Do you notice a similarity between the Muslim and Christian faiths?

Question

Both Islam and Christianity have a person (Muhammad and Jesus) who is an intermediary between God and the people.

Both have a history of intolerance of other religions (inquisitions, capital punishments for lack of faith, etc) and both religions make efforts to convert people of other faiths.

These two religions are different in this respect from Judaism, Buddhism, and the others where the people relate directly to their Divinity without an intermediary prophet or messiah, and are tolerant of other religions, and do not try to convert people or force them to believe.

What is this connection between Islam and Christianity? Do you think they were derived from the same source?

The two religions came into being in the same region of the world, and at, more or less, the same time (give or take a few hundred years).
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Answer 1

Both Islam and Christianity are offshoots from Judaism.

You are absolutely right--they are the most agressive religions in history.

I get ticked off when Christians go on and on about how bad Islam is; and I repeatedly remind them Christanity has an extremely violent history, I daresay it may be even worse than Islam in that regard.

At least in Islam there is some congruence with the scripture. It doesn't say to attack people who are not bothering you, but it does support the Muslim's right to fight others who are attacking them.

Christianity is mostly about "turn the other cheek", but there are also statements were Jesus said something like "I come with a sword." The most aggressive story about Jesus I can remember is when He single handedly drove the money lenders out of the temple. But later, He discourages the discliples from violently protecting Him from the Roman guards.

I don't make any pretense to being a scholar of the New Testament and I don't mean to criticize anyone on a personal level; but I have to admit it confuses me a little.

There was some stuff in the Old Testament about the Jews proselytising, but it came to be where they prefer to not look for converts who were not born Jewish.

That's one difference, Judaism the religion is strongly tied to ethnicity. Even though there are very diverse Jews in the world, all of them can be scientifically proven to have certain DNA in common. Except, of course, with people who converted, but there just aren't very many; the vast majority were born Jewish.

Christianity and Islam were never tied to any particular ethinicity. The original Christians were of Jewish descent, but it wasn't that long before Greeks, Romans and others were converting to the religion. Although Islam orginated among the Arabs, the scripture clearly says "all Muslims are brothers." One notable early convert was Bilal, a black slave. Muhammad astounded many by appointing Bilal to be the first man to call people to prayer--it was immediately made obvious that you did not have to be an Arab to be a Muslim. (I'm not making this up--I have read the Quran and biographies of Muhammad).

Hindus were not interested in converting others, there always seemed to be plenty of Hindus being born. However, starting in the 1800s, there were Hindu holy men who formed movements outside of India and accepted non-Indians as followers. Most notably, Vivekananda, Krishnamurti, Prabhupad (who brought the Hare Krishna movement to the USA). Hindus have been remarkably accepting of other religions to the point that it baffled Christians and Muslims who tried to convert them. There were successes, of course, but in many cases Hindus would say to the missionaries, "Yes! I love Lord Jesus; and I am now a Christian" but then they go back to their Hindu temple and place pictures of Jesus next to their pictures of Krishna, Rama, etc. India does have a violent history, but it had nothing to do with trying to convert other people to Hinduism. Most Hindus who converted to Christianity or Islam were from families that were very low in the caste system. Nonetheless, there is a very ancient Indian Orthodox Church that was supposedly founded by the Apostle Thomas.

Buddhism is an offshoot of Hinduism that had remarkable success in spreading to other countries like Tibet, China, Japan, etc. I have a weird story about Tibetan monks who killed people and used their skin like leather. However, this seems to be out of the ordinary, as conversion was generally done in a very peaceful way.

Thanks, I love to talk about this.

By the way, I was raised Protestant Christian in Missouri, but I became a Baha'i in 1984. The Baha'i Faith is an independant religion that started in Persia (Iran) in the 1800s as a movement within Shi'ih Islam.

My wife is Hindu (born and raised in India).

I didn't want to get into discussion about "intermediaries." I know that Christians will say "but Jesus is God" and Muslims will say "Allah has no partners" and "Muhammad is only a man like you and me." The Quran clearly states the Islam has an objective to go back to a purer form of monotheism, where Christians are criticized for making "Jesus and Mary partners of God." Also, please note that the Muslims were making a clean break from the early paganism of Arabia that focused on "Allah and His Daughters." Muslims do not call Jesus the "Son of God" because it is believed that would be bringing Allah down to the level of a man--"If Allah wished that a virgin should have a child, He need only say "Be" and it is." (That is a paraphrase of what I read in the Quran)While I respect both Christians and Muslims in their belief; I just think it's more important to try to be a good person than to argue points like that.

Answer 2

Of course there are similarities between the two religions .. but most of what you said is wrong

1- In Islam there is no mediator between God and people (unlike Christianity) .. Muhammad (sas) was just a messenger who conveyed God's message to people.

2- There is no comparison between the history of Islam and any other nations .. any honest historian will tell you that Muslims were much more merciful to the followers of other faiths ..

3- Jaudism believes in prophets just like Islam .. Jews have been alway intolerant to other religions when they had the power .. See how they treat the Palestinians today.

4- Islam is more connected to Judaism .. both are monotheistic religions (unlike Christianity) both don't believe in the Christian fundamental beliefs: the trinity, the incarnation of God, the original sin, the human sacrifice. etc. .. both also believe in following the laws.

5- Of course both came from the same source .. but the pure message of Jesus has been distorted .. if Jesus come today he will not recognize Christianity .. for it's very different from what he taught.

A comparison between Islam and Christianity:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/comp_isl_chr.htm

Answer 3

When islam was reveled to this world. The holy quarn was sent by god(allah) to teaches people the right path and the truth at the time many goverment made money off of people by making tomb, statues and people pray to them and give the money to the goverment when the goverment heard of this sisution they were really angry the know that lot of people believed that allah is and was the god and that muhammad is his messenger and jesus is also god messenger the goverment said that if people start converting to islam the will lose there wealth so when jesus went up to sky that's when the goverment started acting the started there own religion the took the holy quarn and made lot of changes in there the called that the bible instead of leaving the part about that jesus went up to the sky they said that he is god and some time they called him god son
They only thing i am asking is if jesus is god, why do he teaches children to pray why do he go up to the mountain to pray and why does he wish because he is pray he is not praying to himself but he is praying to some thing high (god).

Answer 4

The question is not whether there's a similarity between Islam and Christianity, but whether there's a similarity between you, and an ignorant teenager who's abusing the internet. And you know what? there is!

-you assert a lot of non-objective crap
-you clearly show no recognition just how different the two are
-you cheaply follow common atheist ploys
-you have no sense of creativity when making a statement
-you fail

go find something better to do with your time.

Answer 5

They do have some common points. They both consider Abraham as their patriarch (Judaism also does actually). Islam, Christianity, and Judaism do have some common root sources.

Just about all religions have a checkered history of intolerance unfortunately. Tolerance doesn't mean wholesale acceptance of another's beliefs or negation of your own however. Buddhism and Judaism also have historical instances of intolerance. St. Paul was almost killed by an angry Jewish mob when he tried to preach the Gospel of Christ in Jerusalem. There have been recent instances of *Buddhist monks* leading mobs in Sri Lanka to destroy Christian churches there in the past few years.

Answer 6

They only appear on the outside to have similarities. But on the inside, only one is the truth of God and the other is the lie of Satan. There IS no in-between. As a deceiver, Satan has no equal. In addition to being the world's greatest con artist, he is also its most accomplished counterfeiter. Through hundreds of corrupt religions he has convinced billions of people to worship the sun, moon and stars, animals, nature, deceased ancestors, imaginary gods and goddesses and a bewildering variety of other things—or nothing at all.

Satan doesn't care which of these groups people fall into. Whether they believe in no God at all, accept and worship a false god or are deceived into a false view of the true God and His plan for us, Satan still has them where he wants them—"alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart" (Ephesians 4:18).

Answer 7

There is no similarity between the Muslims and Christians faiths. Though both believed there is God. ALLAH SWT is the only God for Muslims, Muhammad SAW is the Prophet of Allah SWT. To Christians, Jesus Christ is their God. See the difference.

Answer 8

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of the world. We believe in the Jesus of the Bible and NOT the Jesus that was crafted by the members of the council of Nicea (the Nicean Creed concept of the"trinty" was fabricated and written POST New Testament, by the way) We believe that Jesus was Heavenly Father's only begotten son in the FLESH. Since Heavenly Father created all of us, our spirits, we are His children. He created Lucifer too. Why would Jesus refer to Heavenly Father as "OUR FATHER" if he wasn't our FAther?? "Modern" Christians because of their arrogance pick and choose what religions they consider to be Christian. They use that to denengrate those they look at as competition. That is one way they use to create division and hate among the religions. You need to ask a Muslim but I don't think that they believe that Jesus is the Redeemer. I think they believe he was a teacher and was actually a Muslim.

Answer 9

None at all!

Christianity is worship of a trinity that actually forms 13 Gods that begin with worship of Zeus the Sun or Weather God.

Islam is worship of the Only True God; One God!

Answer 10

I hate to be pedantic, and I know that there are some similarities, but Muhammad is not an intermediary between god and his people, according to Islam.

He's just a prophet.