Hi Tin-man

You are right. For this discussion it doesn’t really matter if you are not well versed with the Islamic faith… the fundamentals are quite the same as JoC rightly pointed out.

Coming to your points…

You said: “Namely, (in my personal opinion) if a person, god, or any other entity is so terribly insecure, narcissistic, and egotistical that he/it requires the ones he/it supposedly loves to bow before him/it and grovel at his/its feet just to prove how "wonderful" he/it is, then that person or entity is not deserving of my respect, much less my worshipping of him/it.”

An act or a command becomes good or bad based on the intention behind it and its outcome. God’s intention is not to put you down and bask in glory while he demands your worship. Rather, it is to evoke in you a sense of humility and make you realize that no matter who you are or what your position in life is, you are still under the mercy of a perfect being. This will make you humble and be fair to your fellow humans. So to characterize god as being narcissistic or egotistical is misplaced I think. But I can understand that you are being sincere in your criticism… and I hope you can now see where you are getting it wrong.

You said: “Personally, I would never even require my enemies to bow before me for any reason, Why on earth would I ever require my family and friends to do so? To me, that is simply totally disrespectful on many different levels.”

You are right. But look at it like a parent. Would you not demand that your children obey you? Would you not teach your children to greet elders and treat them with respect? That’s not because you are narcissistic or egotistical… it’s because you really wish well for your children, and that they imbibe good qualities so that they will live as good citizens when they grow up, right?

You said: “2. "Even the prayer and the granting of the prayer is part of the ultimate plan." Once again: Why pray?”

As explained above, God wants us to pray to him so that we become better individuals. And therefore God made prayer a means to an end. Now, replace prayer with some another means, and it would become easier to understand. If X wants to earn money, he has to work for it. SO working is a means to attain wealth. It’s part of god’s plan that X should get rich. But as working is the means to attain wealth, god’s plan also includes that X would work hard. Similarly, with prayer. God wants to grant X something. But in order to attain it, X has to pray. So god’s plan also includes that X would pray and his prayer would be granted. Hope that was clear.

You Said: “3. With respect, while I sort of see where you were trying to go with that, your analogy is not an example of "Free Will". It sounds more like an analogy of manipulation. You want to give a gift to a poor kid, but your own kid finds out and pitches a fit about it.”

I think you are reading too much into the example. The idea behind this example is only to show how a preconceived plan and free will can go hand in hand. If I know exactly how a person is going to make choices using his free will, then I can make a perfect plan… yet the person’s ability to make a choice is not going to be affected in the least.

You said: “In your analogy, however, you set up a plan to make your child think he gets to choose his own "gift".”

I am not merely making my child “think” he gets to choose his own gift, rather he is indeed choosing his own gift. It’s just that I am privy to that choice beforehand. My knowledge of his choice does not influence his choice in any way.

You said: “… I can tell you the Christian beliefs I was taught are that God is ALL-loving, ALL-caring, and ALL-forgiving. Now, on the surface, that sounds pretty good. However, when you try to throw in that God is "just" and must punish the wicked, you are setting up an illogical condition. Being "just" and "punishing" contradicts the others. They do not coincide. Okay, so back to "good and caring" people.”

Here, I have to admit that I can’t talk on behalf of the Christian faith. Perhaps, JoC or someone can throw more light on that. In Islam, God is not ‘all-forgiving’ if it means that God forgives everything. There are certain things that God will not forgive. Secondly, from an Islamic perspective, God’s characterization as being extremely merciful and loving only means this: that no matter what sin you have done, if you turn in sincere repentance to god, He will forgive you. God doesn’t require any blood sacrifice or material donations or whatever it be for Him to forgive you. All He needs is your change of heart. If you go to god with a clean and sincere heart, then you are good to go. But otherwise, you will be punished for your sins.

You said: “The problem, however, is that perhaps that individual never believed in any god or gods. OR, maybe that individual worshipped a different god, such as Allah, or Thor, or Odin, or any one of the other hundreds of gods in active service. Well, according to the Christian god, that individual goes to hell to be punished forever, despite never having done any harm to any others in his life.”

This is the reason that I wanted to know your standard to measure good and bad. From an Islamic perspective, it is a sin to worship anyone other than Allah. Yes, I can see that it sounds extremely gross to you. But what does it mean when you take someone as your god? It’s really not about who you bow down to… rather it is about who you take your moral values from. I don’t drink alcohol, I don’t deal in interest, I don’t date girls etc… ONLY because I have taken Allah as my lord. If I had taken any other deity, I may not be adhering to these set of moral values, rather I would have a different set of morals. So, the basis for your rights and wrongs stems from who your God is, and that is why it is so central to the idea of sin.

You said: “My apologies for that. It was a figure of speech when I said, "

Thanks for enriching my English with a new expression. I am more used to the expression, “for the life of me…” in a similar context.

You say: “Anyway, the point is, for a god that is supposedly all-knowing and all-powerful, one would expect a set of instructions that EVERYBODY could understand and follow in the EXACT SAME WAY. And clearly, that is most definitely NOT the case.”

The way I look at it is that the instruction is indeed clear and easy to understand. But men have different axes to grind and like to wrench a meaning out of the text that suits their ends. So, the problems of textual interpretation are owing to man’s manipulative tactics. If you approach the scripture with a clear conscience without any prejudice, then you will be able to see the truth easily.

@JoC

thanks JoC. I agree with you 100%... and God bless you too.