How to respond to this argument

[Ayuoobi]

“If you need someone to threaten eternal damnation in order to be a good person, you need more than just religion.”

See how I respond to this claim in the link.

 

https://themuslimtheist.com/everything-wrong-with-this-tweet/ 

[HzAbbas]

Good response.

This sort of sentiment was popular 10 years ago within the New Atheism circles. Don't think I've actually heard this one in quite a while. 

I generally ask how they can define what is 'good' or 'bad' without an objective standard. 

Without a concept of God or gods, &/or Divine Law(s) all moral judements are ultimately subjective. 

[Abu Nur]

Good argument. 

Hell describes the seriousness of the matter to value the goodness that God gives us:

They (Angels) remain humble before Your mightiness and the majesty of Your magnificence;

those who say when they look upon Gehenna roaring over the people who disobeyed You:

Glory be to You, we have not worshipped You with the worship You deservest!'  Sahifa Sajjadia Dua 3
 

- These people only see everything about religion in negative ways, so how could they even learn the religion itself if they are blind to see? 

Edited September 30, 2022 by Abu Nur

[Cool]

On 9/29/2022 at 2:14 PM, Ayuoobi said:

"If you need someone to threaten eternal damnation in order to be a good person, you need more than just religion.”

In order to make human good, religion is not here just to threaten the people. Religion is here for knowing, practicing, focusing & then returning to the truth.

The inability to return to the truth is what we know as damnation. So yes, one certainly beed something else instead of religion which can present to them the falsehood as good.

I believe that one cannot need anything more than the truth. Truth itself suffices as there is nothing which can be understood as "more than the truth". 

[علوي]

Although some people do need Hell to behave, this argument (from the atheists) is, like you said, stupid.

Because even if all religious people need Hell to do good deeds, what does it matter? They're still being good, aren't they? Isn't it better than the atheist who doesn't believe in Hell and sins?

I can't believe some people actually say this.

[Ashvazdanghe]

On 9/29/2022 at 10:44 PM, Ayuoobi said:

“If you need someone to threaten eternal damnation in order to be a good person, you need more than just religion.”

See how I respond to this claim in the link.

 

https://themuslimtheist.com/everything-wrong-with-this-tweet/ 

Salam for addendum

Amiral Mu’minin ((عليه السلام)) stated, “Some people worship the Almighty Allah in hope of reward; this is the worship of merchants. Some worship Allah for fear of punishment; this is the worship of servants. Still some others worship the Exalted Allah for thanking Him; and this is the worship of the tolerant.”  [Biharul Anwar, Vol 41, p. 14]

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Qushayri writes, “When the prayer time came Amiral Mu’minin’s ((عليه السلام)) face discolored and his body shook. He was asked about the reason for this change of state. Imam Ali ((عليه السلام)) answered, ‘It is the time for returning a trust, which the Almighty Allah presented to the Heavens and the Earth and the mountains, but they could not bear accepting it. The weak human, however, accepted that trust. I wonder if I could have returned the trust well.’”  [Biharul Anwar, Vol 41, p. 17]

 

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O Nuwf! Everyone who drips a tear from Allah’s fear his sins will be forgiven. O Nuwf! Everyone who weeps from Allah’s fear and his loving and disliking is for Allah’s sake will have a high position. O Nuwf! Everyone whose affection is for Allah’s sake will prefer nothing to that affection. Everyone whose hatred is for Allah’s sake will not spend his hatred for his own sake. This way the real belief will be maintained and improved.’”

Then Imam Ali ((عليه السلام)) preached us and said at last, ‘Fear Allah!” Then he said while leaving, “O Lord! I am wondering if you have ignored me or attended to me. I wish I knew how my stance is with these long sleeps and little thanking!’”

Habbah has said, “By Allah that he was in the same state until the dawn.” [Biharul Anwar, Vol 41, p. 22]

 

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Imam Sajjad ((عليه السلام)) read the book in which Ali’s worship was recorded. Then he put the book down and said, “Who can worship like Ali Ibn Abi Talib ((عليه السلام))?” [Biharul Anwar, Vol 41, p. 17]

Mu’awiyah once told Dharar Ibn Dhamarah, “Describe Ali for me.” He said, “I saw Ali ((عليه السلام)) in some occasions worshipping in darkness of night. He had grasped his beard, agonizing like a snake-bitten person, weeping, and saying, ‘O world! Go way from me! Do you come to me? It is not your time. Deceive others, not me! I do not need you. I divorce you three times. Your period is short, your value is little, and my desire for you is scarce. Alas, my provisions are little, the travel is long, the destination is great, and the path is difficult!’” [Biharul Anwar, Vol 40, p. 345]

https://www.sibtayn.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7320:imam-ali’s-worship&catid=258&Itemid=330

[dattaswami]

On 9/29/2022 at 2:14 PM, Ayuoobi said:

“If you need someone to threaten eternal damnation in order to be a good person, you need more than just religion.”

See how I respond to this claim in the link.

 

https://themuslimtheist.com/everything-wrong-with-this-tweet/ 

The end goal of Pravrutti (wordly life) is to bring down the strength of worldly bonds (with family and wealth) to the minimum level so that the sins (like illegal sex and corruption of money) are not done due to over-attraction to the worldly bonds. The end goal of Nivrutti is to reach the climax in the strength of single bond with Allah so that all the worldly bonds totally disappear. The goal of pravrutti can be reached in two ways:

1) Path of fear: Avoiding sins due to the fear for hell there and due to fear for Allah here also. Intensive sins are punished by Allah in this world and in this present birth itself. Other sins are punished by Allah in the hell after death. In this path, control in doing sins is obtained through fear only.

2) Path of devotion: Sins are avoided only due to devotion to Allah. Sins are not done because Allah is displeased. Since Allah is loved, the sins are avoided since we do not like to displease Allah whom we love so much.

By any one of the above two paths, the end goal of pravrutti (controlling sins) can be reached. But, if you are in the first path of fear, you cannot enter Nivrutti, the second stage after coming to the end of pravrutti. Hence, you do not have chance for Nivrutti in which Allah takes care of your entire protection like the mother cat carrying its child by mouth grip (marjala kishora nyaya). After achieving the goal of pravrutti, you have to stand on your efforts only. If you slip anywhere, at any time, from the path of justice, you will be punished as per the divine rule. You have to stand by the grip of your effort only with continuous caution like the child of monkey catching the womb of its mother during journey (markata kishora nyaya). But, if you reach the goal of pravrutti by the second path of devotion, you can enter Nivrutti with the same devotion, which is strengthened more and more in the phase of Nivrutti.

Devotion during the journey in pravrutti is like a passenger train whereas the same devotion train becomes express in Nivrutti (like Simhadri train is passenger from Guntur to Vijayawada and becomes express from Vijayawada to Vizag). In the path of devotion, there is no need of any change since it is a direct train travelling in both pravrutti and Nivrutti (same train from Guntur to Vijayawada). If you have reached the goal of pravrutti by the path of fear, you have to change the train and catch the path of advanced devotion running like express train. Therefore, if you control the sins due to devotion on Allah and not due to fear for Allah in pravrutti, it is the best and very convenient journey by a single train starting from the beginning of pravrutti up to the end of Nivrutti.

However, reaching the goal of pravrutti is very important from the point of peace and balance of the world created by Allah. Any owner of an industry always wishes that his industry should run peacefully without any disturbance. Thus, the goal of pravrutti is the foremost aim of Allah. Allah in any human form appearing at any region of the Earth necessarily preaches the achievement of the goal of pravrutti to all the humanity without any exception. An employee pleasing the owner of industry personally is not mandatory to every soul (employee) and hence, Nivrutti is only secondary.

Pravrutti is forced on every human being in this world whereas Nivrutti is forced on Allah by a few devotees only. Hence, you must start the journey by single train of devotion, which is the best way to reach the end goal of Nivrutti. Elders say that one should have either fear (bhaya) or devotion (bhakti) to achieve some immediate goal, but, devotion is far better than fear. An atheist has neither fear nor devotion and will be responsible for the total destruction of humanity through his/her foolish and ignorant concept of atheism.

[Ashvazdanghe]

On 10/15/2022 at 2:51 PM, dattaswami said:

Allah in any human form appearing at any region of the Earth necessarily preaches the achievement of the goal of pravrutti to all the humanity without any exception.

Salam although it's from hindu perspective which we don't agree with this part anyway thank you for your explanation which even you can find some of joint points between nature of humans although of religious differences.

[Dubilex]

On 9/29/2022 at 9:14 PM, Ayuoobi said:

“If you need someone to threaten eternal damnation in order to be a good person, you need more than just religion.”

See how I respond to this claim in the link.

 

https://themuslimtheist.com/everything-wrong-with-this-tweet/ 

Can't open the link. Says there is a "critical error on this site"

Edited October 23, 2022 by Dubilex

[ShiaChat Mod]

On 10/3/2022 at 1:43 AM, Ashvazdanghe said:

Amiral Mu’minin ((عليه السلام)) stated, “Some people worship the Almighty Allah in hope of reward; this is the worship of merchants. Some worship Allah for fear of punishment; this is the worship of servants. Still some others worship the Exalted Allah for thanking Him; and this is the worship of the tolerant.”  [Biharul Anwar, Vol 41, p. 14]

https://www.sibtayn.com/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7320:imam-ali’s-worship&catid=258&Itemid=330

Thanks for the reminder of this saying of Imam Ali AS.

[Ayuoobi]

On 10/23/2022 at 6:02 PM, Dubilex said:

Can't open the link. Says there is a "critical error on this site"

It should be fixed now brother.

[AbdusSibtayn]

On 9/30/2022 at 1:16 AM, HzAbbas said:

Good response.

This sort of sentiment was popular 10 years ago within the New Atheism circles. Don't think I've actually heard this one in quite a while. 

I generally ask how they can define what is 'good' or 'bad' without an objective standard. 

Without a concept of God or gods, &/or Divine Law(s) all moral judements are ultimately subjective. 

"Of course, there's no divine sanction behind morality, no God-given innate sense of good and bad. Morality is just a rule book imposed on us by the exigencies of evolution and collective survival. So if tomorrow the Chinese and the Japanese set up human stud-farms across their countries, filled with women subjected to incarceration and 'breeding' (read rape) for bearing more children to combat their declining youth demographic and ensure the survival of their nation, I'll be perfectly fine with it! See what a genius I am! "

- Mr. 'Rational' Atheist. 

Edited October 31, 2022 by AbdusSibtayn

[Abu Hadi]

On 9/29/2022 at 3:14 PM, Ayuoobi said:

“If you need someone to threaten eternal damnation in order to be a good person, you need more than just religion.”

See how I respond to this claim in the link.

 

https://themuslimtheist.com/everything-wrong-with-this-tweet/ 

That was a good response. I would add that the main problem with this tweet, et. al, is that this person has a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of good and the nature of evil which is very far off from reality. It is almost as if they made an imaginary world where everyone who is bad or does a bad act chooses to do that, on a level playing field. 

If you actually ask people who most people would consider 'bad people' like hitmen who work for drug cartels, career criminals, scam artists, prostitutes, etc, you will never find a single one of them who will tell you 'Yeah, since I was a little kid I always wanted to be this'. I get bored sometimes so I watch interviews with these people on youtube and other places to see what they say. I have never heard one yet say this. 

What you find is most of them had extreme challenges they dealt with early in their life like poverty, well mostly poverty. Sometimes it is abuse, sexual or physical. Sometimes the loss of one or both parents. Sometimes a combination of these things. Most of us have some traumatic event or circumstance that we have to deal with in childhood or later in life. The difference between those who become criminals and those who don't is that the ones who become criminals do a crime, it seems to alleviate their situation temporarily, and then they keep doing it. They don't consider other options, and they don't consider how their crime effects other people. As it says in the Quran 'Do they not reflect (on their deeds and the consequences of these)'. The problem is that they don't. So without some extra incentive not to do this criminal act, they would continue to do it indefinitely, and the consequences on the society would continue. 

Another common thing between the criminals is that either they don't believe in hell or they find a way to justify their action(s) such that they believe they are righteous and justified in their actions, because of what happened to them in the past and the fact that they had (have) 'No other choice' so that if God asks them, they will give this as an excuse. Just a few weeks ago, I was watching a video about the Sinaloa drug cartel, and the people who 'cook' the methamphetamine that is delivered to the US. One of the guys, while he was cooking the meth, was asked a question by the camera man, who is from the US. The camera man asked him 'Don't you know that these drugs that you are making are responsible for the deaths of many thousands of people in the US. How do you feel about it.' The cartel member who was cooking the meth turned to the camera man and said 'You know, if I was American like you and had the opportunities you have, I would not be doing this. Because I am poor and have no other options,  I have no choice'. It's not true, btw, he does have a choice and there are many poor people in Mexico who make a living and support their families without doing this, but he found a way to justify this act to himself, despite the fact that he knew what the consequences of this act was. 

If they believe in hell, and they are not 'self deluded', in other words do not constantly try to justify their actions to themselves, they would not be criminals, full stop. They would not risk burning in hellfire for eternity to get some small benefit out of what they are doing. So the fact that hell is real and they believe in it will stop them. They will not stop without it. 

Most of us, at some point in our life, have been in a situation where we could benefit tremendously by dealing in haram, and probably noone would ever find out. So why don't we do it ? For most of us who are Muslim the reason we don't is because we are afraid of going to hell. By this fear stopping us, society actually benefits because that criminal act which might have happened and affected other people in a negative way didn't happen. So those people didn't get affected. That is why atheists, although they don't believe in hell, benefit tremendously from the fact that there are many people who do believe in it.