I want to write an essay about who Allah is.
One thing I want to talk about is his personality traits, for example, he gets angry, he likes vengeance, stuff like that.
And I want to explain that since it's possible for humans to fix their anger, then that means that a (almost) perfect human would not get angry. And my point is that Allah is claimed to be perfect, which is a contradiction because perfection implies having no flaws, and getting angry is a fucking flaw.
Anger is flaw. Wanting vengeance is a flaw.
To start of discussion, I've quoted a fb discussion I had last year about this (although we were talking about the christian god).
"The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the Earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." Psalm 103:8-12
Why would God have emotions like anger? God is supposed to be omniscient, which implies perfect knowledge, e.g. knowledge of how not to get angry. Anger is counter-productive. It causes one to think less rationally. Therefore getting angry is stupid -- getting angry is immoral.
http://ramirustom.blogspot.com/2012/10/abuse-and-anger.htmlAnger is a justified response at times. Anger motivates rational people to stand up against coercive force applied unjustly, for example. Anger uncontrolled may be immoral, but the emotion of anger is not immoral any more than any emotion is immoral. Actions can be immoral, but emotions cannot, in my reckoning. The passage is about how despite the fact that people have done wicked things (like the common ancient practice of burning one's own children alive in order to appease evil "gods", and also as a form of population control during times of famine or material stress), which justly aroused anger in a just God, God did not harbor anger forever, because his love for mankind was greater than those evils. It is pointing out that although he was justly angered by wickedness, it is not his wish to punish us, but to help us emerge from those practices. Happily, the practice of ritual human sacrifice is also now nearly completely eradicated from the whole world too, so kudos to this God who abhors it and helped eradicate it.
But anger causes one to think less rationally, which implies that getting angry causes one to decrease his chances of solving the problem (that the person was angry over). So getting angry is counter-productive. So it only has a down side -- no upsides. But you've said that there is an upside, which is that "anger motivates rational people to stand up against coercive force applied unjustly", but that is nonsense since one can be motivated to stand up against coercion without anger, e.g. because of one's values. For example, if a kid hits his sibling, the parent, instead of getting angry, should do the following:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/taking-children-seriously/EvHLlhZQBOE/ZQ6m2mN7HeoJI do not think rational choices need to be divorced of emotion. I still maintain anger can motivate people toward good actions. Anger need not make one less rational. It can draw one's attention to details that one might otherwise miss. Emotions can be harnessed for rational purposes. Emotions evolved along with our capacity for pure reason, and embody very useful theories in fact, just like vision, and all other aspects of the human mind.
If, in a specific situation, anger didn't cause one to think less rationally, then anger, at best, is superfluous, since one's motivation toward good action was already based on his values, e.g. that coercion is immoral and that a parent is responsible for the protection of his children against coercion. But in another type of situation where anger did cause one to think less rationally, then anger was counter-productive and caused one to fail to solve a problem. So, at best, anger is superfluous, and at worst, its counter-productive -- i.e. no upsides, only downsides. But more importantly, how can one know beforehand that his bout of anger will not lead to thinking less rationally? He can't know this, which means that he runs the risk each time of failing to solve a problem. So, the best option, the moral choice, is to solve the problem of getting angry, i.e. to change one's emotional habit of anger.
You mentioned another possible upside which is that "[Anger] can draw one's attention to details that one might otherwise miss". I don't understand this. How is this possible? If the person interpreted that something bad happened, and he didn't experience anger, he still interpreted that something bad happened, which is sufficient knowledge to act on. Your idea implies that the emotion caused the interpretation, but that is false -- the interpretation happens first, then its possible for an emotion to occur.
Thoughts?
Topic: Who is Allah?