zlacker

>>asim+(OP)
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 you, that you may learn piety and righteousness" [Quran 2:183]

>>yousif+98
> and from your own desires

As a non-religious gay I probably wasn't invited anyway. But this kind of thinking is what leads conservatives to so much repression and hate. The idea that the wants and needs of your body are something which the mind must actively fight. That the scratchy, ill-fitting wool sweater of your culture is something that you must keep on at all costs. And it leads to resentment of people who are not under such self-imposed restrictions.

There is a reason in queer culture that 'shadiness' is a bigger sin than anger. Shadiness is what happens when someone represses their true feelings. Those feelings don't go away though, they just resurface in other unexpected and non-adaptive ways.

>>tokyol+kz1
It's more subtle than this. Your brain can tell you to do stupid things. Not all desires are good. I can over eat, over spend, over work or procrastinate. And that's not even going into deeper brain reflex or addiction. And then you have actual neurology.

I'm not a religious person, but I believe (sic) that behind fasting periods, there's a training around the theme of balance.