Monday, September 1, 2008

My Friend the Athiest

..Who I'm finding it difficult to care for again.

Except ofcourse, in the sense that I wish if he would surrender to Allah, and save his eternal self from eternal hellfire.

If my friend reads this he'd most probably feel hurt by my cold feelings. Maybe it is best to let sleeping dogs lie and simply pretend to like him like before, but every now and again, the moral dilemma gets replayed in my conscience.

Would it be more faithful and loyal as a friend for me to do the exact opposite and bring out all the glaring things that he's doing wrong? to tell him time and again without relent that if he dies as he is right now, claiming that there is no God that he'll be committing the most calamitous disaster upon himself, and never ever feel any joy or happiness again? that he will NOT be void and finished, that he'll be brought to Allah and thrown as a worthless heap of corrupt flesh in Jahannam where he'll rightly belong, never dying, never living, forever receiving searing pain and suffering, and I won't say "endure", because no one will be able to endure any of it.

To hide all of this terrible fate and to stop telling him about it would mean that him and I can resume having amusing 15-minute phone talks about humorous nonsense in the time being. That we can go out and have longer chats over dinner with lots of fun and laughs.

But it would all be in bad faith from me. I'd be buying my own amusement for the price of lying to him, as if I'm "fine" and "unphased" by the horrific fate he's threatened of ending up in every minute of his life that passes carrying the possibility of sudden death.

I tried to ignore his calls and avoiding him so to distance myself from the dilemma. But it never really left me. And as he kept on reaching out for me tentatively as his old friend, I found myself again in his company.

I fear something else as well.

What if by keeping the issue in frozen ice and avoiding it as much as possible in order to maintain mirth and laughter, what if by doing that, I start eroding my own faith and love for Allah. It has been said that "man 3aashar ilqawm 40 yawm.."

If you stop protesting the evil long enough, you slowly start accepting it.

Your soul can NOT exist in an undetermined state. If you don't work to decide it, it will get decided for you. decided how? without you actually actively doing something to accept the evil? well by not rejecting the evil yourself. that's how.

The sa7aaba who were riding back with irrasool PBUH from Tabouk simply wanted to engage in "harmless" fun and they said a joke about the other sa7aaba who were "readers" of ilQur'an. that they were cowards in time of war, and big bellied in time feast. And what was the result of that?

Qur'anic verses came down about them proclaiming for all to hear, that they have committed "kofr". "la ta3tathero faqad kafartom ba3d eemaanikom." so they were NOT munafiqeen, they used to be faithful. but they neglected their faith, and let themselves slide back out of it. la 7ola wala qowa illa billah.

Being faithful is a full-time job is what I conclude. mainly conclude it for myself. And I am left with both intense fear, and also, intense hope that Allah will help me do it. as it is He who made me think these thoughts, and it will be only Him who'll help me execute them in my reality.

o Mbaarak 3alaikom eshahar :)

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope he gets the message and returns back to the path..

3aleena o 3aleek :)

PaLoMiNo said...

walla this is really...
i don't understand how wa7ed ala an3ima bel eslaam o ne3mat il eslaam ygdaar yertaad!!!

allaa eyhdeeh inshalla...

3alyna o 3alyk :)

Anonymous said...

3alaina w 3alaik:)

I'm not one to speak about religion. However, as a friend, you should be completely honest with him. Tell him how you feel. Tell him what you know. At least this way, you won't be keeping him in the dark.

Smart-y said...

wallah, madree shaqoulek.. bs i really hope ena u could change him! w yered.

cuz ma baqy mn el 3umer kether ely ra7, w shnu feha el dnya ely for a sec qal there is no God?

allah eyhadeeh enshallah, w yethabta 3al Islam ya rab. al7in e7na eb waqt fa9'eel, erm9'an! 5al yejareb.. just try believing, yemken qalba yet2athar.

w taby el 9j, 3afya 3leek lil7een etkalma, feh nas yemken yehdouna w yero7oun yetkalmoun 3ana b3d!!
ya3ny 9j 9j, enta a friend be ma3na el kalema :) enshallah yeqader feek hal shai w yestaw3ib ena ely qa3d yesaweh ra7 ye9'ay3a mn ra7mat rabba!!!

w embarak 3laik el shahar too :)

Anonymous said...

"I wish if he would surrender to Allah, and save his eternal self from eternal hellfire."

Your blog is called "Negativity Sucks" and yet you say things like this. That is twisted, brother. The kind of twisting that is only available through religion. Free yourself from the grip of your evil religion and open your mind to reason.

Eluded Euphoria said...

3alaik elshahar falantan

Eluded Euphoria said...

u should tell him 3yal.. for his sake,,, and yours.. u reminded me of my mother.. she was never a da3eya.. bas whenever she knows someone is mo muslim or weak in it.. kanat tkalma.. just niqash and even etha el sha59 maqtana3.. she atleast tried.. i'd always ask her way she's say ( bali'3o 3ani walaaw 2ayaa) lama nid5al el jana someone may hold u back.. egolik i was with u the whole time. why didnt u tell me about islam?! why didnt you guide me?!

falantan said...

amu: Alla yesma3 minnik :)

palomino: from what I've seen, at its core its driven by ego. humans think they should be able to understand God without God's help, and if they can't, they say he doesn't exist.

amethyst: this is the thing, the 1 time when he told me clearly that he's decided to renounce Islam and become openly atheist, I was shocked to the core and felt really rotten inside. It's like if your friend tells you she decided to become a prostitute, you panic, you want to stop her. I felt the same way. bs the long talk turned really badly and he kept joking about God and mocking God and me and everything related to religion. to him it's as if he discovered that we're all deluded and he's the one who woke up.
The whole talk depressed me for a time. Its not easy :P

smarties: ahlan belwalad il3ajeeb :) walla Alla yesma3 minnik.. o he's not even alone, there's like atleast 3 others all from his private school which are openly atheist as well, like a little club or something, the "englightened ones".

As for being a true friend, I don't know about that, that was the point of my post really, if I was a real friend I should be honest with him and not hide the issue, and if I do that it pretty much means we'll mainly stop being friends. which is an interesting topic to a future post, "how dissimilar to your friend can you be before you can't be friends anymore?"

atheist_liberty: *sigh* I'm really not in the mood to argue.. but your label of "evil religion" caught my eye. I'm not sure if you mean suicide bombers and terrorism, but if you do, I'll tell you that my religion forbids me from:
1- killing myself.
2- killing innocent people.
3- dishonoring agreements (like an entrance visa for example, its dishonorable and non-islamic to agree to be a good tourist in a foreign country and then go and blow something up).

As for inequality between men and women, then yes Islam does differentiate between men and women, namely it places men in the more authoritative position over women. and it gives men usually double the inheritance compared to women. It also preaches that men should be kind and generous to their women and family in general.

I'm not at all apologetic about any of it because simply I believe that it's the rule of God's law.

And I think that my desire to save my friend from eternal suffering to be a "positive" thought, the only negative aspect would be my fear of being honest with him in order to keep a friend-for-laughs.

As for "hell" itself being negative, that's naive. because to me hell is not a myth or a fantasy that I construct in my imagination to torture my mind with guilt, instead I believe it to be a real place that God told me about in the Qur'an. to me it's real, its not self-repression, you get me?

and also Allah promised us in the balance that if you avoid hell, you'll be rewarded with heaven, eternal bliss, joy and happiness. where the party never stops (so to speak), so plenty of positive thoughts there right?

ok enough atheist bashing for now :P too early in the morning.

falantan said...

brown-sugar: walla essara7a 3afya 3ala ommich. 3asalla ythabet'ha o yenfa3 feha. irrasool PBUH said
حدثنا ‏ ‏عبد الله ‏ ‏حدثني ‏ ‏أبي ‏ ‏حدثنا ‏ ‏حيوة بن شريح ‏ ‏حدثني ‏ ‏بقية ‏ ‏حدثني ‏ ‏ضبارة بن عبد الله ‏ ‏عن ‏ ‏دويد بن نافع ‏ ‏عن ‏ ‏معاذ بن جبل ‏
أن النبي ‏ ‏صلى الله عليه وسلم ‏ ‏قال له يا ‏ ‏معاذ ‏ ‏أن يهدي الله على يديك رجلا من أهل الشرك خير لك من أن يكون لك ‏ ‏ حمر النعم ‏

fe mosnad A7mad.

as I said to amethyst and smarties, I know its the right thing to do, bs atraddad lama adre inna it most probably mean that the friendship will stop. its as usual a matter of chosing between what's right, and what's convenient. hey that reminds me of Dumbledore! "choosing between what's right, and what's easy"

Whatever said...

The way I always thought was that every person believes that there is at least one God, and that people who say there isn't a God just don't want to bound themselves to a religion. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong. Must be there is a reason!

Ms. D said...

welcome to blogging.. Uve been missed :D

Atmana ur post reaches to further audience of blogger to mend themselves from the inside or to help others with whose faith has escaped.

Tara comitting to god is a really tough thing to bring urself too.. Fa mabalik wenta ur trying to restore faith in the hearts of those who have strayed.

Atmana the msg of ur post tosal lil kil.. I know 3idt o zidt 75 times.. Bs hal mawtho3 wayd wayd muhm winas mistehena fe

May god bless ur soul

Manutdfanatic said...

At times, the only thing that keeps me going is faith.. I can't imagine where or how I'd be without it.

I understand how disturbing this dilemma is; just don't hold back, let him know, if anything.. that'll help.

Rhazes said...

I've always been an atheist. Ever since I was a kid. The whole thought of heaven and hell never flew with me.

If you are Shia you think Sunnis are headed to hell.

If you are Sunni then you think Shia are headed to hell because they disobey the Sunna.

If you are Christian then you think all Muslims are going to hell because they don't accept Christ.

Everyone thinks the other is going to hell. The Quran, as a book contains numerous contradictions and grammatical errors. A human has written it. Al Ma'arri, Abu Nuwas and Al-Mutanabi all became atheists after discovering they could write odes that surpass the Quran by leaps and miles.

The more I studied science, the more I was convinced that the Quran was wrong. Meat does not "coat" the bones of an embryo. Rather it is the flesh which is formed first, then some of it becomes cartilage then that cartilage is ossified into bone. You have the remnants of a tail bone, namely the coccyx. If you only saw the tangled mess that blood vessels make. Twirling in and out....you are not intelligently designed my friend. Tonsils, useless muscles...an appendix. The "goosebump" reaction which would only help if you were covered in fur....face it. You evolved. I evolved, all human beings have. The evidence is overwhelming.

And for crying out loud....the sun does not set in a muddy spring, that's just pathetic. And people think with their brains "Demagh", their "3agl" is there. It's not in their "Hearts".

What more can I say? you can keep appealing to authority, force and emotions but you will never be able to see the truth in front of you.

Momslilhelper said...

the wise one:

you bring up some scientific points to dispute their relevant references in the Quran but I beseech you to open your mind to the possibility that the Quran is extremely mystical and has vague and often symbolical statements that may or may not need to be deciphered literally.

For example, the reference to the creation of the earth in 6 days does not mean 6 days in earth time, it means 6 days in God's time which is impossible to quantify.

An important point to acknowledge is the scientific facts mentioned in the Quran that predate Western discoveries by more than a millenia! Now how do you explain that? Could an illiterate goat-shephard have access to such advanced knowledge ? Really. Stop and think of the miracle of the Quran.

In regards to your claim of the Quran's lack of divinity: There is no way the Quran could have been created by Man, and if you actually read and study the verses written by these three men, you will see blatant incoherencies and redunduncies of which the Quran is free of. And what of the most obvious miracle? The preservation of the original state of the Quran! Not a 7arf has been changed since the original Quran was transcribed. It has been preserved in its form for all mankind to read and to behold its miracle, just as God promised.

God is the power that has created all beings, and Islam is the religion he wishes his creation to follow. Please try to research more about ISLAM and the QURAN and humble yourself and your convictions. You may find yourself succumbing to the Almighty, All-Powerful, All-Knowing Power that has blessed you with life.

As for our poorly designed bodies, every single cell in our body comes with its own set of instructions on how to grow, replicate, perform functions.. Please tell me how a chance combination of chemicals resulted in a multi-celled organism that not only heals itself and reproduces, but can think, feel, hear, touch? How do you explain the so called "soul/spirit" element of humans? Did a chance combination of molecules dispersed from the Bing Bang somehow create a soul?

If we can be created "randomly" by combining chemicals at different temperature as some scientists/darwinists believe happened in the first days of the earth, then why haven't we been able to create live creatures? We know the composition of the human body, why can't we just create a human being? Why are we not able to bring the dead back to life? Because science will never find a way to revive the soul, no matter how far it advances.

Sorry this was long, thanks falantan for this post. I have an athiest friend too and I'm so worried about him.

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