Re: An infidel in Mecca
Reply #24 - August 22, 2010, 08:33 AM
I have decided not to post the rest of the "so lucky to be a male" chapter, so lets move to the next chapter:
So unlucky to be a Muslim
Muslims believe that every human being is born to Islamic monotheism, but it's his parents who change his faith. That's why many converts to Islam call themselves 'reverts to Islam'. Muhammad said: "Every child is born with a true faith of Islam (i.e. to worship none but Allah alone- faith of Islamic Monotheism), but his parents convert him to Judaism, Christianity or Magainism (an ancient Persian religion), as an animal delivers a perfect baby animal. Do you find it mutilated?". (Sahih Al-Bukhari, vol.2, p.57)
But to me, god never came to my mind until I was taught about him. I think Muhammad's saying should go like this: "Every child is born an atheist, but his parents convert him to Judaism, Christianity or Islam."
I do remember the first time I was taught about god and religion. I was around the age of 4 or 3, at my uncle's home in Jeddah (a city near Mecca). My older brother asked me: "who created you?". I didn't understand what the word "create" means, so I gave no answer, and my brother kept asking me: "who created you?". I finally answered: "My uncle!". He was annoyed by this answer, and started teaching me some fundamentals of faith. He told me that there is a god, named Allah, and he is above us and knows everything, and he is the one who created me. I started asking questions I don't remember, but I remember that he had to draw on a paper to explain his answers. I remember a drawing showing my position in relation to Allah's. He told me about hell, and how doing "bad deeds" will grant me a place in it. That night I had difficulty getting to sleep, I was terrified by the hell thing. I did picture hell in a weird way: a gas station on fire!
And here we come to the first of things that make me unlucky for having been born to Islam:
1-The terror from hell
No religion in this world provides as comprehensive details about hell as Islam does, and no holy book in this world mentions hell more frequently than the Quran does . Nearly on every page of the Quran hell is mentioned. And many Quranic verses and Muhammad's sayings provide terrifying details about hell and what happens to the people in it. It's not only about hell, it's also about all that happens after death according to Islam:
Once a man dies, if he is an infidel, the angels welcome him with punches and ass kicking:
"And if you could see when the angels take away the souls of those who disbelieve (at death); they smite their faces and their backs, (saying): "Taste the punishment of the blazing Fire." (Quran 8:50).
The angels take the soul to heaven. But heaven's doors don't open for an infidel soul. When the body gets buried, the soul returns to the body. The dead man wakes up finding himself in the grave with two scary looking angels. They ask him three questions: Who is your god? What is your religion? Who is your prophet?. If he fails to answer correctly, the two angels hit him with an iron hammer between his ears, and he will cry and that cry will be heard by whatever approaches his grave except humans and jinns. Then a door to hell is opened making the grave very heated, and the grave shrinks until the man's ribs mix with each other (See Sahih Al-Bukhari, vol.2 p.54. and Musnad Ahmad Bin Hanbal, vol.4 p.287 Hadith no.18557 (Arabic) ) . He remains in this torment until the day of resurrection when all dead people are resurrected and gathered in a land where they will be judged by god. On that day all people are naked, the sun gets so close to them so people are enveloped by their sweats up to their ears (Sahih Al-Bukhari, vol.6 p.80). After the judgment Muslims go to paradise, sinner Muslims go to hell for a while until after a time they go to paradise and infidels go to hell and remain there forever.
Here are a few Quran verses describing hell:
"Surely! Those who disbelieved in our revelations, we shall burn them in Fire. As often as their skins are roasted through, we shall change them for other skins that they may taste the punishment." (4:56)
"As for those who disbelieved, garments of fire will be cut out for them, boiling water will be poured down over their heads. With it will melt what is within their bellies, as well as (their) skins. And for them are hooked rods of iron (to punish them). Every time they seek to get away therefrom, from anguish, they will be driven back therein, and (it will be) said to them: 'Taste the torment of burning!' ". (22:19-22)
"And you will see the Mujrimun (criminals, disbelievers in the oneness of Allah, polytheists) that day bound together in fetters. Their garments will be of pitch, and fire will cover their faces." (14:49,50)
"On the day when we will say to Hell: 'Are you filled?' It will say: 'Are there any more (to come)?' ".(50:30)
The fear of hell hugely influences the life of a Muslim, and I wasn't an exception. At the very first day I knew about hell at the age of 4 or 3, I couldn't sleep at night thinking about it. Throughout childhood I used to have nightmares about hell. When I became an early teenager I was then fully informed of the details of hell and the terror of the after life, therefore from that early age the terror of hell started to ruin my life specially that then I have become an adolescent, which makes me according to Islam obligated with its endless obligations. These endless Islamic obligations, such as the five prayers everyday, are a constant reminder of hell, because if you miss a single obligation you could be punished with the blazing fire of hell. And that's why I was a practicing Muslim, I used to pray the five prayers and commit to Islam's obligations largely due to the fear of hell although I was promised to join a wonderful paradise in case I commit to the obligations, but of course, fear has a greater impact than anything else. As a Muslim, you can't escape thinking about hell, it's everywhere around you: The daily Islamic obligations remind you of it, religion classes at school, preachers keep warning about hell and using it as a scarecrow and almost all Islamic prayers include praying for god to save us from hell. Avoiding hell becomes a part of the meaning of life, which is according to Islam: worshiping god to join paradise and to avoid hell. So no wonder that I spent the majority of my prayers as a Muslim praying for god to save me form the torment of hell. Even the burning accidents I used to have were a powerful reminder to me; if fire can cause such a terrible pain, then how would it be like to be wholly burnt with a fire that is 70 times more burning than this earthly fire?. On Arab non-believers forums I read many accounts by ex-Muslims telling how the fear of hell ruined their lives even from early childhood. And I noticed how many of the fresh apostates do still suffer from the fear of hell even after they leave Islam. That's exactly what happened with me. On my first year as an apostate I was frequently asking myself whether I did the right thing by leaving Islam or not. I was frequently reviewing the reasons of why I left Islam. Because being an infidel is the worst case; an infidel will be in hell for eternity while a sinner Muslim won't, a sinner Muslim will eventually be taken away from hell to join paradise. That's what makes apostasy a very terrifying thing to Muslims because it's the utmost failure that grants the ultimate: Ever-lasting torment. And that's why "Pascal's wager" is very common among Muslims: If there is nothing after death then both believers and non-believers would lose nothing, but if there is an after life then the believers will be the winners and the non-believers will be the biggest losers.
Well, here is my own wager: If there is nothing after death, then I have won living a normal life not ruined by a constant fear of hell, committing to many nonsensical time wasting obligations and believing in many stupid superstitions that damage my logic. But if there is an after life, then according to which faith would it be? There are thousands of religions in this world, every one of them claims to be the only true one and the only path to heaven and that all the other ones grant free tickets to hell. And every one of them – especially the major ones- are severely divided into many sects, with every one of them in turn claiming to be the only right sect. And thus if I stayed a Wahhabi Sunni Muslim, then I would have at best a 1/10000 chance to go to paradise and avoid hell. Such a tiny chance is not worth ruining my life.
Topic: An infidel in Mecca