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!
No argument from this quarter.
I was a victim of soikumstanses!
I know. How lame!
It's the same old story. "I'd change it, but I don't want my member since date to change and have everybody quote it everytime I post."
Evidently some guy who deeply despises Christians, the infallibility of Jesus, and objective truth, yet who is a defender of "peaceful, loving" Muslims like Mohammed, Osama bin Laden, and any other cult leader who leads their followers into hell.
George Salt is Satan!! Soylent Green is people!!
Now who is John Galt?
Ha! Does that mean her brain is a singularity?
That's OWK's general claim for religious fanaticism, ain't it?
The soikumstanse of birth???lol
Perhaps he is ignoring you because your observation is meaningless.
Some people born 'here' are muslims.
Some people born 'there' are Christians.
You were born 'here' and you are neither.
So what's your point?
Mankinds stupidity will prevail this will be a stinking mess for a long time Afghanistan is the first in a long series,the picture of the plane smashing into the tower is sufficient condemnation,as an avid studier of myth legend and religion for 20 years I can tell you a lot of it is bollocks and you'd be truly amazed at parallels between Baal and Allah,Horus and Jesus,its called SSR or same shit recycled,attacking a faith is a fruitless propaganda means because all faiths have apologists to make other faiths seem like bollocks,killing 5000 innocents and representatives of government and business from over 30 nations speaks for itself,this chap declared war on civilization,no further analysis necessary.
In Old Testament times, Nabonidus (555-539 BC), the last king of Babylon, built Tayma, Arabia as a centre of moon god worship. After the second world war, archaeologists reported a Moon Temple in southern Arabia. Symbols of the crescent moon, twenty-one inscriptions of the name Sin and even an idol, possibly of the moon god himself were found. The temple seemed to have been used perhaps until the time of Mohammed. Archaeologists have discovered thousands of inscriptions from walls and rocks in Northern Arabia and other temples in Southern Arabia and Yemen. Reliefs and votive bowls used in worship of the daughters of Allah have also been found. The three daughters were depicted with a crescent moon above them. Worship of the moon god must have remained the main cult throughout Arabia until the Moslem conquests.
Is allah the God of the Bible?
Strongs # 427 Hebrew: allah (al-law) variation of 424, oak, terebinth
(Ezek 6:13 KJV) Then shall ye know that I am the LORD, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols.
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.
... 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?
"So why don't you go dance with a rattlesnake, or babble in tongues, or whatever...Sounds like another fundamentalist crackpot who wants to drag the world back to the 17th century...All religous fundamentalism is rooted in a fear of the modern world, a paranoid fear of annihilation at the hands of the modern, secular world."
You seem to be deeply hurt in some way. Ex-cult member? Ex-wife? Don't let the seething bitterness consume you. You might want to learn to distinguish more clearly between people who have hurt you or your family, and others who aren't those people.
It would also help to see how silly it is to label everyone for objective truth as a backwards fundamentalist, and all cults you favor as impervious to criticism. Actually many of the fundamentalists you seem to hate so much aren't worried about the truth -- very different from myself. Use your brain -- not emotion and media labels.
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