17 More Minutes of Denial

[affreca]

As some of you might now, we are currently in the month of Ramadan. While I have no desire to convert to Islam, I admire much about the religion. Yes, I will admit that they have some extremists who view the US as the evil Satan. And it is used to justify subservient women. But then again, so does Christianity. I personally can not see myself being part of any organized religion. I joke about it, but there is truth to the statement that Unitarians are to organized for me.

But, the point is that one of the pillars of Islam is charity. Another is observance of Ramadan, including fasting throughout the month (from sunrise to sunset). The KU Muslim Student Group is sponsoring a money raiser for the local food banks. Various local companies donate food for everyone who signs a petition to fast for one day. I signed up. I then did not manage to wake up early for a pre sunrise breakfast. I can make it.

In other news, Tom is using observations about his coworker praying to illustrate points about great circles in his education class. Last week he noticed that his coworkers were not facing southeast while praying to Mecca. Yep, and they've been using great circles to accurate pray towards Mecca since the Middle Ages. In case you forget, the only reason we have several Greek classics on science, geometry and medicine is because they were translated into Arabic.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

good luck with the fasting. i know i couldn't do it! i've noticed that there are a lot of things in a lot of different religions that i like, but there are also alyways those people who go and mess it up for the rest of us. instead of trying to get rid of all of the 'bad' religions, maybe we should try to get rid of stupid people, you never know, it might work...
~biscuit