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Topic: praying five times a day...
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| Donna Chang | Posted – 7/26/2007 10:45:09 PM | show profile Furthermore, I would argue that prayer keeps people in a passive state of being, reducing a person's ability to feel, see, achieve and experience more. Think about it...you can waste ten minutes praying and waiting for some higher being (who doesn't exist) to do you bidding, or you can get off your ass and physically do something. Sorry if the love is too tough. |
| redheadedone | Posted – 7/26/2007 11:18:08 PM | show profile Chucho- Kudos on your research. Seriously, you got it down. |
| foto | Posted – 7/26/2007 11:18:31 PM | show profile Maybe its time religion be put on the same level as Dr. Phil. In fact, instead of religion we could just sit around and listen to old Hall & Oates or Air Supply LPs. Its bound to make us happier. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 7/26/2007 11:49:21 PM | show profile Sorry Angela, we're worlds apart... |
| Bleak Spouse | Posted – 7/27/2007 12:36:16 AM | show profile >>>>So then you get my point about fundamentalism and that it's not being muslims in general or the name Allah being the cause of "evil." Absolutely. I lived in the south for about 20 years. There have been some pretty remarkable Christians over the years. Jesus for one. Thomas Merton. And Dostoyevsky. But I guess the real question isn't if Christians are nice or mean, but if the religion is true. |
| chucho | Posted – 7/27/2007 5:46:34 AM | show profile The tribal crap about male custody over women that prevails in the Quran is perhaps the most problematic issue, especially considering the conflict that arises when non-Muslims -- especially secularists, like the Dutch. (Americans? Not so much. They are "spiritual" people, so whether they admit it or not they have a kind of "tolerance" for like-minded believers in the supernatural, which is why so many people abroad love America: because they're free to believe what they want in peace, and earn a living and put their kids through school to boot. For those Christians that think Muslims are from Mars, they just don't know anything about Islam. Even Christian historical theologians recognize that the hills around Mecca was indeed where the (proverbial, in my view) Abraham was tested and people argue about whether the (proverbial, in my view) Garden of Eden is located in Yemen or Iraq. A lot of the arguments fielded by Republicans that exploit the evangelicals (or the one or two congressmen that are actually Evangelical Christians) are the same arguments put forth by mosque imams on social issues in the Middle East. So we try to figure out what to do with people who hold these tribal beliefs and how to parse public and private interests in this regard, ie we agree that beating your wife, which is sanctioned in the Quran, is bad (Islamists: shut the fuck up and don't try to tell me "beating" is a metaphor or some silly shit, and fess up to it, please, so you can start your Reformation and de-bedou-ize the Quran and go back and review the history of your own faith and revere the folks that invented the modern numbers used worldwide, and took the zero from the Brahmins and invented AL-GEBRA and AL-GORITHMS -- not sure about Al-abama, thiat just night be a coincedence....); But (to go back to the "clash of civilizations" thing: Beating your wife is bad but can Muslim women wear hijabs on driver's licenses? (Personally, I'm willing to grant Muslim women that private right, but I draw the line at wearing masks in public places or in many type (of not all) professions, esp. teaching in public schools, airline pilot, bank guard, etc. -- if the niqab is important to you, stop trying to be a walking contradiction ("I want to be invisible, but I also want to be in the workplace getting the privilege of facial communication signals without giving it!") The niqab is about demanding a considerably large concession that's something that's not even mentioned in your Holy Book! I came to the conclusion that because Islam is about supplicating to your enemies on earth (with the exception, a big one, of "defending the faith", aka jihad) it is a very convenient faith to have if you're a dictator that wrap himself up in the banner of Islam (Idi Amin, I'm talking to you!). |
| Donna Chang | Posted – 7/27/2007 5:29:54 PM | show profile booo prayer! |
| foto | Posted – 7/30/2007 8:56:57 PM | show profile I once heard of a donkey in Saudi Arabia that brayed 5 times a day. |
| Bleak Spouse | Posted – 7/30/2007 10:18:13 PM | show profile For those of you who laugh at Christianity and think it's illogical to believe in it, keep in mind that you're saying you're more logical than Fyodor Dostoyevsky. And anyone who's read Dostoyevsky knows he's smarter, wiser, and more logical than they are. |
| westsidestory | Posted – 7/31/2007 12:05:34 AM | show profile prayer works - we just usually don't know how to work it Angela, praying is not passive. It is a direct communication between you and your higher power (God to some, Allah to others, etc etc) . It need not be supplicative (asking for something) and it can be centering and calming, which allows one to take action later, having drawn from strength. For the rest: The early Christian church up until the middle ages also prayed 5-6 times a day. Look up "Liturgy of the Hours." After a point, the religious community (monks and nuns) took up the task of doing all the praying,on behalf of the community that was too busy doing other things, like shearing sheep or sowing corn or playing piano or whatever. Today Catholic priests do the liturgy of the hours - usually alone, on behalf of their parish communities. In my church during Lent they offer Compline - the evening prayer service - as a community service. But anyone can do the hour liturgy - it's just that they don't have the time, or more typically, were not taught this old prayer system. In simpler, slower days, it was perhaps easier to pause and reflect on spiritual issues several times a day. I wish we had some Muslim commentators on this board, as I am curious as to whether busy, modern Muslims actually do take the time out of their day to do all the prayers. The episode in the recording studio might have just been peer pressure - the way people wash their hands in a public bathroom if other people are there, but don't when they are alone, Don't mean to trivialize anyone's religion or say one is better than the rest. If you've got a god, talk to him/her/it on a regular basis...it's a positive thing in anyone's life. Does God need us to pray? Ugo, I think not. But so many people in so many cultures seem to have a need to pray. This is not wishful thinking or wishful hoping...it's a way to connect with the greater universe, even if we acknowlege that we don't understand how, why, or to what effect. |
| chucho | Posted – 7/31/2007 7:57:30 AM | show profile >> I wish we had some Muslim commentators on this board, as I am curious as to whether busy, modern Muslims actually do take the time out of their day to do all the prayers. The episode in the recording studio might have just been peer pressure - the way people wash their hands in a public bathroom if other people are there, but don't when they are alone,<< I'm not Muslim but I have worked in in an office that is predominantly Muslim in a very religious Islamic country (ie not Turkey). I would say the majority of the Muslims observed the four prayers that would occur during the shift. A handful were the equivalent of "Sunday Christians" and "Bagel Jews" and though are semi-religious are lax on adhering to a strict regimen of prayer and liberal, including the aforementioned musician in the studio. A couple of the Muslims were secretly Godless, or openly gay and didn't pray at all and didn't feel pressure to do so. However, the previous poster makes an excellent point about social pressure to be pious. I observed almost a contest-like quality at times to see who is "more pious" -- most notably in the office bathroom where people liked to "be seen" doing ablutions (washing of the hands to the elbows, the face, behind the ears and the feet). I found it kind of annoying because they (some of them, not most of them) would use a huge amount of water, splashing it everywhere to "show off" their piety to their peers. After evenry prayer the bathrooms would have water all over the place and some "Untouchable" woudl go in there and mop up. This is particular a problem among Salafists (the fundamentalists who think civilization should be rolled back to the first generation of Muslims) who take ablutions literally (remove the socks, scrub between the toes, splish-splash all over the fucking place) rather than figuratively (symbolically rub a wet hand under your foot, even with the sock on). This connect of piety is also why sometimes some people would be off at prayer for, like, 45 minutes! There's a certain personality type that likes to, again, "be seen" being very pious and staying as long as possible in supplication. I've heard Muslims joke about this, so it's not general behavior, but it is annoying when you're waiting around for a store to re-open and the guy is off bust "posturing" to his fellow congregates. |
| Stanley_Milgram | Posted – 7/31/2007 8:07:49 AM | show profile i had a friend who lived in Qatar for two years. He told me that when you drive out into the desert, you would come across these gas stations/minimart/mosque stops at the side of the road, where you can fill up, grab some potato chips and pray. Not sure if he was having me on, but I believed him. I think a lot of people on this board are mixing up prayer with organized religion. These are often the same people who cannot appreciate the bible as a literary document (they wouldn't think of generating so much animus toward, say, The Iliad). Re Dostoevsky. The man is my favorite writer and my vote for the greatest novelist who ever lived, but he was a rabid slavophile and despised jews, attitudes he was not shy about expressing in his wonderful prose. When you deal with his christian faith, you also have to deal with that. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 7/31/2007 9:13:32 AM | show profile Well said, westside (although you must've misread what I wrote since I also indicated in my first post that God or Allah doesn't need us to pray). |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 7/31/2007 9:15:24 AM | show profile And good point about prayer versus organized religion. For example, I consider myself a spiritual person but I don't belong to any organized religion (not that there's anything wrong with that...). |
| Mag Girl | Posted – 7/31/2007 9:47:59 AM | show profile To whoever wanted to know about modern Muslims- My husband is Muslim (but from secularist Turkey) and has faith like I do as a Christian. He eats pork, he drinks, etc., and I don't think I have ever actually seen him pray. But his uncle is still very much a practicing Muslim even after being in the US for about 25 years, and has made pilgrimages and everything. I also worked with a young (maybe about 30-year-old) Muslim in another professional office before, and he devoutly practiced as well, and fasted during Ramadan. I think the practices of modern Muslims in the US vary as widely as the practices of Christians, Jews and all other faiths. |
| Donna Chang | Posted – 7/31/2007 3:13:36 PM | show profile I never said I was smarter than anyone... So, there. I just simply don't believe in a higher power, therefore no reason to waste mind muscle over talking to one. That's all. Geesh. Calm down. |
| chucho | Posted – 7/31/2007 3:24:08 PM | show profile >> I think the practices of modern Muslims in the US vary as widely as the practices of Christians, Jews and all other faiths. << Exactly, which is why it's so annoying to hear the way so many people talk about Muslims. One thing that kinda freaked me out is that when you fly Saudi Airlines they have a preflight prayer -- Allah u Akbar, etc. They also have an indicator during the flight pointing toward Mecca (an arrow that moves as the plane turns in flight). Some orthodox Muslims get up and pray on the plane. I saw this flying from Indonesia to the Gulf. (That information ought to incite some anti-Muslim comment from the more conservative people on this board.) I find it odd since the Quran specifically states that it's OK not to pray during prayer times if you are traveling, but oh well. It doesn't say anything about women wearing masks, either. |
| Mag Girl | Posted – 7/31/2007 3:43:35 PM | show profile I hear ya Chucho :) I lost some family members for marrying a Muslim man because of preconceived notions about what his life is like- and what mine would be like. Which is funny, because my husband is a big softy, and some of his family is better to me and asks about my well being a lot more than some of my own family. But that's kinda funny about the indicator toward Mecca! I don't remember seeing that on Turkish Airlines but do remember the option of having a meal that fits Muslim dietary restrictions. I wonder if that will change (having a Mecca indicator) if the country keeps tipping away from its secular roots. |
