Repentance in Islam Puns

Assalamu Alaikum dear brothers and sisters,

This question that I have mainly originated from the current dilemma I have been facing in the process of finding a spouse for myself having reached the point where marriage is incumbent on me.

The dilemma that would be: is it morally wrong for me to want to prefer someone who has been pious and steadfast in their religion all their life over someone who used to be sinful but then repented and now have come back to the right path?

So for example, say I am looking for a husband and my primary criteria is to seek the one who is the most religiously-commited, as encouraged by the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H), based on my limited knowledge. And two men approach for my hand, one who has been pious and religously-commited their whole life and the other one who was misguided and performed many misdeeds but then saw the way and repented and is now the same level of steadfast in their religion. Assuming other factors aren't an issue such as compatibility etc., and that both of them would treat me equally well, would it be unfair for me to prefer the first suitor even though both of them are the same level of religiously-commited now?

Obviously we should not hold someone's past mistakes against them and we know that once a person has truly repented Allah (S.W.T) forgives their sins and we should respect them as someone who never sinned. But we also know that Allah (S.W.T) has created different levels of Jannah for us and assigns them based on how good we were in this life.

So with that in mind, would it not be correct to consider the one who was good their whole life and actively refrained from evil and in turn did more good deeds to be the more pious of the two and so choose them if piety is the most important factor I am looking for in a husband?

Jazak Allahu Khayran for your replies.

This needs to happen. Something like "To the many of our brothers and sisters who were hurt, to the families that were fractured, to the people who felt unwelcomed, we are sorry. The Lord wants all to feel welcome and safe to worship him, and we deeply regret that so many have felt unwelcome. We need to do better, and this is the first step at trying to do better. We know one apology can't undo all of the hurt that's been caused, but we offer it in sincerity and with a promise to be a better example of the love Jesus asks us to emulate."

I don't think this undermines your authority. You don't need to disavow your own revelations, although in this case it would be better if you did. But you do need to apologize. It sets the example. It shows families who have ostracized their own kids and siblings what THEY need to do. If you're so concerned about everyone remembering the NAME of Jesus Christ in this church, please demonstrate the WORKS of Jesus and reach out to those who have been so deeply hurt.

SPOILER ALERT: Van Wagenen’s lenient stake president would go on to become an Area Authority Seventy for the Church.

So much for discernment...

...

By now a great number of us have listened to “David” interview his own sexual abuser.

It has shook me to my core all day.

And so I thought I would Google the stake president, this priesthood pillar in the community who supposedly disfellowshipped good Brother Van Wagenen.

And what I found was this posting of an article from The Salt Lake Tribune from 1999.

It’s a lengthy article in which many cases of sexual abuse in the church are detailed plainly.

What shocked me was this former stake president’s words.

What shocked me was this man, literally on the payroll of the church as an employee for LDS Family Services, who never once reached out to the victim’s family.

What shocked me was “President Brown”, speaking as a church employee, telling a Tribune reporter just six years after this confirmed sexual abuse:

”The church would never try to cure a true pedophile with repentance.”

Really?

REALLY?!?!

But you did Harold Brown!

YOU DID EXACTLY THAT!!!!

You slapped a friend and fellow congregant on the wrist with a disfellowshipping and you obviously also still endorsed him WHILE being disfellowshipped to be a professor at BYU.

You didn’t report him, as may have been implied that you would do in that 1999 Tribune article.

And you failed a little boy.

And you proved what an evil and corrupt organization the LDS Church is.

And you sold yourself out Harold Brown.

You erred on the side of obedience to priesthood leaders and you left a small sexually abused boy without any professional guidance or help.

You failed as a licensed professional within LDS Family Services.

You failed as a stake president.

And in return, for protecting Van Wagenen and your countless unknown acts of obedience to your priesthood leaders, you were made an Area Authority Seventy.

I’m sick.

Sick of the abuse.

Sick of the coverups.

Sick of the faithful defending this.

...

I keep getting asked via private messages from the faithful why I can’t just leave the church alone. And THIS is why. Because so many are still stuck in the chains of false faith and obedience to false prophet

With Repentance itself basically being Antibirth + as well as Ed himself asking about stuff like External Item Descriptions possibly being added. What Mods would you want to see them add? Obviously Revelations is excluded because its both too much and redundant with Antibirth.

For me personally, I want to see Hard Mode Major Boss Patterns become Canon, It adds so much to each run and makes it rewarding as hell. as well as making Hard Mode well, a Hard Mode.

Also make Adam canon, its been 6 years!

This happened on Saturday. My friend's FIL lives with them. He is in his 80s and fancies himself a GA type, though he's never been one. I think he had some local authority type positions when he was younger, but he never made the big leagues.

Anyway, I really don't know this guy well at all. He's actually the kind of guy I've always avoided, even in my TBM days. Just one of those hardline McConkie/Packer types. But since he's living with my buddy, I see him from time to time.

So he gives me this letter (or epistle as he called it). He has his own letterhead (complete with GA initial) that includes his (self-published) books. Attached to it was an article from the current Ensign by Lloyd Newell about whether we should submit to God's will or exercise our own (I wonder which one the article says is best? /s)

Here are some highlights from that letter:

>As I was reading the attached article in the new Ensign, your name came into my mind by the power of the Spirit. I do not know a lot about you or your thinking. What little I know has prompted me to prepare this epistle to you.

>I sense a man troubled about the gospel, a man with a fore longing to find answers to many questions that trouble you. A man that does not appear to be happy. One who tolerates life and your existence due to unanswered questions. You have a sweet wife who is the glue that holds you all together.

It goes on like that. He calls himself a servant of Jesus Christ. Again, he barely knows me, so he has no idea who I am. All he knows is I don't really attend church. But for guys like that, that's all he needs to know.

I have a feeling many of us will receive more of these kind of letters, especially after Nelson's horrible talk. This one actually preceded it, so I'm sure as he watched conference he was just convinced about his own inspiration. This was relatively benign all things considered, but I have a feeling wannabe "saviors" will be firing up their word processors to call us all to repentance.

Hey guys, not sure it this would be better to post in /r/laterdaysaints but here goes.

So I have a friend that’s attending BYUI with me and the other day he expressed frustration to be because they told me they had a desire to repent but didn’t know if he should. After a little prodding he told me he got involved with a girl and had intercourse and had been doing so for a few months and he had a desire to stop and repent. Based on what he said they broke up and he hasn’t been involved for 2-3 months and has a desire to repent but is worried about his education. I understand salvation is more important that education but I don’t feel it’s right for him to be kicked out for something that he’s showing sincere sorrow for. I also don’t want him to be excommunicated because he’s endowed but still single. I wanted to get a second opinion to get a better idea of how to help. This is all new for me I just want to be a good friend.

We know a lot but not everything. I hope ALL of Antibirth's content gets added and not just most of it.

that being said i still like the original but this new one is great too.

Hi, I used to have a strong faith. It has since fallen apart and though I identify as Christian, in practice I am more of an agnostic (though I don't like to admit it). At the same time that my faith has derailed over the last five or six years I have grown tremendously in my self-esteem. I was at a Christian event all about confession the other day, emphasizing our need for repentence...

I am a good person, normal and by no means perfect but am fine. I am honest, considerate, intentional with others and am a nice person, but I don't think I really need to repent of any sins. I don't think there is much I need to confess about in my life either except for my lapse of faith. I mean, I've looked at porn a few times in the last couple months, and sure pornography in general is bad for me but that doesn't make me a bad person and I don't feel I need to apologize to God.

Am I a sinful person? Well, I am not perfect but I am good and worthwhile and I am turned off by this sort of calvinistic, moralistic emphasis on my faults, on the bad parts of me, on the things that are "not good". The whole emphasis on being sinful is unappealing to me at an emotional level, but it's not just that. I don't think it reflects my true nature. I'm not depraved, defined by sinful deeds, thoughts and actions. I am by definition neither good nor bad. I am neutral.

I don't need repentence, and I don't really need salvation. Salvation from what? I struggle to belive in any kind of afterlife and can't see God actually caring a whole lot about the little ways I lie or act selfishly.

Why have I been struggling with my faith? My trust in the Bible as the prime authority has eroded, my sense of faith has fallen apart, but there are theological issues and I think this may be the biggest theological problem.

Part of me wants to be Christian...I want to fit in with this group I have identified with so deeply my whole life. So I'm open to hearing your arguments and considering your points of view. I am all ears. Please, if you can, convince me to come back to a more Christian view of myself so that I can continue this lengthy, loopy route to maybe or mabye not reconstructing my faith.

Thanks

I never tried the mod myself (mostly cause I played the Switch version), so I'd like to have some idea of what people consider the highlights of Antibirth to be. Whatever levels, monsters, bosses, items, trinkets and whatnot you liked most, let's hear about it!

View Poll

Shirk, which includes worshiping idols, is considered the ultimate sin in Islam. It is quite ironic, despite the promotion of Islam as the one true, monotheistic religion, that praying towards the Kaaba, and the Black Stone that is housed on a corner of the Kaaba, isn’t considered shirk by Muslims. A common defense when this point is brought up is that Muslims do not worship the Kaaba, or the Black Stone, but that they are present simply for direction, to help Muslims focus their worship towards Allah. What this argument fails to recognize is that other religions claim that their physical objects of focus provide the very same abstraction—that the worshiper is not really praying to a statue, but that the statue helps the worshiper to focus in on the thing it is depicting. Nowadays, few worshipers, regardless of which religion they practice, believe that a statue or painting is itself an actual god.

That connotations of shirk that follow the Black Stone and its place in Islam is an irony that was not lost on the companions of Muhammad. Umar (the second caliph of Islam) felt the need to justify why he kissed the Black Stone. Consider this narration that reveals just how inconsistent this practice and reverence for the Black Stone appeared to Umar: "No doubt, I know that you are a stone and can neither benefit anyone nor harm anyone. Had I not seen Allah’s Messenger kissing you I would not have kissed you." Sahih Bukhari 1597

It is not just the artifacts, but also the rituals performed during Hajj that have been influenced by pagan rituals of the past. Consider Qur’an 2:158, as referenced in the following Hadith:

Anas replied, “We used to consider (i.e. going around) them (Safa and Marwa, the two mountains at Mecca) a custom of the Pre-islamic period of Ignorance, so when Islam came, we gave up going around them. Then Allah revealed: “Verily, Safa and Marwa are among the Symbols of Allah. So it is not harmful of those who perform the Hajj of the House (of Allah) or perform the Umra to ambulate (Tawaf) between them.” Sahih Bukhari 4496.

Here is the article that goes into the argument, from which I quoted: https://reasononfaith.org/shirk-and-the-kaaba/

Edit: I'm learning thanks to the comments here. I didn't know about Baetylus, described as "sacred stones that were supposedly endowed with life. According to ancient sou

As someone who has only experienced Isaac on my PS4 and Vita, I'm missing out on a lot of fantastic content for the game, such as Antibirth and Revelations (praying that somehow gets added in later down the line) So, to anyone who has actually played the holiness that is Antibirth, what are you most hyped to see in Repentance?

Surah Al-Qasas (28): Verse 27

In this verse here, a father of two women is offering Moosa (a.s) to get three things every one of us is pretty much looking for at an instant: a house, a spouse and a stable job with a contract for quite some time. What’s interesting is he didn’t scout for a woman, and he didn’t even apply for a job. But he (a.s) did just kill a man by mistake not so long before that. So, wait how does that work though?

When we trace back Moosa's (a.s) story, we see that he followed that act with seeking forgiveness, but soon after he looked and seized an opportunity to be of help to others with his God-given strength. The same strength which was misused to commit a murder. He found two women in need to water their flocks but were waiting for the men to disperse. He took initiative and watered their flocks for them. Moosa then secluded himself in the shade, clearly not seeking praise, gratitude or fame. He directly put his needs to Allah (a.s) made Duaa’ to Allah to send him good by saying:

Surah Al-Qasas (28): Verse 24

Moosa (a.s.) put forth a sincere good deed, followed with a humble and honest supplication that I am in need for any good to be sent down upon me. After all, he was at this point in time running away from prosecution and basically homeless.

This beautiful Duaa' put everything into motion, and so it wasn't long until the Duaa' was instantly answered. Allah delivered him with one of these women coming by to take him to her father for compensation. The talk eventually leads to the three of things we mentioned earlier in the first verse. A chaste woman, shelter and a dignified job.

This is an example for all of us. For what consequences can come from sincere repentance followed with good action. Simple, yet clearly very heavy in the eyes of Allah.

Personally im hoping for more variety in floor themes, like the haunted cellar, overgrown depths, cursed necropolis etc, more defined floors with special enemy's similar to antibirth

• Ensign, January 2018

This was a repeat series of episodes. Earlier thread at /r/mormon.