Hell might not be eternal

[WinterHold]

It does no such thing, whether or not a soul spends it's eternity in hell or not (and whether it -is- in fact in hell or not and for what)- is known only by Allah. The verse implies that Allah reserves the right to move the denizens of hell to heaven, but it does not prohibit him from condemning whomever He wishes to eternity in hell, as nothing can prohibit Allah from anything, being the Most High.

This contradicts with god's names & characteristics. God has 99 names in Islam, each name represents a feature in god. The most famous is "The merciful". So god's acts don't contradict his names.

The tortures is not among the names ; the angry is also not included also in those names. The Quran states clearly that god wished that his acts don't contradict his names & revealed that as number 1 rule in Islam..
Non of the names of god proves that he intends to torture people who don't believe in him for the sake of torture.

So always remember that "the wish of god" is always within the context of his names & characteristics. So your argument is true ; nobody can stop god if he wanted to torture you forever.. but his characteristics don't match with such path.

[paulpablo]

But the ones who are happy , are in heaven, dwelling it as long as the earth & the skies last, except what god have wished unstoppable bestowal

the earth and the skies according to science havent been here forever and wont last forever, so therefore how could heaven be forever? " except what god have wished unstoppable bestowal" doesnt make sense in english so i cant really comment on the last part. I couldnt even guess what it means.

[Angrboda]

But the ones who are happy , are in heaven, dwelling it as long as the earth & the skies last, except what god have wished unstoppable bestowal

the earth and the skies according to science havent been here forever and wont last forever, so therefore how could heaven be forever? " except what god have wished unstoppable bestowal" doesnt make sense in english so i cant really comment on the last part. I couldnt even guess what it means.

Perhaps what it means is that Allah could give Johnny Holmes a run for his money...

[WinterHold]

My interpretation of the phrase "god does what he wants" in the first verse was that this was a direct reference to Allah's merciful nature in that he may suspend the natural fate of the dead and deliver them unto eternal bliss instead (cf. the Protestant Christian concept of sola gratia). In that sense, the discretion of Allah which is at issue is not that of the duration of punishment but rather his discretion in choosing not to punish at all. Furthermore, it's not clear that the verse is saying anything beyond that Allah is possessed of the possibility of suspension of sentence, not that he will do so, or ever in fact does. (And I can't help but wonder if this deference to Allah's potency and choice isn't in some sense a literary or idiomatic expression of 'Islam' [submission].)

Some scholars went to this opinion, but it contradicts a basic rule of exception grammar in Arabic language. The first part of the verse was :

"dwelling in it as long as the earth & the skies last, except what god wants"

The exception word "except" -in arabic "Ella"- refers to the time & duration ; since the previous condition in the verse spoke about a "dwelling with a duration". So, the exception comes on the whole condition as a single block.

Your opinion would be flawless, if the verse was like this :
"Dwelling in it, except who god wants, as long as the earth & skies last".

Another point is the words I highlighted. "who" & "what" differ so much in the context in arabic, "what" doesn't refer to humans ; it actually refers to an entity, a place, a timeline ...etc.

So your opinion is also wrong in this, because if the verse was aimed at "people", it would use the word "who" instead of "what".
In arabic, the words are :

What = ما "ma"
Who = من "man" without extending the A.

Beyond that, I don't know much about Islam, but I have noticed in prior discussions that you seem to discount the validity of reasoning from ahadith or sunnah, which while certainly your prerogative, is to my understanding, rather unorthodox. [Though in this perhaps you are simply expressing a rather extreme opinion against the practice of kalam.] Regardless, doing so lands you in the swamp of hermeneutical problems which plagues anyone who uses a text — any text — as foundational [in the philosophical sense as serving as the foundation for knowledge]. The same problems, and their implications, similarly plague fundamentalist Christians and other literalists, despite them, and you, being oblivious to the consequences of such for their arguments and beliefs. However, I am going to defer here on the epistemological problems of literalism, as there is plenty of elaboration on that elsewhere here and on the web.

To be honest with you, I stayed away from hadiths as a challenge to the Quran ; I was about to abandon Islam sometime ago, but decided to take the Quran alone as a final check. Even though I doubted that I might get "hit" by the plague you mentioned

The book gave a promise that any arab would understand it. That's why I'm using literacy with it. If then the interpreted concepts clashed & literacy failed, then it's not the word of god ; it's a forgery of a madman.
If the Quran is the word of god, then I should understand it by reading it directly ; literally, without any intervention from outside sources.

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the earth and the skies according to science havent been here forever and wont last forever, so therefore how could heaven be forever? " except what god have wished unstoppable bestowal" doesnt make sense in english so i cant really comment on the last part. I couldnt even guess what it means.

That's exactly what I was thinking about.. but it can only lead to a small conclusion that heaven isn't even close to "the skies".

#Note : the following is a crazy thought I had -and a very weird one- ; it's not based on a strong religious evidence, rather than a wikipedia link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_giant#T...5D.5B19.5D

The resurrection in the Quran takes place on earth. What I was thinking about, if humanity vanished for some reason -as most religious people call "the last hour", and then resurrected when the sun is turning into a red giant..

Maybe the red giant sun is hell ? the "lucky ones" are taken to heaven -which is not even in the skies but somewhere really far-, and the rest stay on earth to get swallowed by the red giant without any help from god to prevent that fate.

It makes some sense, but still a cranky theory because it's not based on anything but a link & thoughts of me -and I'm insane-, because I think it matches the punishment rules of god. People who don't believe in heaven would stay in what they believed in : earth. and earth will end some day, and get consumed by "hell", which is nothing more than the sun growing old.

Damn, that wasn't really related to what you said ! but it answers why heaven is eternal -because it's not even in the skies-, and why hell isn't.

[Question Mark]

Curiously, in christianity there's a heretical work called the Apocalypse of Peter, which describes the christian hell as temporary as well. The short version is that when Jesus supposedly rose again after being crucified, and came back to his apostles, he told Peter about the tortures he saw in hell (which incidentally, became the foundation for the poem "The Inferno" by Dante), and described how those in hell will eventually be saved and risen up to heaven by the prayers of the blessed.

So it transpires that even if we do go to hell, those who go to heaven will pray us up to heaven.

[paulpablo]

no my point is that the quote says they will dwell in heaven for as long as the earth and sky last, which isnt forever, so if people arent in heaven forever and arent in hell forever then where are they?

[WinterHold]

Curiously, in christianity there's a heretical work called the Apocalypse of Peter, which describes the christian hell as temporary as well. The short version is that when Jesus supposedly rose again after being crucified, and came back to his apostles, he told Peter about the tortures he saw in hell (which incidentally, became the foundation for the poem "The Inferno" by Dante), and described how those in hell will eventually be saved and risen up to heaven by the prayers of the blessed.

So it transpires that even if we do go to hell, those who go to heaven will pray us up to heaven.

That's very interesting.. I didn't know that before.
But I think "it is a long time". If this "red giant" theory is correct, then people will stay in that red giant until it cools down..

Something might also explain "inhale/exhale" verse, which might point to that also..but that's some long long time, it does look like eternity !

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no my point is that the quote says they will dwell in heaven for as long as the earth and sky last, which isnt forever, so if people arent in heaven forever and arent in hell forever then where are they?

Aha, I got your point.
The wish of god -paulpablo- was explained after the word "last". As I mentioned before, in heaven, the wish is followed by "unstoppable bestowal" ; the wish was enveloped inside the unstoppable bestowal.

Just like saying in English : "I checked all shops except that one ; sportswear aren't my thing".

I hope it would get the meaning to you ; you'll surely understand that the shop is a sports shop, and the person didn't check it out because he doesn't like sportswear.

This is not used in english -this style-, but it's widespread in the Quran.

[Nobody]

Someone who first accepts an infinitely knowing being exists, and then believe that being created an eternal Hell for those it judges worthy, have already condemned themselves to the masochistic worship of a sadistic invisible fiction.
After that, there's no room for reason to ever change a thing about it.

[WinterHold]

Someone who first accepts an infinitely knowing being exists, and then believe that being created an eternal Hell for those it judges worthy, have already condemned themselves to the masochistic worship of a sadistic invisible fiction.
After that, there's no room for reason to ever change a thing about it.

The story is very long. We just don't worship a sadestic figure without a reason the whole story of creation, the existence of humans on earth & everything else makes sense.. with hell being "a star" that might cool down & vanish makes the story of Islam stronger..

Especially if hell was a star. You should check that out, because no other religion was able to make sense about these events.

God doesn't torture those people because he's evil. God is just ; he doesn't play games. One of the rules he put in this universe is "gratitude" ; which is pure justice.

I love my mother because she carried me for months, fed me, raised me, taught me. That's why the right thing to do is thank her, do what she asks at least.. it's justice ; she deserves it.

The same with god. If hell was a star, simply god is telling people who didn't believe in him or in heaven : you didn't show your gratitude.. I shouldn't show mine.. meet your fate. Believe in this physical world only ; and you would stay in it while it's consuming itself -which is a natural phenomena- that happened many many times.

More like -you will get what you believe in-.

[paulpablo]

ok so we have a hell where people dwell there for as long as there is an earth and sky, and we have a heaven which people will dwell in for as long as there is earth and sky with the exception of what?

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so theres a heaven which people dwell in for as long as the earth and sky exist except what allah have wished, what does that mean?