RE: You're not so Godless.
March 17, 2016 at 3:22 am
(This post was last modified: March 17, 2016 at 4:05 am by ReptilianPeon.)
What is it about human design that makes them good for worship? I look at a human and I see lots of things that make it a bad design if it's purpose is only to worship. I'll use the story of Isra and Mi'raj to elaborate my comment. The seventeenth chapter of the Quran is named "Irsa", as I'm sure you're aware. For those don't know what I'm talking about, here is the Wikipedia article (which also lists any relevant Quran Iyah, of which there are several). So the story is alluded to in the Quran, and there is even a festival celebrating the day, Lailat al Mi'raj.
Why is Muhammad's night journey important? People were originally supposed to pray fifty times per day! But Moses thought this was too difficult for humans to pray fifty times each day so he told Muhammad to negotiate with Allah, seeing as Allah didn't know fifty prayers a day was too much to handle. So Muhammad went up to Allah and negotiated. Honestly, he must be a better negotiator than Donald Trump if he can convince Allah to reduce the amount of Salat from fifty down to five a day. Can't believe Moses took until the time of Muhammad to realize fifty times a day is too much for humans to handle; you think somebody would have informed Allah sooner.
So anyway, Moses realized that humans are not built for constant worship (because, like I said, apparently Allah did not realize fifty prayers a day is too many). Moses then said to Muhammad that fifty a day prayers was difficult for people, so he urged Muhammad to negotiate with Allah to get the amount of daily prayers reduced. And so, a fallible human, a mere mortal, was able to change the mind of Allah. Now for the calculations.
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There are twenty-four hours in a day (Earth days are continuously getting longer and they are not actually twenty-four hours in a day, but I'm ignoring that to make the calculations easy) so that's one daily prayer an average of about every 4.8 hours (24 ÷ 5 = 4.8), and that period of time between daily prayers excludes however long it takes a person to do Wudu (or Tayammum), which I expand upon below. Now that we've established that, what is the interval between prayers at the original fifty times per day? 24 ÷ 50 = 0.48.
So that's a prayer eve forty-eight minutes. So every forty-eight minutes you have to find the direction of Mecca* (or Jerusalem if it was pre-switch days), do Wudu (or Tayammum), and then spend several minutes praying. Let's say, for the sake of argument, those three things combined take the average person fifteen minutes*. If humans were designed to worship, don't you think that they could handle fifty prayers a day? Yet Moses was saying this is too much, and Muhammad agreed.
*Remembering, of course, that people may not be close to a Mosque and didn't always have mobile phones that could easily find Mecca for them.
I have to agree with Moses on this one. How are humans supposed to survive if they have to stop and pray so frequently? Could humans even sleep? How could they if they have to get up and so Wudu every forty-eight minutes (less than because of finding Mecca and Wudu)? How could early humans gather resources from hunting, fishing and foraging (before they made the switch to farming) if they have to pray and wash that frequently?
Why is Muhammad's night journey important? People were originally supposed to pray fifty times per day! But Moses thought this was too difficult for humans to pray fifty times each day so he told Muhammad to negotiate with Allah, seeing as Allah didn't know fifty prayers a day was too much to handle. So Muhammad went up to Allah and negotiated. Honestly, he must be a better negotiator than Donald Trump if he can convince Allah to reduce the amount of Salat from fifty down to five a day. Can't believe Moses took until the time of Muhammad to realize fifty times a day is too much for humans to handle; you think somebody would have informed Allah sooner.
So anyway, Moses realized that humans are not built for constant worship (because, like I said, apparently Allah did not realize fifty prayers a day is too many). Moses then said to Muhammad that fifty a day prayers was difficult for people, so he urged Muhammad to negotiate with Allah to get the amount of daily prayers reduced. And so, a fallible human, a mere mortal, was able to change the mind of Allah. Now for the calculations.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
There are twenty-four hours in a day (Earth days are continuously getting longer and they are not actually twenty-four hours in a day, but I'm ignoring that to make the calculations easy) so that's one daily prayer an average of about every 4.8 hours (24 ÷ 5 = 4.8), and that period of time between daily prayers excludes however long it takes a person to do Wudu (or Tayammum), which I expand upon below. Now that we've established that, what is the interval between prayers at the original fifty times per day? 24 ÷ 50 = 0.48.
So that's a prayer eve forty-eight minutes. So every forty-eight minutes you have to find the direction of Mecca* (or Jerusalem if it was pre-switch days), do Wudu (or Tayammum), and then spend several minutes praying. Let's say, for the sake of argument, those three things combined take the average person fifteen minutes*. If humans were designed to worship, don't you think that they could handle fifty prayers a day? Yet Moses was saying this is too much, and Muhammad agreed.
*Remembering, of course, that people may not be close to a Mosque and didn't always have mobile phones that could easily find Mecca for them.
I have to agree with Moses on this one. How are humans supposed to survive if they have to stop and pray so frequently? Could humans even sleep? How could they if they have to get up and so Wudu every forty-eight minutes (less than because of finding Mecca and Wudu)? How could early humans gather resources from hunting, fishing and foraging (before they made the switch to farming) if they have to pray and wash that frequently?
