Religion MUST be a personal thing
no you cant think that way. this is the way i see it... religion is a way of life, teaching whats moral and whats immoral, and its from god. dont kill people for no reason, dont drink alcohol because its bad is more than its good, dont fuck without marriage you'll screw heritage uncontrolled birth and abortion poison to moralistic nature
etc etc (example) and its absolute even if you cannot comprehend why is the reason, including why we have to pray. just think we are a bunch of scientific community trying to unravel the truth here no personal mean
when you see religion as personal thing, then it will soon become a community thing, and then political correct thing, and then profitable thing, and then guess what?.... war! that fucking radical fanatics community and terrorism, all religion got one at least. but when you see it as a teaching from god and you have faith in it, then all you care is following the teaching and become obedience, not that it wil ask you to kill other people because they are not following the teaching, all you care is yourself and how you face Him in afterlife. i may put it in the wrong word. but somehow thats my understanding.
but the point is, all the problem involving the name of religion (anykind of religion) is because of this greedy bunch of radical people. they say they are holy and start killing other people, well fuck that i say. easy analogy is like the "military industrial complex", i can say thats a religion too. even aethism is a religion in my point of view (the teaching of there is no god). the problem start when you get too obsessed and become fanatics.
so for me, as i've learnt and read about science. i'm not a 100% faithfull/follow to religion teaching myself, but i try to correlate between what the book said with whats have been discovered by mankind, but so far i cannot fault the book, infact they are inline side by side in "harmony". i'll be looking forward to see mankind will discover the "7 stair gate to god's throne", its been mentioned in quran surah al-maarij FWIW. big bang and the day of creation have been mentioned in the book, but only when man discovered it, and its become meaningfull.
in the book, the creation of the universe took 7 days, its mentioned in bible, and rementioned the same in quran. except the argument that in the bible mentioning the god rest in His throne in the 7th day iirc when the creation is completed. implying the god was tired. no, god will never tired, i believe He sat on His throne and start managing the reality with 'kunfayakun' (be and it will become), but never tired. managing universe is... easy for God, down to atomic/muon level. and if you really believe universe is created in 7 days, ie 7x24hours then you are a dumb fool. the book writing in the way in alot of semaphores, analogy and implicit meaning of literacy, you need to learn linguistic and arabic/hebrew to really understand the meaning. sometime one word will means 2 or more thing. 7 days in god's ruler can be in thousands of years of what we understand it. so 7 days can be 7Kyears, or 70Kyear who knows? or even using lunar calendar or 1Kyears. same with many other aspects. the book in another way teaches you to look it a more broader mind, not the narrow view of 1day=24hours or god=2arms and legs.
among some of scientific finds thats written in the book before its been discovered:
1) creation from big bang and the general description of the formation of earth/planet and sky (not cloud, it may means cloud but broader means space and universe)
2) formation of fetus in womb from something that "cling". (no gynacology during the time)
3) deep sea and river consist from layers of water, and they both cannot mixed (white water and salt water)
what has not been discovered:
1) 7 stairgate to god (quran surah al-maarij, the ascending stair)
2) a device to cross that gate (its called buraq used by prophet muhamad to go to god's throne to see hell and heaven)
now dont be too dogmatic, the device could be in any form (warping of space and time whatever, its not been discovered) and maybe the hell and heaven is nowhere but in your dream, a persistent one! who knows?
somemore scientific/knowledge based POV:
http://www.kalamullah.com/Books/BibleQuranScience.pdfhttp://www.speed-light.info/angels_speed_of_light.htm#speed_of_light_12000and to be fair. this is aethist view to defy it, you may pick what you want to read
http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/2010/08/quran-and-speed-of-light.htmlbut for me, what i understand the book will never give a precise figure, speed of light can be given in different unit giving different number, but its there explained... generally. YMMV
food for thought: have you scale yourself to the universe? how tiny you are? to the eyes of the universe? let alone god (assuming one is believing god exists) and do you think you are significant? how significant ants to your eyes? if you walk on a road and realize you stepped on a bunch of ants and dying, will you care to bring all of them to hospital and curse how faulty you are? none i believe, ant is not significant to our eyes (of course they have purpose in macro model of ecosystem) but none i've seen caring ants too much, do you care if they curse you? not as well. so if you live or dead will it make any difference to the universe/god? why do you expect a wealth and then only to accept god existence? or if you are lazy enough to go pray (like me
), is that a reason to deny god? and be satisfied with "no need to pray"? our physical needs food and care to live, do you think its not the case with your mental and moral aspect? why?
well i think i can write a book now, but is anybody going to buy? i think not. and for some, if you still cannot comprehend it, just treat it as a bedtime story just to make you asleep since you've screwed your (read as my) sleep schedule 3am and wake up late tommorow to work
btw: who did transfer all the posts here? excellent!