"Most of those to go to heaven are "ignorant unbelievers"

[GrowingSmaller]

Most of the people who will go to heaven are from the "ignorant unbelievers".



I heard this from a fairly learned Shi'a Muslim yeaterday. He said IIRC people who make an attempt to lead good lives in good conscience according to theiir ability will go to some form of paradise. Even though they were not religious (or even Muslim) in an explicit sense. Any qualms about this?
]
It has been said that:

This world and the next are rivals. When you
please one of them you displease the other.

Another is:

"Īmān (Faith) has over seventy branches; the most excellent of these is the saying, There is no god but Allāh, and the lowest of them is the removal from the way of that which is harmful and modesty (hayā') is a branch of faith."


Thoughts, feelings?

Atheists, you will sometimes complain about hell, but if thought they were to go to heaven (on the condition that it is, in spite of your belief to the contrary, real), would that make any difference to their attitude about the morality of God? If an aspect of faith is avoiding harm, could you "align" with that - if not the other things?

Or does it sound like peace propoganda from a "trojan horse" of evil?

 

[Paradoxum]

Not sending people to hell for unbelief is more moral and reasonable.

I try to be moral anyway though.

 

[Ana the Ist]

I wouldn't want to share heaven with a god who sends anyone to hell.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Is there any one here thinking that Muhammad will go to heaven?

Not the "Christian version", unless....

Do you have a say in these things?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I wouldn't want to share heaven with a god who sends anyone to hell.

I struggle with that one too. But there is was a sufi "saint" who said 'So you want all people to go to heaven? Be careful that you do not go to hell." (hazrat Innayat Kahn iirc)

I think that maybe people in hell may not like their situation but they may not desire better morality, and never did. Like a road map has destinations, they say "I dont like the (results of) path I am taking, and that's the path I have taken (and I will not err in that faith, bad though it is)." Like a vandal who smashes his own accomodation, another brick in his own wall.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Not sending people to hell for unbelief is more moral and reasonable.

I try to be moral anyway though.

I think it depends on how you understand belief. In ther koran it says something akin to "Do you think that you will be able to say "we believe" and not be tested with trials in this world?"

"Belief" in arabic is iman, with connotations of security, trust, feeling safe. For me "taqua" (piety - literally to safeuard and protect from harm) has a secular aspect. I learned this from a Shi'a teacher.

So faith and piety are inter related states of mind and action in which, to a degree, secular people can appreciate. Because moral beliefs and actions protect us and make one safe.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Islamic "heaven" being the debauched place where men get sex slaves who never conceive and always "regrow" their virgity each day?

I recall in the Koran (IIRC) it says people will have what they strive towards..

Also, in a hadith:

Actions are but by intentions and every man shall have only that which he intended. Thus he whose migration (Hijrah to Madeenah from Makkah) was for Allah and His Messenger, his migration was for Allah and His Messenger, and he whose migration was to achieve some worldly benefit or to take some woman in marriage, his migration was for that for which he migrated.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I have been wondering about al loose concept of "j-zombies" and "a-zombies", jinn and angel equivalents of something like p-zombies. You may be an angel or a jinn, I surmise. In the Islamic hell, there are 19 angels over it, preventing escape IIRC.

It is said in a hadith that some in this life will come very close to the fire, and end up in paradise. And some will come close to paradise, and eventually go to hell.

Where I am, is to a degree a matter of faith.

"Allah does not love the aggressors, the ones that overstep the bounds (huda, guidelines, boundaries) which God has set for them."

 

[Eudaimonist]

Atheists, you will sometimes complain about hell, but if thought they were to go to heaven (on the condition that it is, in spite of your belief to the contrary, real), would that make any difference to their attitude about the morality of God?

That would be one big strike against maltheism. I'm not certain that God would end up seeming good overall (probably not), but the picture would be rosier.

If an aspect of faith is avoiding harm, could you "align" with that - if not the other things?

It's not a complete ethic, but certainly I can approve of a moral principle that says that one should avoid causing harm. I wouldn't be aligning with religion...rather, religion would be aligning with me. I wouldn't be joining any religions over this.

Or does it sound like peace propoganda from a "trojan horse" of evil?

Oh, it's probably that. But I am just talking about the issue from a philosophical perspective.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Paradoxum]

I think it depends on how you understand belief. In ther koran it says something akin to "Do you think that you will be able to say "we believe" and not be tested with trials in this world?"

"Belief" in arabic is iman, with connotations of security, trust, feeling safe. For me "taqua" (piety - literally to safeuard and protect from harm) has a secular aspect. I learned this from a Shi'a teacher.

So faith and piety are inter related states of mind and action in which, to a degree, secular people can appreciate. Because moral beliefs and actions protect us and make one safe.

Sorry, I'm not really sure what you mean?

 

[South Bound]

Most of the people who will go to heaven are from the "ignorant unbelievers".



I heard this from a fairly learned Shi'a Muslim yeaterday. He said IIRC people who make an attempt to lead good lives in good conscience according to theiir ability will go to some form of paradise. Even though they were not religious (or even Muslim) in an explicit sense. Any qualms about this?
]
It has been said that:

This world and the next are rivals. When you
please one of them you displease the other.

Another is:

"Īmān (Faith) has over seventy branches; the most excellent of these is the saying, There is no god but Allāh, and the lowest of them is the removal from the way of that which is harmful and modesty (hayā') is a branch of faith."


Thoughts, feelings?

Atheists, you will sometimes complain about hell, but if thought they were to go to heaven (on the condition that it is, in spite of your belief to the contrary, real), would that make any difference to their attitude about the morality of God? If an aspect of faith is avoiding harm, could you "align" with that - if not the other things?

Or does it sound like peace propoganda from a "trojan horse" of evil?

Do you believe Jesus was a prophet? Do you believe He told the truth?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I am always surprised by the need of people to comment upon the morality of a situation that they insist is non existent. It is like commenting upon the morality of Santa using reindeer as beasts of burden without their consent or paying elves less than minimum wage or questioning Santa's view of what constitutes being "naughty or nice" every time some child asks what they might deserve to get for Christmas. What does it say about one when one becomes so concerned about the morality of what one insists is a non existent situation that one feel some insatiable need to consistently comment upon it even when the question posed is about philosophy and not morality?
Philosophically speaking the road to any heaven depends upon the tenets of the religion one is speaking of. So if the tenets of Islam clearly state that only believers go to heaven, something I was under the impression that was universally accepted by the those that follow Islam( but being an outsider I might well be wrong) , how can the statement that ignorant unbelievers go to heaven be consistent with the tenets of Islam?

Conclusions reached about who will go to heaven and hell depend on schols of thought and the philosophy of the beleiever even. Islam - as practiced across the world - is not a monolithic uniform faith. I heard from a Shia scholar Muhammed is a mercy to ALL the worlds, and he will intercede many, not just Muslims, on the "judgement day".

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Do you believe Jesus was a prophet? Do you believe He told the truth?

Yup I guess so.

How blessed are those who make peace, because it is they who will be called God's children!

Something like that.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

That would be one big strike against maltheism. I'm not certain that God would end up seeming good overall (probably not), but the picture would be rosier.



It's not a complete ethic, but certainly I can approve of a moral principle that says that one should avoid causing harm. I wouldn't be aligning with religion...rather, religion would be aligning with me. I wouldn't be joining any religions over this.



Oh, it's probably that. But I am just talking about the issue from a philosophical perspective.


eudaimonia,

Mark

You know of the Parable of the Sower in the bible... loosely speaking you may be casting your seeds of wisdom, or pearls unto swine, into God knows where...so, can good deeds go to waste without an "trusted", organised and lasting community network to entreasure them?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Sorry, I'm not really sure what you mean?

Well you believe. In virtue. But you will be tested. first with the test of self preservation. Certainly in this day and age you need "street smarts". But also the test number two, that of community life. But "kaffiri community" is so chaotic, your charity to the homeless may go to a drug dealer, or your student loan to a bar tender.

"Yawmi deen" (judgement day) - deen = judjement, religion, lifestyle, and also community, "millah" (cultural collective).

Its all linked. Whats your weakest link? When your actions betray or express your belief, what do you believe in when the repercussions are three days old? Will that make you safe, forming a community you can "believe in" (iman, belief, trust, safety security of mind etc)?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Aurumach i am enjoying your comments - and I feel I may learn from you -but theyre quite a lot to digest. Could you make them a bit shorter please?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Note I am harping on about muslim comminty because I emigrated from a really tough area, full of drugs, illness and violence, to a muslim lifestye and area where the streets are safe to walk at night (well in the evening), and people call me "brother" etc. And are actually quite healthy, by free and informed choice. I feel a bit of resentment about where the drugs probably came from, but at least theres some commitment to beliefs I can feel safe sharing.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

never love a person too much, might become your enemy neither hate a person to much might become your friend

 

[GrowingSmaller]

There are tales of Muslims heading for the west and being disappointed. Likewise....

Its rarely a simple proposition.

A proposition (true or false) asserting an atomic fact is called an atomic proposition. Russell, Introduction to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Have you studied the Koran? I mean rationally, because the Koran, especially the original Arabic, has an unique way of inducing stupor style irrationality.

I am not that advanced or gifted to call myself a raitonalistic scholar of very much at all... I find
Koran thought provokin, especially my word for word translation.


Maybe I am a "Fuzzy" Westernised muslim, in "Christiaised context" or vice versa? Is the apple red or green? Yes and no....(depending on how the analysis is phrased)

As you sow so shall you reap.

 

[South Bound]

Yup I guess so.

OK. So, if you admit that Jesus told the truth, then did you know that He said that He is the only means by which man can go to Heaven?

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God believe also in me. 2In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4And you know the way to where I am going.” 5Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

8Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.

So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.