Ramadan...whole month without weed

ok so i'm muslim...and its the sacred month of ramadan...goin on where we have to fast and during a fast you cant even smoke cigs...and like you have to be pure and stuff...like not swear and just refrain from mostly everything..

so my question is...should i smoke up....or not...i mean... after the fast..or b4 the fast i can....the reall questions is abt ethics and all..i m confused...
my friend made a pact with me that we wont smoke up all this month but then he ended up breaking it cuz his couzin is in town......sigh...
i dont have the urge to smoke....but if ppl are persuading me or doing it aorund me then i think i will....

 

I personally think that all religions are a bunch of bullshit guidelines, made to keep people in line. It's really up to you. Betray your "beliefs" or abide by them, simple as that.

 

i guess you're rite.....sigh.....

 

no, he's being an asshole. if you have certain beliefs, stand by them - only by sticking up for what you believe in will you maintain any kind of integrity. if you believe in your religion, follow it, because if you do not you will feel something wrong deep in your heart. its not a matter of whether islam is "correct" or "incorrect" at all, its a matter of doing what YOU feel is right. if you are raised in islam and believe in it, then do what is in your power to be a good muslim. religion is no more outlandish or far fetched than most of the political or philosophical ideologies of the world, and no more unlikely to be true than any other type of belief you can hold. modern people tend to think that it's a choice between religion or science, i say it absolutely is not! they are all simply ideas designed to help us understand our world in different ways, and are all of equal merit and value so long as they serve to better ourselves and our communities.

now, as a nonmuslim i cannot tell you my opinion on whether smoking marijuana during ramadan would be breaking your fast or not, but i CAN tell you that i -personally- believe that god or the gods, whichever the case may be, i certainly don't claim to know for sure, would not be offended by use of plants they've given us for pleasure. however, smoking it cannot be good for your body, and many people claim that god resides within all of us and that your body should be a temple. if this is the case, then smoking anything pollutes your body and dessecrates the temple of god...perhaps it's doing Things Which Are Harmful that is wrong during your holy month, rather than specifically using marijuana? if used orally (such as cooked hash/cannabis, or bhang or something) pot has absolutely no harmful physical effects, and does not hurt the body. i cannot imagine why it would be considered impurifying the body any more than eating or drinking anything else.

i'm not too very knowledgable regarding islam, but if i'm not mistaken aren't you allowed to eat and such after the sun goes down? maybe i remember incorrectly, but i thought that was the case....that fasting only applies to daylight hours. if not, a month is an awfully long time to fast, and i can't see why god would want you to do something so harmful to your body as that.......so if the fast ends at sundown, perhaps just wait until then to smoke or otherwise consume your pot?

i don't really know, but it's a decision you have to make for yourself, and you have to do what you think is right. certainly i wouldn't judge you poorly for smoking, and neither would most of us here, but then YOU are the one that has to live with the memory and possible guilt of your actions, so we cannot decide for you.

hope this helps and offers some perspective on the situation.

 

do what you feel is right. no religion should impose specific rules on anyone. you do what feels right for you and your ideals. personally i think abstaining during your holy time would be a great sacrifice, but its defintley up to you 100 percent.

 

but.. if he really did believe in it, then he clearly wouldnt be asking this question?

i think it is dangerous to say 'if youve been told this is true when you were young, then you should believe it!'

any religion that causes someone to feel bad when they disobey it, regardless of the actual truth of the religion, is clearly the wrong thing.

i say at his age he should be confident in his belief. either he believes in islam in his heart (in which case, he wouldnt question it) or he believes it in his habit (like most humans). if the person believes something purely because they were brought up that way then integrity was never there to begin with!

If god is benign, then nothing in the world that is made by god (natural things) is bad. That is true integrity.

if integrity is the goal, then youd scarcely find many people who live by it in most contemporary religions.

the fact that this guy is seriously considering goin against his religion shows that he doesnt have integrity to lose.

i personally think its a good thing when people can opely question every choice they do. how can you be premoting blind faith as, not the 'correct' thing, but as a universally 'good' thing, nesta?

no one should base their religion on what they were brought up as. if that is the only justification for belief, then where on earth is any integrity at all??

i agree that people who have a pure faith should follow it. but everyone else is living as someone else, and not as themselves.

just as pakistan would be living as his parents tought him, and not as himself, if he sees his religion as an obligation and not as the pure reality. hell even if he saw it as pure reality, it would mean nothing at all if he only believed it because he was told it, and not because he descovered it independantly.

 

don't jump to these types of conclusions. for example, i think it is WRONG to steal. thats a moral conviction of mine. does that mean i've never stolen? no. does that mean i'm never TEMPTED to steal? no! i dont like to, because i think it's wrong, but i'm often tempted...

similarly, if you're religious and you believe in your religion, then you may still be tempted by ideas of "sinful" behavior. does a christian having sex outside of marriage make them less of a christian? no, it just makes them a christian that is sinning. just believing in something has little to no real effect on your behavior, it takes will and effort on behalf of the person. thats part of the point of these beliefs, to motivate people to be "good" people!

i definitely would also not say that you should obey a religion just because you're raised with it. thats rediculous. what i'm saying is you should obey a religion's rules IF YOU BELIEVE in it. i was raised christian, but i do not believe in the christian faith. i do have beliefs, and i try my best to follow the moral code of my personal beliefs, but if this guy believes that islam is the right path, he should try his best to follow the laws of islam as he interprets them. it sounds to me like he is muslim, but is having a hard time deciding if he feels that smoking pot during a time of fasting is wrong or not because it is not specifically mentioned in the scripture or by most of the clergy.

 

I agree with Stoner Bill on this one, I think that if you have to question your beliefs then they aren't really beliefs in the first place. Also, lets look at the word. A "belief" is something that you BELIEVE is the right thing to do, not what may be the true right thing. I HAVE been christened by a priest, 2 times. However, that does not instill on me the idea that I have to go by some guidelines anyways.

Getting to another point, what belief states that you must not smoke cigarrettes or marijuana in the days of fasting?

 

but isnt the whole idea that 'sin' is inherant, a christian idea? what does islam have to say about doing something wrong and then repenting your sin, as long as you understand it is wrong? I dont think the islam belief is that lenient. After all, cat stevens publically inferred that execution was justified for merely breaking a single rule! clearly there is no acceptance for sin in those who take islam as a belief- the truth of life, the guiding force for actions and decisions. You cant treat all religions to be on the same basis as what christianity tought you and I growing up. Most religions leave no room for sin.

a moral conviction is not equal to a religious rule. you believe stealing is wrong because you follow your own beliefs based on your personal interpretation of your world. religion do not allow for personal decision on what is right or wrong. they dictate rules. some people believe in these rules. others follow them because theyve been -told- its the right thing to do.

if he questions whether he can find a loophole in his religious dictation then he sees his religion not as the true nature of the universe but as path that he is tought is the 'right' one to take, he sees it as one that he has the decision to judge and ponder. that is NOT islam. while you may find people who interpret islam different, you will find people who -believe it-, and definately, will not go against it, to the extreme of killing themselves! and also those who - follow- the teaching of islam, use it as a guide for their own beliefs. what is islam, if people see it their right to ponder whether it is true or not.

from a neurological stand point, belief is the very thing that dictates ones' thoughts. if one thinks around islam, then islam is not their belief, but a most prominent factor in their belief. and there are people who, to every word in the quran, believe in islam. if it is a factor, then, where is the integrity? its not there if the claimed belief is merely a factor, and not THE belief.


read his question:

so my question is...should i smoke up....or not...i mean... after the fast..or b4 the fast i can....the reall questions is abt ethics


he knows when he 'can' smoke up according to his religion, and is asking on ethical (not religious) terms whether he 'should' follow his religion or not.

once again, if he believed IN islam, then he knows the answer. however, if he believes BY islam then it is natural that he would question which elements to follow.

 

thats the point, it seems to me he believes he should fast, but he is unsure how far he should take the fast and what exactly he should do. even if you don't believe 100% in the letter of the law of a religion, you can believe that a religion is generally right and that its a good path for you to pursue. any of most of the major religions (islam, judaism, christianity, hinduism, sikhism, taoism, buddhism, jainism, etc.), imo, can offer some spiritual growth if a good and sensible person puts their faith in it and tries to act accordingly. even if they DONT believe in it, following a religions precepts may be a good thing for some people as long as they know why they do what they do and aren't simply doing it because they'll feel guilty otherwise. even then, avoiding the feeling of guilt is as understandable a motive as any, and i dont think its my place to tell people they shouldn't believe in AND/OR perform the rites of any faith.

as i understand it, he's asking for other's input as to whether we think marijuana should be abstained from during this period of fasting, not whether he should fast or not. it seems he knows he believes in fasting during ramadan, but is unsure how marijuana fits into the picture. i think the question is reasonable, and does not show any signs of a lack of belief, just philosophical dilemna. throughout the ages philoophers have pondered "does god care about ____?" and tried to further understand and interpret the laws of their faiths. this is not a sign of infirmity in their beliefs, but a sign of faith and a desire to discover the meaning behind scripture and tradition, so that they can try to discover what they would consider the highest understanding of their religion.

 

cat stevens is not all muslims. you can say "christians believe this or that" but the simple truth is there are hundreds of interpretations of christian belief ranging from radical violent sects comparable to the most extreme interpretations of islam, such as the Ku Klux Klan, to some of the most loving and benevolent of all religions. just because many muslims believe in a hard and fast set of certain rules that are punishable in THIS world does NOT mean that all (or perhaps even most, i dont know) muslims believe this. as far as i know, islam is as open to interpretation by the clerics and believers just as judaism and christianity is. for example, in many muslim countries, women have to wear veils. however, in MOST muslim societies it is a strictly voluntary practice, and in some its relatively uncommon to see veiled women. look at egypt!

also, sometimes islam is interpreted to mean you can have no depictions of human form, yet sometimes people interpret it as you just can't depict the face, etc. in fact i've seen islamic art that DOES portray people, and scenes from the scriptures!

i think that as an outsider we cannot declare what is or is not "true" islam. like any religion, it has a wide variety of followers and interpretations, and so long as there are good muslims (and there are many, i know several good ones and no bad ones) i'm not prepared to say that islam itself is bad or overly restricting. most muslims, as far as i know, do not interpret jihad to mean a literal war on all nonbelievers, but a generalized struggle towards holiness not requiring violence at all. just because the radical muslims that take violent action against the west are most of what we see in the western news media does not mean that all muslims are the same and believe exactly the same thing.

muslims believe in the qu'ran and the prophets, just like christians believe in the divine nature of christ and the bible. other than that, there you can't expect them to all believe the same exact thing.

 

if you dont believe in a religion completely then what do you believe in? the bits that suit you best? who says which bits of islam are most fundamentally islam? if you dont believe in islam on the whole, but personally select which bits suit you, then what makes you different from someone whos beliefs are totally self decided? can you say 'im 99% islam' and still be islam at all?

im only talking about this because you stressed the importance of integrity in belief. integrity is all about everything fitting together to make the accurate whole, a truth, and maintaining this.

by premoting self decision, then as a human, you can never achieve integrity because by relying on your own judgement, you will always be subject to your own emotions, predispositions, stimulus of the moment, etc.

and of course since it is true that everyone interprets the specifics of their religion differently, doesnt this mean that there can never be actual integrity? any search for integrity would be denying yourself as a person and this would sort of be a paradox for then you would not be integrit to yourself, but once again, to your religion.

 

in my humble opinion (this may be a mostly american belief, and is american in origin i believe, as Louis Menand's book "the Metaphysical Club" would lead me to believe) ideas are merely tools of the human mind. whether one religion is "true" or not is unimportant, because there are so many religions that we can never sort through all the mythologies past, present, and future, and define which one is "true." religion is not about being right, religion is about being good.

i do not have a religion, but i have spiritual and pseudo-religious beliefs based in experience, reason, and INFLUENCED by religions such as christianity, buddhism, taoism, and many writings of the psychedelic movement. i do not have one set of beliefs or mythology that i know are TRUE....rather, my beliefs are a tool to comfort me, to help guide my decisions and actions, and to help me better understand my world and existence. religion, at the heart of it all, is a combination of myth, legend, and philosophy.

there is a religion called islam. but it is broken into factions and groups of people (most notably sunni and shi'a, i believe) that interpret it in different ways. i'm not an authority on the subject and cannot declare what all the different ways are or how valid they are. however, if he believes in the -fundamentals- of islam, then he is a muslim. as a muslim, he has the qu'ran and the cultural traditions to guide his life, and has every right to ponder the meaning behind them and try to determine which are the most true to him and the most useful. islam, like any other religion, is in my opinion simply one other road to the divine. its suitable for some people, but i do not believe its good for all people. other people believe that the scripture comes from the mouth of god himself and is therefore applicable to all people worldwide...this is a radical and fundamentalist viewpoint, but i can't even say THAT is "wrong" because again it is just an idea, a tool to better understand their world, though i may disagree. so, just because he is unsure of some particular minute detail of his faith and is looking for guidance does NOT mean we can determine that he doesn't truly believe in something, because we cannot decide for others what IS or IS NOT truly islam. his path to the divine is for him to find out, but debating points, interpreting things, and learning independently is part of almost any sincere spiritual journey.

 

thanks for all the input....the thing is the place where i live "pakistan" its a very...confusing place...its called the islamic republic...but
my country is half secular and half theocratic.....
the thing that bugs me is that my religion says alot of things but over here no one follows them...even if they are minute things....such as .... its in our religion that a "man must lower their gaze if they see a woman" (not to look at them..) but we have CO-ed schools...and...we have concerts we have parties..basically...we have FREEDOM to do what we please....but if someone even tries to be all "islamic" they will be tested every single day..... that was a small example....

i dont know if the above paragraph wud have made ne sense or not to you guys....but i tried my best.... .... as to my decision of smoking weed....ahh i m stilll not sure...
smoking weed here is FROWNED upon just as its every where else....
ppl over here dont understand it.....

 

im too lazy to read what every one wrote so i dont know if some one said this yet but... i think you should stay to it respect your faith and religion and when the month is up you can smoke and it will be so much better and you'll probably feel good about yourself

 

to both pakistan andd nesta: what is understanding of anything if you are not confident in your own ability to understand? If you are confident in your own ability to understand, then why look to anything other than yourself to answer the questions in your life?

this is the mantra I live by. Its not to say that your own decision will definately be best for your health or life predicament or whatever. but it is still being an independant person. what is life at all, if you are not an independant person? a cog in a machine? a statistic on a census? the only thing we each have that is our own is our ability to decide. to outsourse any of that is also to outsource identity. this is of course the goal of many religions. not mine at least.

in relevance with this thread's issue, perhaps you, pakistan, should not ask us what to do, not ask your religion (for it seems the religion you are surrounded by is not exactly a wise source anyway), but simply ask yourself. would you rather be able to overcome your somewhat hedonistic desires,or inable? the only way you can be able to do so, is by not smoking for this coming month. if you look into yourself, and really dont care, well then there is your answer.


but honestly, why would you want to get stoned when all you are allowed to eat are a ration of those little suggar lollies?

 

hahaahaa....no its not like that...its like ....you wake up at 4am in the morn eat as much as u can...then when u hear the azaan (which is around 5am)
you dont eat from then on till around 6 pm ....then u repeat this for 30 days....its just 12 hrs..that ure not allowed to swear,get angry,eat,drink,masturbate,have sex ..lol basically..nething...even listen to music....
so even if i decide to get high it would be at night/morning...and then i can fullfill my munchies.....

i beleive in my religion wholeheartedly...but i'm a sinner

 

i remember a muslim friend of mine only eating modest portions of rice during the night hours, and several sugar lollies allowed simply to allow for sufficient survival in an active world lol

 

was he muslim or hindu...cuz hindus are allowed to eat fruits and drink water during there fasts.......

 

deep discussion and all i have to say is...

go for it. i mean after a month ur tolerance is gonna be nothing and it'll be like ur first time again. and that alone is worth it, right?!