The light of islam (ugh everyone is a critic)

Regarding the earlier question about the idea of Hell.. the descriptions used are the closest metaphors that the authors could achieve for what it really is, a separation from God or Allah (or whichever god or gods you choose). The idea is that even though the Diety loves you, the pain caused by the separation from said Deity would cause total grief and anguish as if being burned by fire.

As to the comments about the correlation between the Old and New Testaments: a counter question. Why do the stories HAVE to be true? Would the story being made up diminish any of the value gained from the moral of it? I tend to see the whole of religious text as parables, a set of stories to give us a guide to live by so to speak.

Aren't we tolerant of others religions here? No one is forcing their beliefs on anyone else, we still like the Atheists. Religion has NEVER been the reason for any evil done on this earth. Greed has. Humans have. Powerful men want to be even more powerful men. Every war fought in history can be boiled down to greed, even if it was advertised as something else.

I'll stand by John Lennon. Pretty smart guy for a hippie. Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for... And no religion too.

I don't get how you could like Islam and the Quran, but not Muhammad, considering that he wrote the Quran and that it was based off of his teachings and revelations he received from God. Just a little bit from your original post that I don't quite get. Also if he did write anything later in life that contradict the Quran (which I don't understand since the Quran wasn't formally created until about 20 years after the death of Muhammad) he would be contradicting his own writings? Please explain this all.

Coryduran wrote: I don't get how you could like Islam and the Quran, but not Muhammad, considering that he wrote the Quran and that it was based off of his teachings and revelations he received from God. Just a little bit from your original post that I don't quite get. Also if he did write anything later in life that contradict the Quran (which I don't understand since the Quran wasn't formally created until about 20 years after the death of Muhammad) he would be contradicting his own writings? Please explain this all.

Simple he was a hypocrit he had writings afterwards. Now unless you studied Islam as a devotee and looked at what Muhammad did after he became a imam you would instantly understand. Now until you read the Quran and studied Muhammad's life you would understand I will not add fuel to the attacks against Islam tho because Muhammad is simply a slave of god and I can not like him all day long for it only says to respect Muhammad as a profit and love and obey only god. If I say any negative things I as a Muslim see others as non Muslims will ignorantly add it as fuel that they won't truly understand what Islam is and only looks for reasons to hate. So my reasoning is only my reasoning and will be confessed to only those who study and understand Islam as a true devotee

I promise that anything you say here will not be used as bullets for the hate islam gun. Very seldom do we get muslims who are vocal about it here and it's always nice to hear first hand from someone who knows the religion. It would help us greatly in our studies and understanding.

War Beauty wrote: I promise that anything you say here will not be used as bullets for the hate islam gun. Very seldom do we get muslims who are vocal about it here and it's always nice to hear first hand from someone who knows the religion. It would help us greatly in our studies and understanding.

I believe in helping understanding of all things Islam included but my thoughts on muhhamad will only narrow the eyes of an average person who does not understand teachings are beyond the man. So without truly being connected to the ideas it makes no difference either way.

One of the things that caught my attention about Islam was the prayers 5 times a day. I wondered why a deity would ask such a specific thing, surely not just to ensure maintenance becuase each person would be different in their heavenly relationship already... but then I considered that perhaps any revelations to such nomadic people as Arab traders in the 6th century AD might be deliberatly specific to having a connection to the Force when in extreme isolation. This of course makes me wonder how best to implement something like that, just doing it equally spaced didnt cut it for me, so I've come up with my own intepretation which has some use to improving my connection to the Force.

Since I consider the Force is in all matter (at least its unifying nature) and having a higher connection to Force then means having the most broad connection to matter - which leads me to astronomy! If in my meditations/prayers I can try to connect to the Force in all matter on Earth the next step is to connect to the Moon and so on. This also has a relevance to the nomadic traders as they navigate throughout the desert as astronomy has been used since day 1 for navigation. So what about 5 times to connect to the Force?

I think my preferred 5 meditation/prayers would be the solar dawn and dusk's, plus the solar zenith, plus the lunar zenith and lunar nadir. The moon clearly interacts directly through gravity with the oceans so I think its a good focus for a meditation. I know in Islam you are meant to face the shortest direction to Mecca, but in my intepretation you'd face directly the sun or moon to help align your meditation. Does Islam talk about when to pray and why to use those times or is it just whenever you can evenly interspaced?

Adder wrote: One of the things that caught my attention about Islam was the prayers 5 times a day. I wondered why a deity would ask such a specific thing, surely not just to ensure maintenance becuase each person would be different in their heavenly relationship already... but then I considered that perhaps any revelations to such nomadic people as Arab traders in the 6th century AD might be deliberatly specific to having a connection to the Force when in extreme isolation. This of course makes me wonder how best to implement something like that, just doing it equally spaced didnt cut it for me, so I've come up with my own intepretation which has some use to improving my connection to the Force.

Since I consider the Force is in all matter (at least its unifying nature) and having a higher connection to Force then means having the most broad connection to matter - which leads me to astronomy! If in my meditations/prayers I can try to connect to the Force in all matter on Earth the next step is to connect to the Moon and so on. This also has a relevance to the nomadic traders as they navigate throughout the desert as astronomy has been used since day 1 for navigation. So what about 5 times to connect to the Force?

I think my preferred 5 meditation/prayers would be the solar dawn and dusk's, plus the solar zenith, plus the lunar zenith and lunar nadir. The moon clearly interacts directly through gravity with the oceans so I think its a good focus for a meditation. I know in Islam you are meant to face the shortest direction to Mecca, but in my intepretation you'd face directly the sun or moon to help align your meditation. Does Islam talk about when to pray and why to use those times or is it just whenever you can evenly interspaced?

WEll the story goes something like Muhammad spoke to god about prayers and was trying to come up with a number, god said pray 1000 times a day (some huge number like that) and Muhhamad being a man of god agreed and told his people to pray a 1000 times a day. Well the people did as suggested and came back to Muhammad and asked him to speak to god saying something like "1000 is too much, we have no time for anything else please talk to god once more to help." So muhhamad returned to god and said "My people have families and lives they tire from 1000 prayers and beg for it to be reduced, oh great allah please take in my peoples pleas" a new number was then presented and the number was 100 (once again a large number but still very vague as to what the true number was.) The people were happy because of how much smaller the number was and did the prayers happily. Soon they still were tired and their whole day centered on prayer and nothing else so Muhammad returned to god. "Oh merciful god please my people wish to pray 100 but still it is too big! Please help us we wish to worship but are tired and weary." After awhile god agreed on the number 5 stating, "They may pray 5 times a day! But each prayer must be worth a thousand in the way they pray and I shall allow only 5 times." Muhammad returned to his people and everyone was much more happy with 5 times a day. They had to pray the special prayer that the majority of Islams pray (pointing to Mecca, multiple bows, and praising how great god is in arabic, we also are supposed to bathe before every prayer if possible and be completely involved in it which makes it all worth a thousand prayers in one prayer.) Now I personally don't pray as such, I tried it for some time but once again some things don't translate well with the west. I honestly wish I could but being connected with god (the force) is more important than a simple prayer, being a true servant of god/the force is fully admitting (both internally and externally) that you are a very willing servant of God/the force and that you genuinely love and respect God. Anyways 5 special prayers spaced out throughout the day in a way that they are worth a thousand.
The times were set either by Muhammad or God but I do not remember off hand
The prayer times all differ from where you are in the world and other technical things so I will just cut the shortcut on this one and copy/paste a answer (I am sorry to do this but it is much easier this way lol.)Also since my prayers do not match those who do them daily it is better to hear from them anyways. It's like reading about a car, driving one a few times and then trying to explain how it works to someone who wants to talk to a mechanic :laugh:

Question: Why do Islamic prayer times change from day to day?
Muslims pray at five appointed times each day. The precise timing of these prayers often vary by a few minutes each day, so that over the course of a year there is a wide range of prayer times. Some communities publish prayer "schedules" to keep track of the times, and specialized computer programs can also calculate the prayer times for each area, for each day of the year. Why is this so? Why don't Muslims just pick the times and stick with them year-round?

Answer: The Islamic prayers are fixed at the same "time" period each day -- before dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset, and evening. Because of the rotation of the earth, the revolution of the earth around the sun, the tilt of the earth, the various latitudes of the earth's locations, daylight savings time, etc. -- the "times" (according to the clock) for these prayers do change from day to day and depend on location. Islamic prayer times were traditionally set according to the movement of the sun, not of the clock, and this is how they continue to be observed.

http://islam.about.com/od/prayer/f/prayer_times.htm

I forgot to mention something about Islam on a side note! I can't believe I didn't type this earlier. But Islam has proof that it is a direct word of god (whether you believe so or not Muslims and some scholars believe so.) Within the quran to prove that it was a factual account of God (I keep almost typing Allah lol) it contains facts about certain scientific discoveries that we only now confirmed recently in the past 100 years (estimate) stuff you could only known with sscientific instruments we currently have (this is another reason why I love Islam because it is a proud supporter of science.)

This video is kind of long but it contains mentions of the big bang, the universe expanding, the formation of mountains, and even embryotic development. This is a religion that actually confirms the big bang theory and is pro-science. It's a must watch (I had to read mine but I cant exactly take my book on science of the quran and scan each page to post up here lol) so this is the short cut for you guys

Most of this stuff is not only OLD language (1400 years outdated) but also translated to another language so some of the surahs (verses) are a little hard to decipher but there the whole "Read between the lines for higher understanding" comes into play once more. Because in normal english this sounds like greek or doesn't translate to our brains all that well but it's fighting as I said 1400 years and a translation into a language with NO real links to arabic.

The arabs (and persians, etc, and the greeks before them too) were once highly cultivated and had great scientific minds. I think the q'ran even mentions an ancient greek misconception regarding the location of the prostate.

Thanks for mentioning this Nameless.

ren wrote: The arabs (and persians, etc, and the greeks before them too) were once highly cultivated and had great scientific minds. I think the q'ran even mentions an ancient greek misconception regarding the location of the prostate.

Thanks for mentioning this Nameless.

Finally something we can agree on Ren