Sweetnecta:

God can't create all of these and us human in [it] without a purpose. Hence, God says in the Wise Book full of Guidance [Quran]; And I did not create jinn and man other than they worship Me. I do not ask of them food or anything else.

vescucci:

This is touchy ground like Deepsight surmised o. Because the Christian idea of salvation is exactly like letting a serial killer go free under the guise of mercy (due to repentance). I'm not disagreeing with this per se. It's precisely the reason why I don't believe in classical hell. It's just unfair. Nothing one can do can deserve that punishment. What I think though, does not in any way affect what truth and reality is because no one can ever really know. We all say what we think and believe is consistent with the nature of God one is comfortable with. For all I know, God may really be a trinity and everything I find hard to believe may be true.

Dulcet7:

Yes, Jessy. This is exactly what I am saying. Religion is the surface of an object, and this object in itself is a way that binds us back to God. This is just the way you also put it, succinctly: Religion is a way to find the way to reconnect to God.

Dulcet7:

Hello Vescucci

I believe that is not so. God's truth is all around us and inside our hearts if we do not deceive ourselves, even though our understandings of natures might differ.

God has succinctly made himself known to us already, but some of us need constant reminders in the form of tangible human interactions.

@Sweetnecta. I think you miss his point. Let me ask it in my own way.

How has your practice of Islam made you a better person? How does it make your fellow practitioners better people? All I've ever heard from you is all sorts of twisted arguments about why your religion is superior to others, but please can you point me to any practical tangible benefits of practicing your religion that I can observe in the real world.

now, to actually ask if islam has made my life better, is even worse than asking a man who practices decency if he is decent. you have eyes. you see him avoiding all obvious societal pitfalls, and trappings.

if benodic thinks that God's love is unconditional, why is the hellfire created? How many a people has God destroyed, for loving them unconditionally, i ask you? How about the people drowned in the flood of Noah? how about the people of sodom and Gomorrah? How about the people of Egypt?

while many concort their own false hope of idealism, the reality is quite different. Anyone who violates God's Commandments and dies without offering repentance,  can such a person expect forgiveness from God? what state is he in when he is being punished in hellfire; unconditional love from God? may God protect us from such an end. Amin. that is truly a bad state of affair.

Anyone who believes that he can love unconditionally should imagine a worse case scenario, where somebody is violating him or his loved one. can he love unconditionally, all the time including that very moment when his emotion is raw from the experience? all rational people will hate the perpetrator. the opposite of unconditional love is a momentary hatred of what is hateful [what should be hated]. A person who cant hate cant love and justice and fairness and love are abilities he lacks. Paradise is the opposite of Hellfire. Love is the opposite of Hate. Tall is the opposite of Short. Large is the opposite of Little. Big is the opposite of Small. Day is the opposite of Night. Light is the opposite of Dark. Which one do you disagree with? Unconditional love is unrealistic. It is a hopeless thought. An idea that never exist, since God Him does not practice it. After all He is the best that can give love. He hates at least satan. No?

also remember the story of the good samaritan in the christian bible. a man was beaten up by thieves and left for dead. a pharisee and a levi passed by and did not bother themselves about the man but a samaritan passed by and stopped and took the man to a place where he received treatment. he did this without any expectation of reward and without knowing the man. this is another example of unconditional love. i do not want to bore you with examples from my own life as of course you do not believe that unconditional love exist.

this is not uncommon in real life. it does not pass for any viable example of unconditional love. he played a normal human humane nature, whereas the others showed their human i am mining my on business attitude. if what you post above is what is great love in your book, a ton of it is done daily by muslims and non muslims alike. unconditional love, is similar to unconditional forgiveness; you love when people expect you to hate or avenge or revenge. you overlook and do not punish when you are in position to do so as just measure.

Dulcet7:

God's truth is all around us and inside our hearts if we do not deceive ourselves, even though our understandings of natures might differ.

God has succinctly made himself known to us already, but some of us need constant reminders in the form of tangible human interactions.

Dulcet7:
He was on a visit to Jerusalem and he struck up a conversation with an elderly man in the Muslim Quarter. This shopkeeper seemed keen to sell him jewelry. Moreso, since the shopkeeper was a Sufi mystic, he seemed even keener to engage him in matters of the spirit.

He told him that religions are human inventions, so we must avoid the temptation of, for instance, worshipping Islam rather than Allah. He said what matters is opening yourself up to the mystery that goes by the word God, and that can be done in any religion.

As he tempted him with more turquoise and silver, he asked what the man was doing in Jerusalem. When he said he was researching in order to write on the world’s religions, the shopkeeper put down the jewelry, looked at him intently, and, placing a finger on his chest for emphasis, said, "Do not write false things about the religions."

Mystics often claim that the great religions differ only in the inessentials. They may be different paths but they are ascending the same mountain and they converge at the peak. Examples abound, and I will name three:
[list]
[li]the Daoist sage Laozi, who wrote his classic the Daodejing just before disappearing forever into the mountains;[/li]
[li]the Sufi poet Rumi, who instructs us to "gamble everything for love";[/li]
[li]and the Christian mystic Julian of Norwich, who revels in the so-called feminine aspects of God.[/li]
[/list]

But the focus on this thread will not be on these so-called spiritual superstars.

It is on ordinary religious folk like us — the stories we tell, the doctrines we affirm, and the rituals we practice. And these stories, doctrines, and rituals are so entirely different. Christians do not go on the hajj to Mecca; Jews do not affirm the doctrine of the Trinity; and neither Buddhists nor Hindus trouble themselves about sin or salvation.

So here is the question: What do you think about the Mystics' (and Shopkeeper's) assertion? Is religion truly various surfaces of the same object?

LordReed:


I see religions as people guessing at what is in a room no one knows what is inside. There could be treasure, poop or nothing, no one knows but the religions take a firm stand anyway on what they claim is in there.

Image123:


Really? While you may not know, millions of people know what God has done for them, in them, for their families, health and life. And they trust Him for the eternity part.