Quran, cultural Islam, and what is outdated

Salaam everyone-
I am sorry to see that so many people are leaving
since I am just joining. It seems there should be some
good discussions.  Since I didn't grow up in a
"Muslim" culture, I cannot connect to some of the
issues that seem to be troubling some of the people
here.  I will not say that I "converted" to Islam
because when I first started reading the Quran some
years ago, it just seemed so straight up and right on
in so many ways.  I simply discovered I was a Muslim
already but didn't know before to call myself that.  

I am not sure what people are saying is "outdated".  I
am surprised at how much is there that couldn't
possibly be known 1400 years ago, like the earth being
egg-shaped and worker ants being female and lots of
other little scientific factoids about the earth and
universe and animals and our own biology.

There are a lot of ideas to struggle with, true. 
That's where having others to discuss it and get input
from is helpful.  Still, I feel that the Quran is not
a book we read so much as a book that reads us.  Our
understanding is drawn out from our own hearts, not
put into us by the words on a page. 

Being more a student of natural sciences than of
social sciences or history, I may be missing some of
the ideas that seem to be upsetting others.  A lot of
times I think God is deliberately not telling us the
more complicated stuff because it forces us to use our
hearts and minds and eyes to try to find out.  That is
the way understanding can really be internalized, with
a lot of effort and really going after wanting to know
something.  

If we cop out and let some human "authority" tell us
the meaning and just buy it whole cloth, what are we
learning?  Like suppose I don't understand the meaning
of some word or verse and I ask some "scholar" and get
told it means this or that, because all these other
credentialed folks and traditional ideas says it means
that.  If all that meaning and tradition comes from
some other historic culture than I came from and I
can't identify with it, what is to convince me that
that is really the meaning?  

God said the Quran was sent down to all peoples, not
just Arabs.  OK, so if I get intimidated by all those
credentials and agree to that meaning they tell me and
then go around parroting it, do I understand anything
yet?  If someone tell me it means so and so, and that
doesn't draw that understanding out of me as I
continue to study the passage, then it doesn't have
that meaning, not to me.  

If the discussion with someone else does help connect
the dots of the ideas and a particular meaning really
does click and feel comfortable, then I agree I really
have learned something.  But that learning and
understanding has been drawn out of me from within,
not shoved in from the outside.  

Maybe I grow and have different experiences and
awarenesses, and now an old understaning isn't
comfortable anymore.  God says if all the seas were
ink they would run dry before the words of God ran
out.  So maybe there is still a whole lot more meaning
in those self same words and we are able to read them
in new ways.  It is that sort of dialog and
exploration that I am hoping this group would be
about.

Best,
Carl


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