I appreciate that according to your belief the next life is outside our understanding, but God has only given us this mind to judge.
That means that there are certain things that we must simply accept as an unknowable truth and allow our intellect to flow around that.
So, again, I'm asking you: What sense, logic or reason does eternal torture make? In human terms, please - since we cannot understand the mind of God.
I do not believe we are equipped to understand it with our human faculties. In the Qur’an, God said that He blesses good deeds many times over what they are worth, but only punishes bad deeds to their exact measurement. Since the punishment of hell is said to last forever, that implies either there is a missing component that we cannot understand at this time, or the punishment is only metaphor; meaning that there will be a great pain so intense, that the closest example He can use to give us an understanding of it (similar to the sand analogy for eternity in your infomercial) is a burning forever in a lake of fire. I personally lean more towards the metaphor explanation for both paradise and hell only because of the fact that we will be beings of spirit with no use for human nerve endings and all that that implies. In order to get us to understand He has to explain it based on our current limitations.
Again you keep going back to "God said it - so it's just"
I must because God is the author of Justice.
No, that doesn't make the act 'Just' Rasheed. It only means he did what he said.
That is indeed an aspect of justice. 1.) That you are well informed of what the rules are 2.) That you have ample opportunity to respond to the rules in however way you wish to 3.) That when the time comes for Judgment you are rewarded/punished by the nature of the rules that you were informed by.
This is Justice.
A just punishment is one that fits the crime. It is not just to infinitely punish a finite crime.
Is this God’s rules or ours?
Nor can disbelief even be considered a crime, since it is something we cannot 'choose' to do. (And we have been through this before and you agreed that one can only 'act' like one believes in the hope that real belief will come.)
Your actions reveal the nature of your belief. That’s how we will be judged. By our efforts in this regard.
Btw what’s the difference between ‘crime’ and ‘sin?’
If a tyrant made a law that said 'whoever wears yellow socks will be punished by being beheaded' - no human being would say the punishment fits the 'crime' - it doesn't matter how many times he warns us - it is not Just -according to human reason.
Far more importantly, any human being would be an idiot if they, having read this restriction in the handbook while on the plane, wore yellow socks to this country. Protest all you wish, but you better leave the yellow socks at home.
Can you not see that Rasheed?
I see that you have a hang-up on side issues, rhetoric and attempts to analyze the unknowable, instead of concentrating on the meat of the message. This is an example of why He said for us to avoid the parts that give us trouble because they will only beckon the weak to hellfire.
My advice?
Let it go and repent.
As for 'the Most Merciful of those who show Mercy', it means to show kindness and forgiveness to those who have done wrong. The 'Most Merciful of those who show Mercy' is not one who only shows mercy to those who deserve it.
God’s Mercy uses a different definition than how we use it and it operates on a different level.
It is utterly absurd to call someone "The Most Merciful of those who show Mercy" if he tortures people for ever when it serves no purpose or has no benefit…
The purpose is for the punishment of a lifetime of sin and disbelief.
…and when he could easily end it…
But He easily warned then of what was to come! And gave them ample opportunity to respond! A whole human lifetime.
Seriously you are frustrated with me because of the aspects that I focus on, when truly I feel the same about your side of the argument. Why are you focusing on that nonsense? Just do what He said! Please!
…and at the very least just kill them and make them not exist anymore.
Death doesn’t mean “nonexist” it just means the end of earthly life. I believe in life after this phase.
Again - please look at this from the human perspective as we cannot judge using God's mind.
I do not pretend to understand the Unseen. I accept the Unseen and believe in it and allow my intellect to flow around it as a mathematical constant that simply is. My human perspective, by definition, comes up short at the Unseen singularity; therefore my argument will ALWAYS sound like “because God said so.”
That’s how it is supposed to be.
Maybe, (a women would bestow eternal & happy life to her child if she could) but she can’t. Therefore she is unqualified for the Most merciful title.
That's not true. What she and God does is relative to what they can do. A poor woman who gives £5 pounds in charity even though it is all she has, is more generous than a rich man who gives £100 when he could easily give give a thousand times that and it would not affect his wealth a tiny bit. In Gods case this is even more true since his abilities are unlimited.
God didn’t give $100. He gave the gift of life itself and the opportunity to know eternal bliss.
You know a couple of Mums who would blow-torch their childrens faces off for eternity? If you say so.
Two women who didn’t even know each other, who in both cases, allowed a drug dealer to rape their nursing toddlers in exchange for crack.
I know far more normal mums who would never do such a thing. If he is the "Most Merciful of those who show Mercy" then he should be better than the most noble, selfless, kind, gentle and forgiving human beings.
He is.
Yet you defend God's actions by citing some mentally deranged psychopaths who would torture their children? Are you saying God is a mentally deranged psychopath?
Actually I was only being facetious in response to the comment you made.
My limited faculties tell me eternal Hell totally contradicts, logic, reason, mercy and forgiveness. My intuition and heart tells me the same. All religions are flawed - the Abrahamic ones being the most flawed.
So what option do I have but to reject them? (bearing in mind you just told me to use my limited faculties and heart and intuition.)
I think you are being surface-minded and dishonest in your own way. The Abrahamic religions say to believe in God, do good and reject evil. If you do you will be rewarded infinitely. If you don’t you will be punished eternally.
The message is simple and elegant and does not contradict anything except specific man-made doctrines that oppose it.
If I am going to use my intellect to examine religions then I must ask: "Why?" if something doesn't make sense.
The Unseen will never make sense so it is pointless to put it on the “Why?” dry erase board. Focus on the human-level parts of the message.
If there is no answer - or the answer is unsatisfactory - then I have no option but to consider the religion to be irrational, illogical, unjust, excessively and needlessly cruel - and have no choice but to reject it.
And you would be a fool.
Why would God torture his creatures forever? How can he be Merciful if he does this?
1.) Because those are His rules for His game 2.) He was Merciful in letting them know it would happen if they did not alter their behavior, and in not punishing them at the very first offense.
Asking me to just have faith that God does have a very good reason, without giving me a good reason why I should have faith is pointless.
You are too old not to understand what faith is and how it works. Do you always redefine terms you disagree with?
There is no difference between you and a Christian saying I should just have faith in the Trinity. Why should I accept your irrational beliefs - on faith - and not accept the irrational belief in the Trinity - on faith? Why should I not just have faith that God has a very good reason for the Trinity that I cannot comprehend?
That’s where your human level intellect should come into play. The falsity of the trinity and the divine sonship are well-documented even by the theologians of the Christians themselves.
Again, no. Justice is not simply doing what he said. You are confusing being true one's word with Justice. Saying you will do such and such doesn't make your act a Just one.
No, when the Judge Himself tells you the rules that He is using to judge by, it is certainly justice that He abides by those rules that He knew you were instructed in.
Justice is for the punishment to fit the crime.
You are inventing your own very narrow definition of the concept of justice, or confining it to one particular aspect.
If I decide I will punish my school children who wear trainers into class by being "hung, drawn and quartered" - Human reason will tell you this is an unjust punishment - it doesn't fit the crime. - no matter how many times I promise I will do it.
I agree. But those are our human-level rules for things that are easily measurable within our existence here on earth in our society. And again if that was a rule in a school in another country, whether you agreed with the idea or not, you’d be a fool if you didn’t make sure your children were not properly dressed before they went to school.
But, how else can we judge the truth of any given religion, then?
Use your intellect, but understand that the part involving raw faith is going to require alternative methods. lol
Yes, that's exactly what I have done - and my limited intellect says eternal hell is simply indefensible.
Then don’t think about that part, Hassan. “O ye who believe! Ask not questions about things which, if made plain to you, may cause you trouble. But if ye ask about things when the Qur'an is being revealed, they will be made plain to you, Allah will forgive those: for Allah is Oft- forgiving, Most Forbearing.” Surah 5:7
Leave it alone and trust God.
What about you, Rasheed? What does your intellect tell you about eternal torture? - and I mean your human limited mind - your reason?
It tells me that if I find myself in hell, I would be an idiot. X100.
What reason do I have to trust god? This really is the one central question running through this whole thread. And you have yet to provide any reason why I should believe and trust in the God described in the Qur'an?
You have read the Qur’an. I cannot give a reason to worship the One who made you more elegant or convincing than God Himself did. I am truly in awe that anyone can read it and remain unmoved, or even can know it and transgress from the faith. I can only conclude that you are one of those who are blinded with a seal on your heart that only you can remove.
(while I have provided a very simple and clear reason why one would be totally justified in rejecting Islam - and any religion that believes in an eternal place of torture.)
I reject your argument as being very weak and so focused on minutiae that it is ridiculous.
Can you give me a reason why I should believe in Islam? And of course I mean a reason that appeals to the intellect. Why should I believe in Islam?
According to the DMT research of Dr. Rick Strassman and carried on by others in that field, there are other planes of reality beyond this one that can be termed “spirit worlds” by nature of these places being inaccessible using our physical bodies but only by our consciousness. Our DNA possesses the actual dormant code for every single trait of every other plant and animal on earth and DNA has always been thus showing that it would’ve been impossible for the Theory of evolution as we know it to be true. The so-called “junk DNA” was recently discovered to actually correspond to a functional language (with flying colors without a shadow of a doubt) and scientists and linguists are currently frantically trying to decode it.
To me, this implies that the clues for the Unseen are indeed all around us (and within us!) and hint strongly that what God said in the Qur’an is true. But, of course, the believer is always the first to recognize the signs of his Lord in creation, and these facts can be interpreted to mean anything at all, and the unbeliever will content himself to hypothesis that they mean there is no God in some form or fashion. I cannot convince you to believe in your Lord who made you, Hassan, if you are dead set against such belief.
Only you can save you. My job is to discuss it with you. I cannot give you a secular-minded reason to believe in anything that you willfully reject concerning the Unseen. I don’t see those things in a secular-minded way, nor would I wish to. I can only pray that you stop looking at faith in such an odd, peripheral way, focused away from all of the most important parts, that you sabotage your walk on the Path.
Topic: Peace, All