do you ever wonder how much religious people really believe in their religion?
I recently heard an argument from a muslim saying "we know there is one god because if there were more they would be fighting with eachother"...
? what kind of argument is that but the guy was tottally serious and it got me thinking about how much believers actually believe the things they say, if you really believed that this life determines where you are going to spend eternity, then why don't they all devote their lives to it and be perfect muslims?, if you truly believed this life being a test you would be crazy not to try and do the best you can, but most of them dont do the best they can. It reminded me of somthing i read from richard Dawkins, he spoke of how it's strange religious people find death sad, surely you should be happy when a child gets a terminal illness, they are going to see god and go to paradise!
I truly 100% believed in Islam for a two or so years, very much so. I don't think I was lying to myself. When I had doubts, I chalked them up to laziness (which, to be fair, they were often caused by
).
I sometimes wonder how much a harsh Muslim believes in Islam, since he's clearly twisting it to fit his own agenda. But I know some people whom I think fully believe in their religion.
It does help that in Islamic thought, faith isn't static i.e. it goes through ups and downs, so doubts can be seen as 'downs' in faith. The concern being if the faith remains low, not the validity of the doubt itself (which is taken to be false, obviously).
As for the gods thing, the argument is similar to how you need one leader, you can't have a whole bunch for an ordered society or whatever. Maybe the Muslim didn't put it very well. It's throughout the Qur'an, how if God is all-powerful and stuff, why worship other gods, blah blah blah.