in the Molinism thing you bring up, from a philosophical perspective. Sometimes I do have interest in philosophy of religion, even if I don't adhere to any religion. 

I think this is the video I was thinking of.  A pretty good run-down with a Q&A.  I've enjoyed our portion of the conversation and am sad to see it end.  If you ever want to nerd out about any of this stuff academically, I'm up for it, though I have to tell you there is a lot of theology I have not yet mastered.  I mean, honestly, I'm dealing with 2000 years of history and tradition and it's a near-certainty that I never will master the overall stream of it.  But I am aiming to be able to understand the basics of all the different categories, and how they have been viewed by different major theologians throughout the AD era.  


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWly0PlaTMI

whatever reason) need to form an opinion or take action (or inaction) based on the topic. How do we decide? 

Ya pray, brother. 


..... couldn't resist... 

This thread has tuckered me out.  

Going to visit St. Mattress.