Brother Intelliphant, Peace to you.
**Diwana Bhai,
W**riting anything further to what has already been said seems like ingemination of same thoughts with different words, somewhat semiotic and like brother Psyah has rightfully said that any thought, **any philosophy and any standpoint can be challenged, refuted or agreed upon, **debate for the sake of debate always draw in semantics and can change the course of real debate,
True.
however I am still obliged to clarify a misrepresentation of my thoughts.
I talked objectively when I said that words like lakes of milk, honey, fruits and all that has been mentioned about rewards of heaven are for us to reconcile and recognize the possibilities because I believe and understand that we perceive things better when they can resonate with our experience.
Sweet and refreshing, for instance, may remind the taste of honey to me and especially to Arabs of that time, milk is never without the nostalgia of motherly love. You, on the other hand, refuted my objective perspective with a subjective understanding and belief that these rewards will indeed be there which I never denied, except that I believe that honey in heaven may not be same that we eat here, but it will remind us the honey that we eat here and without the nostalgia of not having it but with a gratitude and gratification of having a better form of it, same goes for every other thing. So in effect we are talking semantics without realizing that a query can be approached from many dimensions and my friend if we believe that Quran is book for all the human beings till the day of Qiyamah, then we must also believe that it fulfills the appetite for guidance of any human with any intellectual level.
What I thought that you did not want to attribute these items as providing pleasure.
My brother, there will be so many statements in Quran which can be argued the same way.
Fire may not be fire its just extreme hot painful (no pleasure) sensation.
Considering your clarification here that you mention these could be a vehicle of gratification, then I agree. But these still may be true as they are described.
End result, heaven is a place of pleasure.
Struggling for heaven is not a sin and should not be looked upon as if something bad. If this makes people to do something good then its fine.
When we tell a child to work hard and pass the test so it will make us proud and be happy for it, then if this makes the child pass the test, what is wrong in it?
Why do we want to believe that the child should pass the test anyway without thinking if it makes us feel proud or happy? Should we 'judge' the child and say, Oh he only did it to 'please' us!!!!??
This is what Allah promised to good people and we as human (with all our needs attached) should be ready to take his offer. I do not think Allah will 'judge' us for it.
In fact, always be positive and ask for mercy that even if we did not have chance to ask for forgiveness for some mistake, Allah may forgive seeing our overall performance.
This comes from trusting Allah and considering him full of mercy by default!
Like I said before I understood your point of view entirely and I have no hesitation in agreeing with you on most of what you believe in. I disagreed with your earlier response where you said creation of the human beings was for the pleasure of Allah because this assertion is prone to bring a paradigm change in the code of moral ethics for the relationship of a human to a human and a human to Allah.
Code of moral ethics? I am not sure what that means. We cannot judge Allah here. There are so many verses where word please and be pleased used by Allah himself. And if it pleases Allah to see man worshiping him and thanking him for what is provided despite of having choice of not be thankful, then who are we to create a code of moral ethics?
I believe that you understand that it is “object of the intention” that formulates the code of good or bad moral conduct, a person whose object of intention is “pleasure” would essentially have a different code of moral practices than a man *whose object of intention is gratitude and be gratified with “pleasures” that he has been blessed with. **A paradigm shift will be visible in the behavior of two individuals; former attributing every achievement to his struggle, taking pride and feeling arrogant in his personal strength would keep struggling to be stronger, while the **later would be more gracious with every achievement, more humble and more gratified. *
Denying what is permissible can be philosophy of *“Rehbaneyat” but has nothing to do with Islam, **limitation on the freedom are only to **make sure the right of freedom exists for others people as well. * .
Wah! Absolutely true. This is my position. Glad to see you separated this 'Rahbaniyat' from Islam. I mentioned above Majoosi and Rahibs above as well somewhere.