Certainly the existence of suffering and evil makes the existence of a God problematic for me, but I can't dismiss the idea that if God exists, he does have a very good reason and objective that it simply is beyond my understanding.
But if there is a God I cannot believe he can be so harshly judgmental towards those who reject what is in the Qur'an - even if it was true - since even if one stretches and hammers it into something more 'acceptable' - no-one can be blamed for seeing it in a different way - the way it so apparently appears to be.
In other words it is not so much that I object to evil or suffering - but that I object to the harsh and judgmental God of Abraham - even if these are all metaphors or whatever - I simply cannot see how the "stubborn Kafir" can really be blamed for rejecting a book that God appears to have done his best to disguise as a cruel and, sadistic God - reflecting the very worst human emotions of vengeance, tyranny and anger.
But that's being inconsistent, Hassan... if you're really capable of allowing the idea of God to survive the Problem of Evil, since things might be beyond your understanding, then why wouldn't you categorize other troubling issues under the same banner of limited human understanding?
In my case, I think I have pretty decent justifications for some of these issues,
but these work only for me... I believe, in my case, the basis is GOD CERTAINLY EXISTS, and everything else is essentially a *side issue* that I can either try to justify or slip it under the carpet. I could go for pure Deism, in which case there would be only the problem of evil, but I eventually chose Islam again for various many reasons.
What I really think Hassan, is you will never accept
ANY God. I *think* the Problem of Evil is the basis from which you set out to seek reasons not to believe in God: evolution, imperfection of creation, the total apparent randomness of fate, etc... you *collect evidence* against the existence of God, for no God is really worthy of your love when He ignores His creation like this, while you, given a chance, you'd make life much much better for everyone on Earth!
You want to create your own God, whom you can love, but there will always be a missing ingredient for you... so you curse this idea and bury it with tons of evidence against it! But you'll always, always yearn for your beloved God, without ever being able to find Him.
And with that I'm off to a Sufi prayer meeting lol (True! - Talk later
)
LOOOOL! yeah, I'll be talking to you soon...next weekend, inshallah... after I'm finally done. Good luck with that prayer
LOL.
Topic: Who is still muslim?