Question for the Non-Muslims

[Mr Spinkles]

very good, i'm happy to see our progress in this discussion. I'm more convinced than ever that there is a miscommunication and misunderstanding problem between us, Muslims, and others. We have our own *stuff* to do but it might be misunderstood by non-Muslims who don't have enough information about Islam and Muslims.

There is no *thought crime* in Islam. Muslims have enjoyed through centuries a very open and educated environment which tolerates differences. In the past, many scholars were speaking to each other through writings. They were challenging each other and even ridiculing each other sometimes. But today, in many Muslim countries, a systematic elimination of diversity in thoughts had been installed, and the fear of being different has caused many scholars to be extreme and use violence to prove their point of view, which wasn't happening in the past.

Believe me, i did an extensive research about Muslims in the past, and i reache to the result that as a whole, it was a very open society that it entertained at times, even the decleartion of atheism amongst some thinkers. Note that, at that time, Christians were behading anyone who disagree with the church. At that time, you can hardly hear of an open society which entrtain thinking freely and tolerate diversity. At times, there was an intolerance of diversity, but it was an ignorance in the past of the Caliph, not the religion they hold itself.

Oh I totally understand that the Islamic world was at various periods in history the bastion of free thinking and science and open debate, etc. But the topic of this thread is the Islamic concept of hell, not Islam generally. eselam posted a link that says in its opening:

"Fear the fire, which is prepared for the disbelievers."
[Ali'-Imran, 3: 131]
"Truly Hell is lying in wait- a destination for the transgressors."
[an-Naba, 78: 21-22]
(One’s rejection of faith is transgression against Allah and himself).
​

How is this not thought-crime? This is the very definition of thought-crime.

I said that this idea of hell is just the religious version of thought-crime and it constrains free thought. Don't you agree that a person is *more* liberated to think about a question, if that person is not threatened with punishment for arriving at the wrong conclusions?

Now, getting back to the law. This law came from someone perfect, God, we assume, and everyone would abide by this law, and there is no restriction at all when it comes to thinking freely because God is the same one who created this mind for us, who told us in the Quran to think.

Just a comment: of course God supposedly created us to think. We exist, and we think, so if a culture is going to develop a god it would never develop a god that created us all the same with no ability to think. No culture developed such a god, not the Aztecs or Egyptians or Greeks, why? Because no culture would develop a mythology that contradicts obvious facts about the world. (This is like the question of the puddle and its shape: did the ground form itself to accomodate the water or did the water adapt its shape to the ground?) The question is how do you develop a god that is consistent with the fact that we think, but which also discourages this annoying tendency? The awkward solution developed by monotheism is the "test of faith", and here are its consequences (according to eselam's link):

“Those who have disbelieved and died while they are disbelievers will have the curse of Allah upon them and the [curse of the ] angels and all of mankind. [they will abide] eternally therein. The punishment will not be lightened for them, nor will the punishment be postponed.”
[Sahih al-Baqarah, 2: 161-162]​

In other words, you are "free" to think. Just don't arrive at the wrong conclusions, or you will be punished. This is a curious form of "freedom", to be sure. You may as well point an M16 rifle at a writer's head and tell him he is "free" to say whatever he wants about your mother.

Regarding the posters who talk about guarding their faith. Even me pray like that but it's not as it looks. I don't know how to explain it. These types of prayers were performed by Prophet Mohammed himself and he encouraged us to do it. That doesn't mean we are afraid that others might persuade us or something, but it's something between us and God, something .... i don't know, i think this need its own thread if you are interested. Ok, let me try. Through these prayers, we show our need for God, because some of our sins might drive us away from the truth, so we always ask God to forgive us, and guard our faith in him, not from others, but from ourselves, the mistakes we do, the sins we do. I hope you got what i'm tyring to say here. I was born as a Muslim, and i'm not a scholar, just a regular Muslim man, so i might not be able to fully translate what i feel and think about Islam to you in words and expressions which are easy to grasp by a non-Muslim, but i'm trying my best.

I see what you're saying Tashan but at the end of the day, this is different from other fields of knowledge or inquiry. For example, when I go to a physics seminar there is no ritual where we all re-affirm our belief in various theories of physics. If a theory is good the facts should speak for themselves, just talk about the evidence and the facts, there is no need for reassurances and affirmations and oaths of loyalty and faith. There is no notion that there is a moral component to one's beliefs about thermodynamics or astrophysics. There is no hell where you will be sent if you don't believe in string theory. It is simply a matter of collecting the best observations, facts and data, and applying reason and judgment to our best ability, and having debate. At worst, people with unorthodox views are ignored.

You can't deny that physics would be more constrained and less free if we introduced those ideas. And people would question and think about religion more freely if they could overcome the idea of hell, etc.

You picked one thing, and forgot about everything else. Sending them to hell desn't conflict with him being the "Most Merciful" because you still don't know ALL what God does to be called so. When you compare between his mercy and his punishment, at the end you would be able to conclude why would he deserve to be called the "Most Merciful".

Okay but suppose we consider everything God does. And now, keeping everything else the same, we change one thing: disbelievers don't go to hell for eternity. Is this more or less merciful?

I don't want to say anything about Christianity, but all what i can say is that Christianity is different than Islam.

Certainly, my point is that I understand the feeling of certainty, that you can't explain, that comes with faith in God. You said: He is the Creator of this entire universe. If you really started to think of him as the Creator of the entire universe and of all these great things we have in life, oh, if you really know who is God, you would start thinking how tiny and how selfish, and how ungrateful we are. I had these exact same thoughts.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Why is Hell-Fire and Islamic concept?

I ask because the Muslim's cousin, the Jews, don't advocate hell or hell-fire..to my knowledge.

Where did this come from?

Some information out there suggest the concept of (Hell or Hell-Fire) is a pagan concept that has been shown to have existed in pagan practices yet it wasn't something that was known to Jews.

What Jews Believe
"[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]IN SHORT...For Jews, anything that even remotely conflicts with the idea that God is One and Indivisible will be rejected because it precludes true, pure, monotheism. The idea that there is a God in heaven above who fights against a god of the underworld, or hell, is not monotheism, however, it is the same duality found in other pagan faiths. The Bible speaks of a character known as The Satan, who acts like a prosecuting attorney, or a district attorney, in God's court. However, The Satan has no power or authority in and of himself, rather he must get permission from the Judge, God, to do anything. "[/FONT]

Is Islam getting it's concept of (Hell, Hell-Fire) from pagans (i.e. Hellenistic Jews/Christians)?

 

[Metempsychosis]

Why is Hell-Fire and Islamic concept?

I ask because the Muslim's cousin, the Jews, don't advocate hell or hell-fire..to my knowledge.

Yes ,I think they have heaven/hell.But the punishments are not so vividly presented as Islam/Christianity.Judaism has no fixed concept of afterlife.They concentrate on the present life.The mystic schools have reincarnation tough,as far I know.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

The concept of heaven and hell, and the battle between the two, and the idea of a Day of Judgment first crystallized in Zoroastrianism and later Christianity, if I remember my undergraduate history course correctly. Manichaeism took it further. Zoroastrianism and Judaism and Manichaeism and Christianity, as well as other pagan religions, were all present in the Arabian region by the time Islam became dominant.

Remember in the whole region of Arabia and Mesopotamia and Persia, there was a lot of long-distance trade. Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion of the Sassanid empire, I believe, and they had big temples and plenty of priests and a sophisticated theology. But at any rate traders exchanged stories and ideas along the silk roads and sea routes, the modern religions we have today are a lot like modern biological species, they branched off of one another but it is easy to forget this because the "transitional forms" went extinct long ago.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Let me just briefly add to the comment I made in post #381, where I distinguished between the prayer and ritual of religion vs. the evidence and reason alone that is used on truly free fields, such as physics.

In Islam and most forms of monotheism today, prayer and ritual and repetition is very important. These rituals have many causes and consequences, to be sure. I am going to argue that ONE of the consequences of religious ritual is to put believers in a state of mind, using psychology, where they are more likely to accept the religion and less likely to doubt it. In other words, the ritual has the effect of making the person biased. Not brainwashed; just a little bit biased, just DIFFERENT from what the outcome would be if the person did not participate in the rituals and merely examined the evidence and listened to a wide variety of viewpoints.

How could I prove my claim? Well, one way would be to do an experiment. We could take a group of people, and have them perform the rituals of one religion. We could take a second group, and have them participate in a different religion. We could then ask all of these people to examine the question of religion and see if their answers tend to be biased to the religion they are participating in. If people were truly objective, we would expect the same proportions to come to the same conclusions in each group, irrespective of which religion they had been practicing. If people are not truly objective, we expect to see a strong statistical correlation between the conclusion a person arrives at, and the religion they were practicing.

But history has already carried out this experiment. We already know the results. In fact, we know from psychological experiments that even something very minor, like which story did you hear first and which did you hear second, causes us to be biased. So if something minor like that can affect our judgment, without us even realizing it, of COURSE turning off the lights and lighting candles and singing the chorus over and over, "God is great" or something like that is going to bias our judgment. (The awkward explanation for why this psychological biasing must be done is that God needs to be "worshipped". Like the tyrannical pharoah or Caesar or emperor, He requires constant praise. If a human did that it would be egotistical, but God isn't egotistical....just mysterious....)

This is why if physicists held hands or bowed and prostrated while repeating "Einstein was right .... Einstein was right ... Einstein was right ...." we would instantly recognize that they are not doing science. We would instantly recognize that their ability to be objective is being limited. They cannot be fully objective if they are performing such rituals.

That is why when I was Christian I decided to stop going to church and stop praying, and stop singing and chanting with the group, at least temporarily. If Christianity was true, I decided it should be supported by the evidence even when I am not being psychologically biased to accept it.

 

[k123]

If man rejects paradise and hell and rejects god, then why cant man do anything when the soul reaches the throat? stop the soul and live forever? but nay, allah( the creator of all that exists) has kindly told us that every man has their appointed time. Simple as that and no argument!. then those who reject faith must be scared to die, should they not be? Lets take a gamble. Fine assume that there is no god or no heavan/hell and the religious man dies, surely he has nothing to be ashamed of or regret. But assuming that there is a god and heavan/hell and a non religous man dies and its too late to go back! how and what would you feel/think?. blame it on your ancestors or yourself? take your pick.

 

[Autodidact]

If man rejects paradise and hell and rejects god, then why cant man do anything when the soul reaches the throat? stop the soul and live forever? but nay, allah( the creator of all that exists) has kindly told us that every man has their appointed time. Simple as that and no argument!. then those who reject faith must be scared to die, should they not be? Lets take a gamble. Fine assume that there is no god or no heavan/hell and the religious man dies, surely he has nothing to be ashamed of or regret. But assuming that there is a god and heavan/hell and a non religous man dies and its too late to go back! how and what would you feel/think?. blame it on your ancestors or yourself? take your pick.

Fine assume that Jesus is not God and the Christian man dies, surely he has nothing to be ashamed of or regret. But assuming that Jesus is god and heavan/hell and a non christian man dies and its too late to go back! how and what would you feel/think?. blame it on your ancestors or yourself? take your pick.

What do you pick, k123. Or now do you see the flaw in your argument?

 

[Storm]

OK, I'll probably regret wading back in, but here goes.

I wouldn't.

That's not good enough. Was the OP taken out of context?

 

[Storm]

If man rejects paradise and hell and rejects god, then why cant man do anything when the soul reaches the throat? stop the soul and live forever? but nay, allah( the creator of all that exists) has kindly told us that every man has their appointed time. Simple as that and no argument!. then those who reject faith must be scared to die, should they not be? Lets take a gamble. Fine assume that there is no god or no heavan/hell and the religious man dies, surely he has nothing to be ashamed of or regret. But assuming that there is a god and heavan/hell and a non religous man dies and its too late to go back! how and what would you feel/think?. blame it on your ancestors or yourself? take your pick.

You cannot reject that which you believe to be false.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

If man rejects paradise and hell and rejects god, then why cant man do anything when the soul reaches the throat? stop the soul and live forever? but nay, allah( the creator of all that exists) has kindly told us that every man has their appointed time. Simple as that and no argument!. then those who reject faith must be scared to die, should they not be? Lets take a gamble. Fine assume that there is no god or no heavan/hell and the religious man dies, surely he has nothing to be ashamed of or regret. But assuming that there is a god and heavan/hell and a non religous man dies and its too late to go back! how and what would you feel/think?. blame it on your ancestors or yourself? take your pick.

k123 do you agree there is a difference between "rejecting" and "not believing" something? For example, if I do not believe there is a million dollars under my mattress, is that the exact same thing as "rejecting" a million dollars?

 

[TashaN]

OK, I'll probably regret wading back in, but here goes.

That's not good enough. Was the OP taken out of context?

You said:

Any God who would torture ANYONE for guessing wrong is a monster. Any being who leads through fear rather than example is a tyrant.

Why would you WANT to worship such a creature?

I don't worship the god you have described above.

Anything regarding the OP? I don't know what you mean.

 

[Storm]

I don't worship the god you have described above.

So, you don't believe in eternal damnation, then?

Anything regarding the OP? I don't know what you mean.

The OP was a link to sadistic glee about the tortures I'm going to face, and the rather stupid question of why I would object to being tortured.

I have little hope for productive conversation there.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

The OP was a link to sadistic glee about the tortures I'm going to face, and the rather stupid question of why I would object to be tortured.

"Sadistic glee" describes it perfectly.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

The concept of heaven and hell, and the battle between the two, and the idea of a Day of Judgment first crystallized in Zoroastrianism and later Christianity, if I remember my undergraduate history course correctly. Manichaeism took it further. Zoroastrianism and Judaism and Manichaeism and Christianity, as well as other pagan religions, were all present in the Arabian region by the time Islam became dominant.

Remember in the whole region of Arabia and Mesopotamia and Persia, there was a lot of long-distance trade. Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion of the Sassanid empire, I believe, and they had big temples and plenty of priests and a sophisticated theology. But at any rate traders exchanged stories and ideas along the silk roads and sea routes, the modern religions we have today are a lot like modern biological species, they branched off of one another but it is easy to forget this because the "transitional forms" went extinct long ago.

I agree. We also can't forget that before Islam became the dominant religion there was a lot of pagan religious practices being observed. Islam, like Christianity, could have adopted some of these pagan practices. The concept of Hell-Fire could have been present in any number of the pagan religions present.....

 

[Dirty Penguin]

If man rejects paradise and hell and rejects god, then why cant man do anything when the soul reaches the throat? stop the soul and live forever? but nay, allah( the creator of all that exists) has kindly told us that every man has their appointed time. Simple as that and no argument!. then those who reject faith must be scared to die, should they not be? Lets take a gamble. Fine assume that there is no god or no heavan/hell and the religious man dies, surely he has nothing to be ashamed of or regret. But assuming that there is a god and heavan/hell and a non religous man dies and its too late to go back! how and what would you feel/think?. blame it on your ancestors or yourself? take your pick.

I don't buy into scare tactics.....

 

[Autodidact]

You said:



I don't worship the god you have described above.

Anything regarding the OP? I don't know what you mean.

So you don't agree that Allah sends non-believers to Hell?

 

[TashaN]

So, you don't believe in eternal damnation, then?

That's not what you said in your previous post.

The OP was a link to sadistic glee about the tortures I'm going to face, and the rather stupid question of why I would object to being tortured.

I have little hope for productive conversation there.

I didn't even have a look at the link in the OP. I just saw some interesting posts and i wanted to have a good discussion, that's all.

 

[Storm]

That's not what you said in your previous post.

Look, do you or don't you?

Because if you do, I stand by my assessment, and "I don't" does not constitute a rebuttal.

 

[TashaN]

I agree. We also can't forget that before Islam became the dominant religion there was a lot of pagan religious practices being observed. Islam, like Christianity, could have adopted some of these pagan practices. The concept of Hell-Fire could have been present in any number of the pagan religions present.....

How about before that? Don't forget that Muslims believe that ALL the previous revelations by God are valid, which means that this concept came with Adam.

So you don't agree that Allah sends non-believers to Hell?

I do believe that he does, as stated in the Quran.

 

[McBell]

I don't think so. If God was in front of you, you wouldn't doubt his existance.

Really?
So if God stood in front of you and said that Islam is a false religion and that by being a Muslim you will spend eternity in hell, you would stop being a Muslim?