Peace again Psyah!
Agree with your post for the most parts. I have been stating the same in different way.
I had no intention of 'arguing' either.
From the first post of mine till now I have said that pleasure and seeking pleasure is not bad by itself as long as it is controlled and simple rules are followed.
When we indulge in worldly affairs to make a living or raise our kids or enjoy playing with them, educate ourselves, become rich and help poor, that also means love for Allah and Ibadat.
Love for Allah does not mean putting head on the floor in sajdah hours and hours of the day , read tasbeeh / zikar for another several hours and forget the surroundings and need of family, relatives or other human beings.
There should not be any attempt to achieve 'angelic properties' either. Would rather keep desires under control as proscribed but not try to minimize or abolish. Desires make human, human and controlling desires makes human good human.
Hope you would agree that we should have pride in being human and not angels. We are the best of all creations of Allah.
May we all 'enjoy' life on earth and hereafter.
Peace diwana
It is not my position to believe that humanity with it's faults is the best of creation. Rather only when we conform to our design purpose do we reach that end. We should not have pride. We should minimise our self-worth not minimise our desires, rather we should align our desires that they conform to the whole person worshipping Allah (SWT). Angels we cannot become, but their worship is far more perfect than ours, to aspire to that level is not equivalent to being displeased to be humans. As humans we should fear the burden of the responsibility of being vicegerents for Allah (SWT) rather than take glory or pride in that status.
Hedonism is not Islamic for these reasons, and it is wrong to use a partial definition of hedonism that of pleasure to be the basis to say that it is acceptable Islamically. There is a type of pleasure and basis for pleasure that needs to be understood.
The best analogy I can think of is the attraction of gravity and the attraction of electromagnetism. Although two neutral bodies will exert a force on one another they will gravitate to one another by taking an orbit which is perpendiculr to the path of motion. Alternatively electromagnetism causes two oppositely charged bodies to exert a similar force of attraction but they will move in the same direction to that line of force.
Both are attractions but behave differently ... such is the case I believe between the attraction of worldly pleasures when compared to the attraction to a possible state of satisfaction drawn as a result of trying to please one's Lord. The former being akin to electromagnetic and the latter being like gravitation.