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Tell HN: Eid Mubarak

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311–320 of 371 posts

Re: Tell HN: Eid Mubarak

#311
post #6

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 yo…

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.

Re: Tell HN: Eid Mubarak

#312
Just more generally, I was wondering if people might share their experience of Islam? I'm quite ignorant honestly.

How did you come to find the religion? What impacts (positive and negative) does it have on your life?

One thing which has made me uncertain, is the praising of martyrdom throughout the Quran. How is this aspect reconciled within peaceful societies? I mean no disrespect through this question, and recognise this may not be the best place to ask.

Re: Tell HN: Eid Mubarak

#313
post #103
post #77

I am a bit confused: are we going to get more similar posts (which is tangent to some proselytism, under the premise of well wishing?) for each and every religious faith major event around the globe? I am saying this as a former believer (and holding no grudge), definitely aware of the fine line between sharing and pushing cultural items, and balancing the two rather equally in a diverse team. EDIT: actually, it's a…

It's going too far to interpret this as "tangent to proselytism". People can wish each other well without coming close to that. The occasional celebratory post is fine on HN. If it were to become repetitive, it would get tedious quickly and we would downweight such posts in keeping with standard practice (see [1] and [2] about that). [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... [2] https://hn.a…

I disagree; this is a clear case of "Proselytism" since there is no actual need for it in this forum. Nothing of value has been presented to discuss/debate/argue/etc.

If the only criteria for allowing posts like these is "People can wish each other well without coming close to that" then HN can easily be flooded with junk posts from every single Religious (and any other) group (Real/Imaginary and Bonkers) for every single day of the year.

Re: Tell HN: Eid Mubarak

#316
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going too far to interpret this as "tangent to proselytism". People can wish each other well without coming close to that. The occasional celebratory post is fine on HN. If it were to become repetitive, it would get tedious quickly and we would downweight such posts in keeping with standard practice (see [1] and [2] about that). [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... [2] https://hn.a…

I disagree; this is a clear case of "Proselytism" since there is no actual need for it in this forum. Nothing of value has been presented to discuss/debate/argue/etc. If the only criteria for allowing posts like these is "People can wish each other well without coming close to that" then HN can easily be flooded with junk posts from every single Religious (and any other) group (Real/Imaginary and Bonkers) for every s…

There has always been a place for a certain amount of such posts on HN, going all the way back to the beginning. It has always been fine as part of the mix and I don't see why it should be restricted to one religion or culture.

If people start posting too many of them, we'll downweight them the same way we would any other repetitive pattern—not because we have any problem with their particular topic but because repetition quickly becomes tedious. (And users would flag them increasingly heavily in any case.)

Re: Tell HN: Eid Mubarak

#317
post #195
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going too far to interpret this as "tangent to proselytism". People can wish each other well without coming close to that. The occasional celebratory post is fine on HN. If it were to become repetitive, it would get tedious quickly and we would downweight such posts in keeping with standard practice (see [1] and [2] about that). [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... [2] https://hn.a…

For my part, I did interpret it as clear proselytism: > A note on Ramadan. To those interested in intermittent fasting, longevity, and coming back to a more human experience not drowning in technology, food and consumerism I would say check it out! After over 20 years of doing it I'm still learning something new every year, or I should say, unlearning bad habits we've created for ourselves as a society through abunda…

I see what you mean but I read it as more of an enthusiasm for a general category of practice and not a call to convert to a specific religion or cause.

The post was just a nice thing, a complete change of pace, and an opportunity to have an interesting conversation about something we normally wouldn't. That's on topic for HN. It doesn't mean the same thing would be on topic tomorrow—in fact it wouldn't, because avoiding repetition is one of the main functions here.

It was also a garish opportunity for flamewar, which plenty of commenters unfortunately took advantage of. But that's how the internet, and human nature, work.

Re: Tell HN: Eid Mubarak

#318

[flagged]

Religious flamewar is not welcome here and will get you banned, so please don't do it again.

We've had to ask you about this before - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24682545 - and similar things:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27497529 (June 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27046182 (May 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26935566 (April 2021)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22836417 (April 2020)

Could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules?

Re: Tell HN: Eid Mubarak

#319
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't want flame wars then why you allow posts like this "Tell HN"? It's the nature of religions to dogmatically tell people how to live so any religions posts will undoubtedly attract flame wars; might as well post about Donald Trump trial and not expected political flame wars.

The onus is on commenters not to post inflammatory/aggressive/flamewar things, even when they find a topic activating. The idea on HN is to find the capacity to discuss topics, even divisive topics, thoughtfully and respectfully. That's not so hard, since it's always an option simply not to post anything, and there is always plenty of other material to pay attention to. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.htm…

About the "not post anything" part, is not as easy as you think, I hold myself accounttable to my actions and the lack thereof, so like many here of my most valued principles is to do good, as in "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing", so sometimes I weight the likelihood of being banned (or just disliked, in general) against any positive impact my comment might have even if extremely tiny, specially when discussing life and death issues such as religion, or in the words of Minoo Majidi: "If I don't go out and protest, who else will?"

Re: Tell HN: Eid Mubarak

#320
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The onus is on commenters not to post inflammatory/aggressive/flamewar things, even when they find a topic activating. The idea on HN is to find the capacity to discuss topics, even divisive topics, thoughtfully and respectfully. That's not so hard, since it's always an option simply not to post anything, and there is always plenty of other material to pay attention to. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.htm…

About the "not post anything" part, is not as easy as you think, I hold myself accounttable to my actions and the lack thereof, so like many here of my most valued principles is to do good, as in "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing", so sometimes I weight the likelihood of being banned (or just disliked, in general) against any positive impact my comment might have e…

If you feel that way, there are far more important things to do than post on an internet forum.
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