Renaissance_Man

I saw that article too.  Not sure what the author was smoking, but Israel is an opportunistic state that allies itself with whomever shares its political interests.  Israel's chief concern is existential security and thus they partner with whoever can protect it.  They don't care about morality or culture.  Saudi Arabia and Israel both have the common goal of opposing Iran so they are naturally partners.  

I saw that article too.  Not sure what the author was smoking, but Israel is an opportunistic state that allies itself with whomever shares its political interests.  Israel's chief concern is existential security and thus they partner with whoever can protect it.  They don't care about morality or culture.  Saudi Arabia and Israel both have the common goal of opposing Iran so they are naturally partners.  

Considering that Shias aren't hunted for sport in India as they are in Pakistan, I'd say India is probably safer.  Yes there is discrimination towards Muslims in general in India, that's true of minorities everywhere, but at least Shias don't have the constant threat of terror looming.  Personally, I'd rather give up eating beef than run into a suicide bomber on my way to the imambargah.
The biggest problem in Sunni majority countries like Pakistan where the masses are ignorant, is Wahabbism can quickly gain a foothold and spread like cancer.  Just look at how terrorism has mushroomed throughout the country with Taliban, SSP, and other militant groups sprouting everywhere.  Now in India, there's no room for terrorism to take hold thanks to the Hindu majority.  Shias and Sunnis are both forced to band together to protect the common interest of Muslims.  It's sad, but it seems that without a non-Muslim majority to keep Sunnis in check, they will waste no time in turning to extremism.
And for the record, I am a Pakistani who prefers neither country.

Unfortunately, even if ISIS is defeated on the battlefield they'll exist in some form as long as their Saudi patrons continue to finance them.  And given the recent flare up with Iran, you can bet the Saudis and their gulf allies will ramp up the support to terror groups to counter Iran.

Personally, I'm loving the trainwreck that is Donald Trump.  His open bigotry and general buffoonery is bringing down the Republican Party in flames and making the other GOP candidates irrelevant.
I think Trump is speaking the minds of many Republicans and that's why his poll numbers are surging.  If this keeps up, the Democrats will cruise to victory in 2016.
Only bad thing about that is we'll be stuck with Hillary Clinton..unless Bernie Sanders pulls off the impossible and wins it.

PETA has been protesting about this for years.  The difference here is the lion was an endangered animal needlessly killed for sport while chickens are plentiful and slaughtered for food.  Even though factory farms raise chickens in cruel conditions, most people can still find hunting justifiable when animals are killed for food or population control.  

Bro. Salman Haqiqi,
Thanks for your informative responses in this thread.  The part about the excess from Sahm-e-Sadaat being reappropriated by the marja for other causes makes sense and is along the lines of what Ayatullah Makarem Shirazi says in his book:
So this is what should happen in theory, but how does it work in practice?  Some of the widely followed maraje in the world like Sistani and Kahmenei have collected billions of dollars in khums.  Does anyone even know how much of the sahm-e-sadaat is actually given to the needy and what's done with the leftover funds?  I suppose that highlights one of the problems with the system of khums in place today.  There is no transparency or accounting for where the money goes or how its spent.
You mentioned that the non-sayyids amongst the poor receive their money from zakat but this is again something that for the most part doesn't exist today.  Zakat, as understood by ulema today, is not levied on wealth - but on cattle, crops, and gold/silver currency.  Consequently most people end up paying nothing in zakat leaving little to no means of assistance for the majority of the poor in the ummah unless they resort to receiving zakat from the Sunnis.  It's hard to believe that zakat - a pillar of our faith and the second most important ibadat after prayer - has all but become obsolete today.
Again, our ulema need to do something to correct this imbalance.  Updating the laws of zakat to include cash, just like we do with khums, would be a start.  Transparency in the collection and expenditure of khums would help bring to light how the funds are being used today and where they might be best allocated.

Bro. Salman Haqiqi,
Thanks for your informative responses in this thread.  The part about the excess from Sahm-e-Sadaat being reappropriated by the marja for other causes makes sense and is along the lines of what Ayatullah Makarem Shirazi says in his book:
So this is what should happen in theory, but how does it work in practice?  Some of the widely followed maraje in the world like Sistani and Kahmenei have collected billions of dollars in khums.  Does anyone even know how much of the sahm-e-sadaat is actually given to the needy and what's done with the leftover funds?  I suppose that highlights one of the problems with the system of khums in place today.  There is no transparency or accounting for where the money goes or how its spent.
You mentioned that the non-sayyids amongst the poor receive their money from zakat but this is again something that for the most part doesn't exist today.  Zakat, as understood by ulema today, is not levied on wealth - but on cattle, crops, and gold/silver currency.  Consequently most people end up paying nothing in zakat leaving little to no means of assistance for the majority of the poor in the ummah unless they resort to receiving zakat from the Sunnis.  It's hard to believe that zakat - a pillar of our faith and the second most important ibadat after prayer - has all but become obsolete today.
Again, our ulema need to do something to correct this imbalance.  Updating the laws of zakat to include cash, just like we do with khums, would be a start.  Transparency in the collection and expenditure of khums would help bring to light how the funds are being used today and where they might be best allocated.

Bro. Salman Haqiqi,
Thanks for your informative responses in this thread.  The part about the excess from Sahm-e-Sadaat being reappropriated by the marja for other causes makes sense and is along the lines of what Ayatullah Makarem Shirazi says in his book:
So this is what should happen in theory, but how does it work in practice?  Some of the widely followed maraje in the world like Sistani and Kahmenei have collected billions of dollars in khums.  Does anyone even know how much of the sahm-e-sadaat is actually given to the needy and what's done with the leftover funds?  I suppose that highlights one of the problems with the system of khums in place today.  There is no transparency or accounting for where the money goes or how its spent.
You mentioned that the non-sayyids amongst the poor receive their money from zakat but this is again something that for the most part doesn't exist today.  Zakat, as understood by ulema today, is not levied on wealth - but on cattle, crops, and gold/silver currency.  Consequently most people end up paying nothing in zakat leaving little to no means of assistance for the majority of the poor in the ummah unless they resort to receiving zakat from the Sunnis.  It's hard to believe that zakat - a pillar of our faith and the second most important ibadat after prayer - has all but become obsolete today.
Again, our ulema need to do something to correct this imbalance.  Updating the laws of zakat to include cash, just like we do with khums, would be a start.  Transparency in the collection and expenditure of khums would help bring to light how the funds are being used today and where they might be best allocated.

Bro. Salman Haqiqi,
Thanks for your informative responses in this thread.  The part about the excess from Sahm-e-Sadaat being reappropriated by the marja for other causes makes sense and is along the lines of what Ayatullah Makarem Shirazi says in his book:
So this is what should happen in theory, but how does it work in practice?  Some of the widely followed maraje in the world like Sistani and Kahmenei have collected billions of dollars in khums.  Does anyone even know how much of the sahm-e-sadaat is actually given to the needy and what's done with the leftover funds?  I suppose that highlights one of the problems with the system of khums in place today.  There is no transparency or accounting for where the money goes or how its spent.
You mentioned that the non-sayyids amongst the poor receive their money from zakat but this is again something that for the most part doesn't exist today.  Zakat, as understood by ulema today, is not levied on wealth - but on cattle, crops, and gold/silver currency.  Consequently most people end up paying nothing in zakat leaving little to no means of assistance for the majority of the poor in the ummah unless they resort to receiving zakat from the Sunnis.  It's hard to believe that zakat - a pillar of our faith and the second most important ibadat after prayer - has all but become obsolete today.
Again, our ulema need to do something to correct this imbalance.  Updating the laws of zakat to include cash, just like we do with khums, would be a start.  Transparency in the collection and expenditure of khums would help bring to light how the funds are being used today and where they might be best allocated.

Iran's biggest enemy is not the US but Israel and Saudi Arabia.  These two have worked relentlessly to punish Iran for their own twisted political motives.  Iran's economy and its people have suffered needlessly for it.  
 
This deal will bring Iran out of it's isolation and neuter Israel and the Gulf Arab states.  These two have enormous sway over US foreign policy and by building diplomatic relations with the West, Iran can diminish their influence and better serve its own interests.  There's no reason for the US and Iran to remain estranged forever.  I believe the US and Iran actually share a lot of common ground - more than with the Wahabbis and Zionists who only wish to see Iran's destruction - and a good relationship with Iran could positively shift US foreign policy and help solve some of the problems in the Middle East.  Iran has already covertly co-operated with the US to fight ISIS and the Taliban and rebuild Iraq so why not join forces in other matters where it makes sense.
 
The Arab dictatorships are terrified of seeing a prosperous Iran.  They know that once Iranian oil exports resume, Saudi will no longer be the only game in town leaving the West less reliant on them and consequently less willing to support them politically at all costs as they now do.  That could weaken those states and possibly lead to regime change there.  

According to narrations, Imam Taqi's (as) wife, who was the daughter of the Abbasid caliph Mamum, was not only disobedient but may have poisoned him too:  http://www.imamreza.net/eng/imamreza.php?id=523

I mean how was I not showing respect?  Yeah I get his a Seyed and I also get his name is Hassan. Just because I didn't say his full name doesn't mean I disrespect him. Now that I think of it, why should he deserve my respect? How did he in anyway benefit or help me? His just simply keen on fighting a war with Israel, and bowing down to Assad and using Iranian money which could have been used to build infrastructure and helped to benefit Iranians which had instead been used to fight foolish wars in the region.
 
Hezbollah has become a useless entity after Israeli withdrawal and they should give up their arms and become a political party like Amal. Lebanon should rely more on the Lebanese Army and help improve them.
 
Mina I know you are deeply passionate for things like Hezbollah, Nasrallah, Khamenei, Basiji, Velayat Faghih and all this other weird stuff. But do you think I would also be interested in this stuff just as much as you?
 
The issue with the 1979 referendum in Iran, it was kind of flawed in that the referendum simply asked "Islamic Republic Yes or no?". It didn't elaborate too much on what sort of Islamic Republic it would be as there are many different variations of the same concept (if voted yes) and what sort of non-Islamic republic (if voted no) like communist republic, monarchy or secular democracy.   So it confused many people like my family and thousand or if not millions of others. People didn't know what was to come for them if they voted "no". The hate for the Shah and the former regime was so strong after the revolution, people were willing to vote anything that didn't have to do with the past regime. There wasn't a clear and understandable choice so, Islamic Republic it was and then the war boosted the longevity of the regime ever since till now.
 
I have to say simply how lucky and shrewd was Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers were in the whole standoff after the revolution which was also hijacked by them. They were brilliant in their tactics even better than what the Americans and British achieved after the 1953 coup.

A few ignorant people like Shaykh Bin Baaz of Saudi Arabia do believe in a flat earth but they aren't worth bothering with.  The vast majority of Muslims do not ascribe the flat-earth theory.

You hit the nail on the head.  Nations have historically been formed on the basis of shared culture, language, and ethnicity not religion.  Pakistan and Israel were both artificially created and neither has fared well.  Even Iran is a Persian country first and a Muslim/Shia nation second.  
 
A Shia European state would be disjointed to say the least.  Collecting people from 50 different European countries who have nothing in common and plopping them down in an new, unfamiliar place is asking for trouble.  

I disagree with the idea that all humans have homosexual tendencies. It is like saying that all humans have tendencies to hate God, be engrossed in narcotic addiction, find violence attractive (e.g. those people who enjoy grossly violent video games) etc. I remember once speaking to a shi'i man who said that he couldn't help but use foul language. But he became like that, that wasn't his natural state.
 
The Quran tells us that hearts can become diseased. Try telling an ill person to stop being ill. Illness requires time and corrective action to cure.
 
I think that humans can develop homosexual desires but it's not a pure and unspoilt state; it's a corrupt state. There is a difference between saying that humans have homosexual tendencies that need to be dealt with, and saying that humans have no homosexual tendencies but they can develop.
 
I watch hardly any movies and television, but I recently became aware that some (I don't know how much) modern popular media frames homosexuality in a very positive manner, and uses positive 'imagery'. I found out that even popular video games had homosexual imagery; this didn't happen in the past. If the people watch this, are they not going to develop confused desires? This is quite worrying for parents raising children who may see such imagery.
 
Recently I came across this article:
 
 
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/26/asia/handsome-gorilla-shabani/
 
They are attracted to the gorilla because it has some of the characteristics of a male human. They may not have developed this attraction if they did not focus on those things. If their focus was on other characteristics (or they were not made aware of certain things), then may have held the opinion that this attraction is repulsive. Similarly, homosexuals may find in the same gender what they find in the opposite gender. 

That's pretty shaky reasoning.  Assuming this narration is true, Hazret Zaynab (as) striking her head was a spontaneous outburst of grief during the tragedy of Karbala.  Not quite the same as ritualistic self flaggelation.  There is no evidence that she or anyone repeated this nor encouraged others to do it.  

The election results came in and unfortunately he did win.  But I believe he hurt his credibility in the process.  The anti-Arab statements he made and his opposition to a Palestian state will cause Israel to lose a lot of international support.  The US has already criticized him about it and other countries will soon turn against him too.  He's not very popular at home either so he's got a tough road ahead to say the least.

He makes some good philosophical arguments for theism but I lost a little respect for him when I read that he converted back to Catholocism.  How an otherwise intelligent person could accept the irrational dogma of Christianity, I'll never understand.  It's like he took one step forward by leaving atheism and then 2 steps backwards accepting Christianity. 

http://www.alternet.org/sex-amp-relationships/what-if-marriage-were-temporary?page=0%2C2&paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark
 
What if Marriage Were Temporary?   August 26, 2014  |   For most of the history of marriage, till death do us part did not mean 50 years wedded to the same person. A century ago, death regularly transformed a new mother to a corpse in the blink of an eye. A sip of water from an infected source or a slip on the road could quickly fell the young and the fit. Cholera, consumption, smallpox…death had many names and predictable results: widows and widowers usually found another partner and remarried, sometimes more than once.
 
As sanitation, hygiene and medical advances prolonged human life in the 20th century, married couples in the West faced a new and unprecedented prospect: living with the same person, decade in and decade out, until the ailments of old age took one of them away. The marriage was now expected to withstand the stresses of all stages of life: childrearing, work, the empty nest. As the nuclear family in the single-detached home replaced the more fluid and populated living arrangements of the past, marriage began to carry new burdens. Two people must be all things to each other for all time, in tight quarters and with little relief.
 
Little wonder that the loosening of divorce laws soon followed.
 
In practice, marriage today in the U.S. is often temporary (approximately half of all married couples end up divorced [3]), but most people still enter the contract as if they will remain wedded for the rest of their lives. A gigantic wedding industry cashes in on the fantasy. This expectation, entirely unrealistic for a good chunk of the population, results in contortions that are hardly conducive to human happiness, or even sanity. Too many people face the shamed search for emotional and physical connections outside the marriage, producing soul-maiming hypocrisy and mendacity, and much collateral damage. Bitter divorces that enrich lawyers and tear families apart are often the sad result. Many who stay married lead lives of quiet desperation, unhappy in their circumstances, but unable to envision an alternative to one-size-fits-all-till-death-do-us-part.
 
Is this the best we can do? Shouldn’t something so important in our lives be shaped to fit our fundamental natures and current circumstances, not the other way around?
 
Marriage is often depicted as a timeless and fixed institution. But the truth is that marriage has been quite flexible throughout history and across cultures, fluctuating with social and economic conditions. One of the alternatives to the fixed, forever marriage is the temporary marriage. Let’s take a look at how this practice has evolved.
 
Till Sometime Do Us Part
 
Laura J. Mitchell of the University of California, Irvine, has described [4] temporary unions in diverse cultures in history. In 15th-century Indonesia, for example, women acted as traders in port cities, and therefore had social and economic power. Mitchell notes that there was a longstanding practice of temporary marriage between local women and foreign traders in such places. Both partners had recognized rights in these unions and enjoyed business benefits: she got access to goods from external trade networks; he learned about local customs and opportunities and was able to set up a home while abroad. The temporary marriage carried no social stigma for the women. When the men returned to their native countries — maybe Portugal or Holland — the children stayed with the women, who had enjoyed economic advantages from the arrangement.
 
One of the most fascinating cases of temporary marriage is the nikah mut'ahor sigheh, an ancient Islamic practice (possibly with pre-Islamic roots) that unites man and woman as husband and wife for a specific period of time — as short as an hour or as long as 99 years. The practice developed so that a man could have legitimate sexual relations when traveling long distances. A woman who entered such a contract assumed the status of a wife and all the rights of one.
 
Following the 1979 Iranian revolution, temporary marriage came back into vogue in Iran as young people were delaying marriage due to financial hardship, yet still had sexual needs. Because of the lack of equality between men and women from a legal or social standpoint, men received far more advantages in these situations, having the right to multiple wives as well as the sole right to end the temporary marriage. Women were sometimes driven into temporary marriages because of the inability to provide for their own subsistence due to lack of economic and social rights, which placed them on unequal footing.
 
Many Iranian women considered the revival of the custom to be harmful. There is some stigma attached to the practice, and in some cases, the contract marriage serves as a loophole for prosititution, which is forbidden under Islam. In recent years, there has been a full-blown embrace of temporary marriage by officials in Iran. Restrictions have been loosened so that temporary marriage no longer requires the permission of the first wife.
 
An interesting report on sexuality from Iran’s parliamentary research department discussed in the Economist [5] paints a picture of wide acceptance of temporary marriages by young people who want to have sex, and clerics who share that desire:
 


“[The recommendation] for stopping unsanctioned sex is remarkably liberal. Instead of seeking to cool the loins of the youngsters altogether, they should be allowed publicly to register their union by using sigheh, an ancient practice in Shia Islam that lets people marry temporarily. A legal but loose and much-deprecated arrangement, which can last from a few hours to decades, sigheh is often viewed as a cover for promiscuity or prostitution. Clerics themselves have long been suspected of being among its biggest beneficiaries, sometimes when they are on extended holy retreats in ancient religious cities such as Qom.
For less conservative Iranians, some of whom even jokingly describe themselves as ‘not real Muslims,’ the report is merely an admission of reality—and an amusing distraction from the austere topics usually occupying their leaders’ minds. ‘This is what every human body needs,’ says Zahra, a 32-year-old chemist who lives with her boyfriend in northern Tehran and declares that she has no intention of seeking authorisation to have sex. ‘I have one life and though I love my country, I cannot wait for its leaders to grow up,’ she adds.”
 
Temporary marriage is viewed as a solution not only to sexual urges, but to emotional, financial and legal issues. In Mexico City, much to the chagrin of the Catholic Church, there has been a movement in recent years to introduce temporary marriage licenses for couples who could choose after two years to split or renew the license for life. The idea has emerged as a response to the high costs, both financial and social, of divorce. The authors of a 2011 intiative (which failed to pass) reasoned that because most divorces occur in the first two years, deciding whether or not to renew the license after a two-year period made sense. The ways in which children and property are handled would be specified in advance, thus precluding the need for drawn-out and expensive court battles. Some advocates have also pointed to possible benefits for women who may suffer abuse from their husbands, making it easier for them to leave. 
 
The subject of temporary marriages (seven-year term) came up for debate in Germany in 2007, but has not yet been enacted in law.
 
Could Legal Temporary Marriage Gain Traction in the U.S.?
 
Millennials are not very enthusiastic about marriage, partly because of the hardships caused by the Great Recession. A recent Pew Research Center report shows that only 26 percent of them are married.
 
USA Today asked 1,000 18- to 49-year-olds whether they would be more open to marriage if the institution could be updated to express modern values. Forty-three percent of millennials surveyed said they supported the idea of marriage based on a two-year contract which allowed the couple to formalize or dissolve the union without divorce or paperwork; 33% were OK with the notion of marriage licenses granted on a five-, seven-, 10- or 30-year contract, after which the terms would be renegotiated. Almost 40 percent said they wanted “till death do us part” abolished.
 
In a recent Time magazine opinion piece, Jessica Bennett suggests [6] that millennials like the idea of a “beta” marriage because they are used to technology and choice, habits which warm them up to the notion of testing marriage for glitches and bugs.
 
Wouldn’t it be interesting if a temporary marriage could be considered a success instead of a failure? Two people could come together in a mutually beneficial way for a period of time, and not destroy each other or their children when they decided to go their separate ways. Would many of us be happier, more fulfilled human beings if we were not forced to contort ourselves to accommodate a rigid institution that may not reflect our emotional, sexual, or economic realities?
 
No one is saying that forever can’t be an option. But does it have to be the rule?
 

None of the above, but of the three, I would say democratic socialism - as implemented in some parts of the world today - is probably closer to the ethos of Islam.  Capitalism and communism represent two extremes of economic theory.  One promotes profit above everyone else while the other stifles individualism.  
 
The message of the Quran and the lives of the infallibles are replete with examples emphasizing altruism, living modestly, and helping the needy.  Individuals are encouraged to seek profit and maintain individuality but unlike capitalism, Islam ultimately values humanity over profit.

You've missed most of my point. First of all, why would the Imam tell his follower about something that would never affect him, or anyone else for around 1300 years? It's ridiculous to assume the Imam doesn't know the earth is round based on that. The man wants to know when to break his fast, not about lands he has never visited. Secondly, even if we assume he were to have said this, it is still unlikely that it would have made it into our books of hadith, for the reasons I mentioned. Unless perhaps the Imams were to have made this point almost every time they were asked about fasting, which, again, makes no sense in the context they were operating in.
I think you might be understimating how difficult it might be for a 8/9th century uneducated Arab to understand not only that the earth is round, but also why this should affect the number of hours of daylight there is. Where is the evidence that the Imams didn't know the earth was round anyway? The caliph al-Ma'mun was aware of it, and got scientists to estimate the circumference of the earth. It therefore seems unlikely that the later Imams at the very least wouldn't be aware of that. I don't think anyone (Imami or Sunni) condemned al-Ma'mun (or anyone else) for the heresy of believing the earth was round either, even though he was condemned for other things. If Muslims really did have this view from the beginning that the earth was flat, and the Sun set in a pool somewhere, don't you think they would have put up a bit more resistance to the idea that the earth was round?
This is where my point about the Imams' audience comes in. It wasn't 'the Greeks' who knew about the earth being round, it was certain Greek philosophers/scientists. It's not like every Greek layman was aware of it. Now, if the Imam was talking to a philosopher/scientist about the earth or the universe, then you could expect him to talk about these things, but why would he be talking about this to an uneducated layman?
Your refusal to understand anything that the other side is telling you at all makes it seem more like you are the one doing the avoiding.

Your general tone, which makes you come across as slightly unhinged, is what leads me to think that there is more behind this than simply wanting to strengthen your anti-Islamic arguments. Aside from that, you seem more than well enough prepared to deal with 'the next schmuck who feels the urge to guide me back to the "right path"', and seem quite familiar with the arguments that Muslims use, rather than someone who is need of 'trying to get a feel of the general arguments that Muslims bring up when they're explained some of the flaws of Islam'.
Anyway, who puts this level of research into simply having counter arguments against people trying to guide them back to Islam? I don't think you are being very honest here.

Err, what..?
From Tabrisi's Majma` al-Bayan:
{ حتى إذا بلغ مغرب الشمس } أي موضع غروبها أنه انتهى إلى آخر العمارة من جانب المغرب وبلغ قوماً لم يكن وراءهم أحد إلى موضع غروب الشمس ولم يرد بذلك أنه بلغ إلى موضع الغروب لأنه لا يصل إليه أحد { وجدها تغرب } معناه وجدها كأنها تغرب { في عين حمئة } وإن كانت تغرب في ورائها عن الجبائي وأبي مسلم والبلخي, لأن الشمس لا تزايل الفلك ولا تدخل عين الماء ولأنه قال وجد عندها قوماً, ولكن لما بلغ ذو القرنين ذلك الموضع تراءى له كأن الشمس تغرب في عين كما أن من كان في البحر رآها كأنها تغرب في الماء ومن كان في البرّ يراها كأنها تغرب في الأرض الملساء
From Tusi's Tafsir at-Tibyan:
وقال ابو علي الجبائي، والبلخي: المعنى وجدها كانها تغرب في عين حمئة، وإن كانت تغيب وراءها. قال البلخي لان الشمس اكبر من الارض بكثير
So two, pre-modern, classical and authoritative Shi`i tafsirs stating the meaning of the verse is not to be literally understood to mean it's "literally" setting in a pool of murky water. As to the Earth being flat, you might want to go tell Shaykh Mufid that:
أقول إن الأرض على هيئة الكرة
Sure, he thought it was stationary as did many others (but not everyone) in those times, but clearly he thought it was shaped like a ball as you can see above. So if our religion was so clearly teaching a flat Earth, why would an ancient scholar like Mufid say the above, who obviously wouldn't know or care what 21st century century science has to say on the matter to force him into apologetic revisionist mode?

Why would we want to do that when heliocentric view is only a relative one anyway, with the geocentric (or heck any-centric) view being just as valid in this sense? You seem to be stuck in Copernican science for some reason, but science has since progressed past these views and now regards either of these to simply be reference frames that can be used for practical purposed but are not some absolute truths. Here, a layman's view article on it for you:
http://www.universetoday.com/36487/difference-between-geocentric-and-heliocentric/
"The irony is that after all the disputes over these different theories, neither one is necessarily correct. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity upset both models. New evidence has also shown that the Solar System’s center of gravity is not the exact center of the Sun. This means that either model is acceptable regardless of the fundamental differences between the theories. Astronomers use both the heliocentric and geocentric models for research depending on which theory makes their calculations easier. It definitely seems as if some things are relative after all."
In terms of other cosmic type phenomenon hadiths, did you ever stop to think that maybe the reason why those that detail such things tend to be weak in their sources, while the more authentic narrations don't discuss such things much (if at all) might be because from the perspective of teaching the religion these things are not important? Seriously, how does using a geocentric or heliocentric model of the universe make you any better a human being, or guide you in your moral actions? It doesn't, and these are things that man could be let to discover on his own, in his own time over centuries through discovery and the progress of science. Religion gets criticized when it makes decrees in this area, but here you seem to be criticizing it if it doesn't. Religion deals with timeless truths, and gives man the set laws of conduct, that are no dependent on what scientific model of the day is in vogue.