Does the world revolves around you? Or do you revolve around the world? Is there such a thing as a self centred world or is the world a place where everyone revolves around it as such the world is shared by many inhabitants?
In a world of true and false ie. Between Right and Wrong; is also a place where each individual or each moral being are the ones who are going to pay for their own individual mistake; Aren't we the ones to decide what is true and what is false? Hence, also, should we not be allowed to decide what we wish to believe in since at the end of the day we are the ones who will suffer the consequences?
An ‘agreement’ with God:- Between Self-Deception & Worldliness
How many of you have pondered on this question? What is the truth? Are you not what you are or who you are because of your parents? What if your parents had made a mistake and left the ‘true’ religion they were born into to embrace a ‘false’ religion? The religion you were brought up in would now become the ‘true’ religion while the earlier religion that your parents abandoned would be the ‘false’ religion.
Hence which is ‘true’ and which is ‘false’? Is ‘true’ the new religion of your parents that you were brought up in or their old religion which they abandoned?
Hence, also, is true and false subjective and merely an opinion based on what you have been raised to believe? Or is true and false real and tangible?
Today we fight and argue about what we perceive as true and false. We uphold what we believe to be true and oppose what we believe to be false. However, if our parents had ‘changed course’ some time in their life by abandoning their old religion in favour of a new one, and they had exposed us to what they believe to be true, then our interpretation of true and false would be what we have been taught to believe to be true and false.
So are we really fighting for the truth or are we fighting for what we have been taught to believe to be true? And are we really confident that God has blessed us with the truth or has Satan misled us into believing that we are following the truth when actually we are following something false?
People always argue about believers and non-believers or theists and atheists but no one wants to talk about agnostics — those who take the middle road, the third force so to speak, or those who think that both sides may be wrong about what they believe.
The seal of Fate: The agreement between God and The Devil, The Truth?
(Iblis) said: "Allow me respite till the Day they are raised up (i.e. The Day of Resurrection)."
(Allah) said: "You are of those allowed respite."
(Iblis) said: "Because You have sent me astray, surely I will sit in wait against them (human beings) on Your Straight Path. Then I will come to them from before them and behind them, from their right and from their left, and You will not find most of them as thankful ones (i.e. they will not be dutiful to You)."
(Allah) said (to Iblis): "Get out from this (Paradise) disgraced and expelled. Whoever of them (mankind) will follow you, then surely I will fill Hell with you all." Surah 7: 14-18
Let us say that the Abrahamic doctrine is correct. Let us say that God did create the universe and on the sixth day God created man (the first one named Adam) and then later God created a companion to Adam, Eve.
The Abrahamic religions then tell us that Iblis (Satan, the devil, etc.) refused to bow to man. And we are told the reason why and what happened after that. In short, Iblis entered into an ‘agreement’ with God that he was going to mislead humankind to prove to God that humankind is weak and that he (Iblis) was not wrong in refusing to bow to this weak creature, humankind.
Okay, taking the Abrahamic doctrine into consideration, Iblis has now embarked upon a campaign to mislead humankind. I am sure Iblis would have planned his strategy well and would have come out with the best plan on how to achieve this objective. What is Satan, the devil had a plan that is to deceive mankind by creating many religions and confuse humankind into believing that the religion he or she was born into is the true religion while all the others are false. Satan would then sit back and let humankind fight with each other and kill each other in God’s name and then join Him in hell in the Afterlife.
What are the possibility or chances that Satan, the devil had made such an agreement with God the Creator of Existence? Will that be the Truth, Nothing like the Truth?
The subsequent dialog stated in the Quran is as follows:
(Allah) said: "Then, get out from here, for verily, you are Rajeem (an outcast or a cursed one)." (Tafseer At-Tabaree).
"And verily, the curse shall be upon you till the Day of Recompense (i.e. the Day of Resurrection)" (Quran, al-Hijr: 34 – 35).
Then Iblees asked for a respite until the Day of Resurrection, and Allah granted him that. Allah says:
(Iblees (Satan)) said: "O my Lord! Give me then respite till the Day they (the dead) will be resurrected."
Allah said: "Then, verily, you are of those reprieved,
"Till the Day of the time appointed" (Quran, al-Hijr: 36 – 38).
Blind Faith
Perhaps one day we will all know the answer to that question. But we will first have to die to get the answer to that question. In the meantime, while we are still alive, we want as many people as possible to follow us down this path of the truth.
But what happens if we are not on the path of truth and we end up leading others down a false path? While we will pay for this error of our ways, are we also going to pay for the error of the others we misled down this same false path? Or will each person pay for their own errors even if that error was made because others misled us?
Yes, there are those who would like to force their beliefs upon us and compel us to follow what they believe to be the right path. But if that so-called right path is actually the wrong path then we who followed them down this wrong path would end up paying for this mistake.
Hence, since we are the ones who are going to pay for this mistake, should we not be the ones to decide what is true and what is false? Hence, also, should we not be allowed to decide what we wish to believe in since at the end of the day we are the ones who will suffer the consequences?
To Mislead: Between God and Religion
Or is it that religion never came from God in the first place and were mere inventions of humankind or Satan, the devil? and that is why religions are a mess because if religion did come from God there would be only one and it would be perfect.
All religions in a way have deviated from its original teachings, even Hinduism, Buddhism and so on. But the deviations in Christianity and Islam have brought untold misery to the world for more than a thousand years. More people have been killed in the name of Christianity and Islam than for other reasons.
Of course, it is not that Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and so on, have not also killed in the name of their religions. Even until today Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc., are still killing people in the name of their religion. But it is not as rampant and large scale as what the Christians and Muslims have been doing for more than 1,000 years.
Furthermore, Christianity and Islam are sort of sister religions. And they have been competing with one another for more than 1,000 years. Apart from a few key issues the doctrine of both religions are about the same. Yet those of both these religions violate their own doctrine and make a mockery of what their religion is supposed to stand for.
The Christian-Muslim God is eternal (is not born and never dies), is all-knowing (knows everything that happened in the past, what is happening now, and what will happen in the future), is all-powerful (nothing happens without His will), is perfect (makes no mistakes), and much more. These are some of the properties of that God.
With all those properties did God not know that His creation, humankind, is going to turn out the most imperfect and evil creature on earth? Does this not contradict God’s properties?
Christians and Muslims believe that God was sad and disappointed with humankind. God got very angry so He brought the Great Flood and wiped out entire humankind except for Noah and his family. So God has human emotions after all. He felt sad, disappointed and angry, just like how weak humans would feel.
And God admitted that He made a mistake, another weak human trait. But with all that power that God possesses He was not able to set humankind straight. So He erased his mistake by wiping out humankind in a Great Flood except for Noah and his family.
Then God recreates humankind from the only surviving family left. And then God recreates exactly the same imperfect and evil humans that He had originally wiped out because they were imperfect and evil. With all that power, God was still incapable of correcting His earlier mistake and He still recreated the same worthless human beings.
Why would God want to mess up humankind by giving us so many religions that do not make sense and are illogical and which bring untold misery and suffering to humankind?
Or is it that religion never came from God in the first place and were mere inventions of humankind or Is religion the vow of Satan, the devil that was trying hard to mislead mankind? That is why religions are a mess because if religion did come from God there would be only one and it would be perfect.
Acknowledging self-deception and worldliness
A carefree life is based on the false premise that God does not exist, and that there is no life after death.
SELF-DECEPTION and forgetfulness, according to Imam al-Ghazali (d. 1111), are the causes of destruction and misery in the hereafter. Self-deception is a “disease” of the heart that inflicts almost everybody; even the scholars and religious people are not spared from it.
We are reminded of its danger by the Quran: “O mankind! Keep your duty to your Lord, and fear a Day when the parent will not be able to avail the child in aught, nor the child to avail the parent. Lo! Allah’s promise is the very truth. Let not the life of the world beguile you, nor let the deceiver beguile you, in regard to Allah.”
This verse speaks of the event promised by God to take place in the hereafter. It will be a dreadful day, where parents and children will not be able to help each other out because everybody will be so preoccupied with his or her own fate.
For those who do not believe, this statement or any other statements about the hereafter would be meaningless, and they will not change anything as far as their lives are concerned.
As for those who truly believe, they will be constantly guarding themselves by doing what is enjoined by religion and leaving what is forbidden. In between are those who claim that they believe, yet they do not take it seriously, meaning they do not act upon it.
There is no difference between the first and the last. Both, according to the Quran, will end up in “misery” in the hereafter — the first for their lack of belief and the last for their lack of necessary acts in accordance with the belief.
Both are caused by self-deception. It is called self-deception because it involves a process of flawed reasoning, where one is deceived into believing a false premise and making conclusions based on it.
So, according to the verse quoted above, to live a carefree life is a type of self-deception because it is based on the false premise that God does not exist and that there is no life after death.
If one is not certain whether God and the afterlife exist or not, one cannot carelessly say that they don’t exist. What one may say is that he is not certain, meaning he does not “know” whether they really exist or not.
Uncertainty should be cured by a sincere and incessant quest for the answer, not by elevating doubt into knowledge. One who doubts does not know, hence he cannot say that God does not exist because he has doubts about His existence.
If he insists, then he is actually making a claim that he knows that God does not exist whereas he does not know. That being the case, living a carefree life is not an intelligent decision to make.
Read More >>> http://www.thestar.com.my/opinion/columnists/ikim-views/2014/01/21/acknowledging-selfdeception-and-worldliness/
And I'd give up forever to touch you 'Cause I know that you feel me somehow You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be And I don't wanna go home right now And all I can taste is this moment And all I can breathe is your life When sooner or later it's over I just don't wanna miss you tonight And I don't want the world to see me 'Cause I don't think that they'd understand When everything's made to be broken I just want you to know who I am And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming Or the moment of truth in your lies When everything feels like the movies Yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive And I don't want the world to see me 'Cause I don't think that they'd understand When everything's made to be broken I just want you to know who I am I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am