The Hand of God

cth: "I’ve heard it said that Muslims worship the same God that Christians and Jews do, but that terrorist quoted above saying 'their God' certainly does not consider Allah to be Yahweh!"

You'll find all kinds of folks in all kinds of religions who think in my god / your god terms. It's superstitious (and theological) ignorance. It's usually not about God, it's about power totems, like battling team ghost spirits.

When folks conceive of gods in this way, it always reminds me of how Jack Kirby first draw Thor (who had previously been a comic book character) for Marvel, and then back-invented his version of Odin and Asgard and all that. Then he brought in Hercules (duking it out with Thor, of course) and so there was Odin of the Norse gods and Zeus of the Olympian gods; IIRC, later, Marvel later threw in Krishna from Nirvana and others. Different "heavens" as little islands floating in separate dimensions.

Kirby went off to DC comics and created the New Gods, a whole universe of original mythology, with the Edenic world of the good Lord All-Father and the smoking, foul, firepit-riddled world of evil Lord Darkseid (pronounced dark side) locked in a secret pact to keep balance in the universe, but set at odds through uncounted ages (and as long as DC can milk the franchise).

My god / your god is superheroes and supervillains all the way down to Yggdrasil, but has nothing to do with genuine theology. Once you understand God is not some competitive superguy struggling against some other nearly-as-powerful princling gods always vying for the scepter of power and the golden throne, but instead understand the One God's omnipotence, omniscience, and absoluteness, then the whole "none other before me" thing becomes "well, duh."

I'd be glad to help anyone who believes in One God by any name come to better know the true nature of our Creator-Father.

But, if Jimmy Jihad wants to think Yahweh's hand pushed Allah's rocket into the sea, I've got no problem with that.