Exploring Ideas around Theology, Religion and Islam | Thought Adventure Podcast #1 (2021-01-18) ​

0:00:01 assalamualaikum everybody
0:00:03 welcome to the thought adventure podcast
0:00:05 we're going to be exploring
0:00:07 ideas on religion philosophy and islam
0:00:11 and today we're really excited to
0:00:13 introduce to you guys
0:00:14 a new podcast we're going to be talking
0:00:16 about the subjects
0:00:19 um today we're just going to be briefly
0:00:21 introducing
0:00:23 what the podcast is going to be all
0:00:25 about um
0:00:26 we're going to be introducing obviously
0:00:28 the panelists
0:00:29 the four steam gentlemen that we have on
0:00:32 screen
0:00:32 including myself uh introducing us one
0:00:35 by one
0:00:36 and giving you a chance to kind of get
0:00:39 to know us
0:00:40 um we're also going to be lanes or the
0:00:42 down
0:00:44 uh for how these discussions will go
0:00:47 uh what sort of topics we discuss and
0:00:50 the etiquette that we expect from
0:00:52 ourselves as well as the guests to come
0:00:56 so we're also going to be putting a link
0:00:59 to
0:01:00 uh the stream yard where guys will be
0:01:02 able to
0:01:04 kind of call in and we can have a
0:01:05 discussion um
0:01:07 but right now i just want to introduce
0:01:10 the panelists on the show and so i want
0:01:13 to give a chance for everybody to get to
0:01:15 know
0:01:16 who we are and sort of a little about
0:01:20 why we're here and what our interests
0:01:21 are so i want to give a chance now for
0:01:24 uh
0:01:24 brother youssef ponders we have from uh
0:01:28 pondering soul those who aren't familiar
0:01:30 with you
0:01:31 and i like your shirt man i told you
0:01:33 this last time you got the
0:01:35 san antonio spurs shirt that's my
0:01:37 favorite basketball team
0:01:39 you know if uh you told me not to look
0:01:41 at it and ask me what was written on it
0:01:43 i couldn't tell you
0:01:45 something i picked up from a charity
0:01:48 shop but salaam alaikum
0:01:49 everybody uh for those of you who don't
0:01:51 know me my name is
0:01:53 yusuf um i have my handle on place like
0:01:56 twitter
0:01:57 uh is at yusuf ponders uh as you can see
0:02:00 there um and my youtube channel is
0:02:03 pondering soul
0:02:05 um now we are streaming this from our
0:02:08 channels
0:02:09 um but the plan is basically to upload
0:02:12 this
0:02:12 first podcast onto a separate channel
0:02:15 that we set up
0:02:16 specifically for the thought adventure
0:02:18 podcasting
0:02:19 and and then we're not going to be
0:02:22 streaming it from our accounts anymore
0:02:24 the only reason we've had to do this now
0:02:25 uh so we're streaming it to
0:02:26 simultaneously mine and
0:02:27 jake's channel um it's just because i've
0:02:31 literally just created that account
0:02:33 yesterday
0:02:34 and then in trying to activate it for
0:02:36 live streaming it's telling us we've got
0:02:37 to wait
0:02:38 24 to 40 hours unfortunately we couldn't
0:02:40 actually stream on that
0:02:41 uh just yet but once the channel is up
0:02:43 and running um
0:02:44 we're gonna basically upload this to
0:02:46 that and then inshallah we should be
0:02:47 streaming from there from in the future
0:02:50 and we're hoping to do this once every
0:02:52 two weeks
0:02:52 on a sunday evening round about this
0:02:54 time insha'allah
0:02:56 uh so a bit about me um i um
0:03:00 a river became muslim 2014.
0:03:04 uh i studied philosophy i have a ba in
0:03:07 that
0:03:08 and the focus of mine was mainly
0:03:11 nihilism
0:03:12 um western philosophy a lot of heidegger
0:03:16 basically a lot of german philosophers
0:03:18 and um
0:03:19 yeah and so i started a youtube channel
0:03:22 last well 2019 i think
0:03:24 um and i've just been working on that
0:03:26 for about a year i
0:03:27 associated with sapiens institute so i'm
0:03:30 working with them a little bit
0:03:31 writing articles um and i've got plans
0:03:34 to do
0:03:34 like some little courses with them as
0:03:36 well most of my work has an emphasis
0:03:38 on the topic of nihilism or the meaning
0:03:40 of life
0:03:41 um and yeah so that's uh i won't
0:03:45 obviously
0:03:46 go into much detail but if you want to
0:03:47 know more about me there's a lot more
0:03:49 information
0:03:50 uh on my channel so there's my revert
0:03:52 story on there
0:03:53 uh which you could find if you just
0:03:55 search ponderings or read that story
0:03:57 um and then yeah there's obviously
0:03:58 random bits and bobs here and there
0:04:00 uh so do check that out and you'll learn
0:04:02 more about me
0:04:04 mashallah all right thanks for
0:04:05 introducing yourself now uh
0:04:07 we have brother ree fabulate here on the
0:04:10 bottom of the screen
0:04:12 so just uh introduce yourself to the
0:04:14 audience maybe a little bit about
0:04:15 yourself where you're from what your
0:04:17 interests are and that type of thing
0:04:20 and assalamu alaikum with a lot to
0:04:22 everybody listening
0:04:25 to the fellow panelists as well so yeah
0:04:27 alhamdulillah so
0:04:29 my name is uh sharif abu laith um
0:04:33 involved in various aspects of the daoa
0:04:35 uh
0:04:36 particularly in recent couple of months
0:04:39 discussion
0:04:40 discussions with atheists even some
0:04:43 christians
0:04:44 uh on various topics so part of the
0:04:48 uh part of the discussions that we had
0:04:50 ourselves
0:04:51 before doing this show was the fact that
0:04:53 we're having these really good
0:04:55 fruitful discussions with many
0:04:58 non-muslims even muslims even some
0:05:00 ex-muslims as well
0:05:02 and we thought hold on none of this is
0:05:03 getting recorded so we thought actually
0:05:05 what would be really good
0:05:07 is maybe do something with where we can
0:05:09 bring these people
0:05:10 on to these types of shows and everybody
0:05:13 can shut a luck and benefit and
0:05:15 you know one thing that's quite
0:05:16 interesting is when we were discussing
0:05:19 a lot of the atheists there were former
0:05:20 christians people from america
0:05:23 and they had a very uh well generally
0:05:25 just have a very negative view about
0:05:26 religion generally
0:05:27 but a lot of their negativity comes
0:05:30 because of their experiences with
0:05:31 christianity
0:05:32 and so when they heard muslims speak and
0:05:35 how we approach our belief
0:05:37 i think many of them were taken aback by
0:05:39 it so obviously they're still probably
0:05:41 entrenched within their own particular
0:05:43 atheism and materialism
0:05:45 but they have a greater appreciation
0:05:48 because islam and
0:05:49 many of them would admit that openly
0:05:51 that our our conception our
0:05:53 understanding about belief in allah our
0:05:55 viewpoint towards
0:05:57 guidance and revelation is far more
0:05:59 rational and coherent
0:06:01 so in addition to this i've done many
0:06:03 debates and uh talks in the past are
0:06:05 you know debated uh officially with
0:06:08 various lecturers and
0:06:09 uh professors in philosophy and in
0:06:12 science on subjects ranging from
0:06:14 proof of the existence of allah to
0:06:17 uh the quran is the word of allah is
0:06:20 secularism failing
0:06:22 on economic subjects as well so you know
0:06:25 over the years i've done quite a bit in
0:06:26 terms of that
0:06:27 recently not as much but um inshallah
0:06:30 everything's online now so we can maybe
0:06:31 discuss it more online
0:06:34 all right inshallah all right thanks for
0:06:36 introducing yourself now we have brother
0:06:38 abdul last but not least
0:06:40 uh he's a good brother uh me sharif have
0:06:43 known him
0:06:44 uh for some time now on facebook you
0:06:46 know as sharif said
0:06:48 uh having conversations and discussions
0:06:51 with
0:06:51 different uh groups of non-muslims
0:06:53 whether it be atheist
0:06:54 christian hindu or otherwise and so um
0:06:58 just give a little brief introduction
0:07:00 about yourself as the other two guests
0:07:02 have been
0:07:03 sort of what interests you about having
0:07:05 these conversations
0:07:07 assalamu alaikum yeah so um my name is
0:07:11 uh
0:07:11 abdulrahman i'm a canadian-born egyptian
0:07:14 and um i i i really agree with
0:07:19 sharif i mean i've been in these
0:07:20 discussions with with with jake
0:07:22 and sharif for quite a while right now
0:07:24 and
0:07:25 we're having some very good discussions
0:07:27 with a lot of atheists
0:07:28 christians people from like all walks of
0:07:31 walks of life and i think like the
0:07:33 approach that we've been having in these
0:07:35 groups
0:07:36 kind of like um following down jake's
0:07:39 footsteps the way he's kind of raising
0:07:40 the bar
0:07:41 in in in interfaith dialogues with
0:07:43 christians i think we've kind of been
0:07:45 mirroring that
0:07:46 in our discussions with with atheists
0:07:48 and christians in these groups and uh
0:07:50 and i i've i've been interested in the
0:07:52 topic of
0:07:54 philosophy as it relates to atheist
0:07:57 theist dialogues and and different world
0:07:59 views for quite a long time
0:08:01 and and i found that these groups have
0:08:03 been very beneficial
0:08:04 and and i definitely agree with you guys
0:08:06 that um
0:08:07 recording these sessions is is uh
0:08:10 definitely has some great potential and
0:08:12 it can
0:08:12 it can uh bring a lot of people to to
0:08:15 these sort of
0:08:17 discussions where the bar is raised and
0:08:19 where we want to actually understand
0:08:21 each other's positions
0:08:22 rather than just you know
0:08:26 some more to it all right yeah so
0:08:31 last but not least we need jake to
0:08:33 introduce himself don't forget yourself
0:08:35 for that
0:08:36 yeah i know so those who don't know me
0:08:39 i'm jake also known as the muslim
0:08:41 metaphysician online
0:08:43 i'm a revert to islam as well i have a
0:08:45 kind of
0:08:46 similar story or background as yusuf i
0:08:48 also have a
0:08:50 ba in philosophy some of my special
0:08:54 interests are
0:08:54 christian theology um frequently
0:08:58 on my youtube channel i make a lot of
0:09:00 videos about things like the trinity the
0:09:02 incarnation
0:09:04 um and i have debates various different
0:09:06 things over the past few months
0:09:08 with different christian uh academic
0:09:11 scholars
0:09:12 on things like the trinity incarnation
0:09:14 um
0:09:15 so yeah like youssef said we we are
0:09:18 streaming right now
0:09:19 on both my channel and brother youssef's
0:09:22 channel
0:09:23 but in the future we will be streaming
0:09:26 uh primarily and only on
0:09:28 the tap podcast channel so i recommend
0:09:31 and
0:09:31 we'll put the link when we get it out
0:09:33 there in the chats
0:09:35 as to um going to the actual
0:09:38 uh podcast channel and subscribing to it
0:09:41 so that in the future for future shows
0:09:43 you guys will be able to actually go on
0:09:45 there
0:09:46 and watch the uh you know future streams
0:09:50 so yeah that's a brief kind of
0:09:52 introduction about us and
0:09:54 i just want to get back on what um
0:09:56 sharif and brother abdul
0:09:58 said is that um and even yusuf has
0:10:01 joined us on
0:10:02 uh you know he's been kind enough to
0:10:03 grace us a few times
0:10:05 uh on some facebook messenger calls
0:10:07 where we've been having these
0:10:10 live discussions and many times they
0:10:13 have been very good discussions and
0:10:15 we're just like wow we wish that were
0:10:17 recorded
0:10:18 to share it with other people um you
0:10:20 know
0:10:21 just because it's really interesting
0:10:23 conversation so we said
0:10:25 you know why don't we just start a
0:10:26 podcast and kind of do that every couple
0:10:29 of weeks
0:10:30 um and invite people on the show in
0:10:32 order to do that so
0:10:34 i want to make it clear that we
0:10:36 obviously are for muslims on the show
0:10:38 but we welcome
0:10:39 all people whether you're muslim
0:10:41 christian atheist
0:10:43 hindu whatever your religious or
0:10:45 philosophical persuasion is
0:10:48 um you're welcome to come on the show
0:10:50 and have a discussion with us
0:10:52 as long as you can be respectful and
0:10:54 we'll try to
0:10:55 um remain respectful as well but um
0:10:58 if anyone gets out of hand we do have a
0:11:01 brother behind screen
0:11:03 that will just boot you out of the room
0:11:06 um
0:11:06 and mute people when necessary but we
0:11:08 have to be
0:11:10 you know as calm and respectful even
0:11:12 though we disagree with one another
0:11:14 we can share our views without letting
0:11:16 things get too far out of hand i think
0:11:18 all of us here
0:11:20 agree with that and that's one of the
0:11:21 main reasons why we're here
0:11:23 also just want to emphasize that um
0:11:25 these there basically there's going to
0:11:27 be a huge
0:11:27 emphasis on etiquettes or adam as it's
0:11:30 known in arabic
0:11:31 and the reason is is that we want to
0:11:33 have good conversations we don't want it
0:11:35 to turn into
0:11:37 uh this like a a fight
0:11:40 um we you know we want to have sincere
0:11:42 people on and we want to be
0:11:44 sincere with them uh and so these these
0:11:46 rules of
0:11:47 etiquettes they don't just apply to
0:11:49 those who come onto the channel
0:11:51 uh to speak to us they also apply to us
0:11:53 so
0:11:54 um we've made it very clear to the
0:11:56 ethereal character who will hover around
0:11:58 in the background
0:11:59 uh modding and admining uh if we get out
0:12:02 of hand
0:12:02 uh he's to mute us as well and to pop on
0:12:06 and then to tell us off and give us a
0:12:08 reminder as well so
0:12:10 basically we're not going to be exempt
0:12:12 uh from
0:12:13 like this uh naughty corner
0:12:17 if we want to call it that um and yeah
0:12:20 basically we just want to have good
0:12:21 conversations
0:12:21 um you know like uh it's been mentioned
0:12:23 a lot of these
0:12:25 conversations do have get happen offline
0:12:27 um
0:12:28 usually on the offline but not being
0:12:30 recorded uh in random chats here and
0:12:32 there and
0:12:33 it's it's really a shame because
0:12:34 obviously these kind of things a lot of
0:12:36 people can benefit
0:12:37 benefit from and then again it saves us
0:12:40 having to repeat ourselves over and over
0:12:42 and over again
0:12:43 uh because insha'allah we'll have like a
0:12:45 little cache of videos
0:12:46 that we can say uh refer people to oh
0:12:49 well yeah no
0:12:49 if you want to know about this
0:12:51 particular subject we had a
0:12:52 really good conversation on whatever
0:12:54 podcast um right so what we're
0:12:56 also going to be trying to do so we'll
0:12:58 be uploading these to the main channel
0:12:59 which will be
0:13:00 a thought adventure podcast or tap for
0:13:02 sure
0:13:03 and um we'll be uploading clips to
0:13:07 each of our channels as well uh we've
0:13:09 been trying to convince
0:13:10 uh sharif to start a channel for ages
0:13:14 now i don't know if you've actually
0:13:15 gotten around to doing it yet bro
0:13:18 have you done it oh really sort of said
0:13:19 me but not really
0:13:21 you need to get on that and then brother
0:13:24 do you have a channel
0:13:25 yeah or if you ah it's just the facebook
0:13:29 groups with uh
0:13:30 jake and sherry __ and shall i maybe
0:13:33 we can inspire you both to start being a
0:13:34 bit more
0:13:35 active on your own channels as well
0:13:37 inshallah but
0:13:38 um yeah so that's pretty much everything
0:13:41 i would have to say
0:13:42 uh just make sure the the focus is on
0:13:45 etiquette uh you can ask whatever you
0:13:48 like
0:13:48 um this is something we've had to deal
0:13:51 with a lot as well in the past
0:13:52 on other channels um you'll have someone
0:13:55 and they'll
0:13:56 they'll come and they'll say something
0:13:58 and they say in the worst way possible
0:14:00 they come
0:14:01 hyper aggressively uh they're throwing
0:14:04 name calling here there and everywhere
0:14:05 and then when we ban them or kick them
0:14:08 uh they say it's because we're trying to
0:14:09 hide the truth
0:14:10 uh or we're not willing to have the
0:14:12 conversation but then someone will come
0:14:13 on and literally ask the same thing
0:14:15 and we'll engage with them and we'll
0:14:16 engage with the very same topics
0:14:19 uh that these people that say we're
0:14:20 trying to hide um
0:14:24 certain things from and so the emphasis
0:14:27 is you can come on and you can talk
0:14:28 about whatever you like just do so in a
0:14:29 good
0:14:30 manner um and just don't be a douche
0:14:32 basically that's
0:14:33 rule number one don't don't be a douche
0:14:36 um
0:14:37 is there anything anyone else wants to
0:14:38 add before we uh i just
0:14:40 yeah i just want to say one thing
0:14:41 because there's people i got i'm looking
0:14:43 in the chat
0:14:44 uh and people are asking about your your
0:14:47 camera
0:14:48 you guys don't need to turn on your
0:14:50 camera if you want when you enter
0:14:52 you can just enter without the camera uh
0:14:55 at minimum obviously we have to hear
0:14:57 what you're saying
0:14:58 yeah that's it you have to you're gonna
0:15:00 have a mic audio
0:15:01 yeah we if you know if you're willing
0:15:04 it's preferable to have the video but
0:15:06 we're not pressing yeah we're just gonna
0:15:07 say that
0:15:08 same thing we would much prefer you
0:15:11 being because
0:15:11 these conversations are much nicer when
0:15:13 you can see the person's face um
0:15:15 and you know you can see each other's
0:15:16 facial expressions there's a lot
0:15:18 of um when i used to work in a call
0:15:20 center uh one of the main things they
0:15:21 told us is
0:15:22 over 90 percent of communication is
0:15:25 visual
0:15:26 and so you you learn a lot about what
0:15:28 someone's saying when you can see their
0:15:30 face and you're talking to them
0:15:31 um whereas obviously if that person
0:15:33 isn't
0:15:34 uh showing their face then you've got to
0:15:36 make up a lot with uh
0:15:38 voice your voice cues and things like
0:15:40 that um which
0:15:41 you won't have to do if we can see you
0:15:43 so you know just for the benefit of
0:15:45 conversation it's preferable to have
0:15:46 your faith
0:15:47 obviously i know some people have
0:15:48 privacy issues and things like that so
0:15:50 it's not
0:15:51 a huge problem um although it is
0:15:53 preferable
0:15:54 but um other than that is there
0:15:57 any more words or should we just start
0:15:59 bringing
0:16:00 some people on or should we talk about
0:16:02 um
0:16:03 we've already spoke about the aims in
0:16:05 that yeah i just want to add one thing
0:16:07 today we don't have a specific topic
0:16:10 that we're going to introduce to discuss
0:16:13 it's kind of just a uh you know
0:16:15 free-for-all type of show
0:16:17 we may in the future have to where we
0:16:20 pick a specific topic prior to coming on
0:16:23 we'll discuss it amongst ourselves for
0:16:26 you know a brief amount of time
0:16:28 and then we'll invite people on to
0:16:30 either ask questions or
0:16:32 comment on things that we've said um
0:16:35 about
0:16:36 that specific topic and we'll try to
0:16:37 keep it to that as much as we can
0:16:40 and so there's going to be kind of two
0:16:42 types of shows where we have it that way
0:16:44 and where we have it this way where
0:16:46 there's no specific topic people can
0:16:49 just call in to
0:16:50 um give their thoughts i mean right now
0:16:52 it's just an
0:16:53 sort of introduction to the podcast so
0:16:56 maybe come on
0:16:57 you might want to say whether or not you
0:16:59 like it you think it's a good idea
0:17:01 and so on and then maybe introduce uh
0:17:04 something or a question that you have
0:17:06 for us in general so right now you guys
0:17:09 can come around
0:17:10 just give like a general uh a general
0:17:12 overview of like the types of
0:17:14 topics yeah so yeah so we generally
0:17:18 we're gonna be discussing things like
0:17:20 religion uh philosophy in islam um
0:17:23 so anything that kind of broadly fits
0:17:26 those categories uh they're fine um
0:17:30 you know the sort of like silly
0:17:32 questions that have nothing to do with
0:17:34 that
0:17:34 um what's your favorite color yeah like
0:17:37 what's your what's your favorite fruit
0:17:39 or something like that i mean
0:17:40 would you think about politics i know
0:17:42 this gets that can get a bit
0:17:44 controversial but it's no doubt that
0:17:45 these kind of questions might pop up uh
0:17:48 yeah i mean i'm
0:17:49 not yeah i'm fine we're talking about
0:17:51 that
0:17:52 i think um yeah
0:17:56 i was gonna say what you find actually
0:17:57 is a lot of
0:18:00 questions that non-muslims have is in
0:18:02 relation to
0:18:03 why is there such instability in the
0:18:05 muslim world
0:18:07 if islam is so good then why is the
0:18:09 muslim world so
0:18:10 unstable so i think it's natural that
0:18:12 people can ask these types of questions
0:18:14 maybe also just to carry on what jake
0:18:16 was saying is that you know some of the
0:18:17 topics we want to cover is things
0:18:19 like you know obviously epistemology how
0:18:21 do we approach what we know
0:18:23 uh consciousness can materialism answer
0:18:26 consciousness
0:18:26 can materialism as a free will uh topics
0:18:30 related obviously with
0:18:31 uh proof of the existence of allah and
0:18:34 topics related to prophethood and
0:18:36 the quran and obviously i think as
0:18:39 jake has done various shows as well on
0:18:41 his own podcast
0:18:42 on his own youtube channel i should say
0:18:45 uh on you know christian doctrine
0:18:47 uh more from a philosophical point of
0:18:49 view in order to look at that so i think
0:18:51 this is probably some of the areas and
0:18:52 subject areas
0:18:54 that we'll probably look at is an inch
0:18:56 although
0:18:58 yeah you guys have anything else to add
0:19:00 about the topics or
0:19:03 uh i think very important that's it
0:19:06 i mean yeah there's gonna be a lot in
0:19:09 between
0:19:10 but i'm just generally that that's that
0:19:12 that kind of covers it i think
0:19:14 yeah and also if anyone has any kind of
0:19:16 uh suggestions of how they would maybe
0:19:18 like us to do things
0:19:20 uh we're not necessarily gonna like
0:19:21 implement absolutely everything anyone
0:19:23 says um but it'd be interesting to hear
0:19:26 like you know
0:19:26 what do you think is missing uh in the
0:19:29 daoa scene
0:19:30 or you know in terms of apologetics is
0:19:32 there anything that's missing you think
0:19:33 you might like to see
0:19:34 um any kind of basically this is the
0:19:36 introductory stage
0:19:38 uh so we're going to be going through a
0:19:39 bit of a teething period um
0:19:41 and we're going to be playing about with
0:19:42 a few things so we were thinking as well
0:19:44 about maybe making
0:19:45 uh the vetting process a bit stricter um
0:19:48 where
0:19:48 maybe if someone's coming on we send out
0:19:51 a
0:19:52 zoom link and then they've got to kind
0:19:53 of show the face of the person uh
0:19:55 just to make sure that we're not getting
0:19:57 trolls and things like that coming in as
0:19:59 often
0:19:59 uh but it just depends like what kind of
0:20:01 crowd we end up with i guess
0:20:02 um and we'll kind of move on from there
0:20:05 but yeah other than that i've pretty
0:20:06 much exhausted everything
0:20:08 um i would need to say should we let um
0:20:11 we've got a couple people here waiting
0:20:13 first is
0:20:13 elmo uh should we invite him
0:20:16 yeah sure hey
0:20:23 hey uh i just uh interviewed ben beale
0:20:26 from speaker's corner
0:20:28 i am not sure if you guys know him but
0:20:30 yeah i have a podcast
0:20:33 you're another podcaster what's his name
0:20:36 i'm sorry
0:20:37 ben beale he's a christian oh okay
0:20:40 no i i don't know i'm on top maybe i see
0:20:43 his face
0:20:44 i don't know yeah um
0:20:47 by the way so my podcast is almost world
0:20:50 podcast you can find it on spotify
0:20:52 itunes
0:20:53 wherever yeah tell us a bit about
0:20:56 yourself elmo so
0:20:57 uh where you from what's your background
0:21:00 i think i've heard of you before so i
0:21:02 think you're you're a christian if i'm
0:21:03 right
0:21:04 yeah yeah i'm a christian so um i grew
0:21:06 up in the philippines
0:21:08 i'm 21 years old um i
0:21:11 i was i was in two years in the
0:21:14 philippine military academy but i got
0:21:16 kicked out for
0:21:17 some reasons but um right now
0:21:23 yeah but um so i'm on the i'm doing a
0:21:26 podcast now and i'm studying journalism
0:21:29 i enrolled in a online college yeah
0:21:32 and um yeah i'm hoping to be to be a
0:21:35 writer maybe write some books on
0:21:37 philosophy and stuff
0:21:39 so how interested um are you in islam if
0:21:42 you engage with it a lot is it something
0:21:44 you're open
0:21:45 to or are you pretty convinced with uh
0:21:48 your christianity like are you and
0:21:51 also are you practicing um or are you
0:21:54 more culturally christian
0:21:55 yeah i'm a practicing christian so well
0:21:59 at the start like this july this is the
0:22:02 only time that i actually focused on
0:22:04 philosophy and religion
0:22:06 because you know i before that i was
0:22:08 just struggling with
0:22:10 academics and uh and all that stuff
0:22:13 so but so i came on these facebook calls
0:22:16 right
0:22:17 i was invited to a facebook chat and
0:22:20 i came i came to join these
0:22:24 facebook calls like group calls where
0:22:26 people discuss
0:22:27 they debate sometimes fight most of the
0:22:30 time they fight
0:22:31 but um so i i was i was interested
0:22:34 in actually learning other people's
0:22:36 points points of view
0:22:38 before i really had a bad
0:22:41 concept or idea of islam
0:22:44 like for example because i was in the
0:22:46 philippine military
0:22:48 academy we did have some sort of stigma
0:22:52 on on muslims although one-third of the
0:22:56 the the country are muslims but i guess
0:22:59 like we did struggle with like the
0:23:01 marawi
0:23:02 siege the zamboanga siege yeah so there
0:23:05 are a lot of terrorists here so
0:23:07 we it was sort of ingrained in us that
0:23:10 the islam and terrorism are parallel but
0:23:14 uh i guess i got that out of my system
0:23:18 because you know of the and actually
0:23:20 talking to
0:23:21 muslims and actually trying to
0:23:23 understand what they believe
0:23:25 right and this has changed me a lot and
0:23:28 i i guess that um i had
0:23:32 actual genuine i guess intentions to
0:23:36 actually
0:23:36 look into islam and consider it and
0:23:40 yeah and jake sharif you know a lot of
0:23:43 my muslim friends they they really um
0:23:47 what they call it accommodating to my
0:23:49 questions you know sometimes
0:23:51 i i am very aggressive sometimes i i do
0:23:55 uh concede that they have a point and
0:23:58 yeah i'm fine with saying i'm wrong you
0:24:00 know but because i'm that
0:24:02 i'm i'm really open to changing my point
0:24:05 my world view you know i there were
0:24:07 there were stars that i got into the
0:24:10 all the weird stuff like pantheism
0:24:13 or well i think we all go there at some
0:24:16 point
0:24:17 yeah yeah well it's because that when i
0:24:20 decided to
0:24:21 start a podcast of my own i i
0:24:24 when i interview my guests i really
0:24:27 considered their
0:24:28 point of view right i for example if i
0:24:32 guess someone who believes in pantheism
0:24:34 right i really
0:24:35 take it take into consideration why they
0:24:38 believe it
0:24:39 leave it the advantages the pros and
0:24:42 cons to
0:24:43 to that point of view but eventually
0:24:46 after
0:24:47 i guess by december you know and this
0:24:49 new year
0:24:50 i i've settled on christianity
0:24:53 to be the answer to i guess to
0:24:57 everything and i hope that we could talk
0:25:00 about that yeah and
0:25:01 and if you guys could convince me
0:25:03 otherwise
0:25:04 sure why not why don't you very very
0:25:07 briefly tell us
0:25:09 how you came to that conclusion
0:25:12 why christianity okay um
0:25:15 so i i i was a saved i guess
0:25:18 um born again when i was by the age of
0:25:22 13 right
0:25:23 that for me that's seventh grade so
0:25:26 when i was in high school
0:25:30 and also uh middle school i was
0:25:34 i was this church kid right and always
0:25:36 go to church
0:25:38 i always go to attend
0:25:41 um sunday school and become a song
0:25:44 leader at church and all that
0:25:46 all those activities and
0:25:49 but there were there were times that i
0:25:52 felt like a hypocrite because i wasn't
0:25:54 really understanding what christianity
0:25:57 meant to me so i was i wasn't really
0:26:01 uh saved you know in the the christian
0:26:04 concept but then
0:26:06 i at one point i it was shared to me the
0:26:10 gospel of christ's resurrection
0:26:12 of what he did and i understood it right
0:26:15 but
0:26:16 but for me um i
0:26:19 did undergo what you call a conversion
0:26:22 crisis where i
0:26:24 i did have this spiritual experience
0:26:28 that and i felt the holy spirit working
0:26:30 in me
0:26:32 and i realized how much of a sinner i am
0:26:35 and i
0:26:36 and i repented of my sins you know and
0:26:38 of course being a high school student i
0:26:41 i i had i did indulge in a lot of
0:26:44 uh you know i guess in the uh
0:26:46 sanctification sanctification process
0:26:48 there were
0:26:49 no bad stuff happening you know lust
0:26:52 girls uh you know the anger
0:26:56 hate all that stuff it but you know
0:26:59 every
0:27:00 i guess like every time um
0:27:03 i i continued to
0:27:06 go back you know i felt that christ kept
0:27:10 wanting me to repent of my sins and come
0:27:12 back to him and be
0:27:14 in fellowship with him again and and
0:27:16 yeah so
0:27:18 when when it comes to to the irrational
0:27:20 part you know the emotional part
0:27:22 i got that i guess uh for me that's
0:27:25 self-evident
0:27:26 but when it came to the considering
0:27:30 the on the rational part like for
0:27:32 example considering the bible
0:27:34 considering christ's resurrection
0:27:36 creation
0:27:37 and god god's existence himself
0:27:40 himself you know the i i
0:27:44 became a real skeptic right like by by
0:27:47 13
0:27:48 when i was 13 i was like debating people
0:27:50 on facebook groups already
0:27:52 but i was into all that stuff and um
0:27:56 so i decided to go on this really highly
0:27:59 skeptic route
0:28:00 you know reading uh philosophy like pl
0:28:04 uh
0:28:04 on plato socrates can't uh
0:28:08 sometimes and you know sometimes even
0:28:10 the
0:28:11 philosophers how'd you get on with __  0:28:14 well yeah but um i guess that um
0:28:18 that that cat was really complicated for
0:28:21 a
0:28:22 eighth grader like me so
0:28:25 i struggled with him in the second year
0:28:28 at uni
0:28:28 i know maybe third year uni and uh yeah
0:28:33 which one did you read was it critique
0:28:34 of pure reason or
0:28:36 yes that one
0:28:40 but you know i guess that i i i only
0:28:42 lasted like the 10th
0:28:43 10 pages so i can't really say that i am
0:28:48 an expert on it so
0:28:49 but yeah i guess that i i did understand
0:28:52 the
0:28:53 the surface ideas of it you know and
0:28:56 i watching a lot of youtube videos as
0:28:58 well considering all the facts
0:29:01 and um i guess i i wouldn't say
0:29:04 that i i was really
0:29:08 convinced of christianity christianity
0:29:10 at that time because you know when i
0:29:12 went to
0:29:13 to a to university right on my
0:29:16 in 11th grade in senior high school i
0:29:19 was in a university
0:29:21 when i started having philosophy classes
0:29:24 that's where like i really opened my
0:29:26 mind and i even
0:29:28 actually started to fall out of my own
0:29:31 christianity
0:29:32 right i i thought about
0:29:36 like being an atheist or agnostic and
0:29:39 all of that i constantly debated my
0:29:41 classmates
0:29:42 like i was this dude that if if you were
0:29:44 going to approach i would
0:29:46 immediately talk about the topic on god
0:29:49 and
0:29:50 all this deep stuff but yeah so
0:29:54 at this point would you say that your
0:29:56 conviction is
0:29:58 does it boil down to like um
0:30:01 is it more spiritual like a
0:30:03 psychological state of belief or is it
0:30:05 more
0:30:06 rational philosophical or like a healthy
0:30:08 mix of both
0:30:09 yeah yeah yeah i would define it as
0:30:13 phenomenological
0:30:14 because and um i guess it is the
0:30:18 philosophical type not the psychological
0:30:20 type right so
0:30:22 i really dive into
0:30:25 uh phenomenology in terms of like for
0:30:28 example
0:30:29 um when i define what
0:30:32 my reality is it might be subjective to
0:30:36 me
0:30:37 but how i define it is we're all on the
0:30:40 same boat here
0:30:41 yeah whatever is my uh favorite subject
0:30:45 awesome yeah cool cool yeah so frank
0:30:48 why i what i mean by like we're all on
0:30:50 the same boat here
0:30:52 is that um muslim atheist
0:30:55 whoever you are what kind of whatever
0:30:57 point of view nihilist or
0:30:59 whatever you're always going to have
0:31:02 these presuppositions right
0:31:04 there there are things that when it
0:31:06 comes to proper
0:31:08 justification you're not going to
0:31:11 to have any actual foundations right so
0:31:16 there are things that you would have to
0:31:18 take into
0:31:20 take for granted right for example the
0:31:22 existing systems of other minds
0:31:24 your appeal to reason and logic
0:31:28 and there are so many things that
0:31:31 you know solipsism there are so many
0:31:33 things that you have to
0:31:34 take for granted in order for you to
0:31:37 have an actual
0:31:38 foundation for your philosophy so so i
0:31:41 say like my experience you know
0:31:44 for me how i define let's say for
0:31:47 example
0:31:48 one one what the first thing i start is
0:31:51 my epistemology
0:31:52 is that how do what do i know
0:31:56 right so how do i know what
0:31:59 my my what i experience is real right
0:32:02 for so
0:32:03 for me one thing that i know for
0:32:06 certain is that the holy spirit is
0:32:09 working in me and
0:32:10 to me that it is self-evident right god
0:32:14 is real to me and that's the type of
0:32:16 knowledge that
0:32:18 that i would call you know something
0:32:21 like
0:32:22 a properly basic belief
0:32:25 right can we just kind of hone in on
0:32:28 this idea of
0:32:29 the the holy spirit working in you um
0:32:32 this is one of the things that's always
0:32:34 seemed the the most
0:32:36 distant to me um i i used to be
0:32:39 a catholic and so i was raised um
0:32:42 catholic i went to catholic school i was
0:32:43 i
0:32:44 had my holy communion and all are you
0:32:46 catholic or are you different
0:32:47 denomination
0:32:48 uh i i go to a baptist church but i'm
0:32:51 more of
0:32:52 in general just christian yeah okay so
0:32:55 yeah
0:32:56 you don't necessarily align yourself
0:32:57 with any particular denomination or
0:32:59 anything
0:32:59 yeah yeah yeah okay fair enough um but
0:33:02 this idea of the holy spirit working
0:33:04 through you
0:33:05 um and this kind of being self-evident
0:33:07 now
0:33:08 what is it that you're describing there
0:33:11 like
0:33:12 when you say like like how are you
0:33:14 experiencing that
0:33:15 and how is how is it that you're so sure
0:33:18 that it's
0:33:19 the holy spirit or that it's god um and
0:33:21 that it's not something else like
0:33:24 uh you know just a random spirit like
0:33:26 how is it that you are able to make that
0:33:28 distinction
0:33:29 um between it being
0:33:32 definitely the holy spirit and maybe
0:33:35 not just being something else
0:33:39 so how do you get to that certainty yeah
0:33:41 okay
0:33:42 that's a good question yeah so just to
0:33:43 kind of tie this into that question
0:33:45 that's basically what i was asking you
0:33:47 about the psychological
0:33:49 state of conviction you're having like
0:33:51 that that's basically what yusuf is
0:33:52 asking you so you have a psychological
0:33:54 state of conviction
0:33:55 and you believe that the holy spirit is
0:33:57 working from within
0:33:58 but how do you make the distinction
0:34:01 between a psychological state
0:34:03 and you know uh your belief being
0:34:06 objectively true
0:34:07 how do you how do you you know uh how do
0:34:10 you
0:34:10 yeah yeah yeah okay that's the interest
0:34:14 so like for example uh i'm not meaning
0:34:17 to equate you to
0:34:18 an insane person because you don't know
0:34:20 where it is you don't come across as
0:34:21 insane at all so
0:34:22 that's not my intention and but like you
0:34:24 know for example when you do see someone
0:34:26 who's
0:34:26 um maybe convinced that they have a
0:34:29 friend that follows them and
0:34:31 they're they're absolutely sure my
0:34:33 grandma was a paranoid schizophrenic
0:34:35 and she would often like you would catch
0:34:37 her whispering and talking
0:34:39 and she'd be like alone in her room um
0:34:42 or she'd convince herself that something
0:34:44 occurred that hadn't um and she was
0:34:47 always very
0:34:48 certain of this and it was like
0:34:51 trying to explain to her that certain
0:34:53 things hadn't occurred
0:34:55 um was was very difficult but like so we
0:34:58 know these things can happen
0:35:00 um i guess i'm just interested as to to
0:35:03 how you get to that point of
0:35:04 certainty with regards to the holy
0:35:06 spirit because like for example we have
0:35:08 um the experience of certainty uh
0:35:11 we have genuine faith in allah we we
0:35:15 believe in the creator
0:35:16 um we believe that like he's constantly
0:35:19 um involved in creation and like
0:35:23 uh sustaining everything and you know
0:35:26 he's
0:35:26 all-knowing etc so we
0:35:29 we have these experiences of um
0:35:33 of god but not like in this sense of
0:35:36 god being in us or anything like that
0:35:39 like
0:35:40 i don't think i'd ever use this kind of
0:35:42 language uh to describe
0:35:43 what i experienced but yeah so if you um
0:35:46 you've got a few
0:35:47 minutes there to kind of yeah yeah okay
0:35:49 so uh i guess let
0:35:50 i could break it down this way right for
0:35:53 example
0:35:54 when it comes to uh like like a really
0:35:57 extreme
0:35:58 skeptic right like there is no
0:36:01 prob like there's actually no no
0:36:05 no ontology there's there it's all just
0:36:09 uh mumbo jumbo right but here's the
0:36:13 here's what how i view it right for
0:36:15 example so
0:36:16 we're all in this philosophical
0:36:20 uh sand that we're all
0:36:23 that no one is excused and
0:36:27 when i when i define what the holy
0:36:31 spirit is and what i experience
0:36:33 is this is something that is i guess
0:36:36 beyond
0:36:37 the normal scope of my empirical
0:36:40 knowledge
0:36:41 i wouldn't even call it it within the
0:36:44 metaphysical knowledge
0:36:46 for me it is something of a spiritual
0:36:49 knowledge
0:36:50 which means that the nature of my being
0:36:54 has another side beyond that
0:36:57 that is outside of metaphysics or
0:37:01 physical and i would call this the
0:37:03 spiritual side of me
0:37:05 right and the spiritual side of me which
0:37:08 of course
0:37:09 uh muslim or christian we all believe
0:37:11 that we
0:37:12 humans have this at least
0:37:16 as a part of our nature of being human
0:37:20 and we're not just bodies like
0:37:23 that are evolved or anything but we are
0:37:26 actual
0:37:26 we have actual souls and for me the soul
0:37:30 part
0:37:31 i guess the spirit part of me is the one
0:37:33 that has this
0:37:34 knowledge of the holy spirit and
0:37:38 i guess that um and and how i define
0:37:42 this knowledge and how i
0:37:43 classify it well it's
0:37:46 i i guess that it's sort of
0:37:50 like a faith thing but more of just
0:37:53 um something of a spiritual
0:37:56 assurance right and i i and it's
0:38:00 it's something that i can't uh
0:38:03 verbalize but well
0:38:06 when we are talking about uh phenomenon
0:38:09 here you know
0:38:10 it's it's really hard to put it in a
0:38:14 in a in in just words and not really be
0:38:17 able
0:38:18 and actually like put it in a in a
0:38:21 in a box or something and deliver it and
0:38:24 hey hey you can have this experience too
0:38:27 right but i but one thing that i can
0:38:30 know for certain that
0:38:32 that my ho my spiritual experience is
0:38:35 real is that
0:38:37 there are billions of other people
0:38:40 like me who ha have this experience
0:38:44 and it's it's i guess it's it's
0:38:47 not uncommon for us humans to have
0:38:51 uh to experience the holy spirit
0:38:58 i think full metal has it has a question
0:39:01 up there
0:39:01 which is what we're trying to get at is
0:39:03 that okay you have different
0:39:05 different religions claiming these same
0:39:07 types of experiences
0:39:09 so on what basis do you have to argue
0:39:12 against their position
0:39:14 like if a mormon uh claim the mormon
0:39:17 mormons go around frequently claiming
0:39:19 this
0:39:19 idea of a burning man and so
0:39:22 we we have this idea in other religions
0:39:26 so there must be something at that point
0:39:29 that you
0:39:29 use to differentiate your belief in
0:39:31 theirs and what would that be
0:39:35 well i guess then that um
0:39:38 if everyone is experiencing
0:39:41 this sort of spiritual experience
0:39:46 then i i this is how i look at it you
0:39:49 know i i'm not
0:39:51 a typical uh baptist or evangelical
0:39:55 but how i view the holy spirit
0:39:59 is more of uh and on on
0:40:02 his i guess his working on the human
0:40:06 on people on the human race is
0:40:09 is more of i wouldn't say universal
0:40:13 but more of on a broader scale right
0:40:16 it's it it it's it's beyond the
0:40:20 the normal barriers that doctrinal
0:40:23 differences
0:40:24 make for example when i look at a fellow
0:40:26 mormon or a catholic
0:40:28 or even a muslim right if you're
0:40:31 experiencing
0:40:32 this as an ex
0:40:35 a spiritual experience i would not be
0:40:38 be in the position to discount that just
0:40:41 to say that that's wrong or that's
0:40:44 oh you're that's false or that's just
0:40:46 crazy right
0:40:48 and so in in in any case if someone were
0:40:51 to
0:40:51 to come up to me even as an atheist
0:40:54 right and tell me
0:40:55 hey bro hey elmo i'm i'm experienced
0:40:57 sort of a spiritual experience and i
0:40:59 can't explain it and
0:41:01 i feel that god is talking to me and i'm
0:41:04 not in the
0:41:05 position to say that hey bro you're
0:41:07 crazy you're not
0:41:08 believing the same doctrines of the holy
0:41:10 spirit as i am
0:41:11 then you're probably wrong right so i'm
0:41:14 so
0:41:15 for me the spiritual realm is something
0:41:18 that is beyond
0:41:20 our rational cognitive
0:41:23 understanding but but yeah but in terms
0:41:27 of those
0:41:27 mental illusions right the simple mental
0:41:30 illusions
0:41:32 then i guess you you have to go to the
0:41:34 basics
0:41:35 uh uh basic i guess you know
0:41:38 the scientific ones which is that is
0:41:41 there
0:41:42 biological problems or psychological
0:41:45 problems with this human being
0:41:47 then in that case it's just
0:41:50 illusions brought about by drugs or
0:41:55 but what if i mean what if what if it's
0:41:57 the case we do
0:41:58 all types of testing on this person and
0:42:01 everything checks out everything's
0:42:03 normal as as far as we can tell
0:42:05 but they just have a different belief in
0:42:07 you and vice versa
0:42:09 and each person is claiming the
0:42:12 spiritual experience
0:42:14 you're saying at that point you kind of
0:42:16 just have to shake their hand and walk
0:42:18 away because
0:42:19 you don't really have anything else
0:42:22 that you're basing your faith on to say
0:42:25 well
0:42:26 here's why i think you're wrong and then
0:42:28 try to explain it to them
0:42:30 why christianity is true like there has
0:42:32 to be something else that you go to at
0:42:34 that point
0:42:35 you say okay i recognize your spiritual
0:42:37 experience
0:42:39 but here's why i think maybe your belief
0:42:41 is incorrect
0:42:42 you understand what i'm saying now maybe
0:42:45 elmo's also just to add just really
0:42:47 quickly see from an islamic
0:42:48 perspective what we believe is that
0:42:50 human beings have created
0:42:52 with the desire to worship uh what maybe
0:42:55 some people call in arabic the fitter
0:42:57 yeah and so
0:42:59 every human being has this uh whether
0:43:01 they're an atheist
0:43:02 or a theist or polytheist whatever it is
0:43:05 they've got this desire within
0:43:06 themselves to look for something
0:43:08 spiritual or something more than
0:43:10 material that's why you'll have
0:43:12 people have lucky pens or lucky charms
0:43:14 and they may not necessarily believe in
0:43:15 god but
0:43:16 it is that manifestation of that
0:43:18 spirituality
0:43:19 now a famous scholar of islam his name
0:43:21 was imam khazali
0:43:23 he mentioned this point he said that you
0:43:25 know you have
0:43:26 the the emotional aspect the nafsir of a
0:43:29 human being yeah his emotions
0:43:31 and you have the mind and if you and he
0:43:34 gave the analogy of
0:43:35 a jockey in a horse the horse being the
0:43:38 emotions or the spirituality and the
0:43:40 jockey the person who rides the horse
0:43:42 being this mind
0:43:43 and he said that if you just had the
0:43:45 horse
0:43:47 it would go in all different directions
0:43:49 yeah
0:43:50 and if you just had the jockey it would
0:43:52 take him ages
0:43:54 to reach the finish line yeah so what
0:43:56 you need
0:43:57 is you need the jockey to ride the horse
0:43:59 in essence you need the mind
0:44:01 to direct the emotions so in this
0:44:03 context it would be
0:44:04 that yeah we all have this natural
0:44:06 desire to worship
0:44:08 or want to worship and this you know
0:44:10 feeling of spirituality
0:44:12 you know hindus will claim it sikhs will
0:44:14 claim it
0:44:15 you know muslims will claim it druids
0:44:18 you know you have druids in the uk they
0:44:19 will claim spirituality witches will
0:44:22 claim some form of spirituality
0:44:24 but we need to be able to say okay what
0:44:26 is the correct
0:44:28 manner by which this spiritual desire
0:44:31 this
0:44:31 you know this innate desire to be
0:44:33 satisfied that would be the mind
0:44:35 and i would say that one of the problems
0:44:37 because to what you're saying
0:44:39 here is you're coming as you mentioned
0:44:42 at the beginning presupposition you've
0:44:44 got a presupposition within the bible
0:44:46 if we take away all of the religious
0:44:49 text
0:44:50 in that context we wouldn't necessarily
0:44:53 come to a conclusion of a triune god or
0:44:55 a holy spirit
0:44:57 but if we took away all the religious
0:44:58 texts we would come to a conclusion of
0:45:00 the nature of a necessary being so this
0:45:03 is what i'm just gonna touch on as well
0:45:05 it's um like how much of this experience
0:45:08 um screams the holy spirit
0:45:11 like if you would if you didn't have um
0:45:15 like a religion or a religious unit to
0:45:18 kind of refer to where they
0:45:19 use these words quite often like when
0:45:21 they're saying holy spirit there's so on
0:45:22 and so forth
0:45:23 like what about the experience
0:45:25 independently
0:45:26 without referencing scripture um tells
0:45:30 you it's the holy spirit or is it
0:45:32 the fact that you've got this experience
0:45:34 and you've spoke to christians
0:45:36 and they've sort of married the two up
0:45:38 together and say oh you're the holy
0:45:39 spirit's working through you
0:45:41 or or did you come to this idea of the
0:45:43 the holy spirit independently
0:45:45 before you were looking into uh religion
0:45:47 before you had people telling you
0:45:49 about what it was do you know what i
0:45:51 mean like it
0:45:53 yeah yeah yeah yeah okay by the way i
0:45:56 i had a recent discussion with the
0:45:59 eastern orthodox scholar dr david
0:46:02 bradshaw
0:46:03 and which he he admitted to me in the
0:46:05 discussion
0:46:06 but you can not actually reach the
0:46:09 trinity
0:46:10 through a purely philosophical
0:46:12 argumentation or reflection
0:46:15 and so he said it's based purely on
0:46:17 revelation or
0:46:18 if you wanted to say holy spirit and
0:46:20 things like that so
0:46:21 for us that would be fundamentally
0:46:24 problematic
0:46:25 because sort of arguments that we use
0:46:28 to get to the existence of god through
0:46:30 natural theology and things like that
0:46:33 they reach to a creator god
0:46:36 that exists eternally we don't come to
0:46:39 any conclusion
0:46:40 about three persons one being this thing
0:46:44 and so don't you think that if this god
0:46:47 exists in this way
0:46:48 that somehow it would either be
0:46:50 intuitive or that we would have
0:46:52 some type of argumentation to reach that
0:46:55 apart from revelation
0:46:57 yeah yeah yeah well with no disrespect
0:47:00 to dr bradshaw like i've had a guest
0:47:03 on my podcast right who actually arrived
0:47:07 at the trinity where philosophically
0:47:12 i guess well you're gonna have to you're
0:47:13 gonna have to send them over here so we
0:47:15 could have a chat with them
0:47:16 yeah sure sure his name is johanna ratz
0:47:20 but um yes sure okay so um
0:47:24 yeah okay i i guess that what you said
0:47:26 was
0:47:28 in terms of the muslim perspective right
0:47:30 it's the innate disposition of human
0:47:32 beings to have this
0:47:34 sort of longing for spiritual connection
0:47:36 with god right and
0:47:38 for me being a christian without any
0:47:40 religious text how would i arrive at
0:47:43 oh it's oh it's the holy spirit and it's
0:47:45 not actually just the
0:47:47 the normal innate disposition that
0:47:49 humans have
0:47:50 right that's the that's that question so
0:47:53 for me like actually for me
0:47:56 in terms of how i use the the term holy
0:48:00 spirit
0:48:01 i guess it's more of just um
0:48:04 me using uh the holy spirit
0:48:08 the word holy spirit in it but for me i
0:48:11 guess it's no different from me using
0:48:13 the uh
0:48:13 that me having the spiritual connection
0:48:16 with jesus
0:48:16 or the father for me i guess that
0:48:20 i i do just you know um sp
0:48:23 i guess what you call that um
0:48:26 just uh it's only special mention the
0:48:30 holy spirit
0:48:32 on my on this in in how i talk because
0:48:36 it
0:48:36 of the my current doctrinal
0:48:38 understanding of it
0:48:40 but but i don't deny that as a whole
0:48:44 i have this spiritual connection with
0:48:46 god right and
0:48:48 and no matter for me no matter what
0:48:51 part of god that is or well not part i'm
0:48:54 sorry
0:48:55 i might get so excommunicated here but
0:48:58 no matter which person i am referring to
0:49:01 right um it's still god
0:49:04 and that's something that i can't deny
0:49:07 okay
0:49:07 yeah so yeah well if william lane craig
0:49:11 says that the
0:49:12 persons of trinity are parts of god
0:49:14 anyway so
0:49:21 you guys have any final kind of words
0:49:24 for elmo because we've
0:49:25 kind of given them a lot of time here
0:49:26 we've got justin
0:49:28 waiting on here um yeah thanks for your
0:49:31 time
0:49:35 it's the first show elmo so we don't
0:49:37 want to grill you too yeah yeah yeah
0:49:38 yeah i want you to come out
0:49:40 or maybe we can even have like a little
0:49:42 um session where we can just pull you up
0:49:45 and uh we don't have to worry about i
0:49:47 don't mean to pull you up in like any
0:49:48 aggressive sense i just mean so you
0:49:49 don't feel like we've um
0:49:51 we don't feel like we have to rush you
0:49:52 off because we've got a few people
0:49:53 waiting
0:49:54 oh no worries and
0:50:05 it's been uh nice having you on elmo
0:50:07 you've been very pleasant to talk to
0:50:08 uh it's a very good uh first
0:50:12 yeah uh so by the way um elmo's world
0:50:15 podcast
0:50:16 guys spotify __ yeah
0:50:19 because uh we both uh sharif and i have
0:50:23 been guests on there so it's a good
0:50:25 podcast
0:50:30 take care man
0:50:33 all right justin what's going on man
0:50:36 what's up guys
0:50:38 what's up how you doing i'm good i'm
0:50:40 good you guys told me to pop in here
0:50:42 have a conversation with you
0:50:44 that's a high quality microphone that
0:50:46 you got there bro
0:50:48 huh some high quality microphone that
0:50:50 you got there
0:50:54 collection back here you know yeah quite
0:50:57 quite the collection quite the
0:50:58 collection
0:50:59Laughter 0:51:01 oh is that you got to go with that
0:51:04 green screen yeah yeah got to make it
0:51:07 look fancy
0:51:08 you know it's all about perception
0:51:12 yeah yeah just uh first podcast in it so
0:51:15 we thought we'd get some people on and
0:51:18 uh
0:51:19 i don't know whether we want to drill
0:51:21 you or whether you want to try to drill
0:51:22 us
0:51:26 maybe he can introduce himself yeah yeah
0:51:28 yeah introduce yourself bro
0:51:30 sure sure yes so my name is justin i am
0:51:32 the host of the empathetic atheist show
0:51:35 uh i've had both uh uh sharif
0:51:38 and jake on the show before uh abdul
0:51:41 rahman have you been
0:51:42 have you been on before one of the after
0:51:44 parties but we
0:51:45 we talk on a daily basis so yeah yeah
0:51:49 i didn't know you had all that hair
0:51:50 going on man i like it
0:51:52 i like it but i think i've only ever
0:51:56 been in the
0:51:56 the comments admiring all these glorious
0:51:58 beards that seem to appear on your show
0:52:04 but yeah i host the empathetic atheist
0:52:06 show to uh where i have people on
0:52:08 uh with different beliefs different uh
0:52:10 perspectives on
0:52:11 um spirituality or supernatural claims
0:52:14 anything like that and
0:52:15 figure out what they believe and why um
0:52:18 i
0:52:18 currently do not debate with uh with
0:52:22 muslims just for the simple fact that i
0:52:23 want to be honest enough
0:52:25 uh i don't debate with muslims on islam
0:52:28 because
0:52:29 i currently don't know enough to even
0:52:32 argue
0:52:32 against it i'm reading the quran i'm
0:52:35 sure every single person in this room
0:52:37 has heard me
0:52:39 recite multiple quranic verses so i'm
0:52:41 learning how to speak
0:52:43 speak arabic i'm learning how to read
0:52:46 and write arabic i want to be able to
0:52:48 understand it
0:52:49 um and it can go either two ways either
0:52:52 i'm going to
0:52:54 recite the shahada that i've already
0:52:56 memorized well
0:52:58 i memorized it a few months ago i
0:52:59 wouldn't know if i'd be able to do it
0:53:01 exactly right now but
0:53:02 um but i've memorized it just in case or
0:53:05 i will be able to find issues and be
0:53:07 able to at a later point be able to uh
0:53:10 refute some of the claims that are in
0:53:11 the quran uh but as of right now
0:53:14 i just ask these guys questions uh try
0:53:16 and get their perspective on it
0:53:18 because i don't think that it's
0:53:19 conducive to tell somebody that they're
0:53:21 just not looking at it right you
0:53:23 actually jump
0:53:24 into what they believe their worldview
0:53:26 and then see if it's consistent within
0:53:28 their own belief system
0:53:30 justin i was going to ask you a question
0:53:32 actually um
0:53:34 so i was going to say uh you've
0:53:36 obviously came from a christian
0:53:37 background
0:53:38 and i think probably these discussions
0:53:41 have been the first time you probably
0:53:43 interacted with muslims
0:53:45 what's your perception in terms of the
0:53:47 similarities or differences that you've
0:53:49 come across when you talk to christians
0:53:50 as opposed to talking to muslims
0:53:54 um i don't
0:53:56 know a lot of the similarities except
0:53:58 that you both believe in
0:54:00 a god that's like one of the only
0:54:03 different what about the difference you
0:54:04 know in terms of that the way
0:54:06 both groups approach things like belief
0:54:08 okay
0:54:09 so when speaking to an atheist
0:54:12 christians will say
0:54:13 i have this book right here
0:54:17 read it have faith jesus says so
0:54:20 jesus is god and if you don't believe
0:54:23 that you're gonna burn in hell
0:54:24 and it becomes a circular argument to
0:54:26 where
0:54:27 god exists because the bible says so and
0:54:29 the bible's the inherent word of god
0:54:31 which proves the bible
0:54:32 that proves god and it just keeps going
0:54:34 in a circle
0:54:36 um and it's fear-mongering and circular
0:54:39 reasoning that comes from the christian
0:54:41 when speaking to me
0:54:43 um and then when i speak to you guys on
0:54:46 a daily basis we go through
0:54:47 philosophical arguments where you take
0:54:49 your belief system
0:54:51 you you have you guys haven't even
0:54:52 brought up a single
0:54:54 quranic verse when speaking with me not
0:54:56 yet we're not to that point yet
0:54:58 we're simply just getting me to the
0:55:00 point where i'm understanding that it is
0:55:02 possible that for there to be
0:55:04 a necessary being looking at the kalam
0:55:06 the contingency the necessary being
0:55:08 everything like that and then we then we
0:55:11 move forward
0:55:12 and i can't i think we're at the point
0:55:14 where you guys are like okay now we can
0:55:16 look at the quran
0:55:17 and see what's inside of this book um
0:55:20 to to establish uh some type of
0:55:23 dominancy over
0:55:24 other possible god claims um so
0:55:27 i would say there's a big difference
0:55:29 between those right there
0:55:31 yeah so we what you're saying is as
0:55:33 muslims we don't really come across as a
0:55:34 witch presupposing the quran
0:55:37 and saying to people right you've got to
0:55:38 believe it because the quran says so we
0:55:40 try and
0:55:41 demonstrate some evidences arguments for
0:55:44 the positions that we hold and the first
0:55:45 one is obviously the belief in a creator
0:55:48 as muslims would say allah what
0:55:51 is your thinking about some of the
0:55:54 arguments that have been presented so
0:55:56 far for the existence of what you
0:55:58 mentioned the necessary being
0:56:00 um we don't need to debate it here no
0:56:03 that's fine
0:56:05 to be completely honest with you on it
0:56:07 was stepping completely outside
0:56:09 throwing away as many biases as i have
0:56:12 which i would agree that everybody has
0:56:14 has a bias of some sort trying to throw
0:56:17 as many of those out the window and not
0:56:19 focus on those
0:56:21 they're quite with my with my frame of
0:56:25 knowledge they're quite
0:56:26 um convincing just to think that you
0:56:30 know well
0:56:30 if the the universe is you know for
0:56:32 example if the universe is eternal
0:56:35 um then there's a infinite amount of
0:56:38 causes and effects that proceed at this
0:56:40 moment right now so how could we ever
0:56:42 get to this moment right now if it
0:56:43 didn't have a beginning
0:56:44 like that makes sense that's convincing
0:56:46 it's logical
0:56:47 i still the one bias that i hold on to
0:56:50 is though
0:56:50 even though i think that's extremely
0:56:53 logical
0:56:54 and makes a lot of sense i'm still stuck
0:56:58 with this okay so the premises of the
0:57:01 logical syllogism
0:57:03 need to be backed up by some type of
0:57:05 empirical means
0:57:07 so i'm not calling myself an empiricist
0:57:10 but i still value empirical data to a
0:57:13 point to where
0:57:15 i'm not fully convinced
0:57:18 that these are true until i have in it's
0:57:20 it's almost a little bit past
0:57:22 skepticism at that point when we're
0:57:24 speaking of just logical arguments
0:57:26 can answer your question justin do you
0:57:27 like computer games um
0:57:30 i don't play too many games not
0:57:31 especially not on the computer but
0:57:34 but you've played games before console
0:57:36 games yeah yeah or anything like it like
0:57:38 there's a
0:57:39 you have these online multi-player games
0:57:41 sometimes have you ever played anything
0:57:42 like that or
0:57:44 yeah yeah i've played those before all
0:57:45 right so imagine there's this
0:57:47 uh world like world of warcraft right
0:57:50 it's a computer program and
0:57:54 the people that made it or the person
0:57:56 that made it
0:57:57 um has created these little beings in
0:57:59 there
0:58:00 with uh conscious like they they
0:58:04 are self-aware they're intelligent they
0:58:06 can converse with each other have you
0:58:08 muted yourself on purpose
0:58:10 um so they're self-aware and they can
0:58:12 talk to each other um
0:58:14 and then one of them you you talk to him
0:58:17 and you're you're communicating with him
0:58:20 but you choose him because he's he's
0:58:22 showing particular characteristics as
0:58:24 making you favor him above all the
0:58:25 others and the reason you're favoring
0:58:27 him above all the others is because if
0:58:29 you try talking to someone who didn't
0:58:30 have these characteristics
0:58:32 it would go to their head or you know
0:58:34 they may express it in a
0:58:36 problematic way and so you pick a
0:58:37 particular one you talk to him you say
0:58:39 spread my message
0:58:40 and he does and um he's telling everyone
0:58:44 listen there's
0:58:44 this being it's made this world that we
0:58:48 live in
0:58:49 all these things everything around us
0:58:50 it's all been made uh by this being and
0:58:53 it's communicating and it's giving
0:58:54 guidance
0:58:55 to me uh to give to you a lot so that we
0:58:57 can all
0:58:58 get along much better and work well and
0:59:01 do what it is that we should be doing
0:59:04 and they all say
0:59:05 uh we need er empirical evidence you
0:59:08 need to get something that we can see
0:59:10 in this world that is in the computer
0:59:12 game that proves the existence of the
0:59:14 thing
0:59:15 that created it another shorter example
0:59:18 it's like i show you a painting
0:59:21 and then you say that no i want to
0:59:24 believe there's a painter
0:59:26 it seems very rational that this painter
0:59:29 exists and he painted this painting
0:59:31 but i need you to show me evidence in
0:59:34 the painting
0:59:35 you can't go beyond the painting you've
0:59:38 got to show me evidence off the painter
0:59:40 in the painting it can't go beyond that
0:59:43 do you see an issue with i think i see
0:59:46 the issue i see the exact
0:59:48 issue that you're speaking of and do you
0:59:50 see how that relates to you
0:59:51 with this issue yeah i totally
0:59:53 understand
0:59:54 it makes complete sense the way you're
0:59:56 explaining it okay
0:59:58 so how would you then react to trying to
1:00:01 get rid of this bias
1:00:03 um justin you think it's more like like
1:00:06 almost we had elmo on and he said he's
1:00:08 got this spiritual feeling in his heart
1:00:10 for the holy spirit
1:00:15 i've just got this feeling in my heart
1:00:16 that i need empirical evidence
1:00:18 to see god no no i i think it's just a
1:00:22 standard that i've been set up with and
1:00:25 we don't have to go down this route
1:00:26 because i know i talk about
1:00:28 this way too often determinism
1:00:31 determinism yeah so yeah
1:00:35 sorry let's add to that because because
1:00:38 i think
1:00:39 like because you're talking about
1:00:40 cosmological arguments right um
1:00:42 specifically the contingency argument it
1:00:45 is kind of empirical in the sense that
1:00:46 what it does is it points to the
1:00:49 to to the observable and it makes an
1:00:51 inference to the unobservable so in a
1:00:53 sense it is empirical
1:00:55 it isn't scientific but it isn't
1:00:57 empirical like
1:00:59 in the sense that it does use the
1:01:01 contingent world or the observable world
1:01:04 around us as a basis for the inference
1:01:06 that god exists
1:01:08 yeah yeah i can understand that i can
1:01:11 definitely understand that
1:01:13 uh so what i was what i was basically
1:01:15 getting at was that
1:01:18 i can't choose what i'm convinced of um
1:01:22 and i can't choose what convinces me um
1:01:25 i have a certain standards of evidence
1:01:28 that is set
1:01:29 up to where i either accept a
1:01:33 proposition or i deny the proposition
1:01:36 if there's a separate argument that can
1:01:38 be made
1:01:39 that can convince me that a different
1:01:42 standards of evidence
1:01:43 is more reasonable then my can
1:01:47 my my standards of conviction would then
1:01:50 change do you understand what i'm saying
1:01:52 but we you know
1:01:55 i was going to say justin you know that
1:01:57 isn't we had the discussion about
1:01:59 causality i mean even on your show i had
1:02:01 this discussion about how it's
1:02:03 presupposed within the scientific method
1:02:06 um so you know we accept this particular
1:02:09 idea even though we haven't got
1:02:10 empirical evidence for it
1:02:12 you know because it makes sense of the
1:02:14 universe around us
1:02:16 so i'm saying is on the same basis we
1:02:18 can make sense of the universe around us
1:02:21 by referring to a necessary being yeah
1:02:24 and
1:02:25 and and you want to i my personal
1:02:27 opinion on this justin is that i think
1:02:29 that
1:02:30 you're it's more of a it's almost like a
1:02:32 psychological thing
1:02:34 you want to like sort of that light bulb
1:02:35 moment you know where
1:02:37 you know the holy spirit
1:02:41 the clouds are no manifest you know your
1:02:44 heart type of thing
1:02:45 in a very spiritual way i've always
1:02:48 looked at it
1:02:49 is it's not really about the emotional
1:02:52 impact of the feeling per se
1:02:54 it's about the sincerity of the idea do
1:02:57 i agree upon this idea
1:02:58 it respects my emotions yeah and i know
1:03:01 emotion
1:03:02 sounds like i'm saying oh you're just
1:03:04 being emotional i'm not saying that
1:03:05 because obviously for you it's like
1:03:06 you know there's something that's
1:03:08 holding you back and i'm saying that
1:03:10 just dripping everything away just on
1:03:12 the basis of the idea and being
1:03:14 consistent on the idea
1:03:16 can we conclude that there is a
1:03:18 necessary being you mentioned you want
1:03:20 empirical facts for the
1:03:21 empirical evidence for the premises as
1:03:23 abdulrahman mentioned
1:03:24 well the premises are built you know if
1:03:26 you want to say every contingent being
1:03:28 requires a cause or an explanation
1:03:30 that's what we sense of the reality or
1:03:32 if you want to say
1:03:33 everything that begins to exist as a
1:03:34 cause the universe begins to exist
1:03:36 therefore the universe has to go that's
1:03:38 all empirical the empiricism and science
1:03:40 proves that point at the moment at this
1:03:42 moment in time
1:03:43 the rest of the discussion is just a
1:03:44 logical entailment of that like for
1:03:47 example
1:03:48 all men immortal john is a man therefore
1:03:50 john is mortal that's just a logical
1:03:52 entailment of what we can sense around
1:03:54 us
1:03:55 so i'm just saying just based on that
1:03:58 idea
1:03:59 yeah forget about whether i'm getting a
1:04:01 light bulb moment or not
1:04:03 can i be convinced on that idea
1:04:06 i mean to add to that to that to that
1:04:08 because i like using this example
1:04:10 um like human chimp common ancestry
1:04:13 right you you believe in it clearly as
1:04:15 an atheist i think you do
1:04:16 uh what it does is basically it makes
1:04:20 an inference from the observable data to
1:04:22 the unobservable
1:04:24 the which is human chimp common ancestry
1:04:28 we don't have direct observable evidence
1:04:30 of it but what it does is that
1:04:31 it kind of interprets the evidence in
1:04:34 the most coherent way possible to make
1:04:36 that inference from the observable
1:04:38 to the unobservable and now i'm not
1:04:40 trying to put science
1:04:41 at the same epistemic level of these
1:04:44 logical and
1:04:45 rational discussions we're having here
1:04:46 we we could discuss that we could
1:04:48 discuss epistemology but what i'm saying
1:04:50 is the idea is
1:04:52 exactly the same in the sense that you
1:04:54 make an inference from the observable
1:04:56 or the empirical to the unobservable and
1:04:59 people do that all the time
1:05:02 yeah yeah i i totally agree with you i i
1:05:06 agree with everything you guys are
1:05:07 saying
1:05:08 um it's it's something that that if you
1:05:12 would understand is
1:05:13 is for for right now within my
1:05:15 understanding is out of my control my
1:05:17 conviction
1:05:18 is completely out of my control on what
1:05:20 i'm convinced of
1:05:21 i'm basically an observer sitting back
1:05:24 listening to everything that everybody's
1:05:26 saying and
1:05:26 whatever clicks clicks and whatever
1:05:28 doesn't doesn't
1:05:29 well we don't want to go down that route
1:05:32 of the like reliability of rational
1:05:34 faculties because we
1:05:36 like uh really add that discussion like
1:05:38 that
1:05:39 but but the thing is do you want your
1:05:42 beliefs to be rational
1:05:44 i don't want to use the word want
1:05:46 because i mean
1:05:48 misunderstood me there before but in a
1:05:50 sense are your beliefs
1:05:52 supposed to be rational should they be
1:05:56 rational
1:05:57 yeah should they i i would agree that
1:06:00 they should be
1:06:01 rational yeah yeah
1:06:04 made an interesting comment on this as
1:06:06 well he said uh well see abdullah
1:06:09 ali al andalusi made the same point
1:06:11 philosophical arguments
1:06:12 hardly affects an overall change uh i
1:06:15 still think the innate predisposition to
1:06:17 god
1:06:18 and studying islam especially the sera
1:06:21 is probably the biggest motivating and
1:06:22 as well
1:06:24 obviously coming from a non-muslim
1:06:25 background and i don't know to what
1:06:28 degree jake
1:06:28 can relate to this as well and but
1:06:31 sometimes i feel like
1:06:32 one of the biggest obstacle for like
1:06:35 white westerners
1:06:36 is just this uh feeling
1:06:39 of like what it might be like to
1:06:42 identify
1:06:43 as muslim and maybe there's a sort of
1:06:45 fear of um
1:06:46 how you might be perceived by your
1:06:48 community or
1:06:50 uh the the level of commitment that's
1:06:52 involved with it for example having to
1:06:53 pray five times a day fasting and things
1:06:55 like that
1:06:56 uh maybe fear of um how this might
1:06:59 affect
1:06:59 relationships with uh people that are
1:07:01 closely so i heard children running in
1:07:03 the background so i'm guessing you've
1:07:04 got
1:07:04 a wife and kids and yeah quite a few
1:07:07 so do you think that any of this
1:07:12 might be making uh an obstacle for your
1:07:16 accepting islam or like for example
1:07:19 you've gone through a few of these
1:07:21 rational arguments and you seem
1:07:22 convinced the idea like although you
1:07:26 identify as an atheist
1:07:27 your show is called the empathetic
1:07:29 atheist
1:07:30 um i'm guessing like you you have a huge
1:07:34 especially when dealing with christians
1:07:36 you you may talk to them
1:07:38 about how you know you need to be
1:07:40 rational this thing doesn't make sense
1:07:41 that thing doesn't make sense
1:07:43 and so like you're kind of applying this
1:07:46 to the christian and then but then when
1:07:49 we're trying to apply this to you
1:07:52 there's a sort of disconjunct where
1:07:54 you're rationally convinced of arguments
1:07:57 but there's this unseen force that's
1:08:00 sort of
1:08:01 getting in the way of that so have you
1:08:03 thought about how it may be
1:08:05 other things not necessarily rational
1:08:07 but more just sociological um
1:08:11 i wouldn't say it really has anything to
1:08:13 do with
1:08:14 um islam actually would be the exact
1:08:16 opposite because
1:08:18 for some reason you know like when
1:08:20 you're a kid and and you're getting
1:08:21 ready for the next school year
1:08:23 and you just got this feeling like these
1:08:25 are going to be the popular shoes like i
1:08:27 need to go pick myself a pair of air
1:08:28 force ones
1:08:29 because those are going to be what's
1:08:30 popular is this this year in school
1:08:32 and that's you know that's that's what
1:08:34 you want to go do
1:08:35 i actually have this
1:08:39 innate desire to
1:08:42 become a muslim i really
1:08:45 i want to um
1:08:50 that's that's
1:08:56 here's the thing i am not ready to
1:08:59 submit
1:09:01 i i i my intentionality is not there
1:09:04 and from the uh research and studying
1:09:08 that i've done
1:09:08 into islam you have to be ready to fully
1:09:12 submit
1:09:12 give your entire ego up to the the
1:09:15 intentionality is
1:09:17 literally everything when it comes to
1:09:19 islam so
1:09:20 even though it's appealing to me and
1:09:22 reciting the quran
1:09:24 is is it is like the most beautiful
1:09:27 language i've ever heard in my life
1:09:29 and all this stuff it's appealing to my
1:09:32 emotions
1:09:33 but on a logical basis i can't let my
1:09:35 emotions get involved
1:09:38 yeah but what you what joseph was saying
1:09:40 earlier is what you're saying
1:09:42 is that logically the argument makes
1:09:44 sense believing one god makes sense yeah
1:09:47 the necessary
1:09:48 being so that's the the aspect and then
1:09:50 obviously
1:09:51 you know you know we do have an
1:09:53 emotional aspect to us
1:09:54 as well so that's part of makes us a
1:09:57 human being this desire to want to
1:09:59 do actions and feel emotions and things
1:10:02 like that and so
1:10:03 what you've got in essence with islam is
1:10:05 a synergy between
1:10:07 a rational conception of the creator
1:10:10 that
1:10:10 satisfies this innate desire within a
1:10:13 human being that wants to
1:10:15 sanctify wants to see things that are
1:10:18 greater in purpose and meaning than just
1:10:20 being
1:10:20 material that's rolling down the hill
1:10:23 you know
1:10:23 through a deterministic pattern yeah so
1:10:26 i'm just saying there's a synergy in
1:10:27 regards to this
1:10:28 obviously i don't think we've really
1:10:30 gone into a major discussion about
1:10:32 the uh evidences for the quran
1:10:35 and why we believe that the quran is the
1:10:37 word of the creator and things like that
1:10:39 i think maybe that's a discussion that
1:10:41 needs to be had
1:10:42 um but i think it's just something to
1:10:44 think about and
1:10:46 you know uh yeah there's no rush
1:10:50 obviously
1:10:50 in terms of that but the the thing i
1:10:53 would like you to think about as well is
1:10:55 um one thing people sometimes do is they
1:10:58 sort of
1:10:59 assume that in order to become a muslim
1:11:00 they have to be ready to go full
1:11:02 super muzzy like you know and
1:11:06 it's i really think there's a brother
1:11:09 called hamza
1:11:10 he he has a really good point in this
1:11:12 that sometimes it's um
1:11:14 we what we believe is that basically the
1:11:16 shaytan whispers to you
1:11:18 and he tries everything he can to
1:11:19 prevent you from accepting
1:11:22 um what we believe is true and he does
1:11:25 this by
1:11:26 uh really kind of setting the standard
1:11:28 so high so that if you ever
1:11:30 like kind of get yourself to a point
1:11:32 where you might think
1:11:33 uh you would submit that it would have
1:11:35 to be on the basis that you'd like
1:11:37 can read arabic you already know how to
1:11:40 pray and so on and so forth
1:11:41 now i would say be careful of that kind
1:11:44 of thinking
1:11:46 because it's it's not the case like half
1:11:48 of the time
1:11:50 most of that you learn once you've taken
1:11:52 the shahada and it's the shahada that
1:11:54 really helps motivate that
1:11:56 process of learning um and that's not to
1:11:58 say you should that like
1:11:59 you know i'm trying to get you to take
1:12:01 it today right now uh although that
1:12:03 would be absolutely amazing for
1:12:05 the number one podcast for the channel
1:12:07 for the channel views
1:12:10 i mean justin i've told you in the past
1:12:12 dude all you really need to do
1:12:14 is just change one word in your youtube
1:12:17 channel just make it the empathetic
1:12:18 muslim
1:12:19 and you're good to go man easy
1:12:22 transition
1:12:25 i'm not scared to do that i'm not scared
1:12:27 to do that at all i
1:12:28 i'm fully ready to you know to
1:12:31 to to take that take that uh title and
1:12:34 change it now
1:12:35 i'll probably i'm almost to a thousand
1:12:37 subscribers there now
1:12:38 i'd probably lose most of the
1:12:40 subscribers well
1:12:42 look how much more you gain man
1:12:46 we want to be careful here like uh
1:12:55 because he was he was he was talking
1:12:57 from a more spiritual
1:12:59 angle like about like um the rituals
1:13:03 that you have to do or whatever
1:13:04 practices you have to engage in when you
1:13:06 become a muslim that commitment
1:13:08 but also from an epistemological
1:13:10 perspective the same might be true if
1:13:12 you're a fallible
1:13:13 knowledge in the sense that you don't
1:13:14 have to be a hundred percent certain
1:13:16 about what you know
1:13:18 then you can really take that leap as
1:13:20 long as uh
1:13:22 you know the evidence you have is
1:13:23 sufficient and i think you kind of need
1:13:26 to like draw the line where you want to
1:13:27 set that bar
1:13:29 for something on a list basis because
1:13:32 almost everything we know is is
1:13:35 uncertain in that strict
1:13:37 deep philosophical understanding of what
1:13:40 like
1:13:40 certainty is we don't have that kind of
1:13:44 certainty that we have with the the the
1:13:47 i think therefore i
1:13:48 am with most of what we know so even
1:13:51 from an epistemological perspective you
1:13:53 don't have to
1:13:54 attain that 100 certainty in order to
1:13:57 take a leap and say that okay
1:14:00 it is reasonable to say that this
1:14:02 proposition is true
1:14:03 yeah and the same goes for like when you
1:14:06 became an atheist
1:14:07 did you have to get yourself to that
1:14:09 like 100 percent
1:14:11 level in terms of knowledge base and
1:14:13 this that neither before you started
1:14:14 identifying
1:14:15 i'm still not there so yeah exactly so
1:14:18 like
1:14:19 you weren't 100 in the the realm of the
1:14:22 atheist
1:14:23 uh you weren't 100 in terms of your
1:14:25 absolute knowledge base you're not
1:14:26 completely convinced there isn't a god
1:14:28 yet you're willing to identify as one
1:14:31 and so i think if
1:14:32 if anybody if any atheist would say that
1:14:35 they have 100
1:14:36 knowledge of their claims my next
1:14:38 question to them is why are you even
1:14:40 having conversations with people
1:14:42 like why are you even talking to them
1:14:45 because i mean my my purpose of talking
1:14:47 to you guys
1:14:48 is not to just show you guys how you're
1:14:50 wrong like i don't care about
1:14:52 winning or losing a debate i really
1:14:54 don't care about any of that
1:14:55 it's about gaining knowledge learning
1:14:57 something from somebody
1:14:58 you know bill nye has a quote uh says
1:15:00 every person you meet knows something
1:15:02 that you don't
1:15:03 so my my purpose is to is to get out and
1:15:06 have con
1:15:06 conversations with people um most of the
1:15:09 time that disagree with me
1:15:11 because that's where you learn the most
1:15:12 you get into an echo chamber and you
1:15:14 guys just are sitting around like a
1:15:15 bunch of pelicans like
1:15:16 mine you just speak the same gibberish
1:15:20 to each other that you hear on a daily
1:15:22 basis
1:15:22 and that's why i you know that's why i
1:15:24 got away from the christian church
1:15:26 because
1:15:26 you know on the pulpit you just hear the
1:15:28 same crap every single
1:15:30 every single sunday um so i like getting
1:15:33 out and speaking to people that have
1:15:35 disagreements with me
1:15:36 so maybe i can figure out where i'm
1:15:38 wrong
1:15:39 and and where i can be right
1:15:43 right yeah and like i said to elmo it'd
1:15:46 be great to maybe get you on here
1:15:48 uh where we can spend like a decent
1:15:50 amount of time with you without having
1:15:51 to worry about other people coming on
1:15:53 sure um but if you're up for that we can
1:15:54 maybe we'll have a little
1:15:56 chat maybe set up a little i'm just
1:15:58 waiting for jake to tell me that i don't
1:16:00 know anything
1:16:02 you know i tell you that all the time
1:16:04 dude but yeah
1:16:05 justin it's it's just pleasure talking
1:16:07 to you i'm sure we'll talk again on the
1:16:09 show sometime in the future
1:16:10 god willing um but yeah we we should
1:16:13 probably move on to next person just
1:16:15 because
1:16:16 it's the first is the first show and we
1:16:18 want to get you know just a few people
1:16:19 in here but uh i appreciate you guys
1:16:22 yeah we appreciate it hello
1:16:24 we've got a special guest how you doing
1:16:28 can you hear us or is it just headphones
1:16:32 oh dude yeah he can't he i got my
1:16:34 headphones no i was guessing that was
1:16:36 maybe if he presses his head against
1:16:37 your ear
1:16:39 you're right little man can you hear us
1:16:42Laughter 1:16:44 all right well thank you guys for having
1:16:45 me on i appreciate you uh yeah yeah
1:16:47 bringing me on the show
1:16:49 if if anybody in the chat if you guys
1:16:52 are interested
1:16:52 um in in having a conversation i wa i
1:16:56 would like more muslims
1:16:57 uh to come to come and have a
1:16:59 conversation on my show because it's
1:17:00 typically just
1:17:01 cookie cutter christians all the time
1:17:03 and i'd like a different i'd like a
1:17:04 different scenery
1:17:06 a different respect but the problem is
1:17:08 that uh whenever you live stream it's
1:17:10 always a stupid o'clock in the morning
1:17:11 for us brits
1:17:12 oh yeah and like i'm just about i'm just
1:17:15 about to go to bed and then i'll notice
1:17:17 you're
1:17:17 live streaming and i'll jump on mention
1:17:19 something about someone's beard and
1:17:20 that's right now i've got to go pass out
1:17:22 i just remember you mentioned christians
1:17:24 again before you leave
1:17:25 because you said something in the
1:17:26 beginning and i want to be fair to
1:17:27 christians
1:17:28 because he said something about the
1:17:30 approach christians have to to
1:17:32 their religion and to prove that their
1:17:33 religion is true and you know that it's
1:17:35 just circular the bible says
1:17:36 therefore it's true i think that's the
1:17:39 christians you've been exposed to
1:17:40 because there are a lot of amazing
1:17:41 christian philosophers out there and
1:17:43 there are a lot of christians who have a
1:17:44 more like evidentialist approach to
1:17:46 proving that their religion is true
1:17:48 and there are a lot of christians who
1:17:49 actually argue for the truth of their
1:17:51 religion so i just don't want that to be
1:17:53 like
1:17:53 a sweeping generalization yeah yeah i
1:17:56 don't know i don't mean to generalize at
1:17:58 all i've spoken with a lot of christians
1:17:59 that actually make some pretty good
1:18:00 arguments but
1:18:02 um basically what i was what what i was
1:18:04 getting at is is when speaking with uh
1:18:06 when speaking with
1:18:07 an uh atheists uh that's typically what
1:18:10 i get
1:18:10 now the issue that i have and i'll say
1:18:13 this real quick before before i leave
1:18:15 is that when it comes to muslims talking
1:18:18 to christians and christians talking to
1:18:20 muslims
1:18:21 normally i hear you know jake going on
1:18:23 about the incarnation the atonement the
1:18:25 trinity things like that and then when
1:18:28 christians want to fire back about islam
1:18:30 they say well
1:18:31 you know let's talk crap about prophet
1:18:34 muhammed let's
1:18:35 let's talk about the splitting the moon
1:18:37 in half let's talk about the
1:18:39 you know i think i've brought up the the
1:18:40 toothbrush incident with you guys before
1:18:43 like
1:18:43 they bring up these stupid little quirky
1:18:45 things about you know
1:18:46 about what they think is a defeater for
1:18:49 islam
1:18:51 i agree with that so i think that like
1:18:53 christian philosophers in general
1:18:55 as far as like their when they talk
1:18:57 about like philosophy and metaphysically
1:19:00 they're amazing also when they're trying
1:19:02 to make a positive case for their
1:19:04 religion they have a lot to say
1:19:06 but when it comes to interfaith dialogue
1:19:08 with muslims i think that's where
1:19:10 the curve goes a bit down yeah yeah i
1:19:13 think what you're trying to say justin
1:19:15 is that we
1:19:16 have like contentions to the creedal
1:19:18 matters the very
1:19:20 you know basis of christianity whereas
1:19:22 when some christians criticize
1:19:24 uh muslims and islam they're talking
1:19:27 about
1:19:27 very branch aspects things are not
1:19:30 necessary
1:19:31 uh in origin to what makes a muslim a
1:19:34 muslim
1:19:35 yeah it's the difference between
1:19:36 discussing uh the foundational things
1:19:38 like you know talking about that which
1:19:41 underpins
1:19:41 the whole theology and then talking
1:19:43 about secondary issues
1:19:45 which are all like the truth or falsity
1:19:48 of them rely on
1:19:49 the foundational things that they're
1:19:50 just skipping over in order to kind of
1:19:52 make these
1:19:53 sort of pot shots and low blows uh low
1:19:56 hanging fruit
1:19:58 yeah i understand all right well i don't
1:20:01 want to take up any more you guys know
1:20:02 today
1:20:10 now before we bring anyone else on uh oh
1:20:12 we've got someone on already there we go
1:20:14 i'm just going to say before i introduce
1:20:18 the new guest
1:20:18 uh there's 104 of you uh which
1:20:21 subhanallah is really good for
1:20:23 podcast number one uh so if you haven't
1:20:25 subscribed already
1:20:26 to either of the channels uh that we're
1:20:29 currently
1:20:30 streaming on be that the muslim
1:20:32 metaphysician or mine
1:20:34 uh the pondering sword please do
1:20:35 subscribe there is this is going to
1:20:37 continue to be on a separate channel
1:20:38 which is going to be called thoughts
1:20:40 adventure podcast
1:20:41 and the channel's currently processing
1:20:44 at the moment and they're making us wait
1:20:45 a few hours
1:20:46 so when that's sorted um the next
1:20:48 episode which will be in two weeks time
1:20:49 we'll be uh streaming from there and
1:20:52 please do don't forget to like
1:20:54 uh and share the link as well uh because
1:20:56 insha'allah that will obviously increase
1:20:58 the viewership
1:20:58 uh so share on your social media like
1:21:01 leave comments
1:21:03 this all of this engagement really helps
1:21:05 uh the algorithms with the grasshopper
1:21:06 um channels oh yeah so now we have a
1:21:09 another guest
1:21:10 taylor james taylor taylor
1:21:14 how you doing taylor i'm all right
1:21:17 i'm just checking out the first the
1:21:18 inauguration of the muzzbed show
1:21:23 that should be good so tell us a bit
1:21:25 about yourself taylor
1:21:26 uh who are you where you from well
1:21:29 i'm uh american i'm from california and
1:21:32 i'm a biblical literalist
1:21:34 christian okay so is there anything in
1:21:37 particular
1:21:38 uh you inclined to with regards to
1:21:40 christianity are you part of a
1:21:42 certain denomination or well i'd say i'm
1:21:45 more
1:21:45 baptist yeah i tend to lean that way
1:21:49 and uh are you familiar with any like
1:21:52 i've never
1:21:53 met you before so i'm guessing maybe you
1:21:54 are familiar with one of the other
1:21:56 brothers or
1:21:58 yeah jake uh
1:22:01 sharif we've all spoken in a
1:22:04 we've all spoken before so
1:22:08 yeah taylor's actually a modalist um
1:22:12 so he he doesn't believe in the trinity
1:22:15 maybe he can
1:22:16 sort of explain his view
1:22:19 yeah um i'm a modus i believe in oneness
1:22:23 obviously there's one god because the
1:22:25 bible says there's one god and
1:22:28 one and two or different three those are
1:22:31 different
1:22:32 rights what do you think you never
1:22:33 understand so what's your opinion with
1:22:35 regards to
1:22:36 jesus how does he fit into your theology
1:22:42 jesus is the incarnation of the god of
1:22:45 the bible
1:22:46 so you still think he's um god
1:22:51 yeah okay so
1:22:54 i guess i'm pretty new to modalism um
1:22:57 like
1:22:57 what is it that makes it distinct from
1:22:59 trinitarianism then if you still think
1:23:00 like do you believe in the holy spirit
1:23:02 as well or yeah
1:23:04 you do yeah the use of the difference is
1:23:06 that
1:23:07 in in trinitarianism there's one being
1:23:10 three persons
1:23:11 but modalism the idea is uh the father
1:23:15 son and spirit are all
1:23:16 god but they're what's called moses god
1:23:20 there there's one god in the ultimate
1:23:22 sense and then you have these three
1:23:23 things that
1:23:24 are separate modes of the dean they're
1:23:27 not
1:23:28 like individual distinct persons in a
1:23:30 sort of like trinitarian sense of like
1:23:33 three minds and god type of thing
1:23:36 so i don't know if taylor wants to uh
1:23:39 expand on that at all but that's an
1:23:41 understanding yeah i could experiment
1:23:44 if you want to add the other muslims in
1:23:46 their own mind
1:24:00 foreign
1:24:04 i just got on you know to see how you
1:24:06 guys are doing
1:24:07 and uh yeah i would like to share some
1:24:10 things you know from an islamic lens if
1:24:12 you guys don't mind
1:24:14 yeah yeah we almost got justin to do
1:24:15 shahada on the channel
1:24:17 yeah yeah yeah i was watching it was a
1:24:20 nice
1:24:20 yeah you know i've been um all my life
1:24:23 you know
1:24:24 and uh but nonetheless i didn't um like
1:24:28 i had to contemplate and reflect from
1:24:30 within
1:24:31 and my own faith as well you know so it
1:24:33 wasn't just the
1:24:34 raised up balani as a muslim
1:24:38 and obviously as muslims were told to
1:24:39 have got consciousness and
1:24:41 you know operate based on certain moral
1:24:44 tenet
1:24:44 so it's not subjective we believe on an
1:24:47 objective morality
1:24:49 so when all when the atheist movement
1:24:51 came up
1:24:52 all of a sudden now i had to reflect i'm
1:24:55 like what if the atheists are
1:24:57 you know uh truthful so i have to
1:25:00 reflect and when you take away god
1:25:02 consciousness and god and
1:25:03 um moral tenets you're left with nothing
1:25:06 so all of a sudden i'm like okay are we
1:25:08 pretending are we
1:25:10 pretending to live in this uh under a
1:25:12 social construct
1:25:13 pretending to be well what is good under
1:25:16 a
1:25:16 an atheistic framework you know what i'm
1:25:19 saying and i had to
1:25:20 ponder and reflect you know to the point
1:25:22 that i was uh
1:25:24 uh i concluded that now ism now listen
1:25:26 would be the fact of the matter
1:25:27 under atheism and this is why i stick
1:25:30 with my faith and my faith
1:25:32 provides coherence and meaning and
1:25:35 purpose
1:25:36 or else at the end of the day just like
1:25:39 owen flanagan would say it's a
1:25:40 completely serendipitous fact you came
1:25:42 to be anything at all
1:25:43 and when you're gone you're gone forever
1:25:46 you know and this all boats on some
1:25:48 fermions like alice rosenberg so this is
1:25:50 just
1:25:51 something that i want to add on the show
1:25:54 in case an atheist is watching they can
1:25:56 also ponder
1:25:57 and reflect on their position you know
1:26:00 what i'm saying
1:26:02 you you would get on with the brother
1:26:04 yusuf because
1:26:06 that's that's his uh nihilism so
1:26:09 yes yes you watch uh actually uh i
1:26:13 subscribe to yousef as well and i watch
1:26:15 it so
1:26:16 i have his discernment i shared it on my
1:26:18 facebook
1:26:19 on my list yeah so uh so yeah man i mean
1:26:23 uh
1:26:24 at the end of the day it's nihilism and
1:26:25 we're pretending like a
1:26:27 like a social type of video game
1:26:30 everyone is just
1:26:31 it's true this life is in vain as the
1:26:33 quran says this
1:26:47 like a soundtrack of uh you know skyrim
1:26:50 who's played skyrim
1:26:51 yeah i know the game but i haven't
1:26:53 played it yeah so it's got epic
1:26:55 soundtracks that kind of play in the
1:26:56 background and um
1:26:58 they're they're a bit annoying because
1:27:00 they
1:27:01 kind of instill in you this this sense
1:27:03 of adventure
1:27:05 um but then they just fill you with
1:27:06 sadness simultaneously
1:27:08 and i think one of the main reasons is
1:27:10 that um
1:27:12 games now i find extremely nihilistic
1:27:15 because whenever i play them
1:27:17 i'm constantly thinking about how much
1:27:18 time i'm wasting i'm wishing that i
1:27:21 could go back to like my naive
1:27:22 childhood where these thoughts weren't
1:27:24 even crossing my mind
1:27:26 and um it it kind of reminds you of life
1:27:29 a bit sometimes especially if um
1:27:32 when i was like an atheist how i viewed
1:27:35 the world was very much
1:27:36 how i kind of uh imagined computer games
1:27:39 and so you play these games and you
1:27:41 grind on them and
1:27:42 you invest x amount of time and hours
1:27:44 and effort into building up this
1:27:46 character
1:27:47 uh but at the end it's not really for
1:27:49 anything like it doesn't amount to
1:27:50 anything
1:27:51 the game like you know it's it's got no
1:27:54 tangible um benefits and from like the
1:27:57 atheist
1:27:58 world view that i was sort of embodied
1:28:01 in prior to taking my shahada um it very
1:28:04 much felt like that's what life was like
1:28:07 like there was such an analogy between
1:28:09 playing computer games and living in a
1:28:12 world without god uh
1:28:14 in that it was like you know i i'm what
1:28:16 i'm gonna play this game i'm gonna
1:28:17 invest all of this effort and energy
1:28:20 and what for like at the end of it
1:28:23 like i'm gone yeah it was all for
1:28:26 nothing and
1:28:26 so yeah there's this huge analogy
1:28:28 between
1:28:29 and and yes yes and also when atheists
1:28:33 talk about morality i was like
1:28:35 what is that just a social construct
1:28:37 what is uh
1:28:38 if there is no ultimate accountability
1:28:40 i'll ultimate judge
1:28:42 what's the point you know what i'm
1:28:43 saying i mean what difference does it
1:28:45 make between me and another
1:28:47 person in power uh writing down some
1:28:51 uh rules that we need to follow on a
1:28:53 social
1:28:54 uh what could i abide by this rule
1:28:57 that's why i always also
1:28:58 uh to me now listen synonymous to
1:29:01 anarchism
1:29:02 you know what i mean yeah so at the end
1:29:06 of the day
1:29:06 it's just a video game it's just uh it's
1:29:09 all in vain
1:29:10 if i if if you basically get in a fight
1:29:13 with someone or
1:29:14 do a criminal act just a rearrangement
1:29:18 of atoms at the end of the day you know
1:29:19 what i mean
1:29:20 not the sound a bit dark and gloomy you
1:29:22 know what i mean but this
1:29:24 is what it is and the atheists should
1:29:25 reflect on that before they can come and
1:29:27 challenge people worldview they should
1:29:29 consider
1:29:30 their own worldview yeah definitely
1:29:34 taylor what's your thoughts about
1:29:36 atheism because you have quite strong
1:29:39 views about atheism don't you taylor yes
1:29:42 yes i do i actually work with atheists a
1:29:44 lot and
1:29:45 while you are in atheism it's it's an
1:29:48 ailment
1:29:50 that's been given to them like the bible
1:29:52 says
1:29:53 and basically when i when i dialogue
1:29:55 with atheists i'm looking for what
1:29:58 is causing the atheism
1:30:01 so what is it that you do for a living
1:30:04 me
1:30:05 yeah like on the internet or or like
1:30:08 so you say you you deal with atheists a
1:30:11 lot so are you dealing with them
1:30:12 um on the internet or are you dealing
1:30:14 with it because it's a part of your job
1:30:16 or whatever yeah i i'm
1:30:20 a trade mechanic for my to pay my bills
1:30:22 but like in
1:30:23 in my ministry i work with atheists on
1:30:25 the internet that's their natural
1:30:27 habitat
1:30:28Laughter 1:30:31 like when i became born again almost
1:30:34 eight years ago now i used to preach
1:30:37 and then i you know i started hearing
1:30:39 about atheists and i couldn't
1:30:40 you know preaching and people weren't
1:30:42 atheists anywhere i went so i had to
1:30:44 find the atheist and they're all here
1:30:48 yeah so can i ask how much uh
1:30:51 do you know about islam have you looked
1:30:52 into it in depth or
1:30:54 briefly and what are your general
1:30:57 opinions of like islamic theology
1:31:00 um like do you find it convincing in any
1:31:02 way or or not at all
1:31:06 well no but i i've read the quran and
1:31:09 reading it
1:31:10 it gives me this this idea that i have
1:31:12 to learn it from
1:31:13 individual muslims
1:31:17 what was the knowing answer to well
1:31:20 you said no but because i'd asked a few
1:31:22 questions it wasn't clear what
1:31:26 the theology of islam yeah so you don't
1:31:29 find it convincing or
1:31:31 uh no okay what in particular
1:31:34 about islamic theology do you find
1:31:36 unconvincing
1:31:38 in relation to say the the counterpart
1:31:40 in christian theology or your particular
1:31:43 understanding of christian theology well
1:31:45 the quantification of one god without
1:31:47 anything to count
1:31:51 would be one so uh like for example when
1:31:54 we say that
1:31:54 uh god isn't a man do you find that to
1:31:58 be absurd or
1:31:59 not at all
1:32:03 if you you're fine with that comment
1:32:06 when we
1:32:06 so like when we say that jesus couldn't
1:32:08 be god because he's finite because he's
1:32:10 a man
1:32:10 cetera because obviously you're a
1:32:13 modalist
1:32:14 i'm guessing that um maybe that
1:32:17 i'm just kind of firing from the hip
1:32:20 here um
1:32:21 but you kind of maybe associate god's uh
1:32:23 infinite power with his ability to
1:32:26 do anything whether or not that anything
1:32:29 would be considered um like you know
1:32:32 from a human perspective
1:32:34 logically incoherent or so on and so
1:32:35 forth so do you
1:32:38 is this where maybe the difference lies
1:32:40 between your perception of
1:32:42 christian theology and where you think
1:32:44 islam fails
1:32:45 or because i'm just trying to highlight
1:32:46 maybe somewhere we can go into a
1:32:48 conversation
1:32:50 i agree with you that god's not a man
1:32:52 this is i believe god be
1:32:53 can become a man here on earth but if
1:32:56 you
1:32:56 did something to that man like killed
1:32:58 him or anything he wouldn't just
1:33:00 oh god dies here or no he's still a
1:33:02 being that's outside of creation
1:33:05 so i don't think there's a there's a
1:33:07 human
1:33:08 like on a cloud somewhere right so you
1:33:11 don't
1:33:11 you're not anthropomorphizing the father
1:33:14 it's what i'm taking from that
1:33:16 yeah i don't believe the father is a
1:33:19 person
1:33:19 like a human and i don't think the son
1:33:23 right which is jesus which was a person
1:33:25 and a human at one point
1:33:27 is necessarily you know all of god's
1:33:30 being
1:33:31 yeah taylor i mean you believe that the
1:33:33 father is god the son is god and holy
1:33:36 spirit's god right
1:33:38 yeah so how do you explain by saying
1:33:41 that three things are god
1:33:43 and yet there's only one god well
1:33:46 their commission of the actual being
1:33:48 without parts
1:33:51 you know it's the same yeah we have
1:33:53 which is a being
1:33:55 without parts without physicalities
1:33:57 without anything like that
1:33:58 right here things are beyond our
1:34:00 comprehension
1:34:02 and he can come manifest those into
1:34:05 our creation like he did everything else
1:34:09 and that's what we know to be god but
1:34:11 outside of which we don't
1:34:13 know and this we don't probably don't
1:34:15 have anything on our heads that could
1:34:17 know
1:34:17 other than our souls yeah but is there
1:34:21 is there a qualitative difference
1:34:23 between
1:34:24 the modes in creation and god which is
1:34:27 sort of
1:34:28 above the creation yeah the mixed modes
1:34:31 are created right but
1:34:34 in in the bible and in uh you know
1:34:37 classical theism in general
1:34:40 god is not created he's not a
1:34:42 participant so
1:34:43 if the modes are created and god
1:34:46 is the creator then the modes can't be
1:34:49 god
1:34:52 well they're created of god to represent
1:34:54 god
1:34:55 and that's almost saying the most aren't
1:34:57 created but then this
1:34:59 brings wait you just i thought you just
1:35:01 said though that the modes were created
1:35:04 yeah they are created that's that's what
1:35:05 i said the god created the modes
1:35:07 to represent him so god
1:35:11 god created the modes to represent him
1:35:14 so god is the creator of the modes right
1:35:17 and creation or the attribute of being
1:35:20 created
1:35:21 is not typically understood to be a part
1:35:24 of the divine nature or being a part of
1:35:26 god
1:35:27 and so in that sense i mean it just
1:35:30 largely follows
1:35:31 if god is not created and the modes are
1:35:34 created
1:35:35 then the modes are not god yeah
1:35:38 this the issue that lies here is it i
1:35:41 guess
1:35:42 maybe as an analogy it's like saying
1:35:44 that
1:35:45 a representative of something is the
1:35:48 thing that it is the representative of
1:35:50 so like when you have diplomats and
1:35:52 they're traveling to other countries
1:35:53 they're representatives
1:35:55 that role has been created um in order
1:35:58 to fulfill this representative role
1:36:00 but then we would never identify that
1:36:03 representative
1:36:04 as the entity which it is representing
1:36:06 so the american diplomat
1:36:08 is not america uh you know the english
1:36:11 diplomat
1:36:12 is is not england um and
1:36:15 what you've said there with regards to
1:36:17 like these things that
1:36:19 uh these modes that are created that is
1:36:21 they're finite they have a beginning uh
1:36:23 they're not eternal
1:36:25 um they're being made in order to
1:36:29 represent but then how does it follow
1:36:32 from
1:36:32 that that these things are still that
1:36:36 same
1:36:37 being or still that same god if that god
1:36:39 is in in his essence
1:36:41 eternal that is like he has no beginning
1:36:43 no end
1:36:44 um and you know these are unnecessary
1:36:48 attributes for that being
1:36:49 but then when you're applying these
1:36:51 attributes to these other modes how is
1:36:53 it still that being
1:36:54 and not just another thing in creation
1:36:57 so you have plenty of profits
1:36:58 that are put forward representative that
1:37:01 is
1:37:02 you know they there's a lot of
1:37:04 notifications
1:37:14 i think it might be moell you might have
1:37:16 to uh
1:37:17 mute him or i'll just leave
1:37:21 that's that's why i switched to my
1:37:23 laptop that happens on my phone
1:37:29 yeah i was mute anyway so i don't know
1:37:31 if it's me i'm not sure
1:37:34 oh okay um yeah so
1:37:37 basically just to kind of hone in on
1:37:38 that like how is it
1:37:40 um that you've gotten yourself to this
1:37:42 position where you believe that
1:37:44 something created uh put forward as a
1:37:47 representative
1:37:48 um becomes a mode of god when this whole
1:37:51 being created and being a representative
1:37:54 um could also be applied to profit to
1:37:57 some degree
1:37:59 could it not well the difference between
1:38:00 a prophet is something that's created
1:38:02 that god created for a certain reason or
1:38:05 another to be a prophet
1:38:07 where the mode is god's translation into
1:38:10 the creation
1:38:14 yeah but the what i explained before
1:38:16 though the translation
1:38:18 is not identical to the the to the thing
1:38:21 that's being translated from
1:38:23 so that's the whole problem is that if
1:38:25 the thing
1:38:26 above or that creates the translation
1:38:29 is god itself and it's qualitatively
1:38:32 different than the things that it
1:38:34 creates i.e the most
1:38:36 then they both can't be god because
1:38:39 otherwise
1:38:39 if they're both god then you must have a
1:38:42 strange definition
1:38:44 of what god means because they have
1:38:46 contradictory attributes one is not
1:38:48 created the others are
1:38:51 yeah just they're just the word of god
1:38:54 like that's what i'm saying my words
1:38:55 aren't me but they're coming from me
1:38:56 you could say taylor said that that's
1:38:58 what
1:39:00 that's like right right in that instance
1:39:04 both you and your words are created
1:39:08 so it's not as much of a problem whereas
1:39:11 with with
1:39:12 god who's above the modes he's he's the
1:39:14 creator of the mode so there there's a
1:39:17 different
1:39:18 category of existence yeah we understand
1:39:21 the archaeological difference between
1:39:23 god and this mode
1:39:24 is that god is an eternal unquantifiable
1:39:27 thing that i can't even explain to you
1:39:33 yeah if i were in this situation
1:39:37 why wouldn't i creator of the modes and
1:39:41 not worship the created modes
1:39:45 well through the modes you are
1:39:46 worshiping the creator unless like i
1:39:48 said you're worshiping like the sun one
1:39:50 day and the father the other day
1:39:56 that's the only god you know other than
1:39:59 your soul
1:40:04 i i don't know i i just to me doesn't
1:40:06 really make much sense to
1:40:08 worship something that's created when i
1:40:11 can worship the creator
1:40:13 of those things it's kind of like what
1:40:16 brother youssef was talking about
1:40:17 earlier with the video game in lg
1:40:19 like if i have the creator of the video
1:40:22 game and then i have these
1:40:24 sort of players in the game that are
1:40:26 supposed to represent the creator
1:40:28 uh it seems like there's a difference
1:40:31 between the two things and i don't see
1:40:34 why i would worship the moats
1:40:37 how does one know the the creator in it
1:40:40 is whole
1:40:42 without something translating it to you
1:40:46 as itself well you can know the creator
1:40:50 through the modes but you wouldn't have
1:40:52 to worship them
1:40:53 yeah it's the same thing with revelation
1:40:55 it's like you you come to know
1:40:57 god when you approach revelation but
1:40:59 then we're not saying
1:41:01 that revelation is god like when you
1:41:04 have a copy of the bible
1:41:06 you know that there's this whole
1:41:07 translation thing going on there
1:41:09 uh he's communicating with you um as a
1:41:12 christian i'm guessing you believe that
1:41:13 the bible is the word of god um and so
1:41:16 that you know and and you're you come to
1:41:18 know god through reading the bible
1:41:19 but do you worship the bible do you
1:41:21 consider the bible a mode of god
1:41:24 yeah the bible's not about it the
1:41:26 bible's not even like
1:41:28 the bible has the words of god in it
1:41:30 it's not the
1:41:31 word okay so it's not god
1:41:34 but it's it's jesus god
1:41:39 yeah jesus yeah that's the only person i
1:41:41 actually believe as a person
1:41:45 okay but jesus is a created mode
1:41:49 yeah he's the first first creation if
1:41:52 you will
1:41:52 and he's the last so
1:41:55 so why would you worship a creation
1:41:58 if the power and the
1:42:01 authority and the sovereignty and the
1:42:03 independency
1:42:05 is with the god that created that
1:42:08 creation
1:42:10 when we worship jesus we're not we're
1:42:12 not worshipping
1:42:14 jesus like the guy now has a risk that
1:42:16 the guy that drank wanting we're
1:42:17 worshiping
1:42:18 or the image of god
1:42:21 and that's what we we believe jesus
1:42:24 is see verse we for example we believe
1:42:27 that the universe the earth the trees
1:42:30 they're all creations of god
1:42:32 uh but we don't believe that can you
1:42:34 well let me see my connections
1:42:36 yeah so we we believe obviously the
1:42:38 trees the plants
1:42:40 you know animals was the universe star
1:42:42 sons
1:42:43 they're all creation of god now we're
1:42:45 not going to worship them because we
1:42:46 understand that they are creation which
1:42:48 basically means that they have no power
1:42:51 no effect except by the will of god so
1:42:54 obviously it's god whom
1:42:56 we would worship because god is the the
1:42:58 necessary
1:42:59 independent self-sufficient being um
1:43:03 i think maybe taylor's gone yeah it's
1:43:06 internet connection was getting a bit
1:43:08 all right okay then but yeah so i just
1:43:11 obviously just
1:43:12 what taylor is pastor taylor as we need
1:43:14 to give him his full title because he's
1:43:15 actually a pastor
1:43:17 is i think he's a modalist so he's not
1:43:20 for those people maybe just
1:43:21 only just como and not realize that he
1:43:23 doesn't believe in trinitarian
1:43:25 belief in cr in christianity so he
1:43:27 doesn't believe
1:43:29 the son and the holy spirit and the
1:43:31 father are three separate persons of the
1:43:33 one being
1:43:35 but he rather sees them as the same
1:43:38 thing
1:43:38 of the one being but just in different
1:43:40 modes
1:43:41 but then he also affirms that these
1:43:43 modes are not actually
1:43:45 god itself but rather a created
1:43:48 representative yeah um so it's it's a
1:43:52 very
1:43:53 odd position within christianity and i
1:43:55 think many christians would probably
1:43:56 consider that
1:43:58 uh heretical uh yeah as a position
1:44:01 but i think so just really the reason
1:44:04 why he adopts modalism as opposed to
1:44:05 trinitarianism
1:44:06 is because he actually sees the inherent
1:44:08 contradiction within
1:44:10 trinitarian belief he doesn't accept
1:44:12 that you can have three persons and one
1:44:14 being
1:44:15 and that makes sense so he's adopted
1:44:17 this particular view
1:44:19 i guess the the only issue here like uh
1:44:22 we've got brother here
1:44:23 in the comments khan um he's
1:44:26 referenced one particular thing here but
1:44:28 there's multiple references in the bible
1:44:29 that kind of make this moralism
1:44:31 problematic as well um in the if
1:44:34 jesus is a mold of god
1:44:37 um and that is he's still god oh he's
1:44:41 back here we go let's get him back on
1:44:43 when he's um when you're able to muslim
1:44:45 if you can add him on hello again
1:44:49 can you hear us
1:44:54 can you tell her can you hear us
1:45:00 he might have a
1:45:08 yeah i think you've got a really bad lag
1:45:10 maybe um
1:45:11 yeah if you can hear us uh i'll ask the
1:45:14 question and then obviously if you can
1:45:16 answer so we've got a comment up on the
1:45:18 screen
1:45:19 and this is just like one element of
1:45:20 what's written in the bible that kind of
1:45:22 makes
1:45:22 what i think
1:45:26 can you hear me
1:45:31 i i don't think he can hear why don't
1:45:34 you try to turn your video off
1:45:40 okay i'm telling you i'm here
1:45:43 try to turn your video off because it
1:45:45 uses uh
1:45:46 less data
1:45:50 i was going to say maybe we can bring
1:45:51 him back on on another show
1:45:54 because i think we've only got about 10
1:45:56 minutes or so or yeah
1:45:58 we're at the one hour 45 minute mark so
1:46:00 we'll try and we'll do another 15
1:46:02 minutes so for those of you who have um
1:46:06 who have joined us and you're watching
1:46:08 so we've got 99 viewers live at the
1:46:10 moment
1:46:10 salaam alaikum to you all peace be with
1:46:12 you and there is a link
1:46:14 pinned in the chat for mine i think as
1:46:17 well um
1:46:18 for the jake if you yeah if you have you
1:46:21 got it pinned okay yeah so yeah
1:46:22 there should be in the live comments
1:46:24 section a
1:46:26 a link pinned which is a stream yard
1:46:29 link if you click that
1:46:30 uh it should basically give you access
1:46:34 to
1:46:34 the streaming item we can pull you up on
1:46:36 the screen and you can ask your
1:46:37 questions
1:46:38 we can talk to you uh we probably got
1:46:40 time for one more person
1:46:42 um so while there's no one here maybe we
1:46:45 can have a look at the comments if you'd
1:46:47 rather just leave the comments and ask
1:46:48 your questions there
1:46:49 we can pull them up on the screen we've
1:46:51 got brother mustang in the background he
1:46:53 can uh
1:46:55 pull them up and take them away as and
1:46:57 when but um
1:46:58 oh we've got brother taylor back hey
1:47:01 taylor turn your
1:47:02 video off and just use your audio
1:47:07 because it might help your internet
1:47:08 connection well i gotta i'm on my phone
1:47:10 no i i just mute it
1:47:13 i put it on my phone okay okay
1:47:16 better my better know it so what we
1:47:18 wanted yeah yeah perfect
1:47:20 so what we wanted to ask is so this is
1:47:22 what was these elements in the
1:47:25 is there a lag tell me when you hear me
1:47:27 clap
1:47:30 we'll figure out the lag now yeah okay
1:47:33 so what we wanted to ask is basically so
1:47:36 you've got these elements in the bible
1:47:37 uh which really humanize uh jesus
1:47:41 and so you've got the examples of him
1:47:43 praying uh who's he praying to if he's a
1:47:45 mould of god
1:47:47 how do you reconcile this or understand
1:47:49 this and then there's also
1:47:50 the examples of uh when jesus was in the
1:47:54 desert and the devil was trying to tempt
1:47:56 him
1:47:57 now the devil as you know when um with
1:47:59 the story of job
1:48:00 knows who god is has um spoke to god was
1:48:04 in the presence of god
1:48:05 and is fully aware of who who god is um
1:48:09 so who is he trying to tempt and he even
1:48:12 offers
1:48:13 jesus the world he says you know i can
1:48:16 give you all of this
1:48:17 but if if the devil knows that jesus is
1:48:20 god
1:48:21 why is he bothered and you know from
1:48:22 this modalist perspective
1:48:25 uh jesus is is just a mode off god
1:48:28 what is the devil offering the one who
1:48:31 owns
1:48:31 everything exactly why is he trying to
1:48:33 tempt him
1:48:34 uh when you know he's just a a mode
1:48:37 off this supreme being and then there's
1:48:40 the the third one
1:48:41 uh when jesus is on the cross in the
1:48:44 bible he calls up and he says oh father
1:48:45 why
1:48:46 have you forsaken me you know this gives
1:48:48 a very distinct
1:48:49 idea of separate beings of two distinct
1:48:53 entities and not just
1:48:54 one being expressing itself in different
1:48:57 modes um
1:48:58 so i would just like to hear how you
1:49:00 would maybe approach these
1:49:01 three particular issues so the one
1:49:03 that's mentioned in the pinned comment
1:49:04 jesus praying the devil tempting jesus
1:49:07 and then jesus calling up to the father
1:49:09 um you know how would you reconcile
1:49:11 these in from a modalist
1:49:13 perspective what what do you
1:49:16 you say with regards to that
1:49:19 uh whoops mike
1:49:22 all right so we'll start out with the
1:49:23 first one like who's who's jesus praying
1:49:26 to and who's he yielding up the ghost to
1:49:29 and that would be right we believe
1:49:31 that's the being that's outside
1:49:33 and that's what he uses the father is a
1:49:35 representative that's the mode that's
1:49:37 representative
1:49:38 it's not an actual father with actual
1:49:42 children it's it's the being
1:49:45 now the second one is about jesus being
1:49:48 tempted
1:49:49 by the satan and that's because it's a
1:49:51 human
1:49:52 that's being hosted by right the mode
1:49:55 the same mode that's
1:49:57 dictating the whole bible and that's
1:49:59 what
1:50:00 when satan was made aware and this this
1:50:03 is what we believe was
1:50:04 you know the the gist of things is that
1:50:07 when god came into the world as a man it
1:50:10 was
1:50:10 to the mode of the sun this is when
1:50:13 satan went he's a man i can somehow
1:50:15 corrupt
1:50:16 the man and make all this go to waste
1:50:19 and that's why we believe that jesus's
1:50:21 will is involved in like he
1:50:23 he had to do it of his you know his
1:50:25 human nature
1:50:26 very human carry on the will of god
1:50:32 so it was basically god versus satan in
1:50:34 that battle
1:50:37 but but you said yourself that it was a
1:50:39 human so it's it's
1:50:41 very human yeah okay so it wasn't so
1:50:44 much a god
1:50:44 versus the devil it was a the devil
1:50:47 versus a human
1:50:49 if jesus is a human
1:50:52 well yeah but it's like god's being
1:50:56 is infinite but when he took human like
1:50:59 when he became incarnate
1:51:01 he had human problems
1:51:05 that that satan right satan could you
1:51:07 know if if god willed he could have
1:51:09 killed
1:51:09 jesus but obviously he said no
1:51:13 you versus a human i'll limit i'll put
1:51:15 myself in the handicap of a human and
1:51:17 see if you contempt me
1:51:25 because you you mentioned earlier that
1:51:26 god being outside of
1:51:28 of of the world you know we we don't
1:51:31 conceive
1:51:31 we can't conceive of god how can you
1:51:33 worship god you don't know what he is
1:51:36 so you need this kind of representation
1:51:37 to act as like some kind of mediator
1:51:39 i'm wondering what what is it about
1:51:42 conceivability
1:51:43 that you know is required for you to
1:51:47 worship something like what is it
1:51:48 about what you can conceive of about
1:51:51 jesus
1:51:51 that allows you to worship him that
1:51:53 wouldn't allow you to worship an
1:51:55 inconceivable god because god i think is
1:51:57 by definition inconceivable
1:51:58 you can know certain things about him
1:52:00 like you know he exists we can discuss
1:52:02 what else we might be able to know about
1:52:04 him
1:52:05 but i'm just i guess i'm kind of
1:52:06 questioning
1:52:08 what is it that you understand about the
1:52:11 person of jesus
1:52:13 that allows you to worship him that
1:52:15 wouldn't allow you to worship the being
1:52:16 of god
1:52:20 well what i what i understand about
1:52:21 jesus is that he was a figure that
1:52:24 that came in and he's the one that has
1:52:26 all the information
1:52:28 about what god is and somehow he got
1:52:32 like when he
1:52:33 he said let us take take us back to the
1:52:35 glory we had at the beginning
1:52:36 is that jesus's boat is the only one
1:52:38 that actually knows
1:52:42 yeah that's fine but but but then again
1:52:45 i'm i'm just asking because
1:52:47 because what we were asking was why you
1:52:49 would why why don't you just worship the
1:52:51 being and not the modes
1:52:52 that are created and you answered by
1:52:54 saying that you can't know what god is
1:52:56 so what i'm questioning is why can't you
1:52:58 worship
1:52:59 god while fully acknowledging that god
1:53:02 is inconceivable and there
1:53:04 you you couldn't possibly know
1:53:06 everything about god because that's what
1:53:08 muslims do as well
1:53:09 and christians in general even
1:53:11 trinitarian christians
1:53:14 well that's a i i believe my worshiping
1:53:18 the son is the conduit to the father
1:53:22 i have a a com i have a telephone to
1:53:26 make the phone call
1:53:29 so but why would god need this
1:53:32 intermediary like
1:53:34 if god is all-powerful and so on and so
1:53:36 forth like
1:53:37 what like when you pray can he not hear
1:53:40 you
1:53:42 when you ask him for things
1:53:45 can he not do it himself without having
1:53:46 to go through an intermediary like
1:53:48 what is it that the father lacks exactly
1:53:52 or the you know the god uh you know the
1:53:55 the
1:53:56 this transcendental being the necessary
1:53:58 being what is it that he lacks that
1:54:00 makes it so that intermediaries are
1:54:03 necessary why
1:54:04 why when so if i just make a prayer now
1:54:07 to to god oh god
1:54:09 please guide us on the straight path
1:54:12 to truth make us sincere and
1:54:15 you know bring us closer to you like
1:54:18 what's
1:54:19 what's wrong with that why would i need
1:54:21 an intermediary in order for that to
1:54:23 reach god is he not capable of hearing
1:54:25 that dua
1:54:26 that prayer and answering it like
1:54:30 for me it just it like this notion of um
1:54:33 whether it's modes or other beings
1:54:35 whether it's jesus's
1:54:37 uh god is a separate person or so like
1:54:40 all of this just seems extremely
1:54:41 superfluous to me
1:54:43 um especially when like i understand god
1:54:46 as being
1:54:47 this all-powerful being he's you know
1:54:49 the creator
1:54:50 and the sustainer of everything surely
1:54:52 if i call to him
1:54:53 he can hear me and i i don't need to
1:54:56 pick up a telephone or
1:54:58 use something that we're using um as a
1:55:01 metaphor for a telephone like
1:55:02 he's he's the all-hearing he's always
1:55:06 hearing everything i ever say he's the
1:55:07 all-knowing he knows what lies in my
1:55:09 heart
1:55:09 he knows whether i'm sincere or not he
1:55:12 knows my intentions
1:55:13 all of this is is readily available to
1:55:15 him at all times what
1:55:17 what need is there in any of this
1:55:19 intermediary stuff
1:55:21 well i don't believe god ever had an
1:55:23 intermediate i think everything
1:55:25 is directly related to his infinite
1:55:28 being
1:55:30 making it so this notion of a telephone
1:55:33 though
1:55:33 this is the uh the conduit through which
1:55:36 you
1:55:38 get in touch with the contact scope you
1:55:39 know a verse from the quran for you
1:55:41 taylor
1:55:42 this is the quran chapter 39 verse 3.
1:55:45 the arab creed
1:55:53 the translation is indeed sincere
1:55:57 sincere devotion is due only to allah as
1:55:59 for those who take
1:56:00 other lords beside him saying we worship
1:56:03 them only
1:56:04 so that they may bring us closer to
1:56:06 allah surely
1:56:07 allah will judge between all regarding
1:56:10 what they differed about now i think
1:56:11 what this verse is trying to say
1:56:13 is that that excuse isn't really good
1:56:16 enough in the sense that
1:56:18 allah is directly accessible god is
1:56:20 directly accessible you don't need that
1:56:23 that you know link in between that
1:56:25 telephone as brother yusuf's splitting
1:56:27 it in order
1:56:28 to reach god so i guess what we're
1:56:29 saying is it just seems
1:56:31 superfluous to to for you to say that
1:56:35 that you need that representation in
1:56:37 order to worship god
1:56:39 well i don't know how i could if god
1:56:41 tells me you know
1:56:44 give me a prayer
1:56:48 right or five prayers right in the case
1:56:51 and i i do the prayer i don't believe
1:56:54 i'm worshiping the words he uttered i
1:56:56 believe i'm worshiping him
1:57:08 okay
1:57:14 question but taylor you said and about
1:57:16 their
1:57:17 there wasn't a mediator or intermediary
1:57:21 and i don't understand how you're saying
1:57:23 that because i thought
1:57:24 the whole point of the modes is to be
1:57:27 the
1:57:28 the bridge between the gap between god
1:57:30 who is sort of
1:57:31 outside of creation and then men who are
1:57:34 created
1:57:35 and that and and the second is in first
1:57:37 timothy 5 it says
1:57:39 for there is one god and there is one
1:57:42 mediator between
1:57:43 god and men the man christ jesus
1:57:46 so yeah that's that's what i'm that's
1:57:48 what i'm referring to as a mode
1:57:50 but i don't i don't think that it's like
1:57:52 serving as an intermediate i i believe
1:57:54 that
1:57:54 it's the word of god for a human ear
1:57:58 and i don't think a human mouth can
1:57:59 contact a human ear on the word of god
1:58:04 but
1:58:10 yeah it is intermediate because it
1:58:12 there's literally three parties there's
1:58:14 there's men then there's the mode and
1:58:16 then there's god which is sort of
1:58:18 above the mode so and then the second
1:58:20 thing is
1:58:21 i think another passage that's
1:58:23 problematic for modalism the bible
1:58:26 is matthew 3 17 when you have the issue
1:58:28 of uh
1:58:30 the um it says here on king james bible
1:58:34 i'm going to read for you because i know
1:58:36 you like that says
1:58:37 a voice from heaven saying this is my
1:58:40 beloved son
1:58:41 in whom i am well pleased and so it's
1:58:44 the father that's
1:58:45 supposedly speaking from heaven saying
1:58:47 that this is my
1:58:48 son in whom i'm well pleased and as far
1:58:51 as i can tell we don't ascribe
1:58:54 generally speaking unless it's some sort
1:58:56 of personification we don't describe
1:58:59 um personal pronouns like i do things
1:59:02 that are not
1:59:03 persons so i don't understand how in
1:59:06 this situation
1:59:07 you have and then in luke's gospel you
1:59:09 also have the uh
1:59:10 the holy spirit appearing in bodily form
1:59:13 like a dove
1:59:14 so you literally have all three persons
1:59:17 interacting simultaneously um
1:59:20 during this baptism event and
1:59:24 there's a communication happening
1:59:25 between the father and the son
1:59:27 that seems quite personal so i don't
1:59:30 understand
1:59:30 how that would make sense under a
1:59:33 modalist framework
1:59:36 you want the model that's perspective on
1:59:38 that
1:59:40 yeah because i guess is what what
1:59:44 how do you define persons because
1:59:46 persons in my understanding
1:59:48 are conscious agents that are able to
1:59:52 have things like
1:59:53 a will and be able to possess knowledge
1:59:56 and be able to speak in terms of
1:59:58 an i thou relationship and so
2:00:01 the father in heaven in this situation
2:00:04 seems to
2:00:05 fit the bill as a person in that
2:00:08 uh philosophical sense rather than a
2:00:11 mode which is just sort of like an
2:00:12 it
2:00:16 well i don't i don't did this like the
2:00:18 scene at the baptism
2:00:20 this is the one that i actually believe
2:00:22 that jesus is
2:00:23 talking about himself
2:00:28 so many others like that in the bible
2:00:30 yeah so he's talking to himself so then
2:00:32 in that case
2:00:34 the son and the father are the same
2:00:36 person
2:00:38 yeah that's what the bible told us in
2:00:40 isaiah 9 6 and many other
2:00:42 jesus told us that in john
2:00:45 but how do you have two persons
2:00:48 interacting with each other
2:00:49 simultaneously
2:00:50 one person i don't believe there are two
2:00:53 persons
2:00:54 i believe the only person is jesus is
2:00:57 the only
2:00:58 classified person in what they call
2:01:00 trinity
2:01:02 so why is there any need for any form of
2:01:05 communication it's like i i don't need
2:01:07 to like send
2:01:10 or like have a conversation with another
2:01:12 part of me or um
2:01:14 or another you know like i don't need to
2:01:17 have these
2:01:17 um i'll ask myself for things i don't
2:01:20 need to say or can you
2:01:22 uh or why have you done this so on and
2:01:24 so forth like what
2:01:26 does it not still sound like there's
2:01:28 like a conversation between two entities
2:01:30 and
2:01:32 do you not see a problem with that yeah
2:01:36 it's for us like we're the creation
2:01:39 he's not created and he's obviously an
2:01:42 infinite and one
2:01:43 in that wisdom like it's infinite we
2:01:44 can't put a number on that unless i go
2:01:46 there's one infinite so that has to be
2:01:50 explained like we have to dialogue and
2:01:53 for jesus like at the baptism right he's
2:01:56 reciting
2:01:56 a psalm chapter two verses yeah chapter
2:02:00 two verse seven
2:02:01 it's being recited this was david at one
2:02:03 point
2:02:04 writing this so he's uttering it back
2:02:07 and it's not because
2:02:08 you know that's the word of the gods
2:02:10 utterance david writing it but he's
2:02:12 uttering it back like this was
2:02:14 inspired
2:02:17 yeah i think i think what jake was uh
2:02:20 mentioning was the fact that
2:02:21 persons we normally understand persons
2:02:24 as
2:02:25 when a person refers to themselves as i
2:02:28 and distinguishes another person by the
2:02:30 word you and so
2:02:32 i think what jake was saying by quoting
2:02:34 that particular passage from the new
2:02:35 testament was that jesus was referring
2:02:37 to
2:02:38 the father god in the you know personal
2:02:41 pronoun in the
2:02:42 second person pronoun uh whereas
2:02:45 obviously he's referring to himself in
2:02:47 the personal pronoun
2:02:48 uh singular so but i think ultimately i
2:02:51 think where the issue is
2:02:53 is you've sort of adopted a particular
2:02:55 position
2:02:56 that christianity in the bible is true
2:02:59 and it sounds
2:03:00 like from the outside that what you're
2:03:02 trying to do is you're trying to make
2:03:03 sense of it in in conjunction with this
2:03:07 idea of one god
2:03:09 yeah and i as a muslim obviously don't
2:03:12 grant the fact that the
2:03:13 new testament you know is authentic
2:03:16 yeah and so looking at it from the
2:03:19 outside it just
2:03:20 sounds uh not necessarily rational
2:03:24 in terms of you know we naturally come
2:03:26 to a conclusion we intuitively
2:03:28 acknowledge and rationally justify that
2:03:30 there is one god there's one creator
2:03:33 and that everything else is creation and
2:03:36 so
2:03:37 we would say that if before any text any
2:03:40 revelation
2:03:41 we can come to this conclusion whether
2:03:44 you know
2:03:44 whatever particular background a person
2:03:46 is he can come to that conclusion
2:03:48 then any revelation that claims to be
2:03:51 from god
2:03:52 has to fit within that particular
2:03:54 paradigm and
2:03:55 not try to give this perception that
2:03:59 god can come in the form of man whether
2:04:01 it's in a mode
2:04:02 or whatever and that this particular
2:04:04 created
2:04:05 thing is worthy of worship you know we
2:04:08 don't believe that we believe that the
2:04:09 only the creator
2:04:11 is worthy of worship yeah so you know
2:04:14 that's how we would look at it and the
2:04:15 reason why i would say that is because
2:04:16 created things in themselves
2:04:18 have no independent sovereign power
2:04:22 to do anything only allah the creator
2:04:26 has independent sovereign power so
2:04:29 i would suggest that because i know we
2:04:31 have to probably close in a bit
2:04:32 what i would suggest is question
2:04:36 why we adopt a particular religious
2:04:38 scripture that we adopt
2:04:40 uh you know is it based upon good
2:04:44 sound uh strong uh rational evidential
2:04:47 reasons
2:04:48 or is it just happened to be the thing
2:04:50 that we've grown up in
2:04:52 and you know question that
2:04:56 think about that and maybe in future we
2:04:58 can maybe discuss
2:05:00 why is it that you've adopted the
2:05:02 christian scriptural basis
2:05:04 as your foundation by which you now to
2:05:06 try to interpret
2:05:08 the paradigm of belief in god and
2:05:11 revelation
2:05:14 so we'll let you have the the last word
2:05:16 here um
2:05:18 taylor and then uh we'll leave it there
2:05:20 for today
2:05:21 um we'll just have a final little chat
2:05:23 between ourselves
2:05:24 uh before we we completely finish and
2:05:27 end the live stream
2:05:28 uh so the flow's yours for a couple of
2:05:30 minutes now um if you just want to kind
2:05:31 of
2:05:33 i kind of respond to what we've been
2:05:34 saying to you so far and
2:05:36 um sort of wrap up from there and then
2:05:39 we'll leave it
2:05:42 why so yeah i i
2:05:46 believe there's one god and i believe
2:05:48 the bible tells me there's one god
2:05:51 and i can't reconcile that to you know
2:05:54 three wound god or triune god or
2:05:57 three person equals one god
2:06:00 but i i do get the sense that i'm
2:06:04 i'm the insignificant being and he is of
2:06:07 the significance
2:06:09 and that if i were to speak by
2:06:11 insignificant words they would be
2:06:13 repulsed
2:06:13 unless there was something significant
2:06:16 that could translate them to him
2:06:20 just like his words are so superior
2:06:24 that my ears are insignificant to hear
2:06:26 so
2:06:27 something significant would have to
2:06:29 translate them into insignificance
2:06:32 something that could die something that
2:06:33 could drink something that could eat
2:06:34 something i could
2:06:35 see and conceptualize
2:06:36 anthropomorphically
2:06:39 and that's one thing i don't understand
2:06:42 about unitarianism you said
2:06:46 there's these meteories that do exist
2:06:48 but they don't
2:06:49 are not necessary
2:06:56 okay that's very interesting we
2:06:58 appreciate we appreciate you
2:07:00 uh having you on and uh hopefully we'll
2:07:02 see you again in future streams
2:07:04 yeah thanks yeah thank you for uh being
2:07:08 very polite and cordial as well uh when
2:07:10 dealing with us uh obviously
2:07:12 there's quite a few of us here so maybe
2:07:15 i'm across that we're ganging up on you
2:07:16 at some point but um
2:07:17 yeah no i appreciate your your cordial
2:07:20 manner
2:07:21 so thank you for joining us and uh we'll
2:07:22 talk to you again another time hopefully
2:07:24 god willing
2:07:25 all right all right take care we'll do
2:07:26 it thank you
2:07:29 yeah yeah it's really interesting it was
2:07:33 really cool uh i just want to add one
2:07:35 last verse from the bible on that night
2:07:37 um which taylor sure is familiar with
2:07:40 it's in john 17
2:07:41 3 it says and this is life eternal that
2:07:44 they may know
2:07:45 the the only true god in jesus christ
2:07:48 whom that
2:07:49 sent so we have the same sort of idea in
2:07:52 which
2:07:53 um christ uh peace be upon him
2:07:56 is interacting with god the father
2:07:59 and he says you are the only true god
2:08:03 and know this because this is what's
2:08:04 going to get you eternal life to know
2:08:07 that the father is the only true god and
2:08:09 jesus christ whom thou
2:08:11 sent and this fits perfectly with uh
2:08:14 the islamic paradigm that we believe in
2:08:17 one god
2:08:18 um and the messengers that he
2:08:22 has sent you know there's no sort of
2:08:24 modes in what taylor's explaining
2:08:26 and so i think that um
2:08:29 taylor should do a bit more reflection
2:08:32 on
2:08:33 some of these passages because i don't
2:08:36 see
2:08:36 how they fit with the modalistic
2:08:38 narrative in the sense that
2:08:40 it seems that there are persons that are
2:08:43 speaking
2:08:44 and doing things uh going on
2:08:47 in these passages but i really
2:08:49 appreciated um
2:08:51 talking to him so maybe we'll get into
2:08:53 that a bit more in the future
2:08:55 but generally just because we're kind of
2:08:57 wrapping up here guys if you want to
2:08:59 uh give your final thoughts on how you
2:09:02 think the stream went and some of the
2:09:04 interactions that we have
2:09:06 um brother youssef if you want to start
2:09:08 it off
2:09:09 yeah yeah so i've really enjoyed this it
2:09:12 was very chilled
2:09:13 uh alhamdulillah we're very lucky to
2:09:14 just have uh very nice guests on for the
2:09:17 first podcast so that's uh
2:09:19 obviously a brilliant start um which is
2:09:21 definitely what i want
2:09:22 and yeah i'm looking forward to kind of
2:09:25 continuing this as well so
2:09:27 uh for those of you who are watching the
2:09:29 the plan as it is
2:09:30 as it stands at the moment is to do this
2:09:32 every fortnight
2:09:34 uh so every second sunday so we've done
2:09:36 one today
2:09:37 uh next sunday we'll have a rest and
2:09:39 then we'll pick up again
2:09:41 the sunday after now we have set up a
2:09:42 channel separately
2:09:44 uh which is called thought adventure
2:09:46 podcast the link isn't in the
2:09:47 description yet but it will be
2:09:49 i will add that in there um we're just
2:09:51 waiting for
2:09:53 something to kind of process at the
2:09:55 moment is we've been given a time scale
2:09:56 of 24 to 48 hours
2:09:58 uh as of from yesterday so once that's
2:10:01 up and running
2:10:02 uh we will upload this stream onto there
2:10:04 so that first stream will be available
2:10:06 to watch
2:10:07 uh on that channel and then that channel
2:10:09 is basically just gonna be dedicated
2:10:11 to these fortnightly streams we're not
2:10:13 going to be necessarily putting anything
2:10:15 else
2:10:16 on there um and we may not always do
2:10:19 like an open thing um we're still kind
2:10:22 of in discussion about how this is going
2:10:23 to work exactly
2:10:24 so any comments that you have please do
2:10:26 leave them because obviously not
2:10:27 everyone's going to be watching this
2:10:28 live
2:10:29 you may watch this after the fact um
2:10:31 utilize the comment section give us your
2:10:33 advice your feedback
2:10:35 and what you would maybe like for us to
2:10:38 do
2:10:39 in future episodes uh personally i was
2:10:41 thinking maybe sometimes we could do it
2:10:43 like we have done today
2:10:44 sometimes we can just invite a
2:10:45 particular guest on
2:10:47 and we can really kind of um focus on
2:10:50 them and not have to worry about rushing
2:10:52 them off which i thought might be
2:10:54 interesting or maybe we can even
2:10:56 have extra um podcasts
2:10:59 on the side so we can do this where it's
2:11:01 kind of open to inviting people once
2:11:03 every two weeks
2:11:04 uh and we can arrange other things
2:11:06 around that
2:11:07 uh where we're inviting like just one
2:11:08 person on to have a discussion with us
2:11:10 um which you know might be interesting
2:11:12 and then inshallah maybe we can even
2:11:14 host debates and things like that
2:11:15 um which might also be an interesting
2:11:19 idea
2:11:20 but yes i just wanted to say uh thank
2:11:21 you very much for everyone who's been
2:11:22 watching
2:11:23 do make sure you subscribe uh to my
2:11:25 channel
2:11:26 pondering soul to brother jake's channel
2:11:28 which is the muslim metaphysician
2:11:30 um the links aren't in the description
2:11:32 because we're really unorganized
2:11:34 uh they should have been in there prior
2:11:35 to this but i will put them in there
2:11:37 if not you literally just have to search
2:11:39 the words the muslim metaphysician
2:11:41 and his channel should pop up straight
2:11:42 away and if you just search the
2:11:44 pondering soul
2:11:45 mine should just pop up or use of
2:11:46 ponders i think either one should lead
2:11:49 you to my channel
2:11:50 so make sure you subscribe to us make
2:11:51 sure you leave likes make sure you share
2:11:53 the content
2:11:54 as all of this really helps um and leave
2:11:57 comments as well
2:11:58 uh engage with the material as this kind
2:12:00 of really
2:12:01 um pushes the the videos that we're
2:12:04 producing out
2:12:05 in the algorithm a bit more if people
2:12:06 are engaging with it it shows an
2:12:08 interest in that
2:12:09 um but yeah that's pretty much all i
2:12:11 have to say so thank you very much to
2:12:12 all the people that joined us thank you
2:12:14 to everyone who's watched
2:12:15 who jumped on the stream thank you for
2:12:17 being cordial with us
2:12:19 uh despite our grilling in certain
2:12:21 elements um
2:12:22 and then yeah i'll pass it on to uh
2:12:25 whoever jake
2:12:26 feels should get the batter next yeah so
2:12:29 brother sharif
2:12:30 just wrapping up with your final
2:12:32 thoughts yeah i know jesuit
2:12:34 for inviting me on um i think it's
2:12:37 interesting i think
2:12:38 the interesting discussion uh well all
2:12:41 the three or four discussions that we
2:12:43 had were quite interesting in terms of
2:12:44 the different perspectives we had a
2:12:46 trinitarian at the beginning
2:12:48 with elmo from philippines we had uh
2:12:52 at the end pastor taylor who's a
2:12:54 modalist who doesn't believe in
2:12:55 trinitarianism
2:12:57 and then we've got justin in the middle
2:12:58 and i think what's interesting
2:13:00 is obviously justin came from a
2:13:02 christian background who became an
2:13:03 atheist and what you find with
2:13:06 christians themselves
2:13:07 is that there's an attempt to try to
2:13:10 reconcile
2:13:12 what they intuitively and rationally
2:13:15 know about the existence
2:13:16 of one god with what that text says and
2:13:19 that type of
2:13:20 commitment that they have to try to and
2:13:23 you know
2:13:23 models that they have to try to shape
2:13:26 uh in order to make some sort of sense
2:13:28 of it is why a lot of
2:13:31 you know uh christians leave
2:13:32 christianity because it
2:13:34 you know ultimately there is a problem
2:13:36 in terms this is my personal opinion
2:13:37 there is a problem in terms of trying to
2:13:39 reconcile what the
2:13:41 mind and the rationality comes to to
2:13:43 what the text says
2:13:44 i think that's where justin fits in and
2:13:46 that's why when justin
2:13:47 mentioned about how from an islamic
2:13:50 point of view there doesn't seem to be
2:13:51 circularity
2:13:52 and from an islamic point of view we
2:13:54 don't really go and try to
2:13:56 you know assume the quran is the word of
2:13:58 allah
2:13:59 that we just come to the conclusion that
2:14:01 there is a necessary being that he's
2:14:03 the allah is the creator has a will
2:14:06 intentionality
2:14:07 and therefore the quran as a revelation
2:14:10 fits
2:14:11 very neatly uh in that conceptual
2:14:14 understanding that rational conceptual
2:14:16 understanding of the creators we know
2:14:18 about sort of
2:14:20 so any muslims who are watching is
2:14:22 something maybe to think about that this
2:14:23 is an important aspect and he also just
2:14:27 one final quick point what he justin
2:14:28 also mentioned which is really
2:14:30 interesting as well
2:14:31 is how when christians attack islam
2:14:35 they attack secondary or tertiary issues
2:14:38 but when muslims have
2:14:39 issues or criticisms in the most polite
2:14:41 way with adam etc
2:14:43 it's on the creedal fundamental issues
2:14:45 and as muslims we you know if some of us
2:14:47 come across and
2:14:49 christian apologists and things like
2:14:50 that we have to be aware that
2:14:53 what their problems are are creedal
2:14:56 what they have contentions to us are
2:14:59 subsidiaries
2:15:00 that are related to the creed which they
2:15:02 don't really have a fundamental problem
2:15:03 with
2:15:04 but jazakallah and hopefully shall see
2:15:06 in two weeks time
2:15:08 all right inshaallah alright brother
2:15:09 abdul what are your thoughts
2:15:12 yeah i think uh i think the brothers
2:15:14 summed it up pretty well i mean uh
2:15:16 i don't have much to add but uh i really
2:15:18 did enjoy it and uh
2:15:20 and and i really appreciate the civil
2:15:23 discussions we have and how cordial
2:15:24 everybody was
2:15:25 i think in the for future sessions we
2:15:27 could like um
2:15:29 streamline it in terms of topics so that
2:15:31 it could be more uh
2:15:32 focused on specific topics i think we
2:15:34 could cover much more
2:15:36 if we do that because there there were a
2:15:38 lot of uh
2:15:39 topics we discussed and uh i i have a
2:15:41 feeling that if
2:15:43 every every session or every episode is
2:15:45 about a specific topic then
2:15:47 we could go through much more detail and
2:15:49 we can like
2:15:50 take a deep dive into the topic so um of
2:15:52 course that's that's for future sessions
2:15:54 but uh
2:15:55 i appreciate you guys bringing me on and
2:15:57 i appreciate all the guests
2:16:01 all right yeah that leads me to the last
2:16:04 so
2:16:05 yeah just in closing remarks uh what
2:16:08 brother yusuf was saying that we will
2:16:10 put
2:16:11 the uh official tap or thought uh
2:16:14 adventure podcast
2:16:15 youtube link in both the description of
2:16:19 the video on my channel
2:16:20 and also brother youssef's so that for
2:16:23 for the next show which is going to be
2:16:25 on the 31st um the last day of
2:16:28 january so two weeks from today on
2:16:31 sunday same time
2:16:32 we're gonna try to keep it uh to the
2:16:34 same time as
2:16:35 and uh same day as much as we possibly
2:16:37 can and so
2:16:39 um for next time you guys should try to
2:16:42 go to that channel that we're gonna put
2:16:44 in the description
2:16:45 subscribe to it and put the notification
2:16:48 bell on so that you'll be notified
2:16:50 when we have fever streams uh inshallah
2:16:53 and so if you guys do that as well as
2:16:55 sharing it liking it commenting
2:16:57 everything brother youssef said i just
2:16:59 want to
2:17:00 um you know piggyback on that because it
2:17:02 really helps us out
2:17:04 so i just want to say appreciate you
2:17:06 guys for
2:17:07 watching i appreciate the guests um for
2:17:10 coming on
2:17:11 and although we disagreed with them um
2:17:14 they were very respectful there were no
2:17:16 issues
2:17:16 and i think that was um a major success
2:17:20 as far as the stream goes
2:17:22 um so if nobody else has anything else
2:17:24 to add it's gonna kind of
2:17:26 close it out and say once again i thank
2:17:29 you guys for tuning in to the
2:17:31 thought adventure podcast and i hope to
2:17:33 see you guys again in two weeks
2:17:40 inshallah