Bad Moon Rising

Every year, the national hysteria over when is the first day Ramadan gets just a little more frustrating. Every the powers that be here in Saudi Arabia, instead of coming to some sort of agreement on when to start the lunar month, continue to keep us hanging over just what day Ramdan begins. Just to keep us on our toes... in case you start to think we just might not need them

Each year the same people say the same things over and over again. Liberals (and astronomers) want a tabular calculation to determine the start of Ramadan. And conservative religious authorities (mutawwa's) insist on the new crescent being sighted with the "naked eye", usually in the form of a testimony of some random beduin who claims to have seen it. No new information is ever discussed in the annual debate. there HASN'T been any new information for centuries. Humans have been able to accurately predict the birth of each new moon for the next 500 years for centuries. And each year. the two sides continue to talk over each other.

So why are the religious authorities so keen to keep us in the stone-age? It’s all about fear and power. The mutawwa’s fear that they’ll be purposeless. In Saudi Arabia, and in the last 30 years especially, nobody would even scratch his ass, so to speak, without asking the mutawwas if that’s OK. It’s an awesome political power, the power of religion, much more powerful than anything the Royal family could hope to achieve. It’s a power these mutawwas have over the people and they’re not too keen on relinquishing control. Between astronomy and eye-witness, there’s no question about which way would be more practical, more accurate, and much more indicative of a civilized society. But it’s not a question of logic, is it? It’s a question of keeping “religious issues” in the realm of religious people instead of turning it over to rational thinking and science where they very much more rightly belong. Because when every issue is a religious one, their importance is paramount. But if every issue they deal with would be turned over to science and logic, where would their power be? In fact, I’m of the opinion that their purposelessness is absolute, for even in the matters that really are of the theological nature, why do would you need a third man between yourself and god? Does anybody really need an army of clergymen to tell them how to pray?