I'm 41 year old hindu 🕉 female and I'm not very religious I would say I am a partially practising hindu only. One thing that always used to bother me is the extensive idol worshipping in hinduism...I always used to find this idea strange and almost illiterate. When I see Hindus worshipping the common regular familiar idols I find it more acceptable but when they start producing secondary idols out of the primary ones I dislike it. Its like it devalues the main Gods and where do you draw the line, theres no limits. And when I see weird looking idols with their tongues out and dressed all heavily it makes,me think this is actually distracting people from praying and worshipping and it's better if they keep the idol simple and minimal. I've studied islam ☪️ and I actually prefer their method of praying over hinduism....I feel you can connect with God better if you don't have distracting imagery in front of you and you can feel your emotions better. But I dislike the character of the prophet Muhammad and there's other aspects of the religion I dislike. I'm not a hardcore hindu and when I pray I close my eyes. I read the hanuman chalisa regularly and read Gita. I also disagree on concepts such as reincarnation and moksha. Can anyone else understand where I'm coming from and relate to this?

People are profoundly anti-catholic, and it seems people have some hatred for catholics and christians that dont seem to translate to other major religions (Islam, Buddhism, judaism). And yes, I am aware that there are anti-semites and islamophobes. But my point being especially in the west there is a major anti catholic stance from both liberals and conservatives alike

Im 31 european, 5 times only in a church.

Dont no nothing south muslin, at same time dont belive in the the system of the churches and priest

But i read a section Letter to the Romans" and i like it a lot.

Can anybody recomendation?

I understand too, its not necessary read all the bible because there is a lot of things not Import more like history of familiy tree

Did God create me/you or did we create ourselves? Explain..

Is Earth closer to Heaven or closer to Hell in your opinion?

i ain’t the brightest book on the shelf but i mean like all religious people

Christianity acknowledges that false prophets can deceive people, appear good, and perform extraordinary signs and wonders.

So what establishes that Jesus wasn't one?

His miracles? A convincing false prophet could perform miracles.

His compassion and good deeds? A convincing false prophet could do an extraordinary amount of genuine good to establish credibility.

His teachings? A false prophet could teach admirable principles while ultimately leading people toward the wrong object of worship.

And what greater deception could there be, within Christianity's own framework, than convincing billions of people to worship someone other than the true God?

There's also the longstanding disagreement between Judaism and Christianity. Judaism does not recognize Jesus as the Messiah or as divine, and Deuteronomy 13 explicitly warns that even a prophet who performs genuine signs must be rejected if he leads people toward other gods.

Christians, of course, maintain that Jesus is not another god but God incarnate. Yet that is precisely the identification under dispute.

I'm not claiming Jesus was a false prophet, nor that the two interpretations are equally probable. I'm asking what justifies preferring the divine interpretation.

What evidence distinguishes Jesus from a sufficiently convincing false prophet?

I have been trying to research religion for the past few years and discover what is the best fit for me. I would love if you guys could use the comments on here too tell me about what you believe, I think that personal testimonies are some of the most beautiful things about religion. Today I posted my first video about this topic on my TikTok, and I was kind of hoping that I could get some feedback from all of you here on Reddit. I love hearing people talk about their faith and I just figured this would be a beautiful place to get some more insight and reach more people. If you’re interested in checking out the video I’ll leave the link or you can comment any questions as well.

Some time ago I shared here with you a design concept for an adaptation of a classical "quadrans vetus" to show both muslim and christian prayer times.

A "quadrans vetus" is an old type of astronomical quadrant, which was known mainly in Europe, Which allowed to find local time in unequal hours (i.e. finding the time as a fraction in twelfths for the remaining part of daylight)..

But don't let be fooled! This tool is surprisingly accurate for its age.

How to find qibla:

The back of the instrument includes a compass and a retro-azimuthal projection, allowing you to find qibla direction everywhere in the world.

- To operate it, you have to allign the compass with the cardinal directions engraved on the back of the instrument: South towards the "point" of the quadrant and North towards the bottom of the quadrant of you are located in the same emisphere as Mecca, and vice-versa if you are located in the opposite emisphere.

- Once alligned the instrument, you wrap the thread around the central pivot corresponding to Macca, and make it pass through your location on the map.

- Qibla will be indicated by the lead weightlet, as it is demonstrated in the fourth picture above for Southern France - Northern Italy. Yielding a rough direction of South-East

How to find classical christian prayer times:

The quadrant allows you to find time in unequal hours, an ancient system of timekeeping, where the section of daylight is always divided into 12 equal sections. This means that summer hours are longer and winter hours are shorter.

- These hours are used in christian monasteries to establish prayer times, respectively at the first, third, sixth, nineth, sunset (12th) and a set soon before bed and soon before dawn.

- To find the unequal time, you have to move the sliding month indicator (representing sun's latitude) so that the central part (indicated by two white marker at the aequinoxes) lines up with your latitude, which is indicated in the inner scale in arabic numerals.

- Once set up the instrument, you move the plumb line to your current date and slide the knot so that it intersects the 6th unequal hour line.

- Now, by measuring the height of the sun, you can see where the red knot lies in the various sections of the unequal hours scale, thus determining what prayer you should do.

- For more northern latitudes, a second set of lines is provided, this is why there are two sets of unequal hour scales.

Muslims' prayer times can also be determined:

Zuhr / Jummah - soon after midday, it corresponds to the 6th unequal hour line, if you have just entered the seventh unequal hour, Zuhr time has started, and it lasts until 'Asr time. Be sure to check that the sun is actually declining, and not rising!

'Asr - For 'Asr there are two prayer lines, most madhabs put 'asr start time when the lenght of a gnomon's shadow is equal to gnomon's shadow at middat + the gnomon's lenghts (the first dotted line) and put 'asr end time when the shadow of a gnomon is its midday shadow + two times the gnomon's height (the second dotted line)

while Hanafi school sets its begin at the end of other Madhabs time and its end at sunset, when Maghrib time begins. I have indicated both lines in the quadrant

There is not an easy way to establish Maghrib and Fajr, other than saying "one is during twilight and the other is at dusk". In the qur'an (I recall) it is specified to establish your morning prayer when you can distinguish the white thread from the black one, this is not to be taken literally, However that is the reason for the black and white windrose in the shadow-square.

When you can't distinguish the colours of the windrose, that's 'Isha time.

'Isha - you culd say that when you can't distinguish the windrose in the shadow square, then it is 'Isha time, but this is not a practical way for many reasons, this is why on the back of the instrument I have provided a set of "complementary stars": By observing a star directly opposing the sun on the celestial sphere (it can be found on the back of the tool) we can even determine night prayers. According to most scholars, 'isha time starts when the sun goes below -18° of altitude, id est when the complementary stars rises above 18 degrees of altitude.

Fajr' and Maghrib - when such stars go below 18° (or 16° or 14° according to some) it is 'Fajr if the star is going down and Maghrib id the star is rising up

Others functions:

- the shadow square can be used to calculate distances.

If you are curious, you can find this object on my etsy shop!

For example, the Church of England ordains women, and the Archbishop of Canterbury is a woman. There are also gay priests and same-sex marriages in multiple churches of varying denominations in the US.

I personally don’t have a problem with any of that as I myself don’t really belong to a particular church yet. But I’m just curious if, given Catholicism claims to be the “one true church” and forbids stuff like same-sex marriage within the church and opposes, where do these various Protestant denominations get their ideas to be as progressive as they are?

I was born Roman Catholic, and all my upbringing I was told to respect the Virgin Mary. she is even on my bed as we speak, in a canvas watching over me. I did have a mini atheist phase where I didn’t believe in god and Jesus.

although over time I started to really love the Virgin. I prayed only to her, and I get devastated whenever people disrespect her.

not badly, but a teacher told us of the book silence and how they spat on the Virgin and called her names. it broke me for some reason.

i personally couldn’t do it, but over time it felt weird explaining I adore Mary.

is it sort of questionable, and a bonus question, is there a religion or belief for the Virgin?