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!
Don't you find it at all peculiar that the only thing that seperates your vehement belief in your God, and their vehement belief in their God, is the geographical accident of your birth?
Had you been born elsewhere, you'd be every bit as convinced of the "truth of Allah" as you are currently convinced of the "truth of God". Doesn't this give you even a moment's pause for consideration?
Dan
Translation: I can't refute his points.
Nonetheless, let us be honest in our critique of Islam. Allah is the Arabic word for God, used before Mohammed by Arabic speaking Christians, and still used in Arabic language Christian liturgies. There are some who argue that features of Mohammed's false teachings are drawn from an Arabian pagan moon god, but to say "Allah" is this moon god is absurd.
Incidentally tomorrow is the feast of St. Harith and the martyrs who died with him. St. Harith was the Christian leader of a city in what is now Yemen, who, with most of the citizens of his city were martyred by Arab pagans in 524. The city was retaken by the Ethiopians with assistance from the Empire, and was a pilgrimage site until its churches in honor of the martys were destroyed by the Muslims. (More proof that the attempt to credit Mohammed with giving the Arabs monotheism is a lie. He corrupted the Christian monotheism they already had.)
Thy martyrs, Harith and his companions, O Lord have received from Thee crowns of life and incorruption, for armed with Thy strength, they vanquished the tyrant and overcame the demons' strenghtless presumption. Wherefore by their intercessions grant our souls great mercy.
--the Troparion of the St. Harith and his companions
And I would have at least seen Ghandi as preferable to the schizo personality of Mohammed. Mahatma Ghandi said, "It is a constant torture to me that I am still so far from Him whom I know to be my very life and being. I know it is my own wretchedness and wickedness that keeps me from Him."
That would have led me to Christianity and Jesus. Just look for the truth and let that guide your beliefs, don't mold truth to fit your preconceived notions.
That flies in the face of reason.
Had you been indoctrinated into the Islamic tradition as a youth, you would worship Allah and read the Koran today. But instead, you were indoctrinated into the Christian tradition, so you worship God and read the Bible.
If you don't recognize this truth, then I submit that you are deluding yourself.
Why do you think that religious belief and theology are always the result of indoctrination when there are clear counter-examples?
Had you been born elsewhere, you'd be every bit as convinced of the "truth of Allah" as you are currently convinced of the "truth of God". Doesn't this give you even a moment's pause for consideration?
I'd like to raise the possibility that there would be more worship of Yahweh and Jesus in geographic areas occupied by islamics if they would end the practice of killing Christians.
Just as there are handfuls of those raised in the Christian faith, who later converted to Islam.
The fact remains, that the odds are overwhlemingly in favor of the indoctrination of youth. If you were taught by your elders to be Islamic as a youth, then you will very likely embrace the Islamic faith. Likewise for the Christian faith.
Hence, the difference between the choice to embrace Islam or Christianity, is overwhelmingly correlated to the geographical accident of one's birthplace. And whether Christian or Islamic, the defenders of the respective faiths are equally convinced of the "truth" of what they were taught as children.
Why is this such a hard thing for you to admit?
Just as those of the Islamic faith would assert that there would be more worship of Allah, had the crusaders not come.
And so goes the ebb and flow of theistic history...
Unfortunately for relativists, Christ happens to be unique, essential, infallible, and easily superior in character to all men who ever lived. Millions that aren't even Christians realize he was the greatest man in history, but just don't want to accept his hard truths and unique claim to be the lamb and son of God. So they just say he was the greatest of all the prophets.
Yeah, that seems to fit.
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