Posted on 10/23/2001 8:39:39 AM PDT by spycatcher
Pre-Islamic Arabia's religion was one of superstition. Belief in jinns (genies), curse casting, magic stones, totems was the norm - and it was against this background that Allah arose. Although the Quran is claimed to be a heavenly writing with no earthly source, evidence of these very sorts of cultural influence is found in such places as Suras 55, 72, 113 and 114.
Animism, the belief that spirits inhabit rocks, trees and other elements was also very commonplace. Some of these stones were venerated and used as a focal point for the worship of a particular tribal god. No surprise, Muhammad's family had just such a stone for their own tribe - a black stone, in fact, that they kept at the Kabah (where the tribal idols were set up). The pagan rites of bowing toward Mecca, making a pilgrimage to the Kabah, running around it seven times, kissing it, then running to the river to throw stones at the devil all found there way into Islamic practice.
The final piece of the puzzle was in found in the religion of the Sabeans, an astral religion that worshipped the moon god and planned their religious rites around the lunar calendar. One such rite was fasting from crescent moon to crescent moon, a practice which would also be adopted by Muhammad.
If these things were not present before Muhammad received them from Allah (who himself is the moon god of Muhammad's tribe), why did Muhammad not have to explain what those words meant in the Quran? How would people have known who Allah was? ( or: what a jinn was? what the Kabah was? what the word Islam meant? etc.). Even the word "Islam" which many believe to mean "submission" was not an original word. In Arabic it was a secular term that denoted the strength and bravery of a desert warrior (a definition that accurately reflects the war-like tribes that founded Islam with bloodshed).
The Moon God
"Allah" is from the compound Arabic word "al-ilah" or in english "the god". Allah was known before Muhammad's time without a doubt. His name has been found in pre-islamic writings and other archeological finds. At the Kabah in Mecca over 350 gods were worshipped, but it was built especially for the chief deity - the moon god. Allah was the personal title of the moon god. Allah was married to the sun goddess. They produced three daughters, whose worship Muhammad would later make the mistake of condoning. The crescent moon symbol of Arabia came from this god.
Muhammad's family revered this particular god, and it is this idol that Muhammad declared to be the only true god. So, Allah - far from being the revealed God of the Bible as Muhammad would have us believe - is nothing more than an amplified pagan idol. Muhammad did not re-make the pagan god, he simply removed the lower deities from the rites of worship. That is why he never had to explain who Allah was. By definition, an idol converted in the 7th century into a new god cannot be the sama God revealed thousands of years earlier to Biblical prophets!
Truth, isn't that a fact or reality subject to observation and examination by reason?
The claims of various religions are subject to that scrutiny. Of all the religions I've heard of, only one consists of the teachings of a man that claimed he was the human form of God Himself. The others are all the teachings of men. My own scrutiny has found them all to be fabrications, because they are logically flawed and the preponderant deity(s) is a petty tyrant.
Jesus claimed He was God and thus, it is only Him, His teachings, that one looks at to scrutinize. Since He is God, it is also only Him that can tell anyone who the God of the Old Testament is. I have found that Jesus is a libertarian and His teachings are w/o logical error. That leads me to believe He is who He said He is. Do you have an example where He contradicts Himself, or displays He has some nature of a tyrant?
How do you get out of that piece that Muslims worship the God of Abraham? I can't see anything in there that says anything of the sort. They're worshipping Allah, which was a pagan god. Or are you just adding that in on your own?
You will notice that the word "truth" was in quotes.
That was not accidental.
I didn't get it out of the piece.
I was disagreeing with the piece.
Muslims worship the God of Abraham.
(or didn't you know that?)
You were born here, so you believe what you believe. They were born there, so they believe what they believe. But had your places of birth been reversed, you'd be every bit as vehement a defender of Allah.
This is an argument that completely sidesteps the very issue that you are raising. It becomes apparent that you're doing this, when this is restated with a different set of facts.
You were born here, so you believe that the sky is blue. They were born there, so they believe that the sky is red. But had your places of birth been reversed, you'd be every bit as vehement of a defender of "the sky is red."
If we were to assert that -- we would be laughed out of the place, because one would maintain that the sky is blue -- because it is a "truth" that exists outside of one's own "belief". In other words, my "belief" doesn't make the sky blue -- it is only my agreement or disagreement with it. The truth of the matter remains the same, regardless of my belief. So, this is -- in essence -- what you are trying to say, that my "belief" makes something true. Or, put another way, that there is no such thing as "truth" which exists outside of whatever I wish to believe.
So, if we were to agree that if I were born there and they were born here -- we would still be faced with the truth of the matter -- i.e., that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the one true God and all others are false gods.
It doesn't matter where one lives or what one believes. Truth stands on its own, because truth exists outside of the believer. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob exists outside of whether they believe, you believe, I believe or even that we "exist" in the first place -- at all.
Boy, that's really deep. O great one, could you teach me to reason like that?
Does that mean that since you were born in the dirt, you worship the ground? Is that the way it works?
Grow up, pup. Jettison the sophomore sociology.
I believe in Jesus Christ because He is the Son of God. [BTW, He wasn't 'born here.'] You may 'believe' in what you will -- or nothing at all -- and place your bets.
Don't be pig-headed. You already know the answer.
Many Islamic countries have the Crescent Moon on their national flags. Pakistan does for example. Some, don't, but those that don't tend to have pure green flags, like Libya and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi flag has some Arabic script and a sword on it. One flag, that of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is pure green, with a yellow Crescent Moon and five-pointed star on it. Interestingly, the official flag of Afhanistan (as of 1995) did not have a Crescent Moon on it.
In Islamic countries, their equivalent to the Red Cross is the Red Crescent.
Islam uses a lunar calendar.
Extremists like bin Laden are literally lunatics!
I haven't read down throught the thread yet, but I am sure that there will be reactions against what you posted. Many people DON'T WANT to know the truth about Islam.
One thought: I wonder if the Muslims thought that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin somehow "defiled" the Moon by setting foot on it in 1969????
"You were born here, so you believe what you believe. They were born there, so they believe what they believe. But had your places of birth been reversed, you'd be every bit as vehement a defender of Allah."
Well said, which points to the dangers inherent in a nation of illiterates. Who was it that said ..."and the Truth shall set you free"? And so it goes.
All of this "Moon God" horseshit comes from one "Dr." Robert A. Morey. Apparently, Islam isn't the only thing that gives this pathetic bigot a hard-on - he's also published vile rants against Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Wiccans, Freemasons, and just about anyone else who doesn't adhere to his constipated world-view.
So why don't you go dance with a rattlesnake, or babble in tongues, or whatever.
Simple though it may be, the concept is beyond the grasp of many of the participants of this thread.
Probably....
Hee Hee. I resemble that remark! Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk!
I'll agree that many people don't want to know the truth about Islam. And if they do they won't get it from you.
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