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Understanding Religious Directives Which Is Not Based On Fear Of Hell
I used to follow religion in a speculative way, adding in my own thoughts, which although were kind of based on knowledge but were off, either giving me too much hope or too much fear. But although now I am trying to change, I still have this self doubt that I might doing things wrong and in a biased way.
The problem is that I keep on asking myself if how I am applying religious directives is right or wrong. The main basis is my understanding, ease, and final results which are staying away from major sins and living a life with gratitude and humility. If I am able to achieve all of this based on my understanding and ease, do I still have to deeply examine if what I am doing is right or wrong? I might be doing things differently than what generally muslims should do but they aren’t necessarily wrong, right?
Here is an example of what I am talking about:
I get a speculative thought about someone. In order for me to not follow that speculation, I remind myself of hell and heaven but for some reason my mind just doesn’t want to still stop. I just feel like I am suppressing it and doing things too harshly. I then tell myself how wrongful it is to accuse others of something they haven’t done, which helps a lot more, it removes the desire to even speculate. I also remind myself I am here to go through a test, pass it and earn heaven, which helps me not even look into wrong things as they aren’t what I am supposed to be getting into.
Now, the problem here is that I feel like just the fear of hell should have stopped me there and it did but it wasn’t as effective at me not even liking to do such bad act and the second problem is that it feels a little too harsh on me for some reason to not do something that is wrong just out of fear of hell. So, I add in other reasonings that aren’t as harsh and it works very effectively.
What should I do? Is it okay to do things the way I am doing them? Everything I am doing here is based on knowledge but I am applying it in a way that’s easy for me and it is working for me as well. I could definitely strive for the exact way that is taught by the religion but till then can I do things as I am doing them?
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1 Reply
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Understanding Religious Directives Which Is Not Based On Fear Of Hell
updated 1 month ago
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I do not see any problem in your approach. It is not a requirement of religion to do good deeds out of fear of Hell. Infact, Quran tells us that the ability to distinguish good and bad has had been ingrained in our nature and we should follow that nature. Every directive of religion has a reason behind it linking it to the main objective of religion and there is nothing wrong in understanding that reason to better understand that directive.
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