Trans Fear 7 6, 10:22pm

@RusA #9858856 continued
They all don't believe in animisme gods made by stone, but must to believe to Allah, Jesus's father, and Yewyeh(the Jew's god sounds like that ) who also we can't see them either, and must replace it with Ka'bah (stone in Meccah), Jesus statue/cross, and that holy wall in Israel.

All religions have geographic places that they consider to have a closer connection with their idea of God than other places. For Jews and Christians, this is the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which was a sacred site long before the first Temple was built. The Temple itself was the center of their religion, until the Romans destroyed it in 70 AD. The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is all that is left of the last Temple, which is why making a pilgrimage to the Wall and praying there (people write prayers on a piece of paper and stick them into the cracks between the stones) is so important to Jews. Christianity has no central geographical focus like that, but we tend to consider certain very old or very influential churches in the same way. Particularly, Christians like to visit the various churches and shrines in Israel that are traditionally the sites where Biblical events took place, tombs of important Biblical figures, and especially the ones marking sites where Jesus himself did his work. It's not called "the Holy Land" for nothing.

I don't know much about the Kaabah, but my understanding is that it was a sacred place long before Muhammad arrived, housing a variety of idols. The new religion got rid of all the idols, and now, according to what photos I've seen, there's nothing inside it but a lot of quotes from the Quran done in the usual beautiful Islamic calligraphy. It seems like it's an expression of how Islam swept clean the local religion and destroyed idolatry, and replaced it with a new, improved religion. The Black Stone is not actually inside the building, but set in a frame on one of the corners. I'm a bit unclear about why it's so important to a religion that frowns on any kind of veneration of physical objects; if it is, as many say, a meteorite, well, stones falling from the sky have long been taken as gifts from God in many different religions.

Your likening of bird-like angels to gods with animal heads is quite interesting. Actually, angels are regarded as pure spirits, created by God and only have the power He gives them. They have no physical bodies, but can assume a pleasing shape when they interact with humans. The wings are usually considered symbolic of their power to move instantaneously from one place to another. People who claim to talk to angels sometimes see them with wings and sometimes not.

Another interesting thing: angels are traditionally arranged in ranks, with some closer to the human world and some closer to God; and the closer they are to God, the weirder they are depicted. Messenger angels, the ones that deal directly with humans and the physical world, look like humans with wings; the Cherubim, who maintain the world and hold up the heavens, have multiple wings (usually four) and sometimes as many arms as wings, and have the head of a man, a lion, an ox, or an eagle - sometimes all four of them at once, facing the four directions! "And they are full of eyes within", whatever that means. The Seraphim, who directly express the power of God, look like a bundle of fiery, flashing wings that cover their bodies, usually six - two cover their feet, two cover their faces, and two that they use to fly. In some depictions they are shown as multi-winged serpents, but more usually as a head with wings. These images are all symbolic - we can't possibly see them as they really are, so they appear to us in these dream-like forms.

I'm not sure if I answered your questions or not, but that's pretty much all I've got on this very complicated subject.