Every quite often i run into debates with Muslims (usually Indian muslims) on FB or Twitter which are about discussing the nature of God / Allah. I run into the same arguments over and over again, and i in return endlessly argue against the same things over and over again. This is a compilation of all the arguments i usually hear about the nature of Allah, and my arguments for a more liberal and unconditionally loving view of the creator. Whether there is a creator or no is beyond the scope of this series of post, and the audience here is not atheists but rather devout Muslims (and even Catholics).
I must confirm that some ideas and questions presented here might sound not worthy of a thinking adult to be delving into; but you must understand that every so often i come across Computer Scientists, Doctors, Life Coaches — Muslims (and often Catholics too) — who defend these very ideas, as word of God and are willing to live and die by these.
A judging Allah
Islam is full of instructions on how to live, what to eat, how to cut animals, how to live with your wife, when or when not to have sex [1], how to dress, how to punish people who’ve stolen or engaged in adultery, how to deal with Kaffirs (non-believers), and on and on.
Then the Quran goes onto instill fear in the hearts and minds of people who are not followers of Islam. It says if they die as a non-Muslim, which essentially means that they do not believe “There is no true god but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger (Prophet) of God”, then they will be sent into hell permanently forever thereafter. Ofcourse if they do believe this, then they will be sent to Paradise [2]. Forever ofcourse. With variation, this is true of other Abrahamic faiths as well.
And there are billions of people, around the world who constantly live in this fear of being punished after death.
Why would the creator of this mighty infinite Universe act so small and burn people in hell for transgressions they made during their lives on earth?
Why send messengers in different parts of the world, in different cultures, who disagree with Allah’s message in the Quran (even to date), and then punish the people who listened to those messengers in the first place?
To make matters worse, atleast 78% of the people on earth [3] do not believe in the messages of this version of the creator (Allah, and his Quran) — is the creator so incompetent as to not have an ability to send his instructions to all the human beings alive?
Why stop sending messengers — just go on sending them to remind people of the instructions?
Would it actually not be simpler to send a instruction manual or inscribe the instruction manual in people’s minds or tattoo them on children’s bodies as they appear out of their mother’s womb?
Why give people free-will and a fantastic inquisitive and curious human mind which questions everything and makes it own choices? And how sadistic is it for this Allah to be punishing people for choices they made out of their free-will, when free-will was given in the first place! What sort of free-will is free-will where if you make a choice other than the instructions in the Quran, then you are doomed into hell forever?
This will be a series of articles.
References
- Days and Times for Sex http://www.al-islam.org/islamic-marriage-syed-athar-husain-sh-rizvi/days-and-times-sex
- What Does Islam Say about the Day of Judgment? And in context of muslims and non-muslims http://www.islam-guide.com/ch3-5.htm
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations
