Re: Is fear...
Funny, I did not claim that fear is good or bad. I asked a question to see how people may respond to it and that is exactly what I am getting back. However I did talk about possible reasons for the existence of fear.
Yes I did, please do prove to me otherwise if you somehow believe that I am wrong. Fear of death is the strongest and most innate in any material living organism. The quest for survival draws its energy, negative or positive, from the perception of life. My example does prove that perception of having something is a reason for having the fear to lose it.
I would like to keep the discussion to the creations rather than to include and compare the creator with the creations. Allah is above and beyond besides the concept of life for a Muslim is not without the concept of Supreme Being imparting the “life” to a living and in that sense your argument is wrong. (I will not go any further on this)
“There are many people who don’t fear” is quite an extraordinary statement with virtually nothing to back it besides even for the argument sake if I agree that there are people who don’t “show” fear can neither be generalized to the extent of proving my argument being completely wrong nor it can prove that “showing” or “having” no fear can negate the existence of fear as a phenomenon. Kind of action under “fear” can generally be attributed to the personality trait, a reckless might be reckless because he is fearful of his own loss and tries to inflict loss onto any who he perceived as a threat, in that a person may fail to correctly identify threat.
Brother you said some people don’t have fear and now you say Allah gave us fear, what are you trying to say?
Peace Gora Kala
If anyone wants to confuse it is the one whose name is Gora and yet Kala ... not I ... you say that you did not mention that "fear" was either good or bad ... however in your first post you make the phrase "skin humanity from their moral lives" ... is this not a phrase that bears towards you saying that "fear" is bad?
Yes I did say we are given fear, I also said that we should control fear, but those who have no fear in my opinion some of them are only "ignoring their fear" and taking it to be an error message ... to which I am not convinced they should be doing. The fear is there for a reason - often our reaction to that fear is disproportionate to the actual risk and sometimes using false forms of reasoning - often spiritually people teach themselves to ignore "fear" ... some people are exceptions - just like there are people who are born without limbs there are people born without the attribute of "healthy fear" as there are some who are born without pain ... in all this ... for me fear and pain are advisors to us ... we must use them to make our decisions, but the decisions must be ours to make ...
When a person is confident he should second guess himself, and when he is second-guessing himself he should have faith, when a person is afraid he should reassure himself and if he is too sure then he should let a slight bit of fear in ...
Thus in balance we decide to walk the walk and success should result ...
The condition of the believer is that he is not too sure of the Mercy of God that it makes him complacent and that he should not be in despair of the wrath of God that it makes him lose hope ...
)