Who is He?

For all of you New Moon lovers, I am just getting back from the movie and wouldn't say I am thoroughly impressed, but I am most definitely a very happy girl... and now after this wonderful introduction here is my blog post:

From personal experiences I have been drawn to ask the question, "Who is God?" and I am never slightly amazed when I realize that my imagination cannot grasp something as great as the answer to this question. God has been defined in an extremely large amount of ways, but everyone seems to trust in their beliefs and live for him, no matter who they think he is. For this post I have decided to look at a PBS document where they explain just how Islam, the empire of faith, believed in their God and just how they lived for him.

It is said that the Muslims thought of God as something completley unique in which nothing, or any person, could compare itself to. The reason that the Koran constantly switches pronouns throughout its story is to help people understand that they cannot create a physical image of him. This brings the people to talk of, and understand that, God is not a physical thing or an image of human self.

In contrast to many other religions, the basic practice of Islam is simplicity itself. The believer worships God directly without the intercession of priests or clergy or saints. The believer's duties are summed up in five simple rules.

These simple rules are referred to as the Five Pillars of Islam. These Pillars are Belief, Worship, Fasting, Almsgiving, and Pilgrimage. If you would like to read more on these interesting ways of life you can scroll on down to Katie Lett's post. In this post you will find a well thought out definition to each of the Pillars and some very intriguing thoughts about how they can apply to daily life.

If you have been introduced to the gospels you can compare them to the length of the Koran. There are a total of 114 chapters in the Koran, all of different length, and the opening chapter is called Fatiha. In this chapter you will find a "Beautiful, short, prayer," in which serves as a prayer in many situations.

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate
Praise belongs to God, Lord of all Being
the All-merciful, the All-compassionate
the Master of the Day of Doom
Thee only we serve; to Thee alone we pray for succor
Guide us in the straight path
the path of those whom Thou hast blessed,
not of those against whom Thou art wrathful
nor of those who are astray.

The Koran is believed to only be understood when read in the majestic Arabic language in which it was revealed. This has come to mean that all believers should feel the necessity to learn the language in order to completely comprehend the scriptures. The purity of the Arabic language has kept true, in most part, because the primacy of Arabic is the language of God's revelation.



In a section entitled, People of the Book, you come to understand that Muslims accept the teachings of both the Jewish Torah and the Christian Gospels. They believe in these teaching because they have trust in the fact that God had previously revealed Himself to the Jews and Christians.

http://www.pbs.org/empires/islam/faithgod.html

With this historic adventure into the lives of their God I have realized that I know absolutley nothing about living for my own God. This story describes Islam that is filled with people who live, completley and whole heartedly, for the God that they truthfully believe in. They do not understand him as a physical figure, but instead they use his story and ideologies on life to fulfill their very own lives. It is with my sincerest hopes that one never thinks they are done growing, learning, and changing, because with this blog post I have learned more about myself than I have about Islam.

Another pair of shoes

The Islamic faith is made up of five pillars. These five pillars must be followed in order to be a strong, living part of the Islamic community. I'm not Islamic, but I would like to examine and imagine what my life would be like if I was Islamic. Here is what my day would look like if I was to try to be a believer of the Islamic faith.

I would take the following 5 Pillars and apply them to a day in my life:

1) Testimony of Faith

2) Prayer

3) Giving Zagat (support of the needy)

4) Fasting the month of Ramadan

5) Pilgrimage to Makkah

First I would wake up at dawn and pray to Allah. I would thank him for all that he had blessed me with, and I would say, " La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammadur rasoolu Allah." This means, "There is no God, but God (Allah), and Muhammad is the messenger of God." After this I would go about my normal morning activities. I would shower, brush my teeth and prepare a breakfast for myself. While enjoying a healthy breakfast I would pray to Allah and ask for his guidance for me during my day. I would then travel to work, my day would go on as usual, but at lunch I would again pray to Allah. In the mid-afternoon, I would again pray to Allah. It doesn't matter what I am doing, I will stop it and pray and resume what I was doing when I'm done praying.

On my way home from work I will stop by a local charity and give money to support their cause. As an Islam, I understand the importance of giving to the needy. Once I arrive home, I will prepare dinner, pray to Allah (as it is no sunset) and start preparing my voyace to Makkah. I plan on going to Makka next year during the 12th month of the Islamic calendar. As an Islam, it is my obligation to make a trip to Makkah at least once in my lifetime (if it is possible for me to do so). I eat a lot during dinner because I know that soon I will be fasting along with my fellow Islam followers during the month of Ramadan. During this time I will need to abstain from filling my life with food, drink and sexual activity.

<===== Makkah Pilgrimage

As a Christian, there are some sacrifices that must be made, but not as many as that of an Islam. I give them a lot of credit for all of their time, money and dedication that is put toward their faith. I don't know if I could honestly go through all of the above that I planned to do in a day. I think I might try to, though. I challenge you to try on the shoes of someone else. We so often get stuck in our own day to day journey and overlook the journey of others around us. So, this week, take a day to live the life of someone else...and maybe then you can have some compassion and understanding.

Thanks for reading and may God bless you this Thanksgiving!!!! Enjoy the time with your family and friends!!!! Don't forget....to try on someone else's shoes.

Christianity and Islam

For my post I thought that I would look at the similarities and differences between the beginnings of Christianity and Islam.

Differences

Government- Christianity: Against government Islam: Was the government

Spread- Christianity: Slow to start, then picks p speed with Constantine Islam: Spread quite rapidly throughout Arabia

Origin Christianity: Started in the cities Islam: Started in the countryside

While there are some big differences between the two religions there are some definite similarities as well. These as a few:

• Peoples of the book, both Islam and Christianity are known as peoples of the book which means that they had books that their religion follows. Islam has the Qu'ran/Koran and Christianity has the Bible.
• Prophets, these two religions both have prophets; Islam just goes a step farther in saying that Mohammad was the last prophet. They also believe that Jesus was only a prophet.
• Both were considered "universal religions" meaning that anyone could be a part of them, a person did not have to live in a certain city or empire, they just had to follow certain steps and they became part of that religion.

Muhammad

I thought I would blog on Muhammad because I find it interesting who the people were who founded these world religions thousands of years ago. The film discussed him somewhat but I wanted to discuss him more. I also thought it would be interesting to gather information from a Chrsitian website, on Islam's founder.

Muhammad was born in 570 A.D. Born in a Quraish tribe in Mecca, Muhammad's father died shortly before Muhammad's birth. Traditionally, mothers in the Quraish tribe, feared for the quality of the air their children were breathing. Therefore, they would hand their infants to nurses who would bring them to the desert, since they believed the air was healthier. Muhammad's mother continuously did this however and finally 'received' her child again when he was five. She died shortly after his return and he was in the care of his grand father.

And then, as the parent figure usually does in Muhammad's life, he dies just two years after.

Muhammad's uncle, Abu Talib, took care of him and probably became the closest father figure to Muhammad. Later on, he was proud of the hardwork he did for his uncle. At the age of 25, he married Khadija, a wealthy widow merchant who was nearly twice his age. She eventually gave birth to four daughters and two sons. The sons, however died in infancy.

Looking for the one true religion, Muhammad explored the caves outside Mecca and meditated. I found it interesting that, according to this website, Muhammad was having such troubling meditations and dreams that he planned to commit suicide as his way to escape them. But before he could the angel Gabriel appeared and told him, "O Muhammad, thou who art the Prophet of the lord, I am Gabriel".

Gabriel would periodically come to Muhammad, helping him write the Qur'an. when he was meditating and reiterate that Muhammad was the prophet for God. Fearing that the messages were actually from evil beings, his wife calmed him and convinced him of their legitimacy.

His converts eventually grew large enough that Muhammad spoke out against the false gods the Meccans worshipped. This brought bloodshed and Muhammed eventually compromised with the Meccans, bringing three of their gods as lesser deities. He later regretted the decision, and claimed it came from Satan.

His wife died ten years after his intiation of Islam, and he bgan marring women every year since. Some women were even as young as seven! This usually happened, due to war plundering and even though Islam only allowed men to be married to four women, an exception was made for Muhammad.

Islam spread rapidly, much bloodshed was built and many mosques were built across the area. Muhammad was eventually poisoned by Zainab, who was the ex-wife of his adopted son. He spit out the poison before it could kill him but it eventually lead to his death at the age of 64.

Islam continued to spread however over the area, much credit given to the four Khalifs who were elected to somewhat "continue" Muhammad's work in a sense. This website gave an interesting perspective since it was from a Christian website, ContenderMinistries. The last line, "Please remember to pray for our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who are giving their lives for their faith, and for those Muslims who have been deceived by a false prophet, and are in desperate need of the saving grace of Christ," gave an unsurprisng view from one modern religion to another. I hope one day that more people will become more accepting of others' religions.

Thanks for reading this post, along with my others! :)

http://contenderministries.org/islam/muhammad.php

http://www.hf.uib.no/religion/popularikonografi/bilder/01b.jpg

http://www.bigcheesebadges.com/images/dont_panic_im_islamic.png

http://wiredperspective.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/gabriel.jpg

Mecca and the Ka'aba

Mecca, also known as Mekkah, is located in Saudi Arabia and is extremely important to many people around the world. Muslim people position their bodies toward Mecca each time they pray, which is at least five times a day. But what is so important about the city Mecca?


The Ka’aba, (also known as Kaaba, Kabah, or Caaba) which literally means “the cube”, is a stone structure said to be built by the prophet Abraham for the sole purpose of worshiping God. The Ka’aba is located in the center of Islamic world- Mecca. This structure is the reason Muslims face Mecca during prayer, though they are not worshiping the granite structure. “Muslims do not worship the Ka'aba and its environs. Rather, it serves as a focal and unifying point among the Muslim people.”

TThe black stone is used as an idol. Many people over hundreds of years have touched, and prayed around the stone, which is most likely a meteorite (though no tests have been done). Today, it is not in the best condition, and it held together by a silver band. One thing I found interesting was that many people believe that it was originally white, but turned black by absorbing people's sins.

http://islam.about.com/od/mecca/p/kaaba.htm
http://www.submission.org/hajj/kaaba.html
http://atheism.about.com/od/muslimholysitestexts/p/KaabaMecca.htm

What really happened at the council of Nicea?

In class, we talked about the council in Nicea, and how Constantine ruled on matters that were causing controversy in the Christian church and it got me thinking what exactly were those matters that Constantine had to decide on. One thing that they decided on was the trinity, and for those of you who have no idea what that is, which is saying that the God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit are three leader who are equal and they are one Godhead. The most heated issue was the "Who is Christ?" question, people had a hard time understanding who he was and what he was. Constantine made the 300 bishops who attended the council create a doctrine that was later called the Nicene Creed. This creed was adopted by the Church and enforced by the Emperor (Constantine). This creed is similar the Apostle's Creed which is widely used in churches today. It is important to note that the bishops did not invent the doctrine but affirmed the teaching of the Apostles in the Bible. To see some sited passages they used visit this site: http://www.gotquestions.org/council-of-Nicea.html The council came at a time when Constantine's empire was beginning to crumble and he knew that he needed his people to unite and not be fighting against each other but rather uniting against a common enemy.

The Nicene Creed

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

And I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/documents/nicene.html

All Because of a Sign

Since I missed class on Monday I had to hear about our lecture on Western Christendom and Byzantium through a few friends. While making this blog post I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to discuss, but when I came upon a certain article, Byzantium: The Lost Christendom,I was intrigued. Here I will briefly analyze the information in the article in a hope to entertain and intrigue some other young mind.

It is said that a great event occurred on the farthest west corners of Asia that influenced Christianity everywhere for centuries to follow. This event was centered in Byzantium and begins with the Roman Emperor Contstantine. A church historian, Eusebius, says that Constantine recieved a vision from heaven before a major battle. This vision included the symbol "XP" which, in Greek, are the first two letters of the word Christ.



He claims to have heard the words, "In this sign, conquer." When Constantine won his battle he credited the sign of God with his victory. Until this moment many emperors persecuted the idea of Christianity, while others attempted to tolerate it. Now that this sign was considered "victory-bringing" the emblem of Christ the Savior became a worldwide symbol for Christendom.

Now that Constantine won his battle he set out search for a capital. It is said that he was a genious for choosing an ancient town in Byzantium, "Because this was an easy-to-defend base located as far east as one could go in the Roman Empire, and as far west as Asia could take him." After himself, he named the town Constantinople.



It is decided that if he would have chosen a great city in the Roman Empire, such as Alexandria in Egypt, the Byzantine Empire would have ceast to exist after the seventh century. This would have been largely due to the fact that the Arab Muslim armies were unstoppable and as they killed off the Persian Empire to the east, the town of Constantinople would have been right with it.



http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/n/byzantium_the_lost_christendom.html

I hope that you feel as fascinated as I do right now. Before this article, and my dear friend Katie, I have never given much thought about Constantine. It honestly astonishes me that the entire world can be changed because of one man claiming to see a sign from God.

Have a wonderful weekend and take a little time to think about how you have become the person you are today, because apparantly I have been influenced by a man that I knew very little about.

The age of Justinian I

On Wednesday, we briefly spoke about Byzantium, the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Byzantium continued much of the Catholic tradition, and about Justinian I, whose rule began in 527. I decided to blog about Justianian I because he was one of the most influential rulers of the Byzantium empire during it's rule.

Justinian was successful in conquering many former-held Roman territories, yet he also stirred up long battles of conflict with his empire's usual enemies, like Sassanid Persians, Slavs and Bulgars. Even though it required a large sum of annual gold payment, Justinian secured peace for the eastern Roman empire, by signing an eternal peace treaty with the Sassanid Persian King, Khosrau I, five years later.

Justinian had many western conquests in his rule, but his most ambitious was probably the reconquest of Italy, from the Ostrogoths, in 535. His victories were very succesful at first, tking major cities in Italy and even having the Ostrogoth king, Witiges, being brought before him in chains by one of his brilliant generals, Belisarius. The Ostrogoths however reorganized and were reunited as one and fought back. This exhausted most of the resoures of both the Byzantines and the Italiens. Just when the Byzantine Empire seemed to quite possibly be on the verge of losing all it had achieved in Italy, Justianian eventually gathered enough men to defeat the Italiens in 552. He actaully got 35,000 men, who mostly consisted of Asian and Germanic mercenaries. Following Justinian's resurgence of soldiers, the conquest of Italy was finally finito.

Khosrau I broke the "eternal" peace treaty that was made, possibly as early as 540. After all, sinec Justinian was conquering with much of his forces, he wasn't nearly as concentrated in protecting the eastern border, even though he did have strong forticiations. The only way Justinian could stop him would be to increase the annual gold payment. It mattered not, however. Many Slavs, as well as Kutrigur Bulgars, invaded the eastern empire, mostly in the Balkan area. Eventually, the Roman authority in the Balkans would be completely overwhelmed. Justinian I died in 565.

Even though his reign seemed to be partly falling apart in the end, Justinian I conquered many former Roman territories and fought back against the enemeies when all hope had seemed to vanish. He also did well in reestablishing Roman rule and reforming the administration and the law, It's interesting to note that Justianian was actually the son of a peasant. He was however adopted by Justin I, a former officer in the imperial army who had been chief of the guards to Anastasius I. After Anastasius died, Justin had been proclaimed emperor. So much for the lineage of royalty right?

Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend! :)

http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Byzantine_Empire_-_The_age_of_Justinian_I/id/5006628

http://www.knowledgerush.com/wiki_image/9/91/Justinian.jpg

http://www.freefoto.com/images/14/26/14_26_4---Trevi-Fountain--Rome--Italy_web.jpg

Christianity

Since my last post was about Constantine and his conversion to Christianity, I wanted to continue with the subject of how Christianity was viewed before and after he switched his religion. I find this to be an important subject because it really shows the impact that people of power had on everyone else. I think people today should look at examples like this and realize that we are all persuaded by others, and we really just need to think for ourselves.

To start off, Christianity was not very accepted when it first came about. In some places, if they found out you were a Christian, you would be killed. “Early Christians, facing scorn at best and persecution at worst, depending on Emperor and the era, were forced to blend in with their Pagan counterparts.” For Christians to even celebrate their holidays, they would have to cover it up from a different celebration that was going on.

Christianity was also not only influened by Constantine; there were many other factors. As talked about in lecture, religions in general were being spread through trade routes (silk road), because they were universal, had morals, and many other reasons. The spread of Chrisitianity through political dynamics goes hand in hand with they way Constantine the Great dealt with Christianity. It started to become more popular after he became the sole ruler of the Roman Empire. Though he did not punish those who were not Christian, he started giving benefits to those who were.

In conclusion, there were many apsects to the spread of religion (Christianity in particular). Though each person had their own reason for converting to Christianity, it is one of the most popular religions today. People would not have all the morals and faith we have today without all of these events occuring.

http://www.unrv.com/culture/spread-christianity.php

I am a "C"

Have you ever chanted the words to the song, "I am a 'C'?" I grew up in a christian home, went to a Lutheran grade school and high school and can recall singing this song a million times. If you haven't heard it before, it goes a little something like this: "I am a "C"...I am a "C.H." I am a C.H.R.I.S.T.I.A.N. (DOT THE "I"), and I have C.H.R.I.S.T. in my H.E.A.R.T. and I will L.I.V.E. E.T.E.R.N.A.L.L.Y." If you would like to give this catchy tune a listen you can just follow this link and be dazzled: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrNM-B_gg4A

During the time of the Byzantine Empire, Christianity was on the rise. I'm sure a lot of Christians in that time were singing their own version of "I am a C." Christianity was an exciting new lifestyle and belief system. As Professor mentioned in class, Christianity was just another hat that people wore. They often cast off other hats that made up their personality and reputation, but the hat of Christianity was worn by many, and for longer durations of time. Christianity was beginning to "catch" on. More and more control was being shifted from the government over to the Christian churches. The Christian church had quite an impact on the Roman way of life.

When it comes to the history of Christianity, one period in history sticks out as the most important stepping stone to the spread of Christianity. This stepping stone is known as the "Christendom" which started out as a society of Jewish Christians. This fellowship of believers then split off into two phases: the apostolic period (when the first apostles started organizing the christian church), and the post-apostolic period (which is when the Christian churches started being governed by bishops that had been placed into power).

So, whether you're a Christian or not, I believe you could recognize that without the spread of Christianity during the Byzantine Empire, there might not be Christians in this world today. Without trade, cultural revolution and communication, ideas would not be able to spread across the waters. Imagine living your life completely in a box, knowing nothing but what you've seen and having no chance to learn or see what others do. Imagine your life without religions. Imagine your life without change. Imagine.

* When I think of "Imagine" I can't help but think of John Lennon....enjoy this link...I think you know where I'm getting at =) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okd3hLlvvLw

Thanks for reading! Have an awesome week and be sure to get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather!!!!!!!!

Roman influence on Christianity

As we discussed this week Christianity went from a minority religion to a major religion in Rome. The person that helped with this huge shift from repressing Christian to accepting them was Constantine. His adoption of the religion started the acceptance of the religion and it continue to gain popularity when he started to give Christians benefits such as tax breaks. Until Constantine Christianity was seen as a cult. It also gained popularity because people could chose to be Christians, they were not forced to. Christianity started to become a powerful part of society in Rome. This religion however was so foreign to the Romans because they were used to having many gods for many different thing and Christianity believes in one god who is all powerful. The buildings that were built to be churches ended holding government meeting during time when church was not being held. Also Christianity started to form itself around the Roman government model. The early churches modeled their leadership positions after the Roman government. There is many other ways that Christianity became "Romanized" it is even said that Christian holidays such as Easter and Christmas were changed so that they correlated with popular Roman festivals of the day. Many of these details (i.e. when to celebrate Christmas and Easter.) were debated out at the Council of Nicaea in which Constantine sat as the debate settler. He would let two parties argue their points and then would decide which one he felt was right.




http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/sbrandt/nicea.htm

Gautama Siddhartha and Buddhism

It may not be the fastest growing religion in the world, but Buddhism sure is interesting. We learned about Buddhism last week briefly and about it's founder, Gautama Siddhartha, the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism and the difference between Buddhism and Hinduism. Always been intrigued about religion, I decided to find out what else I could about the origin of thereligion that had originated roughly 2,500 years ago.

Gautama Siddhartha, also known as Buddha Shakyamuni, was born to King Shuddhodana and Queen Mayadevi in Lumbini, which is now a region in Nepal. Mayadevi dreamed that an elephant had entered her womb, a sign that her soon-too-be baby would become a strong and powerful being. It is said that Shuddhodana invited a seer to make predictions about his son and the seer predicted that their son would become a "Buddha, and that his beneficial influence will pervade the thousand million worlds like the rays of the sun".

The Prince grew up to be quite intelligent. It is recorded that he learned 64 languages and didn't have to study but did so to please his family and others. He also became quite a sportsman and quite compassionate for his people, whom he acknowledged many as ill, elderely and suffering. He realized that he had to leave the palace, since only a completely enlightened buddha has the ability to help all those suffering, who is everyone. In his late twenties, he told his parents his idea.










His parents didn't want him to leave however and did all that they could to stop him, including surrounding him with beautiful women, dancers and musicians as means to entice him. They failed however and the Prince did manage to escape. Afterin traveling six miles, Gautama Buddha "cut off his hair hrew it into the sky, where it was caught by the gods of the Land of the Thirty-three Heavens".
The Prince meditated in India for six years and with this determination he entered the space-like concentration on the Dharmakaya where he focused all his energy on the ultimate nature of all phenomena. He did this until he achieved complete full enlightenment. Devaputra Mara, leader of all demons tried distracing the Prince with images of beautiful women as well as illusions of demons firing arrows, rolling boulders and other scenes of violence. Devaputra Mara failed howver and Siddhartha continued his meditation until he "removed the final veils of ignorance from his mind and in the next moment became a Buddha, a fully enlightened being".

Later on, Siddhartha taught the First Wheel of Dharma, which includes the Four Noble Truths as well as the Second Wheel, which is about the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, and the Third Wheel, which is the Sutra Discriminating the Intention.

Much of Buddhism includes training your mind and not letting other conditions or situations control your state of mind. It's also important to note that "Buddha" means "awakened one" and "Dharma" means protection.

Learning more about this religion truly made me look at situations differently. By redefining the way we look at situations can help us control our mind and learn from these "opportunites", instead of "problems" or "hardships". I definitely see a nowaday phrase that captures this message: Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference".

After finding out about the origin of Buddhism, the teachings of the Buddha, and the principles of this ancient religion, I can't help but feel excited. Heck, I would even say enlightened. And I hope you do too!

Thanks!

http://www.aboutbuddha.org/english/index.htm/

http://ericm954.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/391px-siddhartha_gautama_meditating.png?w=274&h=419

http://www.indianetzone.com/photos_gallery/6/Buddha-mara_14671.jpg