In recent weeks, malaysiakini has featured a thoroughly bone-headed discussion about who is allowed to say 'Peace be with you' upon greeting another person and about whether Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others worship the same God, called Allah in the Arabic language.

There is a difference between a political debate (eg, how should we all live together nicely?) and a question of a fact about theology. The question of whether Christians, Jews, and Muslims worship the same God is undisputed in readings of the Quran and in Muslim theology.

Through the Prophet Muhammad, God says that the Prophet is a successor to previous Jewish and Christian prophets. Most of the followers of these religions had strayed from God's message, so he had to send his word to his people through a new prophet, through Muhammad.

Anyone who wants to find out more about this can go to an online Quran in an appropriate language, search for the names of the former Prophets or for 'Ahl al-kitab (People of the Book) and find this information. One can also search for 'Ahl al-kitab' on the web and find numerous articles about how in Islamic law, Jews, Christians and others are acknowledged for worshiping the same God as the Muslims, for believing in 'tauhid' etc.

It would be nice if these debates were actually informed by some sort of learning. Reading these stupid letters here made me think that I should support the government's press controls.