What is Ramadan?

Ramaḍān, the holy Muslim month, is the month where hundreds of millions of Muslims on all corners of the Earth fast from dawn to dusk; it holds much significance over being the month when the Qur'an was first revealed. To Muslims, however, Ramadan represents much more than just a calender marker of their holy book or a yearly diet routine.

"Life is a journey."

This journey is often physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting. Many times, we find ourselves slipping into mistakes that we shouldn't have made; we find ourselves slowly derailing off the tracks; we find ourselves not who we dreamed of being as 5-year olds; we find ourselves not the people we want to be.

This is when Ramadan comes in; the best way to think of Ramadan is a (lunar) month-long New Year's Eve where we can not just make promises for our next year's experience, but actually have weeks to prepare ourselves, at least mentally, to execute them.

The main focus is coming to grips with yourself by learning how to control your mind and instincts. This is achieved by not only fasting while the sun is out, gracefully breaking that fast (far easier said than done, believe me), but mostly by feeding your spirituality through reading the Qur'an, praying, fasting, giving charity, doing random good deeds, etc.

It is not just a wonderfully strange cleansing experience of metamorphosing your mind (and body) into the one you want, but - perhaps more importantly - another chance to dive and (re?)discover the depths of your character and gain much-needed clearance.

All this talk has little value because nothing can do justice to the heart-warming atmosphere of Ramadan. Thus, I end this by wishing you all a very blessed Ramadan.

Ramadan Mubarak everyone! :)

The Theory of Evolution

When we were younger, the idea fed to us regarding the theory of evolution was that it – quite literally – meant that our ancestors were monkeys (much like the ones we saw in Disney’s Tarzan or National Geographic). We were made to understand that the common as well as professional opinion on the matter was of satire, that the only ones who believed in it were, for their own reasons, people who refused to accept either religion or even God.

As I grew up, I learned the exact opposite: the theory of evolution is the most important theory in all of biology according to most scientists and researchers. It is as important to biology as plate tectonics is to geology, as one man had put it. So what are the misconceptions that have pushed most of the world to reject this very important idea?

Understanding (and Debunking) Atheism

To begin, we must understand 'theism' and 'deism' and what their differences are.

Theism: the doctrine or belief in the existence of a God or gods.
Deism: the form of theological rationalism that believes in God on the basis of reason without reference to revelation.

Thus, theism includes deism, but not vice-versa. This has grown in such a way that theism has become associated with using revelations instead of reason, which is incorrect, as theism can use either or both to support the position of the existence of God.

Thus, atheism, in its purest form, is not a religion, nor is it an ideology. It is simply the argumental position of the nonexistence of God.

What is faith? What is belief? What is the difference between them?

Faith: loyalty or allegiance to a person or cause.
Belief: any cognitive content held as true.