Some very troubling questions

[Robert]

I've posted here before, and thought I'd come back here just to ask a few more things. Perhaps it will help me to find the truth in life.

There is something that always troubles me with religion. It all feels very sinister and cruel to me. The fact that, you either serve God or are punished with eternal torture. Why would God want to restrict our freedom so much? Why would he be so offended by those who don't want to follow him? Surely it does no harm to him, because he is all powerful and has no reason to be bothered by such insignificant things. This is the one thing that keeps me from ever going back to religion. I feel that I can never, ever declare myself a follower of a God that is so violent and unforgiving, that sends his own children to hell simply because they might have made a mistake in life. Isn't religion supposed to be about peace, happiness, and brotherhood? Then I honestly don't understand why there is such hatred and intolerance for "non-believers".

[Abu-Abdullah]

Hi Robert,

i'd like you to consider the following my friend and see wether the such an action will be an evil act or not; and to what degree:

say a persons mother brigns them up, feeds them, cltohes them, nurtures them, basically sustains them with loving care all their life, and when this person grows up, he turns to another woman who is not his mother and in the presence of his own mother thanks the other woman instead for brining him up and being such a good mother to him? :omg:; wont his own mother be absolutely devestated?; wont she feel extremely hurt and betrayed?; she will think, I an the one who sustained him with loving care all his life, and he completey disavows me and gives thank for all of this to another woman instead? :raging:

now ofcourse God does not have such human feelings, but yet this human example goes to show the severity of such an ungrateful evil

thus Allah has clarified that to reject him and deny him, whil he is the creator, the sustainer; the one who feeds [Allah makes the food grow and gives us ability to earn food and eat etc,] us, the one who gives us our very air to breathe! ,etc ,etc, and the one to who'm we all shall return, and be Judged by, but yet when in the face of all of this, we deny him, we ourselves hae accepted to go to hell and as one of the attributes of sheer perfection, is justice, Go will only be Just to punish us forever as we denied him:


Would Allah put someone in the hellfire merely for worshipping in another religion besides Islam? This question is answered by traditional Islam according to two possibilities:


(1) There are some peoples who have not been reached by the message of the Prophet of Islam (Allah bless him and give him peace) that we must worship the One God alone, associating nothing else with Him. Such people are innocent, and will not be punished no matter what they do. Allah says in surat al-Isra',

"We do not punish until We send a Messenger" (Qur'an 17:15).

These include, for example, Christians and others who lived in the period after the spread of the myth of Jesus godhood, until the time of the prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace), who renewed the call to pure monotheism.


The great Muslim scholar, Imam Ghazali, includes in this category those who have only been reached with a distorted picture of the Messenger of Islam (Allah bless him and give him peace), presumably including many people in the West today who know nothing about Allah's religion but newspaper stories about Ayatollahs and mad Muslim bombers. Is it within such people's capacity to believe? In Ghazali's view, such people are excused until after they have had an opportunity to learn the undistorted truth about Islam (Ghazali: "Faysal al-tafriqa," Majmu'a rasa'il al-Imam al-Ghazali, 3.96). This of course does not alter our own obligation as Muslims to reach them with the da'wa.

(2) A second group of people consists of those who turn away from God's divine message of Islam, rejecting the command to make their worship God's alone; whether because of blindly imitating the religion of their ancestors, or for some other reason. These are people to whom God has sent a prophetic messenger and reached with His message, and to whom He has given hearing and an intellect with which to grasp it but after all this, persist in associating others with Allah, either by actually worshipping another, or by rejecting the laws brought by His messenger (Allah bless him and give him peace), which associates their own customs with His prerogative to be worshipped as He directs. Such people have violated God's rights, and have accepted to go to hell, which is precisely what His messengers have warned them of, so they have no excuse:

"Truly, Allah does not forgive that any be associated with Him; but He forgives what is less than that to whomever He wills" (Qur'an 4:48).

In either case, Allah's mercy exists, though for non-Muslims unreached by the message, it is a question of divine amnesty for their ignorance, not a confirmation of their religions validity.

[ref: article by Shaykh Nuh keller]

[abjad]

as brother in humanity

my simple advice; get religious books-say bible etc, join their forum and ask a question pointing to certain verse;
same same to Muslims(while am one of them =as their brother in Islam)get Kuran Kareem and do ask at referred verse; there i hope you might at least be able to bring that "Something that always troubles you with religion"

[Healing]

Surely it does no harm to him, because he is all powerful and has no reason to be bothered by such insignificant things.

don't you think you are close to answer yourself here? it's not for Him almighty it's for the human himself ! to follow God and to worship is to protect our souls and thoughts ! you know we are weak and there are many dangerous factors that could guide us to the wrong path... moreover to obey God includes many commands about our own life, manners, peace, happiness and brotherhood! we are punished if we don't follow them as well! it's for our own good. to follow God is to avoid many things that we may like but they are not good for us which we may not notice with our limited knowledge as human being therefore we need the wisdom of God.

that is so violent and unforgiving, that sends his own children to hell simply because they might have made a mistake in life.

no wonder you would think this way if you didn't know about the story of the man who killed 100 people yet was forgiven just before he died =) i advise you to read more about our religious law and the great mercy of Allah

salaam "peace"

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[selsebil]

Hello Robert,


O soul! O friend !
1. Worship is not the introduction to additional rewards, but the result of previous bounties. Yes, we have received our wage, and are accordingly charged with the duties of service and worship. Because, O soul!, since the All-Glorious Creator, Who clothed you in existence which is pure good, has given you a stomach and appetite, through His Name of Provider, He has placed before you all foods on a table of bounties. Then, since He has given you a life decked out with senses, life too requires sustenance like a stomach; all your senses like eyes and ears are like hands before which He has placed a table of bounties as broad as the earth. Then, because He has given you humanity, which requires many immaterial foods and bounties, He has laid out before that stomach of humanity, in so far as the hand of the mind can reach, an extensive table of bounties as broad as the worlds of both the inner and outer dimensions of things. Then, since He has given you belief, which require infinite bounties and are nourished through countless fruits of mercy and are supreme humanity, He has opened up before you a table of bounties, pleasure, and happiness which includes the sphere of contingency together with the sphere of His sacred Names and attributes. Then, through giving you love, which is a light of belief, He has bestowed on you an endless table of bounties, happiness, and pleasure. That is to say, with regard to your corporeality you are an insignificant, weak, impotent, lowly, restricted, limited particular, but through His favour, you have as though risen from being an insignificant particular to being a universal, luminous whole. For by giving you life, He has raised you from particularity to a sort of universality; and by giving you humanity, to true universality; and by bestowing belief on you, to an exalted, luminous universality; and by giving you knowledge and love of Him, He has elevated you to an all-encompassing light.

2. A person who, through incorrect choice and the lunacy of misguidance, is intoxicated with unbelief, imagines this hospice of the world, which belongs to the All-Wise Maker, to be the plaything of chance and natural forces. He fancies the passage of creatures into the World of the Unseen, that is in fact renewing the manifestation of the Divine Names, to be execution and annihilation. He supposes the echoes of those creatures’ glorification of God, who are accomplishing their duties with the passing of time, to be the lamentations of death and eternal separation. He deems the pages of created beings, which are inscriptions of the Eternally Besought One, to be meaningless and confused. He imagines the door of the grave, which opens onto the world of mercy, to be the entrance to the darkness of non-existence. And he deems the appointed hour, which is in reality an invitation to join his true friends, to be the onset of separation from all of them.
Such a person both brings upon himself grievous and ghastly torments, and denies, denigrates and insults all beings and God’s Names and His inscriptions. He is, therefore, not only unworthy of compassion and sympathy but also deserving of severe punishment. He is not in any way worthy of pity.


From: http://www.lightofquran.info/

[siam]

"Why would God want to restrict our freedom so much?"----maybe you have misunderstood?
If you consider, God created the universe and the stars and planets---they follow "God's laws" and completely submit to "his will" for they have no free-will of their own. The creations on our planet earth also have varying degrees of "free-will"---the creation on planet earth that has the most free-will is us humans. However, we do not have unconditional free-will. We cannot determine our birth, or death, or the various circumstances of our lives. ----our free-will is therefore limited to our choices concerning our intentions and actions. Because free-will comes with responsibility---the limitations are a blessing from a compassionate and merciful God. For we will be held accountable only for our own intentions and actions.

[siam]

"Why would he be so offended by those who don't want to follow him? "-----again you may have misunderrstood?

Paradise is a place where only good exists....hell is a place where no good exists. We determine which is our ultimate destination---because a Compassionate and Merciful God has allowed us the intelligence and the free-will, as well as guidance, to determine for ourselves, our own destination. Therefore, it is not so much God is offended, rather he is gravely dissapointed and saddened when we refuse paradise. Ultimately, we fail ourselves when we choose to ignore his Guidance and refuse to use our God-given intelligence, reason and free-will to comprehend his Compassion and Mercy to us.