Talk:Monotheism

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My understanding

My understanding is that Muslims don't consider (most) Christians to be monotheists, due to their belief in the trinity. I've also heard one Jewish person make that distinction, but I don't know if that was a personal belief or a common understanding. --jtl^talk 19:49, 12 June 2007 (CDT)

Well, Muslims consider Jews and Christians to be "people of the book" rather than infidels, because they believe in the one God and use accepted scriptures. They see Moses and Jesus as the most important prophets, after Mohammed. They do not see Jesus as divine, but Sunni do see him returning as a man as the Messiah.

Most Jews regard Christianity the same way "weak Atheists" do...if they bothered to give it a thought, they wouldn't believe it. It's a "newcommer". Some Jews and Muslims do see Christianity as polytheistic, but it is a rare view (God know why).--PalMD^{-yada yada} 19:55, 12 June 2007 (CDT)

You've got it right, PalMD. We don't see Christians as polytheists, but consider the concept of a literal Trinity a sort of perversion of the concept of monotheism. This being said, many Christians don't believe in a literal Trinity, but consider the concept of Trinity as a way of understanding God, much the same as Muslims think of the 99 names of God.

Even actual polytheism has been historically tolerated by Muslims. During the height of the ijtihad movement in the 12th and 13th centuries there were scholars claiming that Zoroastrians and Hindus were People of the Book as well, despite the fact that they are polytheistic religions (Hinduism obviously moreso than Zoroastrianism). Stile4aly 20:51, 12 June 2007 (CDT)

One observation that must be made, however, is that almost of the above are not Biblical, but merely additions bolted onto Christianity; for example, the phrase translated as 'Holy Spirit' is actually the Greek 'το πνευμα ἁγιον', which would be translated literally as 'the holy breath', which is perhaps a Greek analogue to רוח הקדוש. <random filler>-- ויִכִּ נתֶּרֶפּרֶתֵּר ^{שְׁלֹום!}

Isn't Monotheism just Atheism but not quite going the whole way? God's peed ^{Babel fish}ÅЯ†ђŮŖ ÐΣй†_{Now look here!} 10:34, 20 June 2007 (CDT)

No, Atheism holds/believes there are no gods at all. I suspect you were thinking of Deism which holds there is a god but after creating the universe he doesn't interfere with it. To oversimplify it is the view of God as watch maker and the universe is his watch.

Regarding the complex view of what monotheism even is I suggest reading Heiser, Michael S. "Monotheism, Polytheism, Monolatry, or Henotheism? Toward an Assessment of Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible" Bulletin for Biblical Research 18.1 (2008) 1–30. If you have concerns about the Bulletin for Biblical Research's validity, it is published by Eisenbrauns an international academic publisher covering the ancient Near East and biblical studies.--BruceGrubb (talk) 13:46, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

in reply to user BruceGrubb, this user asserts the fact that the user is replying to a necrotized post which is evidenced by the date of the previous reply posts in thread.FAMAS (Talk) (Contribs) 14:39, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Just because the OP was years ago doesn't mean the point doesn't need to be addressed. Heck there is nonsense like "A deistic atheist is an atheist who believes in God" bouncing around the internet which by the very definition of the words is an oxymoron. Religious Tolerance's Comparing non-theistic belief systems: secularists, Agnostics, to strong Atheists page shows that the definitions out there are not as simple as we would like.--BruceGrubb (talk) 13:42, 9 December 2016 (UTC)