Reply to Ms Solfronk

Submitted by Marc (United States), Jul 24, 2007 at 10:47

Ms Solfronk,

You might be right if the vast majority of Jews, Christians and Muslims thought they worshipped a different God. The fact is that only the most radical of the Christians, Jews and Muslims have such a belief.

Mr Pipes himself has stated that he feels there is no difference in the God of Christians, Jews or Muslims. The word "Allah" is a word that is used in Arabic by members of all three faiths. Christian Arabs and Arab Jews, who speak Arabic, use the word "Allah".

In my time I spent in Israel I knew many Sephardic Jews, particularly Yemeni Jews, and they all used the word "Allah" in their day to day conversations in Arabic. In my travels in Lebanon, as well as life here in the USA, I have known many Arab Christians, Catholic, Eastern Orthodx, Evangelical, and they all use the word "Allah" for God.

I speak Arabic and often I could not tell, unless I knew otherwise, the faith of the person I was talking to because Arab Jews and Christian Arabs all use words that most here in the West would associate only with Muslims, ie "Insha'Allah" (God Willing), "Allah Ma3akum"(God be with you) ect.

As I have said previously, only the most extremist followers of any of the three faiths would claim that Jews/Christians/Muslims worship a completely different God.

Unless you fall under the extremist category yourself I fail to see what the issue with Bush's actions are? I am not a Jew but when I have on occasion attended religious functions of my Jewish friends, I always wore the Kippa out of respect for a common God and repect for Judaism and for my friends.

My wife is not a Christian, yet she covered her hair at a recent wedding of two of our Ethiopian friends. Out of respect again, for a common God, out of respect for Christian traditions and respect for our friends, not to mention that to one extent or another covering a woman's head has a history in all three faiths.

Ehtiopian Christians and Arab Christians tend not to eat pork. When we have Jewish friends over we try to go as kosher as possible, ie no meat with dairy, even if we are not able to serve the food on plates that are exclusively dairy or meat. When we are outside on the Shabbat our neighbors will sometimes ask us to do things that they cannot do and we love nothing more than sitting on a nice summer night watching Jews from all over our neighborhood walk to the local Synagogue for services.

We all have much more in common than we do in differences, too bad the extremists on all sides forget this.

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