What is the Hajj? What to Know About the Pilgrimage and Saudi Arabia’s Preparations
www.nytimes.com
Millions have made the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. The kingdom faces scrutiny over safety after more than 1,300 people died last year.

The hajj, one of the largest annual human gatherings in the world, begins on Wednesday in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Amid rising temperatures and logistical challenges, the pilgrimage has increasingly become a test of endurance both for pilgrims and the Saudi government.

Millions of Muslims from around the world travel to the city to take part; Saudi Arabia said 1,475,230 pilgrims from abroad have arrived since Sunday. Last year, the Saudi government said more than 1,300 pilgrims died, many from Egypt. Most of those who perished had been unregistered, Saudi officials said, meaning they had made the trip without the permits that gave them access to heat protections.

  • WhatsTheHoldup@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    3 days ago

    The assertion that there is no God cannot be proven as you cannot prove a negative.

    Correct, no one argued that.

    There assertion that there is a divine entity cannot be logically demonstrated in any valid way logically speaking.

    Correct again.

    The validity of either claim cannot be tested and thus have the same overall value and it is a matter of which you choose to accept.

    Do you really mean that?

    If I were to accuse you of something terrible like being a child molester with absolutely zero evidence…

    That’s valid? You can deny it, but your denial is of equal value to my accusation right? So if everyone in this comment section chooses to believe you molester children from now on… do you have a problem with that?

    The reason I’m an atheist is the same reason I don’t believe you’re a child molester yet. I think there is a burden of proof of evidence that would need to be met before the accusation needs to be taken seriously.

    • QuoVadisHomines@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      14·
      3 days ago

      There is no evidence of me being a child molester AND if I were there would be proof that’s why your example is a false equivalence.

      If the Christian God exists, for example, there would be no way of knowing for certain because that God would be omnipresent and thus would be everything. If God is everything what do you compare it to?

      If you spend enough time focusing on the truth of this you will eventually conclude you cannot prove your belief like they cannot prove theirs so neither side has anything demonstrable.

      • WhatsTheHoldup@lemmy.mlEnglish
        3·
        3 days ago

        if I were there would be proof that’s why your example is a false equivalence.

        Not necessarily. This is lemmy, you’re on a completely anonymous account. I wouldn’t expect to have any proof.

        Maybe you just didn’t get caught yet.

        If the Christian God exists, for example, there would be no way of knowing for certain

        I was willing to grant you the philosophical God argument, but if you want to evoke the Christian God you’re now making a whole bunch of positive claims.

        Why don’t we look at the evolutionary record and see whether all of humanity comes from Adam and Eve or if animals evolved from a common ancestor?

        We can look for evidence of a flood, or an exodus and see there is none.

        We can track the history of Yahweh, and how he was syncretized with El and Baal from Caananite faiths, and morphed over centuries from a local Storm/war God to the only God.

        The early Israelites engaged in polytheistic practices that were common across ancient Semitic religion, because the Israelite religion was a derivative of the Canaanite religion and included a variety of deities from it, including El, Asherah, and Baal. Initially a lesser deity among the Cannanite pantheon, Yahweh in later centuries became conflated with El; Yahweh took on El’s place as head of the pantheon of the Israelite religion, El’s consort Asherah, and El-linked epithets, such as ʾĒl Šadday (אֵל שַׁדַּי‎), came to be applied to Yahweh alone. Characteristics of other deities, such as Asherah and Baal, were also selectively absorbed in conceptions of Yahweh.

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh

        We can compare the contradictions between the behavior of the Old Testament God and Jesus to conclude like early Christians such as Marcion of Sinope Yahweh and Christianity are incompatible

        Study of the Hebrew Bible, along with received writings circulating in the nascent Church, led Marcion to conclude that many of the teachings of Jesus were incompatible with the actions of Yahweh, characterized as the belligerent god of the Hebrew Bible. Marcion responded by developing a ditheistic system of belief around the year 144.

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcion_of_Sinope

        We can compare the Gospels and see where they copied stories from the Iliad/Odyssey.

        Odyssey Location Mark Location

        Athena descends like a bird 1.319-324 Spirit descends like a dove 2:1-2 Sailors volunteer to follow Athena 2.383-413 Fishermen volunteer to follow Jesus 1:16-20 Nestor’s feast for 4500 men 3.1-68 Jesus’s feast for 5000 men 6:30-44 Menelaus’s wedding feast 4.1-67 Jesus’s feast for 4000 8:1-9 Odysseus enters city behind mules 6.252-261 Jesus enters city on an ass 11:1-11 Alcinous’s prolific figs trees 7.112-121 Jesus curses unprolific fig tree 11:12-14 Blind Demodocus among sailors 8.471-473 Blind man at “House-of-fisherman” 8:22-26 Lotus-eating, forgetful comrades 9.62-107 Forgetful disciples at sea 8:19-21 Polyphemus the cave-dweller 9.105-525 Dangerous demoniac from caves 5:1-20 Aeolus’s bag of winds and gale 10.1-55 Jesus calms winds and sea 4:35-41 Cannibals at the harbor 10.76-136 Hostile Pharisees at the harbor 8:10-13 Following a water carrier to dinner 10.100-116 Following a water carrier to dinner 14:12-16 Circe turns soldiers into swine 10.135-465 Jesus sends demons into swine 5:1-20 Odysseus’s last supper before Hades 10.546-561 Jesus’s last super and Gethsemane 14:32-42 Death of young Elpenor 10.546-560 Flight of naked young man 14:43-52 Blind seer Tiresias 11.90-94 Blind seer Bartimaeus 10:46-52 Death of Agamemnon at a feast 11.409-430 Death of the Baptist at a feast 6:14-29 Burial of Elpenor at dawn 12.1-5 Young man at tomb at dawn 16:1-4 Eurylochus’s vow 12.298-305 Peter’s vow 14:26-31 Eurylochus’s broken vow 12.367-396 Peter’s broken vow 14:66-72 Eumaeus’s Phoenician nurse 15.417-491 Syrophoenician woman 7:24-30 Odysseus’s transfiguration 16.172-301 Jesus’s transfiguration 9:2-13 Suitors plot to kill Telemachus 16.383-385 Vinedressers kill the beloved son 12:1-12 Conspiracy to kill Telemachus 17.182-213 Conspiracy to kill Jesus 14:10-11 Penelope’s hospitality 17.534-547 Generous widow at temple 12:41-42 Irus the beggar 18.1-94 Barabbas the brigand 15:6-15 Telemachus’s amazement at house 19.35-43 Disciples’ amazement at temple 13:1-2 Penelope’s request for a sign 19.102-271 Disciples’ request for a sign 13:3-8 Prophetic oak at Dodona 19.296-307 Prophetic fig tree 13:28-31 Eurycleia washes her master 19.370-575 Woman anoints Jesus 14:3-9 Eurycleia’s recognition of Odysseus 19.474-486 Peter’s recognition of the Messiah 8:27-30 Odysseus slays suitors in his house 22.17-86 Jesus expels merchants from temple 11:15-19 Contested authority over the house 22.221-233 Contested authority over the temple 11:27-33 Odysseus hacks to death evil slave 22.474-477 Bystander slices off a slave’s ear 14:43-5

        https://testimonia.pl/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/MacDonald.Mimesis.pdf

        Or also where they contradict each other

        If you spend enough time focusing on the truth of this you will eventually conclude you cannot prove your belief like they cannot prove theirs so neither side has anything demonstrable.

        I don’t think theist Christians would agree with that though. Quoting Tertullian:

        We do not worship your gods, because we know that there are no such beings. This, therefore, is what you should do: you should call on us to demonstrate their non-existence, and thereby prove that they have no claim to adoration; for only if your gods were truly so, would there be any obligation to render divine homage to them. And punishment even were due to Christians, if it were made plain that those to whom they refused all worship were indeed divine. But you say, They are gods. We protest and appeal from yourselves to your knowledge; let that judge us; let that condemn us, if it can deny that all these gods of yours were but men.

        https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0301.htm

        When it comes to a philosophical creator god I agree with your statement, this view describes agnostic atheism.