so I was talking to a friend at work and he tells me it's Ramadan : ! She explained it to me, basically muslims give up food and drink from sun rise to sunset, help the poor, meditate ...basically a spiritual cleansing.
I changed the topic to my favorite ... Arduino projects. She was like, "how would that help in Ramadan!".
I thought to myself this is a question for this forum. I am thinking perhaps a large display showing the sun rise and sun set times and probably a settable alarm. I would wireless connect the project using an ESP to pull the information from the net.
As a non believer in any deity, I ask if the dates are fixed. If so you could use a RTC and an array of times for sun up and sun down. These times are available for your area from the meteorological bureau.
Although the fasting time is from sunrise to sunset, this is not the actual time that these things happen. The times are dictated by the imaman for the country. So for example in Manchester ( England ) the time would be determined from London even though the two times would normally be different.
weedpharma:
As a non believer in any deity, I ask if the dates are fixed. If so you could use a RTC and an array of times for sun up and sun down. These times are available for your area from the meteorological bureau.
Weedpharma
No the dates are controlled by the Moon's motion so each year Ramadan is at a different time. It slowly precesses over the years. About ten years ago it was in autumn ( fall ) when the days are a lot shorter and so you didn't have to fast for so long.
@Grumpy_Mike ... You know a lot about this dude! I'm impressed.
That said, I googled the difference in timing and found that the immam (I think that's who you were referring to); doesn't dictate the times is calculated per city. As this goes on for a lunar month, they have a table that lists the sunrise and sunsets per day. Instead of having different tables for every city, they normally print one for London and add the adjustment for other major cities (sunrise +10min and sunset +7 for Manchester)
What I found interesting, is that they seem that even starts with Nautical Twilight and not sun rise!
I used to have a very devout Muslim engineer working for me and that is what he told me. He was the equivalent of a lay preacher. Maybe it is different with different sects but he had to ring up London every day to find out the times, which do change from day to day.
Total atheist myself, but did go to "Sunday school" until I was about 13. My kids say that "God" is my secret specialist subject.
What I found interesting, is that they seem that even starts with Nautical Twilight and not sun rise!
Yes and the fact that the time between nautical twilight ( Sun 12o below the horizon ) and actual sunrise is dependent on your location and the time of the year. This is due to the angle of the ecliptic and the horizon. I did tell him it was luck we weren't in the Arctic as he would never get to eat. He had a good laugh at that one. Contrary to what people might think about Muslims he had a good sense of humor and even laughed at one of my "God" jokes.
God can not be omnipotent AND omnipresent -
If God wants to go somewhere new for a Friday night out he can't because he is omnipresent. Even I can go somewhere new on Friday so he is not omnipotent.
Or -
If he can go somewhere new because he is omnipotent then he can't be omnipresent because otherwise he would have been there already.
seems one could hang an arduino from a chain outside.
is it wet ? then it is raining....
here in the North we add,
is it white ? snowing.
a friend once told me he was an atheist.
I asked really ?
he replied, Swear to God !
as for automation and religion, I think it totally misses the point.
walking with nature means you look at a tree, feel the tree, recognize it is alive. watch the squirrels, the birds, look at the life that is in abundance all around you, then go back inside to the LED lights that wash the life out of colors.
fasting is not a timed thing. it is a body cleansing thing.
it's not a hardship but an activity.
! She explained it to me, basically muslims give up food and drink from sun rise to sunset, help the poor, meditate ...basically a spiritual cleansing.
