I will add, the fasting from food and water is the easy part. The more important fast is fasting from everything that is bad -- cursing, backbiting, lying, etc -- and from your own desires. All these things are things you shouldn't do anyway, but this is a time to refresh commitment to not doing those things.
As the Quran says: "Oh, you who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, that you may learn piety and righteousness" [Quran 2:183]
No smoking all day is a big deal for many Muslims in the Middle East. One year I was living in Cairo during Ramadan, and each day when it got close to the sunset call to prayer (which heralds the end of the fast), it seemed like all the cab drivers had cigarettes in hand, waiting eagerly to light up.
Oh yeah, that's a thing. And try catching a cab in Jerusalem during Ramadan. All the cab drivers are Muslim and you'd better have an alternate means of transportation.
People underappreciate how addictive nicotine is. I've been an addict for 15 years and I quit so many times, sometimes for longer than a year.
The new smoking inventions only make it worse because they allow for much much higher dosages. I've seen teens smoking what amounts to 10 packs a day worth of nicotine. And they didn't have to chain smoke for 12 hours to achieve that.
Same story here. Chantix (varenicline) somehow magically eliminated the carvings permanently (13 years and I haven't wanted nicotine again, though I still have nostalgia for the act of smoking). It has heavy side effects, still worth it.
aww that's scary. I managed to quit smoking years ago (I only smoked for less than a year anyway), then quit vaping, then used nicotine lozenges for an embarrassingly long amount of time (4+ years?) until quitting cold-turkey at the start of this year.
do you think I'll relapse? I don't usually get cravings anymore but I'm scared it'll happen.
No probably not. If you don't usually get cravings and you haven't smoked in over 4 years you're probably fine. A good check is to note how you react when you smell someone's cigarette on the street.
Vaping, I assume. I admit with some shame that after over a decade off cigarettes, I'm currently re-addicted to nicotine via vaping. Over the past 10 years or so, I would buy a pack of smokes every once in a while (like, maybe once a year), and enjoy smoking at a party or concert or whatever. I never had trouble stopping after a few and would usually throw the rest of the pack away, it was honestly just too inconvenient to keep up an addiction (not to mention that unless I was _really_ drinking, I would be all too keenly aware that, well, cigarettes are nasty).
Last time I was on vacation, and might have bought a pack of cigarettes, I decided "hey, why not try a Juul instead," and, the rest is history.
While I'm overall in favor of vapes and think that they're a valuable cessation device, the problem, for me, is that it's all to easy to vape while I work in my home office - no smell, no fire, etc. I think that makes it a lot easier to continually dose nicotine and really settle into addiction. Also, while I'm sure they're safer than cigarettes, I still have doubts that they're safe, and I can't help but think of the attitudes that used to prevail with regards to tobacco back in the 40s and 50s when I hear folks talking about how totally OK for your body vaping is.
Juul is useful if you want to switch from smoking to vaping because the high percentage of nicotine makes it easy. But for the same reason, it's incredibly addictive. Also difficult to stop by tapering down because low nicotine percentage juul pods don't exist.
I recently switched to a refillable pod "mod," and plan to start tapering down by buying lower percentage vape liquid. Iirc there's two concentrations available in Juul pods, but let's be honest, they don't want you to quit. (Not that any other vape company does either, but the vape store model does allow a little more consumer control).
Nicotine Vapes - Look at the effective dosage of JUULs capsules for example [0]. This combined with the ease of use, the removal of the (unpleasant) smoke, increased social acceptance (often indoors too) and a huge advertising campaign deliberately targeting teens [1] created a lot of new smokers/nicotine addicts (and converted some) that smoke more often and at much higher dosages.
The research found that blood nicotine concentrations in the JUUL group (136.4 ng/ml) was eight times higher than e-cigs group (17.1 ng/ml) and 5.2 times higher than cigarettes (26.1 ng/ml).
I find it interesting that , somehow, preparing for Lent, a time to eat simply and consider the elevation of your soul, became Mardi Gras, an excuse to let it all rip.
It's like Pancake Day in the UK. Traditionally the time to use up sugar/milk/eggs before lent but turns into everyone buying extra to pig out on. To think we could have got Mardi Gras instead.
>> I will add, the fasting from food and water is the easy part.
Yes, sleep deprivation is the most difficult part. Going to bed late due to invitations, prayers.. getting up early morning to eat breakfast and waking up for work :)
Yes, especially near the end. You need to stop eating when the first rays of light can be seen which is a few hours before sunrise. As this starts becoming earlier and earlier you get to a point where it’s hardly worth going to sleep and waking up to eat. Also, you’re in the mosque till late for night prayers.
Don't know how this works for Muslims, but if it's anything like for Christians, the goal is to not have the desires to begin with, not just refrain from acting on them (though that's a good start).
How can average Joe have no desires? I understand and know that monk-like complete refrain from worldy pleasures really leads to having no desires at all (a type of ego-death), and this has some place in Islam too, although it is not obligatory for every muslim. In Ramadan, the goal for a muslim is to not act upon forbidden desires for Allah’s sake.
I’m skeptical of this point. Growing up Baptist, I was taught that temptation itself is not a sin because Christ was sinless and he was tempted in the desert by the devil.
As a non-religious gay I probably wasn't invited anyway. But this kind of thinking is what leads conservatives to so much repression and hate. The idea that the wants and needs of your body are something which the mind must actively fight. That the scratchy, ill-fitting wool sweater of your culture is something that you must keep on at all costs. And it leads to resentment of people who are not under such self-imposed restrictions.
There is a reason in queer culture that 'shadiness' is a bigger sin than anger. Shadiness is what happens when someone represses their true feelings. Those feelings don't go away though, they just resurface in other unexpected and non-adaptive ways.
That sounds like you're coming at this from a similar standpoint to one of the other major religions which I would rather not mention as I don't want to start a religious war here.
In Islam you're not hated or judged for what you call your true feelings. You are however instructed to gain mastery over those feelings and make them subordinate to you rather than the other way around. Fasting is one of the things that can help with that. As for feeling invited, honestly I get why you may think that (because a lot of Muslims do a frankly terrible job of marketing) but that's not how Islam looks at people, it doesn't look at people as unchanging monoliths, instead you are seen as a blank slate and whatever actions you do impact your life here and the life hereafter. Basically your inner reality is between you and God. Islam fully understands people have all sorts of desires, lusts, etc, the thing is in Islam you aren't cursed for having those desires, but for acting upon them rather than gaining control over them. HTH.
> you aren't cursed for having those desires, but for acting upon them
That sounds exactly as repressive and hateful that other major religion, as well as historical laws which punished homosexual acts in many western countries. You have highlighted the difference between our desires and our behavior, but you seem to deliberately avoid acknowledging that straight people are permitted an institution in which their desires can be met within constraints, but gay people are not.
"You're invited to participate in our faith so long as you scrupulously act like someone else for your whole life" sounds a lot like an unvitation.
Islam pretty much is a framework for how you deal with God and for how your life here and hereafter will be according to that relationship. That's all it is.
You also acknowledge that even straight people have constraints in Islam, i.e. no sleeping around etc, why not also argue that it's somehow terrible that straight people have to repress their desire to fornicate?
"You're invited to participate in our faith so long as you turn your focus away from your base desires and towards God and the hereafter"
You're insinuating that you're being targeted or singled out whereas Islam "blanket-bans" entire categories of what are considered regressive behaviours such as overeating, you're not being targeted here, so can you stop with the victim complex please? Islam is as against environmental destruction, abuse of animals or overeating as much as it is against what it sees as wrongful sexual desire. What I feel like is being missed for the trees here is that the "holisticness" of Islam. It's against what it sees as destructive behavior, without prejudicing or singling out any specific group. Look at the higher purpose here.
You've buried the lede that the core framework does see homosexual behavior as "wrongful sexual desire", "regressive behaviour".
You can accept that or not, but it's disingenuous to equate asking gays never to have sexual or romantic relationships, to asking non-gay people just to curb excess.
That's not an equal imposition, it feels like self-equivocating ad-hominem to read "you're not being targeted here, so can you stop with the victim complex please?"
If you agree that it's better for gay people to never experience intimacy, please just say so, without labelling the concern (that gay people may feel less invited) as ridiculous
Someone who has a thirst for illicit relationship with women must also refrain from doing so.
Forbidding a person from lusting anyone other than spouse whether they like it or not is no different than forbidding a person from having gay desires. And no amount of self identification can label that inhumane.
Under your axioms, it may be equivalent, but I think they're mistaken.
Orientation is not a choice, and is orthogonal to identification.
I believe that same-sex relationships can be as profoundly fulfilling, enriching, and pro-social as heterosexual relationships.
That marrying a straight woman with a gay man is profoundly unfulfilling for both.
And that denying a class of people something so profound, freely enjoyed by everyone else, and which does not harm anyone else, can indeed be seen as inhumane.
You say orientation isn't a choice even though bisexuals at least establish it as their free choice for relationship. Fine. Even if you correctly claim that some people may have an immutable orientation, why would you in your brilliant and far reaching wisdom think it would be inhumane for the same person to be celibate from that orientation? And further think it is inhumane for the person to engage in a relationship of another orientation?
I don't believe for a second any person has this immutable orientation, straight or gay. And likewise, I don't believe it is inhumane for a person to avoid a relationship that is illegitimate. Trying to argue otherwise is like arguing the color blue can also be seen as red.
If you tried to feel attraction but could not, you might need help on understanding what attraction is. Until you do, you won't know what love and harm is.
I've said your description sounds "exactly as repressive and hateful" as another major religion and the laws of many western states until relatively recently. You're insinuating that Islam is being targeted or singled out whereas I will blanket label as homophobic any regime which masquerades as being even-handed because they generously permit queer people to pretend to be straight, so can you stop with the victim complex please?
Liberal humanism is against what it sees as destructive and oppressive behavior, without prejudicing or singling out any specific group. Look at the higher purpose here.
> In Islam you're not hated or judged for what you call your true feelings. You are however instructed to gain mastery over those feelings and make them subordinate to you rather than the other way around
To me, that sounds like a very fancy way of saying : repress your feelings and who you are to conform to an arbitrary set of rules written by one dude hundreds years ago.
Enlighten me on how are you supposed to act/feel to “gain mastery over your feeling” when said feeling is “as a male; I want to spend the rest of my life sharing experiences with this other male, intimate and not intimate, without endangering anyone else” ?
Repress your feelings of desire for your neighbor’s wife. Do not act on those feelings. Stay away from anything that could even slightly make you sinful or think of sinful desires.
This is a form of discipline and mastery of desires. Enlighten me how this is not what a faith built on God’s word should be commanding on any individual?
> Repress your feelings of desire for your neighbor’s wife. Do not act on those feelings. Stay away from anything that could even slightly make you sinful or think of sinful desires.
Why should you repress those feelings ? Unless they don't hurt you or hurt others; I see absolutely no reason to hide them or not act on them. What makes them "sinful" is you deciding they are sinful according to some made up rules you read in a book.
> Enlighten me how this is not what a faith built on God’s word should be commanding on any individual?
- Rule nb 1: Avoid harming yourself as much as you can.
- Rule nb 2: Avoid harming others as much as you can.
No I didn't say that at all, and that's a petulant response honestly. Re-read my comment. I said Islam instructs people to make their feelings subordinate to them rather than the other way around. The other replies to the GP were not so different from what I'm saying. You're hardly required to state your sexual orientation each time you pray, if that's the sort of line of reasoning you're taking here.
Lol, Blank slate does not mean for others to write on you. Blank slate means for you to be free of your own tendencies and not be beholden to your desires. And able to write your own Character.
(in reply to the post you just sent)
I can't actually reply to comments that far down, I guess that's a HN quirk I didn't notice all this time until just now but yeah I also just covered that in a reply to someone else
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35657964
To me, this is just another angle of what the parent comment was talking about.
We are not blank slates. We have millions of years of evolutionary instinct and genetics/epigenetics built into us AND we have everything we are fed (literally and figuratively) affecting us before we even get a chance to start thinking about 'who' or 'what' we are.
The blank slate line of thinking is what conservatives in the US implicitly (or explicitly) use to make the claim that being gay is a choice. It seems that it's just another way to justify punishing people for things that may be beyond their control, because if we are blank slates, then everything about you is your own fault.
Obviously there are aspects about ourselves that we can change, but the blank slate ideal is a dangerous slope to slide down.
>You are however instructed to gain mastery over those feelings and make them subordinate to you rather than the other way around
Genuine question: How is this different from saying "it's not bad to be gay, it's just bad to not repress your feelings and never act on them", as is a common (paraphrased) refrain among those who are anti-lgbt?
> Genuine question: How is this different from saying "it's not bad to be gay, it's just bad to not repress your feelings and never act on them", as is a common (paraphrased) refrain among those who are anti-lgbt
I'll admit it's probably not hugely different though to my understanding Islam's purpose is more about guiding a person to have a relationship with God rather than being anti-anything, and about doing what is within one's ability to move towards that goal. Like I said in a different reply it's not like you are being singled out for hatred or anything like that, the purpose is for everyone to get themselves right with God.
To clarify, a blank state in your relationship with God. Like, you aren't judged for being a certain sexual way until you actually act on it (or choose to not act on it).
As a non-religious gay, I fully agree that continually denying yourself something that makes you happy isn't a virtue.
However, raiding the cabinet of historically religious practices and stripping god out of them can be helpful. A lot of things we do on impulse don't actually make us happy, and cutting them out for a bit can be a good way to examine whether they've become unhelpful/unskillful habits. I don't think drinking is inherently bad, but "dry January" can be a nice way to check that I'm not developing a dependency. I'm glad I have a smartphone but I do find that periodically being completely away from screens is a good check. Sex, food, other substances, media, can all be good but can also become parts of habits that don't actually lead to happiness. Temporary self-denial can be a useful tool in reworking one's relationship to these, even if you're definitely going to keep them in your life in some form.
Yea and as a Muslim - I view it more as practicing discipline rather than suppressing desires. Like one the other posts said, you can't be blamed or sinned for having desires or whatever thoughts you have in your head. If we were, then basically no one is getting into heaven. And for some desires, Islam offers ways to fulfill them in a way that it views as permissiable. Whether or not you buy that ultimately comes down to faith but that's a separate topic.
Notice how imams are not celibate like Catholic priests. In fact celibacy isn't even a thing in Islam. You're actively encouraged to get into a relationship and get married so you can fulfill your sexual desires. There's even a prophetic quote that says getting married is half of your religion. It's that important. Of course some things like drinking is not allowed even if you desire it and that's just something you have to deal with. But even if you cave it's not the end of the world because the grading system is heavily curved in your favor.
Having desires is natural and human and it's even ok to indulge in them every once in a while in a healthy way.
The Islamic term for this is nafs which means "self" or sometimes "ego". So fulfilling human desires is filling your nafs. But just like overfilling your stomach can be bad, overfilling your nafs is also bad so you need to practice discipline in not getting carried away.
> I fully agree that continually denying yourself something that makes you happy isn't a virtue.
Murder? Mayhem? Destruction? Greed?
I agree homosexuality is a fine thing, but your comment is altogether far tooo broad.
Societal morals are often about denying ourselves things we want to do: often because our actions affect others or offend others, but also often for no strong reason at all. Virtue is almost defined by holding ourselves back from unvirtuous actions: can virtue exist in the world if we can all do whatever we will?
As a vegetarian for ethical reasons who grew up enjoying eating dead animals, I think we're on the same page actually. But strictly speaking, the virtue (perhaps a loaded word) I think you're alluding to is a willingness to pursue policies which maximize utility function which sums over agents other than oneself, not self-denial per se. Greed is perhaps the most illustrative "vice" on your list; satisfying one's personal greed only sometimes will cause any harm to others, and sometimes will be appropriate to pursue.
A dangerous sociopath with functioning moral compass? That sounds like an oxymoron, don't you think?
And no, fulfilling the very bare minimum is not virtuous. When virtuous person stops being virtuous, they fall to "average", not to the lowest possible.
freedom in the matter of choosing your own actions is definitely a nice tool to have when planning your week or day, or or responding to stressful suprises.
You got to live and let live, otherwise you are acting no different than them. Greta Thunberg chooses to repress her desires to eat meat or travel and see the world for something she sees as greater good. When she gets older, she may well decide against having children to keep human footprint on the planet smaller. I am not doing any such things myself and I don't accept rewilding as an intrinsic goal of environmentalism. I believe that humans are the apex species on the planet and, like all such species, are primarily concerned with our own thriving - which may involve conservation but not self denial.
But, I am not going to try to stop her or make her life difficult with constant needling. Just like you shouldn't stop those who are willing to constrain their own sexuality for the sake of avoiding what they perceive as spiritual pollution, just like Greta is willing to constrain herself to avoid environmental pollution. To each their own, and for some living up according to their idea of honor is a greater comfort than more direct gratification. In time, we all learn something valuable even from those we don't agree with.
Can we however agree that America and other countries that embraced Western culture are great because you can live your life as you want and observant Muslims can live their lives as they want?
not religious either – but the notion that your feelings are "true" and ideals or aspirations that run counter to your feelings are "false" is a very one-sided way to look at this.
If you ask a heroin addict what their true feelings are, the wants and needs of their bodies, it's probably just "get high".
If you ask a 16 year old kid with a porn addiction, it's probably just "get off".
There is no shortage of maladaptive desires in the world, and no shortage of ways to fulfill them. I think you can trace probably half the world's problems to one word: "addiction". The motivation system of the brain gone wrong.
I think what you're trying to point to here is the other half of the world's problems, which is effectively: "acceptance", or rather, the lack thereof. The empathetic system of the brain gone wrong.
I'm non religious too and I take your point, but to play devil's advocate -- Most of civilization and the ability for humans to live and cooperate together in large groups, requires us to move past our base wants, desires and the actions they would create.
Even if you want to burn down my house and murder me because I wronged you or slighted your family, that's not morally correct. We have secular law to codify what we see as morally right and I think it makes sense that before states really existed or unified people through national myths, that function was served by Gods
Repressing my desire to eat every bit of food in front of me helps me on the scale.
Repressing desires to stay on the couch and going for a run instead gives me freedom to experience the world without being out of breath or stopping halfway on the hike.
Repressing desires to keep all of my money for myself leads me to be more charitable, which is better for others.
So yeah, self-control is a great thing to cultivate because the presence of a desire does not mean that the desire is good. And even if it's not bad, then it's something that can hinder a greater good.
It's more subtle than this. Your brain can tell you to do stupid things. Not all desires are good. I can over eat, over spend, over work or procrastinate. And that's not even going into deeper brain reflex or addiction. And then you have actual neurology.
I'm not a religious person, but I believe (sic) that behind fasting periods, there's a training around the theme of balance.
You've completely missed the mark. Life is full of contradictory desires. I would love to have a lean, muscular body. I also love pizza.
Fasting is a practice of discipline; consciously choosing to forgo one thing to focus on another. You don't not eat because God or Allah or Buddha or whomever actually care that you didn't eat. You don't eat to focus on mastering your own desires such that you can better your own mindfulness of adherence to the other strictures of your faith during your daily life, even when you are not fasting.
The reason many religions focus on fasting is that it is a common and simple way to be aware of a temptation and choose to not give into it.
Edit: I should add, in case my point wasn't obvious, that none of the above has to do with you or anyone else. It is purely a personal thing.
Anyone who brags about how much religious fasting they are doing are just showing that they have been wasting their time and have gotten nothing from it.
You could say the same thing about extreme endurance sports. It’s not about looking down on other people. It’s about appreciating what you have and for one month putting yourself in the shoes of those for whom even one meal a day isn’t something they can take for granted.
Hate is natural, just look at history. Practicing restraint from natural feelings like hate is a purpose of fasting. Do note, it has been an organized practice in western civilization centuries longer than even Islam has existed.
The ability to repress desires to focus on long term goals or to develop appreciate for the satiating of those desires is a good long term skill to have.
As the Quran says: "Oh, you who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, that you may learn piety and righteousness" [Quran 2:183]