Thanks for your ideas and starting the thread Zhatash
Saying people are sinful isn't insulting if it's true. More to the point is "What is sin?"
As a human, I embrace only those things that are in my self interest. If I'm hungry or starving, I'll do something about it. If someone else (or whole populations) are starving, then not so much. But why should my hunger be more important than that of other people?
We normally call it selfishness, or greed, or egotism, arrogance, lust, and a hundred other names. Theology just calls it by a technical term --"sin". I don't like technical terms if I'm in mixed company.
As for my brain, I think I posted on another thread, that if I could fully comprehend God and God's will and expectations for me, then it couldn't really be God. I like to think that I'm pretty smart, but I can't be that smart!
All I know is that God loves me regardless: regardless of what I do, or what mistakes I make, or what I believe. My faith starts with God loving me; it has nothing to do with me. Who I am and what I do is only a response to this love. By analogy, I love my parents because of all that they did for and gave to me; I don't love them because they expected or demanded it of me. I work to make them proud of the sacrifices they made knowing that when I fall, there is still no judgment or condemnation from them.
How do I know this? Well, I'm not really sure, but I think that it doesn't take a lot of intelligence to feel love. We all can experience it pretty much as soon as we're born. Many other animals with lower mental functioning can feel it too.
If there is a paradise and if I do find myself in it in some future reality, then it won't be because of what I've done or not done; it will be because God is kind and loving to all her people.
--
Since Allah has given me a brain, it would seem like a sin not to use it.
Thanks for your ideas and starting the thread Zhatash
Saying people are sinful isn't insulting if it's true. More to the point is "What is sin?"
As a human, I embrace only those things that are in my self interest. If I'm hungry or starving, I'll do something about it. If someone else (or whole populations) are starving, then not so much. But why should my hunger be more important than that of other people?
We normally call it selfishness, or greed, or egotism, arrogance, lust, and a hundred other names. Theology just calls it by a technical term --"sin". I don't like technical terms if I'm in mixed company.
As for my brain, I think I posted on another thread, that if I could fully comprehend God and God's will and expectations for me, then it couldn't really be God. I like to think that I'm pretty smart, but I can't be that smart!
All I know is that God loves me regardless: regardless of what I do, or what mistakes I make, or what I believe. My faith starts with God loving me; it has nothing to do with me. Who I am and what I do is only a response to this love. By analogy, I love my parents because of all that they did for and gave to me; I don't love them because they expected or demanded it of me. I work to make them proud of the sacrifices they made knowing that when I fall, there is still no judgment or condemnation from them.
How do I know this? Well, I'm not really sure, but I think that it doesn't take a lot of intelligence to feel love. We all can experience it pretty much as soon as we're born. Many other animals with lower mental functioning can feel it too.
If there is a paradise and if I do find myself in it in some future reality, then it won't be because of what I've done or not done; it will be because God is kind and loving to all her people.
--
Since Allah has given me a brain, it would seem like a sin not to use it.