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!
And we're the idiots.
Besides all of that why do you feel the need to belittle, and humiliate, and scoff at, and ridicule all those that in return pray for you?
Why all of the effort and energy unless you are trying to work through some of your own doubt?
I just don't get it.
And we're the idiots.
So I should pretend to believe, to hedge my bets.. otherwise I'm an idiot... Gotcha.
Besides all of that why do you feel the need to belittle, and humiliate, and scoff at, and ridicule all those that in return pray for you?
I don't think I've belittle, humiliated, scoffed at, or ridiculed anyone here.
I've simply stated that the god described in the Old Testament is a brutal and horrific creature, not at all consistent with the notion of a loving god. He murders, commands his followers to murder.. even murder little children. Not anything I'd wish to spend eternity with.
Maybe the scribes of the Old Testament got the story wrong.
Why all of the effort and energy unless you are trying to work through some of your own doubt? I just don't get it.
I'm discussing the subject.
That's what people do on discussion forums.
Apparently this makes you uncomfortable.
You arbitrarily place importance on what YOU believe to be important and treat that like an axiom. That cannot be. You aren't the creator.
You see.. that's just it.
I do place importance on not murdering people.
And if the Ten Commandments are to be attributed to God.. so does he.
And yet God commanded Joshua to slit the throats of innocent little babies in his name.
God commanded Joshua to murder.
So we're left with a quandry.
Is murder objectively immoral.
I'd submit that it is... and I'd submit that anyone who murders is doing evil, whether they claim God commanded this evil or not.
That's how we're able to tell the nutjobs who fly airplanes into buildings claiming God told them to do it, from sane folk.
Isn't it?
Why? We're all gonna die some day anyway. We're just passing time on this planet for no purpose so, why not murder?
It's not evil as you claim. There is no evil, right? And therefore no good either.
There are simply people and what people do.
I learned these helpful and valuable lessons my beatnik parents.
Perhaps the only reason you restrain your behavior and abstain from brutalizing your neighbors, is fear of eternal torment. If so, I'd suggest that you hold a pretty shallow moral understanding.
As for me, I recognize that any moral claims I may advance pursuant to my own freedom of action, are predicated on my willingness to respect the same claim in others.
As such, I recognize good and evil as objective and unambiguous.
So did you sit down and carefully craft and formulate this morality or did it just come to you naturally?
Isn't that what I just said? There are simply people and what people do.
Don't want to be murdered?.. Don't murder.
Don't want to be robbed?.. Don't steal.
Want to choose your own peaceful way?.. Afford others the same opportunity.
Sounds alot like the 'ole golden rule that your god mandates.
But unfortunately your faith also routinely contradicts this premise.
You: Isn't that what I just said?
No... that's nothing at all like what you just said.
Do you know what objective and unambiguous mean?
Well, I'm not very smart but yeah, I think I do and they don't mean good and evil.
Your commentary suggested otherwise.
So it dosen't come naturally, correct? It must willfully reasoned out.
In practice.. yes, always.
Reason is the faculty which affords human beings the ability to restrain impulse or instinct, in deference to the rights of others.
It is what separates us from the animals.
Don't want to be robbed?.. Don't steal.
What if you can be assured of knowing that you could murder and steal and not suffer any consequences?
Irrelevant to the notion of a moral code.
In order to claim a moral imperative to act peacefully in accordance with my own will, I must rationally afford others the same ability.
Else my own moral claim is invalid.
And to think that it all came about by chance! The wheel of fate spun favorably that time, or did it? Maybe it would've been easier if we were like animals.
Funny thing though, animals without reason don't ever seem to thrill kill.
As opposed to an invisible cloud-walking boogerman?
Could you please elaborate, direct me to outside sources, links etc for this claim? Thanks.
Easy enough for a scholar such as yourself to conclude but what about people of very low intelligence, or dullards and simpletons who possess moral imperatives without any reflection?
I don't see why you can't rationalize that your well-being trumps the well-being of all others.
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