Was the Kaaba Originally a Hindu Temple?
now i know that this is likely to cause some controversy among those muslims who read this journal, but remember… i’m hindu, and hinduism doesn’t have a concept that is equal to blasphemy, so calm down and read the article – then blast away at it, if you can… but just remember, hinduism is the oldest religion continually practiced on the planet, so it’s kinda difficult to find something religious that hasn’t been affected by hinduism in some way or another…
you also have to remember how eating from the tree may have not been adams only sin. he might have constantly disobeyed, and then sent onto earth (which was already formed and crawling with animals and plants). this is not my personal view, but it could be a possibility.
otherwise, i agree with the comment that was made on the link you sent me. either way, i’m not a staunch believer that adam and eve were true humans in the sense of you and i, but are more of symbological representations put into these holy books and interpretid entirely differently.
but if you believe in adam/eve,
that is the problem, i think… there’s just too much scientific evidence (Lucy, to start out with) that indicates that we actually didn’t all originate from two human beings for me to believe anything else at this point… and hinduism fits right in: instead of having obviously phony stories about adam and eve, the creation myths (because, after all, that’s what they are) are full of things that can obviously be interpreted many different ways, depending on the circumstances. check out my page about adam & eve for more of my thoughts on this matter.
okay, the god analogy was easy enough to understand.
abraham… is noted to bring the idea of monotheism back to the people
zoroaster might have been one to bring the idea about publically again also. but if you believe in adam/eve, they also worshipped one god, regardless of them having a real religon.
you are going to have to teach me more about hindu god
God, for this description, can be thought of as an infinitely multi-faceted jewel… on one side, the side facing towards you, are facets that catch the light, and dazzle your eyes, but each facet is not God by itself, even if it catches the light and you see it very clearly. on the other side, the side that’s pointing away from you, are also facets, that you don’t see very clearly, if at all, and these facets are also not God of themselves. the entirity, the infinitely-multifaceted whole is analogous to God. hindus just give names to each of these “facets”.
abraham… is noted to bring the idea of monotheism back to the people
what about zoroaster? wasn’t he the first one to claim that there was only One God?
so i forgot a “y” :p
hehe, i knew i was gonna have something thrown against me. it’s all good though. i did assume that hinduism is polytheistic, maybe because that is how i percive it as, and that is how most hindus express it as. but yes, the kaabah did host polytheistic religions, but not neccisarily hinduism. you are going to have to teach me more about hindu god(s).
but the site of the kaabah has been a place for worship of all religons even before abrahams time. he is noted to build the first actual structure, and it has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. the original kaabah’s foot, at this day, due to changing geography, is about 30 feet under the present structure. yes, we did take over the kaabah, for our religons sake, because of what the structure represents after abraham, and we kept the traditions that came with it. when it was rebuilt, it may have been rebuilt by hindus with the purpose to worship their god(s).
and i didnt mention anything about hinduism corrupting what was there, they did the same thing back then as we are doing now. they made it as their holy place, and now we make it as ours. and religion does not come from abraham, but he is the one who is noted to bring the idea of monotheism back to the people, wether that is true or not.
the kaabah was a polytheistic site of worship
there’s that assumption that, because hindu “gods” take a multitude of forms, that there must be more than one of them…
it’s all lies, i tell you… lies!
we took it over again as to make it into what it was originally meant for
we took it over again? to make it what it was originally meant for??
did you read the article?
hinduism, which (regardless of what some people think) is the oldest continually practiced religion on the planet, didn’t "corrupt" anything, so there was nothing to make into "what it was originally meant for". also we didn’t take over the kaabah… you did. it already was meant as a hindu temple, where The God (Al’lah) was worshiped, and as the local people changed over many hundreds of years, so hinduism changed, and merged with judaism and christianity to the point where it became islam… it helps to realize that the hindu part of the world doesn’t give much credence to the illusion that all religion springs from abraham’s loins.
if you want to take it in lamens terms.
ah… um…
i’m assuming you mean "laymen" and not "lamen"… "lamen" is either a part of sushi, a place in vanuatu, or a magickal emblem depending on who you talk to…
dont worry. muslims dont claim that they created an original religon. we just believe that allah (SWT) revealed to us what jews and christians should have been following all along. it’s basically judaism version 3.0 (christianity being version 2.0), if you want to take it in lamens terms.
adam and eve were worshipping allah (SWT), but they had no particular religon. so it techinically has no ties with any religon, even though they were worshipping one allah (SWT).
dont worry. you are not being blasphemous. any educated muslim that cares about his religon knows that the kaabah was a polytheistic site of worship for most of its life. originally built by abraham (AS) to pay homage to allah (SWT), it was eventually made into a site of universal, and mostly polytheistic, worship by traders in makkah. so it is highly likely that hinduism could have spread that far and the ideas could have ended up staying there for a long time. we took it over again as to make it into what it was originally meant for, but we dont forget it’s history and what it was and what it had represented.
Ummm… I definatly was implying that anything other then those three are illigitamate… I was just pointing out that they don’t depend on being the oldest… because they aren’t. There are other religions too that are the same way… it was more of a statement and whatever implications were drawn out of them were not intended.
And I wasn’t implying that “we” were on the brink of a discovery that would prove hinduism is not the oldest religion. I was just pointing out that I think you over emphasize the importance of being the first and how if they ever did make a discovery that contradicted your facts here, that you would be caught in between a rock and a hard place.
An interesting article. Would make the Muslims a bit more like their monotheistic counterparts – borrowing from the areas around them, changing things, and creating a religion out of it.
Although if you believe the sacred writings of Torah, the Jews were first, because the first man and woman were worshipping YHWH. But I’m fairly certain that the sutras of the Vedic tradition also have Cosmic Man worshipping particular gods, even as a godlike figure himself.
you’re right (see?)…
disagree with me all you like, right here in my livejournal… see if i care. 8)
a man with the head of a stag, and a pregnant woman standing in a circle with eleven other people
this doesn’t address the fact that the people in this drawing probably didn’t think of themselves as “witches”… nor did the people of more recent times, on whose belief system the current batch of belief systems that prefer to be called "wicca" are based.
as for hinduism being the oldest, lacking the time to do more exaustive research, i direct you here, and here, the latter of which concludes thus:
Don’t you remember when they discovered the Kennewick Man and it proved that Native Americans weren’t the first people to settle America and the tribes had a huge reaction to it?
correct me if i’m wrong, but didn’t they just declare that the earthly remains of kennewick man had to be returned to the local tribe in the area for burial? why would they do that if it was anything other than tribal remains?
I honestly don’t know where you are getting the full of sound and fury from.
from statements like these:
and
the first example is implying that anything other than “the big three” somehow lack legitimacy, which they definitly do not. and the second implies that we are "on the brink of some stupendous discovery" that’s exactly what everyone has been waiting for to prove that hinduism, or what i’ve been saying, or whatever, is categorically wrong. we’re not. get over it.
this is, after all, my livejournal… i can say whatever i damn well please, and if (emphasis on if) i’m wrong, well tough. you can disagree with me all you like. if you absolutely must set the record “straight”, then go get yer own live journal and refute me! you’d be surprised… if your arguments are convincing, i just might change my mind.
I just have to disagree with that. I agree you can say whatever you want in your journal, but telling me I should argue this out in my journal? If you honestly believe that why did you argue about the swastikas in my journal, shouldn’t you have made your own post about them in yours?
Well I am personally not up in arms about what you have just said, it doesn’t do someone good to argue with emotion. Though I can’t say I haven’t taken offense by this:
you argue like a “christian”… full of sound and fury, but nothing to back it up with. so far i haven’t seen any actual evidence to support your theories at all.
Okay so it is my job to prove that statement wrong.
To back up what I said about Wicca. http://www.wicca.com/celtic/wicca/wicca.htm
With the discovery of these cave paintings which have been dated to be around 30,000 years old depicting a man with the head of a stag, and a pregnant woman standing in a circle with eleven other people, it can reasonably be assumed that Witchcraft is the oldest religion known in the world toady.
To back me up for Judaism, just read an Old Testament or the Torah, they claim god created them and basically that they were there first. There are many other examples like this, I don’t know specifically, but anything with a tribal background pretty much will claim to be the first too.
To back up what I said about archeological evidence. Don’t you remember when they discovered the Kennewick Man and it proved that Native Americans weren’t the first people to settle America and the tribes had a huge reaction to it? Well that is essentially what I am saying, if they found some evidence that proved your argument wrong you don’t want to be leaning so heavily on your argument because then you would be crippling yourself. I use this line of thought for most everything. Example: if someone managed to prove science wrong, that is okay I have religion, if someone managed to prove religion wrong, that is okay I have science. (It should be noted that you can’t prove science in general or religion in general wrong.)
I honestly don’t know where you are getting the full of sound and fury from. That is what kind of annoys me about online arguments is you can’t really see the opposing teams emotions and thus claims made about the opposing team being to attached to their argument are void.
I would like to point out that you gave me a bunch of evidence without any sources. Not to worry, I tend to do that too, but if you really want to make evidence matter so much then your source for the evidence matters. For all I know you could have just made those up. Since I really don’t care about the archeological dates you have given me, I haven’t pursued your sources.
If you could ask me specifically about what evidence I lack that might help me defend myself.
you argue like a "christian"… full of sound and fury, but nothing to back it up with. so far i haven’t seen any actual evidence to support your theories at all.
and cautionary to whom? this is, after all, my livejournal… i can say whatever i damn well please, and if (emphasis on if) i’m wrong, well tough. you can disagree with me all you like. if you absolutely must set the record "straight", then go get yer own live journal and refute me! you’d be surprised… if your arguments are convincing, i just might change my mind.
by the way – no offense meant. i’m somewhat more brusque, direct, and abrasive in my communication since my brain injury, however i find that it gets the job done, especially online, in spite of the fact that some people might get offended by it.
Tina Chopp is God! Praise Her or DIE!!
Who is Tina Chopp, by the way?
Islam, Buddhism and Christianity don’t claim to be the oldest religions; they have other ways of claiming legitimacy. I was specifically thinking of Judaism as claiming to be the first. As for archeological evidence… its nice to have but all that needs to happen is for a new find to be discovered and then Hinduism is no longer the oldest continually practiced religion and everyone is upset because they felt archeological evidence was really that important. Speaking of archeology, Wicca is based on the findings of what is the oldest religion known yet. Anyway, I am merely putting that out there as a kind of cautionary.
a lot of other religions that claim to be the oldest
which ones are you thinking of?
islam and buddhism are approximately 1500 years old, give or take a few hundred years…
christianity is approximately 2000 years old…
judaism is around 4000, as is zoroastrianism…
there are animistic religions that are older than that, but they’re more difficult to keep track of because there are limited written historical archives…
there is archaeological evidence of what is now recognised as hinduism from at least 10,000 years ago, at the harappa site in india… i think that qualifies as the oldest continually practiced anything on the planet.
Seems to me there are a lot of other religions that claim to be the oldest… Not saying hinduism isn’t but its quite a claim to say it is.