Islam and Christianity promise eternal paradise to the faithful. And that is a powerful opiate, certainly, the hope of a better life to come. But there's a Sufi story that challenges the notion that people believe only because they need an opiate. Rabe'a al- Adiwiyah, a great woman saint of Sufism, was seem running through the streets of her hometown, Basra, carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her what she was doing, she answered, 'I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven of fear of hell, but because He is God. John Green
About This Quote

It is not the job of Sufis to tell people to stop believing in eternal paradise, but rather to help them see that heaven and hell are only metaphors for the joy of God's love. People want to be happy, and that means they want to know that their happiness comes from something more than themselves.

Source: Looking For Alaska

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