Eating pork

I had an interesting discussion with a Muslim student the other day. He was very upset that he had been tricked into eating pork. Basically, a girl in his previous class had what she called a turkey sandwich and he took a bite of what turned out to be a ham sandwich. He was very upset and claimed he was "doomed to hell". Now, he said it in a semi-joking way, but he was ticked.

So I asked him, "Doesn't Allah determine whether you get into heaven on if your good deeds outweigh your bad?"

To which he said yes. "Then, you better start doing some good stuff. But, if your doing good things out of selfish motivation, then are they really good?"

He didn't really have a response, but to say that Allah forgives those people who sin accidentally.

This brings up an interesting point. Allah must not be that good if he allows evil to go unpunished. And what about the fact that you can't really do enough good to outweigh your bad.

Thankfully, the Christian God has answers for both of those issues. Evil must be punished, but, for Christians, that punishment was taken by Jesus on the cross. And all of his good works are given to us so when we stand before God, he sees Jesus' righteousness. It's a done deal. Now, I can go out and do good things out of gratitude, not out of selfish ambition.