Common Principles, Similarily Summarized (Version 2)

So this is a thought process that I want to explore, and had no better place to explore than my rarely used, a status given to this blog that will hopefully change, blog, that came from reading the first assigned short story for my English seminar course on Indian author Salman Rushdie. In the short story, which is actually a brief excerpt from one section of his novel Midnight's Children, a verse from the Qur'an is quoted. "Recite, in the name of the Lord thy Creator, who created Man from clots of blood." I looked up its context and my mind drew first a comparison to a verse that is popularly, and arguably correctly, seen as the penultimate, or if not penultimate at least all-encompassing summarizing verse of Christian belief, John 3.16. "For God so loved the world that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but shall have everlasting life." Unfortunately, I lack the time and physical awakedness to pursue this fully at this time. Suffice it to say that this is one more reason why Islam is a religion that is most accepting of peoples of the book and one more reason why Christians and Christianity should be most accepting of honorable, peaceful Muslims: Our principles are the same. There is but one God and those who love God and fear God's wrath are destined to be rewarded because they have resisted the temptations that those doomed to punishment have succumb to.

For the LORD smiled on what he created, and saw that good was indeed omnipresent and evil was, is, and never can be omnipotent.

Continued at a later date:

We do, of course, need to keep in mind that there are extremities, both in individual beliefs or believers and in certain denominational or sub-denominational theological belief systems, in every religion, especially in monotheistic religions. The belief that there is only one true God complicates interconnections and interactions between monotheistic religions in many ways. Firstly, I feel that the idea of there being one true god can construct a wall between a monotheistic religion and a polytheisitc religion that is seemingly too high to scale, because if both religions were based around the belief that there is only one god there is at least that common ground, and it opens up criticism - criticism of one monotheisitc religion by another monotheistic religion - to this: they (the criticized religion) understand the concepts and principles but they do not completely, as we (the criticizing religion)  do, the understand the nature of God. This limits the complexity, and thus the conflicts, conflicts that may begin as intellectual and theological but can certainly become violent, as history has shown us, to the fact that a monotheistic religion believes in one true god. It is, ultimately, a sticking point that is, at its most basic and fundamental core, irreconciable.

The irreconciable nature of divergent religions, even religions that theologically, historically, and textually, especially with regard to the stories, themes, and content of their holy writings, must be respected. That being said, there is much common ground, especially what can be considered the practical, or charitable, aspects of the main monotheistic religious beliefs. If these are focused on, rather than the differences, which as we have begun to show are difficult, at best, to reconcile, we can, in an interfaith attempt, ultimately do more good in the world, more good for people that have not what they need, and can ultimately bring more people to the understanding of God's love, no matter their representation of him. To return to the original Gospel passage, "God so loved the world that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but shall have everlasting life." The entire world, so that every person elected to believe will believe, if not today than at the end of days.