Peter van Inwagen - Do Major Religions Worship the Same God?

The many different religions of the world proclaim radically different, often opposing and contradictory doctrines about God. How then can their believers be worshiping the same God? Can the very general, soft areas of agreement compensate for the very specific, hard tenets of disagreement?

[williambaker]

Some guys you just really like. I feel like you could probably have enjoyable conversation with this guy about anything.

[gregklebanoff]

Van Inwagen is a truly brilliant man. I disagree with him about Christianity, but I recognize genus.

[DGK]

"Nobody would be martyred for Spinoza's God."

[gordontubbs]

All truth is God's truth. Anyone who seeks the truth therefore seeks after God. Those who do not seek God are merely seeking after God's Shadow, a different kind of ultimate reality -- a political utopia in most cases -- and they do so with as much zeal as the religious!

[derdagian]

The Interview Team is the smartest guy in any room that he ever walks into. The Breadth and Depth of understanding, required by our Stellar Interviewer is Beautiful! And, the Narrative Lady has to Understand this Completely!! It’s Obvious!!!

Always, Genius! Thank You!

[slkmic]

Why is Einstein worried about God NOW? He should already know the answer.

[arthurwieczorek]

Do different denominations within a religion worship the same God?

[deepaktripathi]

I don't call myself a religious person but I do belong a hindu family and i think Peter is right about Hinduism.

[syedyousuf]

No matter what the epistemology of any religion is ?! The creation and the fine tuning of universe, the diversity of life on earth, complexity of human mind and consciousness, points to one and only one God. We can have all sorts of versions and views about God, depending on our understanding of our surroundings, observation, the first hand influence of our scriptures, reason, logic, contemplation process and above all capability for connecting all the dots, including our ingrained (Fitrah) moral sense are the tools we all need to reach the reality of one God.
The above pointers, the intellect and the scriptures are the only methodologies we have at our disposal, which compliment and match each other and leave us with no choice except to believe in one uncaused Creator. This is the highest intellectual achievement of human consciousness.

[kriskelvin]

Humans comunicate with the world believing. We cannot know anyting about reality and hence we cannot know anything about god.

[chrisbennett]

what about the religion, s[irotual belief of the Native American tribes, in the great spirit or the australian aAboriginols god of dreamtime, or the san of South Africa.
you may say what about it
well then okay

[arunbear]

Hinduism is really a group of religions/philosophies that are unfortunately all lumped together under the same name (hence much confusion). It includes traditions that are monotheistic, and others that are polytheistic, non-theistic etc ...

[realislam]

Good discussion..from holy books perspective (Torah, gospel and Quran) the God is the same but from religions perspective God is different because these three religions been altered by their followers, for example Jews invented Talmud and attributed it to God, Muslims invented "Hadith" and attributed it to God, Christians made Jesus is God and invented the Trinity.

Unfortunately the ratio of jews who follow only the old testament is so low (there is one group called Karaites) and the ratio of muslims who follow only the Quran is so low (there is one group called Quranist) and the ratio of Christians who follow only the gospel is no low ( there is one group called unitarianism)

These 3 groups are more close together than each one of them to other religion groups from their own respective religion.

[uremove]

“God” is such a loaded word, with so much historical baggage, I think the answer to “do they worship the same God?” depends very much how you define the word. IMO, one of the best descriptions of “God” is in the Tao Te Ching, with its warning of the epistemological dangers of naming the unnamable:
“The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.”

[OriginalBonJovi]

It’s a real shame that the people who subscribe to this channel don’t, by and large, follow the example of Robert in his journey to grow “closer to truth.”

Intellectual humility is a virtue that needs to be taken quite seriously. The morons spewing “flying spaghetti monster” rhetoric and the like are just as foolish as the most fundamentalist religious zealots.

[myothersoul]

" those are ones (abrahamic religions) where you can clearly say they are talking about god." No, clearly only Spinoza had the proper meaning of god ;-) To claim you know the proper meaning of "god" is a high pomposity.

[nobe]

Peter must be too tired to enunciate clearly.

[mitseraffej]

No god, no life after death, just here and now and gone tomorrow. Forgotten the day after

[jackmabel]

"Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable." ... H. L. Mencken.

[ameremortal]

We can’t eliminate religion, but maybe one day we can cure death and thereby eliminate the need for religion.