Skavau said:
Well, yes. It could. However, a good person who dies without knowledge of the God and therefore suffers eternal torment shows a very different image of God. You must know how it comes across to an observer.
People that die before the message has reached them are not held accountable.
Denial after the message has been received is worthy of punishment, however. Allah has said he is Most Just. He wouldn't punish without reason. Therefore, the implication is that the signs of Allah and the signs of Islam's truth must be so manifest, that there is no sound basis for us to reject them.
Regardless of if you hold otherwise (i.e. 'if they were so clear all would be muslim'), this is our position. We are told the the truth stands clear from falsehood and we hold tight to that.
As to why people reject faith after receiving the message - some reasons might include looking at the religion with insincerity, deliberate arrogance in rejecting, desire to stick to what their forefather's believed without paying attention to the apparent signs. Even being led astray by shaytan himself. God knows best what an individual's reasons for rejection are.
That was not his question. Pygoscelis asked why the creator has such a vested interest in our capacity to worship and acknowledge him. You cannot very well answer and say it is because our eternity is on the line because it is not a necessary symptom in this case. God, allegedly being interested in our perspective of him created or allowed heaven and hell to exist after deciding he would get involved.
So the logical question is why is God so interested in whether or not we obey him or not so much so that he invokes an afterlife based on our success or not?
We can never answer such a question why, as it beyond our realm. Only Allah can tell us things about why he does things.
Even more importantly, this question is flawed insofar as the attempt is to come back and say 'God doesn't make sense, hence he does not exist', or 'Even if he exists, it doesnt matter'. This is because we can only ever know that he has an interest in whether we obey him or not through revelation and the veracity of revelation is established by establishing or negating its being from God, not by showing the irrationality of something within it, which can otheriwse be interpreted in a rational way.
What a horrendous parody parenthood and pathetic justification of atrocity. What parents do you know that threaten their children with torment for not obeying commands? What parents do you know that demand unquestionable obedience and persistent recognition of their neverending authority for the duration of your childhood, or even (keeping with the 'God' comparison) your entire life? God represents the father that is never going to leave. Never going to stop watching, judging and making demands of you in life. Is that how you want to represent parenthood?
Think for a moment - you wouldn't exist if he didn't create you. Yet, you find it unfair to follow his orders. I would consider that ungrateful.
Parents will spank their kids and set them straight if they make a mistake. If a child makes a serious mistake (let's say he kills his own grandmother for no reason), they will want nothing to do with him and will see him worthy of all kinds of punishment.
Yet at the same time, if the child was genuinely sorrowful and wanted to set things straight, a caring and merciful parent would forgive him. Likewise with God, we know he is All Merciful and would never hesitate to forgive if the intention is sincere.
But that would be an automation, wouldn't it. If God is interested in being recognised, and so virulently then it could not be satisfied through programming us into submission. It could only be determined by him attempting to convince others to observe him. At any rate, why is it then that failure to believe and worship God commands such a tortorous and malevolent punishment?
What we should be concerned with is whether God exists and if so, what has he informed us in terms of the realities of the world, upon the basis of which we must act. Why or why not is superflous here in most of this discussion, unless we are interested in philosophing for the fun of it.
The question of 'if God exists' is rationally to be anwered as an independent question, as opposed to one attached to considerations of morality, good or evil, suffering that exists, or even presumed attributes he has. If we establish that he exists, then we can begin to speak of these things but not in a way that we end up back at the question of whether he exists.
To give an example, take the verse about cutting the hand of the thief. Consider the following two approaches:
1. Its barabric, therefore it can't be from God, therefore this revelation is not from God.
2. It's from God, therefore necessarily its right.
The second appraoch is the correct one because it moves in order of establishing realities and then moving on to discuss their implications. The first does the opposite, over and above making moral judgements without acknowledging the subjective nature of such judgements.
Indeed, I suggest you keep this in mind as it is as true to me as it is to others. I do not believe in a God not because of some spiteful disobedience, or as some arrogant belief that I do not need to - but simply do not believe in a deity entirely because I am not convinced. I simply do not believe it likely that a divine being exists. I do go so far as to state that I actually cannot believe in a God until specific evidence or logical argument has been presented sufficiently. Are you to say that my sincerity born from my free-will that God decreed I should have would be my downfall? It would be my confession towards my punishment? How can you defend the concept of someone that would punish people entirely for getting their information wrong?
The message has been sent for all of mankind and the average Joe on the street isn't a philosophicaly minded one that would be able to comprehend powerful logical arguments. Hence, the implication is that the proofs of the existence of God must be clear to people from all walks of life, past and present as it would be unfair otherwise.
So there must be a more basic proof. Simply even making dua (supplicating/asking him to help you even without believing in Islam) will produce results so many times for you, that you will be left with no reason to doubt in God's existence yet the majority of people will still harbour doubt and go about their business, without contemplating further.
Everyone's conception of what is or is not moral happens to be subjective. Some people derive their moral understanding from Christianity (and all of its sects). Some people derive it from Islam. Others derive it from Sikhism, Hinduism, Baha'i, Scientology, Shinto, Taoism, Zoroastarianism, Paganism, Confucanism, Buddhism and the list goes on.
Merely claiming to hold a viewpoint that is allegedly 'objective' does not mean anything pragmatically.
This, of course is what you believe. I should ask you what precisely this means here as far as you are concerned as with the greatest respect, it comes across as rhetoric to me.
There is only one truth. All religions cannot be true at the same time. I don't speak on behalf of other religions.
If I accept the Islamic message, 'morality' is obedience to God. The problem that you have against this position is that you believe this means that the rules of obedience are contrary to the concern of humanity. But why would God will something that is bad for humanity? You seem to think the rules God has chosen are whimsical and arbitrary. Yet this give negative connotations only because with respect to humans they are negative, but to extend the same to God is to draw analogy between the nature of humans and the nature of God, which is completely wrong. Humans have very limited knowledge and are subject to bias and preference, hence their being arbitrary and whimsical is problematic but God has perfect knowledge - All Wise/All Knowing - so there is no analogy.
Pygoscelis said:
Ok, then what about Ghandi in hell? Can you not see the rather massive disconnect here with the moral person going to hell and the immoral going to heaven?
Only obedience to God will get a person into heaven. Ghandi chose not to believe in Allah nor did he follow his religion, hence the punishment is justified.
Him being moral (as humans may understand it) has no bearing on his final resting place and like I said to Skavau, this
apparent unfairness shouldn't be taken as proof to show God couldn't possibly have said this and by extension, God doesn't exist. Rather, you have to prove God doesn't exist and the message of Islam is false, first.
In any case, we can't equate our flawed knowledge and profess to know what is good and the correct behaviour against the divine wisdom of God.
And what if Ghandi went to hell and THEN sincerely repented (now seeing which religious beliefs were correct). Its too late then under the abrahamic religions, right? So what happened to this mercy mentioned? Hitler can make good after doing all he did, but Ghandi can't because of bad timing?
Yes. Our time on Earth is the exam. You can't go to an examiner and tell him that you made mistakes and want the necessary grades after seeing all the answers in front of you.
Again, the presumed unfairness of it stems from the fact that you think the proofs of the veracity of Islam are not clear and hence our flimsy (human) understanding of morality, ethics and proper behaviour are judged to be superior.
To a certain extent, sure. But this is no different with theists. Theists have just codified the moral values into holy texts and attributed them to Gods, and then added a whole bunch more that benefits the leaders and controls the believers.
Theists and atheists also both have their own inate moral compass' (with a few sociopathic exceptions) independent of society and religion. Some hardcore religious folks just may have burried it so far under religious dogma that they no longer see its there. They are not sociopaths.
Theists have not attributed morals to God. They
came from God. False assumption. The innate moral compass you talk of is considered fitrah in Islam.
Nothing you mentioned involves self monitoring. These people living under these rules you mention will often break these rules when nobody is watching them. Religion has the added benefit of making you think you are ALWAYS being watched. God always sees you. God always knows what you do. And not only that, he knows what you THINK. It is the ultimate form of monitoring and control.
Fair enough. I don't, however, see a problem with an All Powerful being knowing what I do and think at all moments. All that he has told us to avoid is for our own benefit.
Don't: lie, cheat, lust after the opposite sex, backbite, have jealous thoughts, be vain, harbour hatred for people, be prideful. Given that Islam is true, if we had no concept that there is a being keeping check on our intentions at all times, then a majority of people would be more open to committing the above mentioned sins over and over. Yes, the love of God ought to keep us away from sin, yet many times people need fear of being watched in order to keep them in check.
We are to have a balance of fear AND hope, so think about it from another perspective too, namely that since God is omnipresent, we always have the door open that allows us communicate with him and ask for his help and mercy.
If somebody's sense of morality boils down to "What god says is good, and what god doesn't want is evil", if its just obedience to God and nothing more, then they are prime pickings for a terrorist cell, cool aid cult, or televangelist scam.
That is rather simplistic reasoning and assumes religious people are dumb sheep that are easily misled.
What you say can apply to non-religious folk too. By and large, a person's interpretation of what is good and bad comes from his parents, family, friends, teachers, the people around him, the material he reads/views and the society on the whole that he lives in. What if all these sources are promoting something we would consider 'evil' - Nazism, perhaps?
So, it is not right to assume religious people are the only ones that can be prime picking for being duped into doing wrong.
