Is God and Allah the same person?

Where to begin?

Christians removed nothing from Judaism. Jesus came to add to the Law not remove or change it. He did set one commandment before the others and that is "Love on another" but that does not lessen the need to follow the others.

Second, all the flavors of Protestant Christianity, which is everything you named except Catholicism, Orthodox, and Mormanism, believe in the same Bible. It is the theology that differs. In other words, they all read the same thing, it the the thoughts inspired by those readings that is different.

IMO (I repeat IMO), Mormanism is about as credible as Islam and that is not at all.

 

Before VP gets angry, I don't think Episcopalean is considered protestand either.

 

I think that all Christians believe in the same Bible. But is you are going to divide it up, then Episcopalians are going to use whatever the Catholic Church does, I think. We still say that we believe in "We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church" in the Nicene Creed.

Mormons believe in everything in the Bible. They have a second book that is additive. Not unlike Christianity is to Judaism.

 

We are. But the differences are not as many as other denominations.

 

Doesn't the catholic church have a few extra books like Maccabees? Don't know about Episcopalian.

 

Then which is the true word of God? Catholicism, Orthodox or Protestantism? There are large differences between the three main branches. To say that only Christianity is the true religion, when Christianity itself is not a coherent religion seems strange. And how do you tell if one religion is the true one? If you refer to the Bible then you have a circular argument.

 

What are the large differences of which you speak? Different flavors choose different parts to stress or not but they all still honor all of the rest of it. Protestantism sprung out of more procedural differences like the selling of indulgences than differences in Biblical interpretation from what I can recall.

 

There are some rather large differences in my view. Orthodox do not believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary. They also have different concepts of Jesus and why he died on the cross. Orthodox split from Catholicism because they believed Catholics were idolaters and worshipped Mary and the Saints as gods unto themselves. They also have different books in their Bible than Catholics and Protestants do. In fact, the Catholic and Protestant Bible are different. Protestants have the fewest books... Catholics and Orthodox both additionally have 1st and 2nd Maccabees, Baruch, Tobit, Judith, The Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), additions to Esther, and Susanna and Bel and the Dragon which are included in Daniel. Orthodox Bibles also include 1st and 2nd Esdras, Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151 and 3rd Maccabees.

 

yeah, but other than that they are exactly the same, right?

 

I want to argue this point, but I can't.

Personally, I think true Christianity is anchored in the Bible. Now, I've not read the 'extra' books the non-Protestants use, except a few bits and pieces of the Gospel of Thomas. From what I gather, the Protestant Bible excluded the Gnostic gospels, Maccabees, et al, because they didn't agree with Old Testament writings and/or New Testament theology. From the little I've seen, it seems like a legitimate assertion.

All that to say, I believe the Protestant version of the Bible is the truest statement of Christian doctrine until it's proven to me otherwise. (I am open to argument, BTW.) Going from that reference point, any theology that deviates from that foundation is lacking in Christian legitimacy.