Hello chaps!
i honestly dont know how to start this but i am told by a very good friend of mine that this board is full of perfectly pleasant people who are very understanding of people in my position and are more than happy to answer questions, give advice and generally help out with doubts etc. so i am for lack of a better term a potential convert. i was an atheist for many a year and have come round ti there being something responsible for creation and thus i would really desperately like to believe and become one of the devout as it were. but with that being said i don’t want to just go guns blazing into something as important as faith when i still have doubts/questions/reservations. so here i am with a small list of stuff that troubles me a little bit in my ongoing quest towards conversion. i won’t lie there are more things i would like to inquire about but i reckon just going through a small list at a time would be easier for me to wade my way through things as it were rather than a huge one. please note that i have no intention to offend or anything of the like, it’s just some stuff that i find troublesome that i sincerely hope to clear up a bit, so sorry if it isn’t all worded as perfectly as possible. a further apology for the format as i am on a phone.
first of all, to me some of the definitions of Allah seem a bit pick and choose to me. he is described as many things leaving aside the many many names he's given, my gripe comes more from apparent qualities he's described as having, namely kind, merciful, vengeful etc. now I'm told that you simply cannot apply words like narcissism or pettiness or cruelty to him (again sorry for the forthright nature of some of these questions but for the sake of my own clarity i'd like to be forthright) but both of these qualities seem present in the texts (don't follow me, fire. don't pray to me by name, fire. mix and marry with these people with a different idea of me, fire etc). I’m told he doesn’t need worship and thus cant be capable of narcissism or anything like that and yet he seems awfully keen to doll out fire to those who don’t which is a bit of a concern because that seems rather textbook to me and if he doesn’t then the threat of damnation seems overkill in the drastic extreme, especially as I’m told that being a good muslim is better than just being a good person. ergo a good person of another or no faith gets fire anyway. so i would really like some clarification/explanation there.
the djinn. im sorry but i really struggle with the djinn, I’m told by my friend that it’s an odd thing to get hung up on but its just so damn outlandish. If they were meant to be metaphorical of sin or temptation then i would have more truck with it, but apparently its meant to be very literal, there is actually an entire civilisation and culture of fire people that we can’t see living alongside us and most of them are evil but a few of them aren’t for reasons i don’t quite understand. if it was metaphorical then fine but the fact that its literal strains credulity a bit. I’m told that its about belief in the unseen and given examples like gravity and air as stuff we just know are there, but i don’t think its out of line or unreasonable to say that its a bit of a leap from gravity to an entire civilisation of invisible fire people. so even if it is apparently a small thing to get hung up on i feel like it really isn’t and would like a bit more information or convincing as it were for it. for the same reason as ghosts really, in that a guy saying that there are ghosts shouldn’t just be taken as red, you need a bit more than that. and i get the belief in the unseen, presumably including angels and All manner of things but it isn’t just the unseen they have civilisation and culture and all sorts of stuff apparently, which stops being just unseen to me and starts being surprisingly fleshed out which somehow makes it even more outlandish if we have no perception of it. so i hope it isn’t as universally considered an odd one to focus on because it seems completely reasonable to focus on it to me.
us being made of clay. My friend has touted that the quaran got generations before anyone else that we are made of water, which is extremely impressive and compelling, honestly thats crazy ahead of its time. but it also says we are made of clay and we just aren’t, so touting the science behind us being made of water seems less compelling when we are also meant to be made of clay (we were also meant to be made from nothing by my understanding which seems against being made of actual things like water and clay ) and actually puts me in mind of the djinn again and the possibility of just choosing two opposing natural elements (fire and water) because its logical rather than divine declaration. so a bit more explanation on that would be nice.
the dancing and music issues. This one is just bizarre to me. I understand the idea of music that is celebrating anything other than Allah is not good (very overly strict and not at all inkeeping with how people express joy and sorrow, but i can at least understand the point behind it) but apparently only certain types of instruments are allowed, a drum and some specific sort of stringed instrument. I have no idea why that would be the case at all nor why Allah would care and it comes off as just Mohammed not liking certain types of music so he just slipped that one in there (i realise that is a very not good thing to say but again, for the sake of my own clarity and i am terribly sorry for offending). I realise i havent worded that very well and it could be offensive but i cant think of how else to ask as it just seems so weird, like why would he care about the instrument used, its so random and more importantly not in any way connected to morality of ones pureness of heart. so i would like a bit more info on that please.
I’m also concerned about the number of references to punishment. i understand that basically every religious text has this to some extent, but i still dont understand how any of them have so many of them. It worries me that something so pure and fantastic consistently across the board of religion has to remind you that the alternative is eternal damnation so regularly and it seems very big and scary which i rarely see as advisory and more sort of threatening to be honest. and threatening is very different from advisory to me, putting me more in mind of your either with us or against us, which isn’t really inkeeping with the definitions your allowed to apply to Allah as merciful and kind etc and seems a very human trait. this one is a little more important to me in some regards, i don’t get a benevolent being who can’t stop listing how if you don’t do this or that you'll be horrifically punished forever.
there’s also the question of fate, which I’ve tried to have explained to me and i wont lie it seemed extremely complicated and i was hoping for a clearer one here. as far as i can tell some people are destined to not accept Allah or not get into heaven etc. ive been told that free will is a complicated factor but it can’t be really if they’re destined to. like if your destined to make poor choices it doesn’t really matter that they are your own if your guaranteed to make the wrong one and practically is the same as not giving you one at all. which means there would be vast swathes of people destined for damnation before they’ve even started. which is just unspeakably cruel and unfair and nullifies any "well why didn’t you pick the correct choice" damning when the apparent answer is "well i dunno i wasn’t ever supposed to apparently". this one is a kinda big one for me because its far from merciful and i would like to think the almighty wouldn’t just say "you, you and you aren’t going to do well because i say your character is poor and you’ll make the wrong choice," which immediately means that everyone isn’t on the same playing field and some are destined to fail no matter how hard they try. please do clear this up for me because it’s one of the more hardcore ones that kind of links back to the unsaid qualities of Allah that aren’t supposed to exist. again forgive me for possibly offending hut it puts me more in mind of someone with a train set or model going "well none of these people are going to make it so lets just watch them struggle for a bit before casting them out". sorry again, but i would rather shoot straight and be as clear as i can to get clear answers.
i thank you very much if you got to the end of this and i eagerly await responses because this is very important to me, as it would be to anyone trying to work out eternity etc. i really hope that you view this as sincere because it is meant with the utmost sincerity. i desperately want to believe in something but i can’t just jump in. it doesn’t feel right and feels very narrow minded to just go into it with quibbles and questions etc
i thank you kindly again and wish you every bit of happiness possible
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