shit this reminds me of my own feelings...
I remember going completely insane of the thought of my parents going to hell. I spent some months in complete paranoia about this, seriously. I remember being with a group of muslima's at home and we were discussing this and I just freaked out, started crying, felt like I was going insane. I didn't want to go to heaven if I couldn't take them with me! These muslima's only repeated but god loves you so much this is why he has guided you to islam, I thought well what kind of a shit bastard is he for not guiding everybody then and on top of that giving me all this paranoia.
From that point on it became impossible for me to look at other people without thinking about some of them (or actually, it might be the majority in my kaafir country) going to hell. It was the roughest period I ever experienced in my life! Then I read the following story one day in a magazine and it was the turning point. I didn't want to give in to it at first because well we all know, the fear of hell and all that... but this story was so much more important to me than all that bullshit in the Koran. Maybe some of you have read it before, it is by Paulo Coelho.
"A man, his horse and his dog were traveling down a road. When they were passing by a gigantic tree, a bolt of lightning struck and they all fell dead on the spot.
But the man did not realize that he had already left this world, so he went on walking with his two animals; sometimes the dead take time to understand their new condition…
The journey was very long, uphill, the sun was strong and they were covered in sweat and very thirsty. They were desperately in need of water. At a bend in the road they spotted a magnificent gateway, all in marble, which led to a square paved with blocks of gold and with a fountain in the center that spouted forth crystalline water.
The traveler went up to the man guarding the gate.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning,” answered the man.
“What is this beautiful place?”
“This is heaven.”
“How good to have reached heaven, we’re ever so thirsty.”
“You can come in and drink all you want.”
And the guard pointed to the fountain.
“My horse and my dog are thirsty too.”
“So sorry, but animals aren’t allowed in here.”
The man was very disappointed because his thirst was great, but he could not drink alone; he thanked the man and went on his way. After traveling a lot, they arrived exhausted at a farm whose entrance was marked with an old doorway that opened onto a tree-lined dirt road.
A man was lying down in the shadow of one of the trees, his head covered with a hat, perhaps asleep.
“Good morning,” said the traveler.
The man nodded his head.
“We are very thirsty – me, my horse and my dog.”
“There is a spring over in those stones,” said the man, pointing to the spot. “Drink as much as you like.”
The man, the horse and the dog went to the spring and quenched their thirst. Then the traveler went back to thank the man.
“By the way, what’s this place called?”
“Heaven.”
“Heaven? But the guard at the marble gate back there said that was heaven!”
“That’s not heaven, that’s hell.”
The traveler was puzzled.
“You’ve got to stop this! All this false information must cause enormous confusion!”
The man smiled:
“Not at all. As a matter of fact they do us a great favor. Because over there stay all those who are even capable of abandoning their best friends…” "
It was the start of my apostasy in retrospect because once I went through this I fully realised the truth of islam. Slowly, when I was praying, I found it harder and harder to kneel... simply I couldn't do it anymore. I feel sorry for Hamza and all the others, even my ex-husband who has to live the rest of his life with the thought that he can't be with the woman he sincerely loved and that she will go to hell forever.
Topic: Hamza Tzortzis on his non-Muslim parents