Allah-Centered Relationship

How to Have a God Centered Relationship: 12 Steps

This is a great article. It basically talks about tips in keeping your romantic relationship God-centered. This specific article is more directed towards Christians, but it can be applicable to any God-believing person. I just took out "Bible" and put "Qur'an." :-P

Pork

I'm almost afraid to write this. I'm sure that some Muslims will claim that I'm not Muslim, just by writing this blog entry, but I don't care. I am not on this planet to please Muslims; I'm on this planet to please Allah. In my opinion, it is beyond important for religious people to question things that do not make sense to them. If they don't, they are mindless and unintelligent.

It is a well-known custom among many Muslims to avoid pork their diet:

16:115 He has only forbidden you dead meat, and blood, and the flesh of swine, and any (food) over which the name of other than Allah has been invoked. . . 

Here's a small history of the Qur'an: It was revealed to the prophet Mohammed over more than 20 years. Qur'an was not written down on paper until years after Mohammed's death. The surahs were memorized by companions of Mohammed, then written down later when the companions were noticing other people taking these surahs and putting their own little twist on them, to put the words of the Qur'an in line with their own beliefs. 

Because the Qur'an was revealed at the time it was, it addresses many things that were current issues of the time. It states that each prophet before was addressing the times and people of that period. Of course, each message had many obvious parts that carry over to the current times. 

Now, why do you think pork is forbidden in the Qur'an? Could it be one of those things that is addressing the specific times when the Qur'an was revealed? One reason people tend to say that pork is forbidden is because it is dirty. The pig in the slaughterhouse is fed and treated the SAME way the cows and chickens and turkeys and lambs are treated: POORLY. They are fed the SAME type of food and given the same type of living arrangement. 

There is no legitimate reason that one should avoid pork if they do not avoid beef and every other animal. In Mohammed's times, there was not a safe way to prepare pork, AND pork was not a type of animal that was easy to raise in a desert climate. It was incredibly inconvenient, therefore pork was not something the people of that area ate. 

Yes, the Qur'an says to avoid pork, but then again, the Qur'an was revealed to a specific peoples in a specific location at a specific time. And again, as we know, different prophets brought specific messages and miracles (from Allah) to specific times and people.

We MUST remember this. If you are a Muslim who avoids pork, but feels comfortable eating beef and chicken, then maybe you should reevaluate this. Ask why! Never just take something that doesn't make sense and accept it blindly. 

People Who Turn Away

Top reason why people turn away from religion: Unsavory followers.

Obviously, there are members of every group that are embarrassing. People in your family, people on your team at work, people in your classroom, people in your city/state, people in your political party, people in your country, people in your gender, and of course and most of all, people in your religion.

People who turn away from religion and/or faith are not repulsed by how courageous and admirable Moses was, or offended about how loving and amazing Jesus was, or disgusted about how respectable and gentle Mohammed was. Not at all! How could they be? That is not what people who turn away are worried about.

They are worried about how repulsive it is for people who claim to be religious kill innocent people in the direct name of God. They are offended by how judgmental many religious leaders and followers are to everyone. These people are disgusted how hypocritical and harmful religious speakers' words are to many others.

It is not hard at all to see why people turn away from religion and faith. Although, I don't find this to be an excuse.

For me personally, if I do not like something or find something a little off, I do research on the subject. If you grow up around a family who claims to be Christian, and you see nothing but negativity and bad influences, why not research exactly what being Christian means, instead of taking your family's bad example as truth? Why not read the Bible yourself? You can NEVER take anothers' opinion & word as your own if you don't look into exactly what it means for you.

Every American on television reality shows are an embarrassment to me as an American citizen, but I definitely wouldn't want a non-American person to watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians and think all Americans are like that family. That is most definitely a FALLACIOUS hasty generalization.

You cannot accurately judge an entire faith based on the limited followers you run into in your life. You cannot judge it based on the people you know + the people you see on TV & in the news. You must find things out on your OWN, because if you don't, aren't you just a clueless follower yourself?

For me, it's difficult to know that others connect me to the type of Muslim that I definitely don't agree with on most levels. That is why I try to avoid the label Muslim if possible, and prefer saying that I practice Islam, or follow Islam. Unfortunately, others connect bad things to the word "Muslim" (and "Christian," etc) and that really is a shame, because it's very far from facts. When people do their OWN research about faiths, they see it in a whole new light.