mezzen

In order for us to understand each other properly, I will explain how I see your argument. You speculate that pain and certain pleasures are designed into humans purely as 'tools' for the purpose of survival on Earth. You claim that these tools will not be needed in Paradise, thus removed, leaving only a special kind of pleasure; a minor note is that you did not explain why something has to have a need in order to exist. Anyway, you did not make it very clear to me what that special pleasure is, or whether we can feel it in this life, but that it is some kind of 'divine pleasure'. To find out what you meant by this special pleasure, I inquired about what you think of the pleasure some people feel by knowing of the misfortune of others, something that is not described as a carnal pleasure. Anyway you completely ignored that point given in the third paragraph of my other post choosing, instead, to pick on minor issues. So the first point is about your speculation of the purpose of pain and carnal pleasure and the second point is the issue of whether there are higher pleasures that are worthy of Paradise.

To answer the first point, it maybe that God gave us pain and certain pleasures to help us survive, or it maybe that there are several reasons; I don't claim to know but you blankly decided that was the full picture. All a Muslim knows from experience and scripture is that humans feel something labeled as pain and pleasure, and that they are just a small taste of what is to come. The point being, if we did not have pain and pleasure on Earth, then there would be no fear of Hellfire or desire for Paradise. Picture an existence devoid of pain and pleasure; then imagine Muhammad trying to explain the concepts Paradise and Hellfire. It would be very hard, if not impossible, for him to do that therefore nobody would have reason to follow him and nobody would care about their fate. So in a twisted way a Muslim could agree with you by saying that they are survival tools, but in the sense of getting into Hell or Paradise, not merely survival on Earth as you believe them to be. I'm sure you agree that God would not lie to man by first saying that pain and 'carnal' pleasure are tastes of Hell and Paradise, and then when you get there they are missing and you are left with something different. So there is a lot of reason for a Muslim to believe in the pleasures of drinking, eating and sex in the afterlife. It might be that Muhammad used metaphors in a few descriptions, so that the nomads would be able to grasp the concept. However, scholars generally agree that both Hell and Paradise are created, tactile and physical existences with pain and pleasure as we know them.

In answering the second point, I hope to show that your speculation is not worth anything. In your original post you suggested that this 'divine' pleasure might be akin to that gained from the satisfaction of knowing everything. You see knowledge as pleasure because of an Earthly experience where you feel you know something, or made some discovery, and found you got pleasure from it. You labeled this is a pure form of pleasure. Now someone else could speculate about the inner workings of the human mind/soul as follows. The pleasure you get from gaining knowledge is really from the arrogance of knowing more than others, and you cannot prove otherwise since no-one actually understands the functioning of the mind/soul. Thus what you label as pure, through your own speculation, is labeled as impure through another man's speculation. Just as those who take pleasure in other people's misfortune, people can take pleasure in feeling they know things that others do not know, neither seem fit for Paradise because they stem from arrogance. This should show that speculation is pointless and arrogant. Sticking to logic and evidence, be it scientific or religious, is the only reasonable and humble way.

This is why I asked you whether you could explain exactly how the soul/mind functions. You responded with a flurry of seemingly unrelated questions, and were even bold enough to answer a few on my behalf. Answers which I will attribute to you, not me. I say that your questions seemed unrelated because I didn't see the link between my mentioning the soul and your asking whether I think 'God is physical'. In Islam the soul is created by Allah, not a part of Allah. You continue this in remarkable manner by stating how humans have 'animalistic' and transcended sides, where the 'animalistic' side will cease to exist. Amazing, you made that up all by yourself!

Following up with some of the other issues. Apparently you feel Islam is wrong if it does not accept evolution, ironically you are also adamant that humans are quite apart from animals. I actually said 'human evolution' not simply 'evolution', maybe animals did evolve; I don't know. Secondly the evolution of man is completely unproven scientifically, yet you fall into the trap of accepting it as fact. I remember hoaxes like Nebraska Man and Piltdown Man, made by certain scientists desperate to prove the evolution of man, and now we have scientists and certain religious groups coming up with a compromise called Intelligent Design. Says a lot about their faith, following a completely made up philosophy, having neither scientific nor scriptural evidence.

You said, "Do not impose those primitive and atavistic desires on a supernatural deity." Nowhere have I imposed anything on God. I've clearly said that humans will be humans, not God or part of God, in Paradise. Remember you are the one hoping to be more than a human in Paradise.