My Story :D
OP - April 13, 2010, 11:24 PM
Here goes my story i will try and make it short,
When i was 13 like majority of kids i was interested in the stars and astronomy by the age of 15 i was really thrilled about cosmology and decided that i want to be one (did not happen). Anyways i started reading different cosmology books which were very difficult for me to grasp but i read about the history of the geocentric universe, heliocentric and more..
Now the mess starts here i thought to myself that cosmology books were very difficult to understand so if i want to know how the universe is structured the right place to start is the book of the creator of the universe "the quran" and from there i will know what to read later (..... you can stop laughing now).
I read the whole quran marking every verse that talks about the stars, skies, earth, planets or heavens. All what i came up with was the earth is spread with 7 skies layered one above the other between which there is smoke.
The problem was it was not satisfying enough and i thought i must have missed something. I went to a few mosques and started asking some sheikhs and they told me that sky 1 is were all the galaxies are and then there are 6 more, between which there is smoke. But the verse said smoke is between the seven of them. So i thought maybe the quran is referring to the seven known objects in the sky at that time (sun, moon and 5 planets) and the smoke refers to the center of the milky way which leaves no place for other galaxies. When i told that to the sheikhs i was discussing the matter with, one guy told me you start asking questions and doubt starts crawling into your heart, so my response was simple "why did allah give us brians then".. they told me that i am an infidel and asked me to leave the mosque as i am poisoning it (seriously i was 16 who tells a 16 year old kid infidel).
I did feel horrible about myself thinking that i may be away from allah, i did not stop here but out of curiosity wanted to know what the bible had to say about the matter, so i went to a church (orthodox one) and started talking with a priest who gave me a bible told me about the 3 skies (sky 1 earths atmosphere, 2 one that contains stars, galaxies and planets, 3 god with angels around him)
I had a problem with this as it meant that all the galaxies are contained in our galaxy (he was actually talking about the geocentric model) and upon explaining this to the priest he walked me to the door and told the following exactly "Your soul is lost son - may god guide you and answer your questions"
This time i did not feel bad about myself actually but thought what the fuck is wrong with these guys, i could not understand why they thought that asking questions was any bad.
A few weeks later i thought i should go through the bible and the quran i still believed in allah i was thinking those sheikhs were just stupid. In the bible i could not stop laughing at the talking snake and i was telling myself crazy christians they messed up their bible and while laughing out loud i remembered the talking ant in the quran (the one solomon heard)
I started reading the quran again trying to understand it and that was the end of it. It was also the way the preist and the sheikh were so certain each of his faith made me doubt the whole thing as well, how can both be right.
on my 17th birthday (there were a few details in between too but the story is too long already) i thought i will no more worship a god and i was actually thinking that i am the only one who does not - till later on i knew about the word atheism and i thought oh okay that will be me..
A few months later i found at a friends place "A brief history of time" by stephen hawking ofcourse. And just could not stop reading since then.
Topic: My Story :D