One of Atheists’ Best Arguments: Divine Hiddenness | Thought Adventure Podcast #14 (2021-08-22) ​

0:00:01 um
0:00:06Music 0:00:40 welcome everybody to another episode
0:00:42 another stream of the thought advance
0:00:44 thought adventure podcast
0:00:46 um we've really missed you guys it's
0:00:48 it's it's been three weeks this time
0:00:50 so uh we're happy to be back
0:00:53 um today we're discussing uh
0:00:55 the argument from divine hiddenness
0:00:59 against the existence of god or against
0:01:01 theism which is one of one of the most
0:01:03 uh popular arguments uh against the
0:01:06 existence of uh
0:01:08 uh the theistic or or god or the god of
0:01:11 uh
0:01:12 of you know uh monotheism
0:01:15 and uh
0:01:16 it's it's um
0:01:18 it's a very interesting argument i think
0:01:19 it's closely related to
0:01:21 the uh problem of evil that we discussed
0:01:24 uh last time so uh we're hoping this
0:01:27 we're hoping this is gonna be an
0:01:28 interesting and fruitful uh stream
0:01:30 inshallah
0:01:31 um panelists assalamu alaikum how are
0:01:33 you guys doing hope you're welcome
0:01:38 we've got uh isan here
0:01:41 saying he's only just had to subscribe
0:01:43 so we could post what's he why is he not
0:01:44 already subscribed
0:01:45 he's been on the show like god knows how
0:01:47 many times yeah
0:01:51 yeah
0:01:51 yo
0:01:56 yeah much better now i am i did a test
0:01:59 at the end of my isolation period and it
0:02:01 came through negative
0:02:02 so i didn't have it then but i still had
0:02:04 a i still have it now a bit but a bit of
0:02:07 a flimmy cough
0:02:09 um but
0:02:10 yeah much better than i was
0:02:13 that's good that's good
0:02:15 but yes
0:02:16 yeah so so i'm just gonna pull up the
0:02:18 argument here uh maybe a simple form of
0:02:21 the argument that will get us started
0:02:24 uh
0:02:24 so
0:02:26 premise premise conclusion premise one
0:02:28 if god exists there are no non-resistant
0:02:31 non-believers
0:02:32 premise two there are non-resistant
0:02:35 non-believers
0:02:36 conclusion
0:02:37 god does not exist so it's a valid
0:02:41 argument the form is valid if premise
0:02:43 one and two are true the conclusion
0:02:46 follows so um
0:02:47 take it away guys uh whoever wants to
0:02:50 start chala
0:02:53 maybe just really quickly before i just
0:02:55 wanted to uh maybe add you one or two
0:02:57 key points before going into the
0:02:59 directly into the argument i let the
0:03:00 other brothers go directly into the
0:03:02 argument but i think
0:03:04 this argument divine hiddenness and also
0:03:07 the problem of evil
0:03:08 tends to be an argument which says
0:03:11 if god exists god would want
0:03:15 this a particular type of world because
0:03:18 we don't see this particular type of
0:03:20 world
0:03:21 therefore god doesn't exist so you know
0:03:23 with the problem of evil it's like if
0:03:26 god exists
0:03:27 there would be a world with no evil
0:03:30 because there is a world with evil
0:03:32 therefore god does not
0:03:34 exist yeah so similarly this type of
0:03:37 argument if you if you really break it
0:03:39 down the sort of the hidden assumptions
0:03:41 is to try to understand what god would
0:03:43 want
0:03:44 in terms of creating and so in this
0:03:47 situation if god created if god exists
0:03:50 he would want a world where there's no
0:03:52 disbelief
0:03:54 because there's disbelief therefore god
0:03:57 doesn't exist yeah so in essence
0:04:00 non-resistant disbelief to be more
0:04:02 specific yeah yeah and no and to to be
0:04:05 honest there's uh obviously there's lots
0:04:07 of different variations to this
0:04:09 particular type of argument the divine
0:04:10 hiddenness yeah uh and i think we're
0:04:13 going to try and go through as many of
0:04:14 the different variations as possible but
0:04:16 i'm just saying is that in the minds of
0:04:17 the audiences it's really important
0:04:19 because a lot of times
0:04:21 these types of arguments is really
0:04:23 trying to understand
0:04:24 what would happen
0:04:26 if god exists and what type of world
0:04:29 would god want to create
0:04:31 yeah that's that's the that's the idea
0:04:33 uh so i just thought i'd just get it out
0:04:35 there
0:04:36 so people are aware yeah yeah so i think
0:04:39 i think i think you're right uh and i
0:04:41 think of course uh
0:04:43 i mean they can provide reasons for why
0:04:45 they they make that move and and i think
0:04:48 the way the way it's typically done is
0:04:50 that there are certain consequences or
0:04:52 entailments
0:04:53 uh that follow from the characteristics
0:04:57 or attributes of god that uh theists
0:05:00 attribute to god so um
0:05:03 let's say perfection right uh perfect
0:05:06 love
0:05:07 or uh you know perfect moral goodness
0:05:09 right uh uh
0:05:11 they they would want to make their
0:05:13 argument on the debate on that basis
0:05:15 that from the perfect love or perfect
0:05:17 moral goodness certain aspects follow uh
0:05:21 should follow since they do not
0:05:23 therefore this specific uh god does not
0:05:26 exist
0:05:27 so um
0:05:30 i mean we're obviously going to reject
0:05:31 that i think
0:05:32 for me
0:05:34 uh
0:05:35 the most obvious is to reject premise
0:05:38 one
0:05:39 and obviously provide reasons for why we
0:05:41 reject it
0:05:42 but i think there have been some
0:05:44 philosophers who have
0:05:46 tried to resist premise two as well
0:05:48 although that's much more difficult
0:05:51 but but but it's uh i mean it's it's out
0:05:54 there there are uh objections to premise
0:05:56 two so uh jake why don't you tell us
0:05:59 your thoughts on the argument and and
0:06:01 which premise you would attack
0:06:05 yeah so let me just pull it up here to
0:06:08 make sure i'm getting the order right
0:06:10 um if god exists there are no
0:06:14 non-non-resistant non-believers i mean i
0:06:16 would just start off by
0:06:18 rejecting premise one
0:06:20 so i know that um
0:06:22 some of the philosophers give other
0:06:24 arguments
0:06:26 in support of premise one
0:06:28 one of them is the
0:06:30 the one
0:06:31 uh what's his name schellenberg from
0:06:33 love
0:06:34 right
0:06:36 so
0:06:37 he says premise one if there is a god he
0:06:39 is perfectly loving
0:06:41 the perfectly loving god exists
0:06:43 reasonable non-belief does not occur
0:06:46 uh premise three reasonable non-belief
0:06:49 occurs
0:06:50 premise four no perfectly loving god
0:06:53 exists
0:06:54 hence there is no god so
0:06:57 i i can say okay i'm fine with premise
0:06:59 one if there's god he's perfectly loving
0:07:02 premise two if a perfectly loving god
0:07:04 exists
0:07:05 reasonable non-belief does not occur um
0:07:09 i would probably reject that premise
0:07:12 and then
0:07:13 premise three as well
0:07:15 reasonable non-belief occurs
0:07:17 i probably more so than you guys i'd
0:07:19 probably reject that as well
0:07:21 but um to start off premise two if a
0:07:24 perfectly loving god exists
0:07:26 reasonable non-belief does not occur i
0:07:29 mean what's the motivation for that why
0:07:31 should i think that that's true just
0:07:33 because a
0:07:34 loving god a perfectly loving god exists
0:07:37 that there can't be someone who doesn't
0:07:40 believe in god and yet is reasonable
0:07:42 what's
0:07:43 what's underpinning that it seems to be
0:07:46 an assumption and i just don't think
0:07:47 that it's correct so i would say that
0:07:49 that's false
0:07:51 and then i'd even make the stronger
0:07:53 point that i don't think reasonable
0:07:55 non-belief occurs so i think that
0:07:58 somebody and this is much stronger i
0:08:01 think that somebody who completely
0:08:02 rejects that god exists
0:08:04 i would say does not take a reasonable
0:08:07 position
0:08:08 uh and obviously we would have to go
0:08:10 into arguments on that but that's part
0:08:12 of
0:08:12 what our show is about is to try to
0:08:14 provide
0:08:15 rational justification for
0:08:18 the belief in god and i think that we've
0:08:20 done that quite sufficiently although
0:08:23 there are other points that i would want
0:08:24 to make on that to say why i don't even
0:08:27 think
0:08:28 somebody who doesn't believe in god
0:08:30 could hold a rational or reasonable
0:08:32 position but then i also want to
0:08:34 distinguish between
0:08:37 just the belief in god
0:08:39 and the submission to his will and the
0:08:42 worship of that one god because in islam
0:08:46 simply recognizing that god exists
0:08:50 is not sufficient to be
0:08:52 to have salvation to be saved so to
0:08:55 speak
0:08:56 you can you can recognize that a creator
0:08:59 exists and just say well yeah the
0:09:01 creator exists but i hate him and i
0:09:03 don't want to worship him and i don't
0:09:05 want to submit to him i don't like him
0:09:07 and
0:09:09 to
0:09:10 to say that you know that would be
0:09:13 enough no
0:09:14 god is not concerned with merely people
0:09:17 recognizing him you have to give god his
0:09:20 just do
0:09:21 and actually um submit to his will and
0:09:25 worship him otherwise
0:09:27 all this other stuff is just um you know
0:09:29 just a belief in god alone is not
0:09:32 sufficient and so
0:09:34 i think this is important to point out
0:09:36 because
0:09:37 it seems to me that this
0:09:40 these arguments are only concerned with
0:09:43 the mere
0:09:44 belief in god or recognition that a
0:09:47 creator exists
0:09:48 where you know
0:09:51 seems to also be underpinning it well
0:09:54 how would we be punished
0:09:56 especially how we be punished on islamic
0:09:58 paradigm eternally for not believing in
0:10:01 a god that exists and i know this isn't
0:10:03 explicit in the argument but it seems to
0:10:05 be
0:10:05 an extension of it how would we be
0:10:08 punished eternally for not believing
0:10:10 that a god exists if we don't have
0:10:12 sufficient evidence for him and we could
0:10:14 have reasonable disagreement and say
0:10:15 that he doesn't exist
0:10:17 and i'm simply saying that you're not
0:10:19 punished
0:10:20 merely for not recognizing that god
0:10:22 exists even if you recognize that he
0:10:24 exists but you don't submit to him and
0:10:26 you say oh well yeah god exists but i
0:10:28 hate him and i'm going to hell and
0:10:30 that's the answer yeah iblis is a
0:10:33 perfect example of that yeah so at the
0:10:36 end of the day that that's not really
0:10:38 what islam is concerned with islam is
0:10:41 not concerned with merely the
0:10:42 recognition or belief in god it's
0:10:45 submission to him like you you brought
0:10:47 out
0:10:48 shaytan is a perfect example who who
0:10:50 knows that god exists he had direct
0:10:52 communication with god and experienced
0:10:55 god and yet said well the hell with you
0:10:57 i'm doing my own thing
0:10:59 and
0:11:00 it's just
0:11:01 so i think that that's an important
0:11:03 thing
0:11:04 to note as well
0:11:06 and like i said going back to the
0:11:08 original argument
0:11:09 the idea that well if god exists then
0:11:12 there are no non-resistant non-believers
0:11:16 i just don't see why that's necessarily
0:11:18 the case
0:11:20 um we could also imagine
0:11:22 a situation where you can say well yeah
0:11:25 if god wanted to he could create the
0:11:28 world in such a way that you know
0:11:30 in the clouds that go across the sky
0:11:32 like every five minutes it just says
0:11:35 oh as a reminder god exists
0:11:38 or you know he could create something so
0:11:40 obvious like that as an everyday
0:11:43 reminder but
0:11:44 why couldn't we think of well maybe the
0:11:46 case with god is
0:11:48 because this life is a test which is
0:11:52 part of the islamic narrative
0:11:54 is that he's created the world in such a
0:11:56 way and created human beings in such a
0:11:58 way that we have sufficient evidence to
0:12:01 know that god exists which i truly
0:12:03 believe and i would support that as we
0:12:05 try to do on here with rational
0:12:07 argumentation
0:12:08 but also at the same time
0:12:11 he does not want to compel people to
0:12:13 believe okay so he's not interested in
0:12:16 compelling people to believe and so
0:12:19 is the
0:12:20 evidence that god exists sufficient
0:12:22 enough without compelling necessarily
0:12:25 compelling uh people to believe yes i
0:12:27 think that's the case and the divine
0:12:30 hiddenness argument wants to argue that
0:12:32 no it's not the case
0:12:34 and then so what i'm saying is
0:12:36 eventually i think it's going to wind up
0:12:39 having to go back to
0:12:41 evidence for god anyway and that's going
0:12:43 to have to be the
0:12:45 uh sort of deciding factor on this
0:12:48 argument so this argument on its own i
0:12:50 don't think achieves what it's meant to
0:12:53 achieve because i think eventually it's
0:12:56 going to have to go back a step back
0:12:57 further too well what actually is the
0:12:59 evidence for god and you know so that's
0:13:02 where i think it's going to be settled
0:13:04 anyway perfect um
0:13:08 for that uh so
0:13:10 i mean sharif i i saw that i'm supposed
0:13:12 to be playing the shaytani advocate so
0:13:16 the the devil's advocate here so i'm
0:13:17 gonna be pushing back a bit uh i'm gonna
0:13:19 be asking you
0:13:21 uh
0:13:22 because i i see i see a difference
0:13:25 between
0:13:26 uh
0:13:27 non-reasonable non-belief and
0:13:29 non-resistant non-belief um
0:13:32 do i need to elaborate or do do you see
0:13:34 the difference
0:13:35 elaborate yeah because i understand
0:13:37 obviously reasonable non-belief yeah
0:13:39 yeah but what what what do you mean by
0:13:42 non-resistant
0:13:44 so
0:13:45 so
0:13:47 yeah so so the way the argument is
0:13:49 framed is that
0:13:50 so so let's assume that belief in god is
0:13:53 perfectly rational right and there's no
0:13:56 uh non
0:13:58 there's no reasonable non-belief okay so
0:14:01 all non-belief is reasonable but there
0:14:04 still could be
0:14:05 non-resistant non-belief in the sense
0:14:07 that a person can just be
0:14:10 irrational not willingly maybe he's just
0:14:12 you know
0:14:13 not
0:14:14 you know intellectually
0:14:16 up to the level but he wouldn't be
0:14:18 resisting a relationship with god he'd
0:14:20 be sincere and i think what the argument
0:14:23 is trying to do is is trying to say that
0:14:24 if if god is perfectly loving and he's
0:14:26 this
0:14:27 uh perfect moral being then he should
0:14:31 always be open to a relationship i know
0:14:34 shellenberg the the the um
0:14:36 the
0:14:37 the father of this argument he puts it
0:14:39 in that way that it should be
0:14:40 he should always be open to a
0:14:42 relationship so let's assume that
0:14:45 non-belief is irrational could it could
0:14:48 it still be non-resistant in the sense
0:14:50 that a person can be sincere but not see
0:14:52 the reason and believing in god
0:14:55 so i think
0:14:56 there's a few things here i think
0:14:57 firstly is
0:15:00 what i would probably do is i'd probably
0:15:01 take the argument which is
0:15:03 why is there disbelief uh in the world
0:15:07 is it against quote-unquote god's plan
0:15:09 does god want to create a world in which
0:15:12 there is no disbelief
0:15:14 we know from an islamic paradigm that
0:15:16 god wanted to create a world with no
0:15:19 disbelief yeah that he could create that
0:15:22 world yeah in fact in the quran it
0:15:24 mentions that allah mentions to the
0:15:26 effect that if he wanted to create
0:15:28 everybody under one deen one religion he
0:15:30 would have done that yeah but he that
0:15:32 wasn't part of god's plan so this idea
0:15:35 that god wanted to create a world in
0:15:38 which everybody was a believer but then
0:15:41 there is some disbelief
0:15:43 that's not a premise that we hold on to
0:15:45 as muslims we understand that god wanted
0:15:48 to create a world and created a world in
0:15:50 which people be tested as to see whether
0:15:53 they were going to be sincere in their
0:15:55 belief and their desire to submit to the
0:15:57 creator or not yeah and gave human
0:15:59 beings the free will so that's that's
0:16:02 really important because
0:16:03 we don't take a particular paradigm of
0:16:06 what god wanted to create yeah so you
0:16:10 know that's that's very important and i
0:16:12 think this is why a lot of these types
0:16:14 of arguments tend to be arguments that
0:16:16 are addressing a christian or hidden
0:16:19 christian paradigm in regards to that
0:16:22 the understanding of belief in god that
0:16:24 god wants this
0:16:25 relationship this communion with human
0:16:28 beings he created human beings so that
0:16:30 he could love them and they could love
0:16:31 him and then something happened with
0:16:33 human beings and that they had this fall
0:16:36 of adam and they corrupted their nature
0:16:38 etc etc that's not the islamic paradigm
0:16:41 the islamic paradigm was that this
0:16:42 universe this world was created as a
0:16:44 test for human beings and therefore
0:16:46 we're tested and one of the tests is are
0:16:48 we going to recognize our creator and
0:16:50 submit to our creator or not and jake's
0:16:52 already answered that question which is
0:16:54 that it's not about necessarily
0:16:56 acknowledging that god exists we know
0:16:59 from an islamic paradigm that iman
0:17:00 belief is not just simply believing in
0:17:03 god with your mind it's rather
0:17:05 submitting with the heart testimonial
0:17:08 you know testimony upon your tongue you
0:17:10 know testifying upon your heart eyes
0:17:12 submitting upon your heart recognizing
0:17:14 also that allah exists and also some
0:17:17 incorporate this idea of submission upon
0:17:19 the limbs as well or testifying upon the
0:17:21 limbs meaning you act according to what
0:17:23 you believe as well as a manifestation
0:17:26 of your belief so this is what islam
0:17:29 seeks to establish now it has been the
0:17:32 case that allah
0:17:34 has given very evident signs for human
0:17:37 beings you know because the argument
0:17:39 that tends to be brought forward is why
0:17:41 don't we have these types of miracles
0:17:43 that were given to moses
0:17:45 or isla islam yeah why why don't we have
0:17:48 that today well there were times where
0:17:49 people were given very evident miracles
0:17:52 but they still persisted in disbelief
0:17:54 so it's not it so again even this idea
0:17:57 that there should be more evidence to
0:18:00 such an extent that it compels the mind
0:18:02 to acknowledge belief in a creator
0:18:05 is not necessarily the case that even if
0:18:08 you had that you would willingly submit
0:18:11 yourself to the creator
0:18:13 and again the shaytani example has been
0:18:16 brought up uh as well uh that they
0:18:19 acknowledge and you know we've got
0:18:20 examples as well you know there's many
0:18:23 people on you know atheists like dr
0:18:26 lawrence krauss he had a debate with
0:18:28 uthman buddha in australia uh one of the
0:18:31 brothers out there and in the debate he
0:18:33 said even if god existed i would not
0:18:36 prostrate myself to him yeah
0:18:39 so and there's a there's a quote by uh
0:18:42 uh stephen fry who's an actor and
0:18:44 comedian in the uk where when he's told
0:18:46 well what if god exists and you go to
0:18:48 the pearly gates what would you say and
0:18:51 he said you know bone cancer what's that
0:18:54 yeah and he starts saying i would
0:18:57 accuse god of committing great injustice
0:19:00 and evil yeah that are you not worthy of
0:19:02 worship or submission so we we have
0:19:05 examples like that yeah so
0:19:08 it's not the case that from an islamic
0:19:10 paradigm just because you have evidence
0:19:12 even sufficient evidence uh like
0:19:15 miracles as an example that people would
0:19:17 therefore submit because human beings
0:19:19 have free will and it's it's about
0:19:21 submission not just acknowledgement
0:19:23 that's sort of a really woolly general
0:19:26 point the second point is this is all of
0:19:29 this
0:19:31 presupposes that there isn't sufficient
0:19:33 evidence at the moment yeah so
0:19:36 irrespective of miracles and what the
0:19:39 prophets did in the past do we have
0:19:41 sufficient evidence to establish a
0:19:43 belief in a creator because the
0:19:45 presupposition in this is again there
0:19:49 isn't sufficient evidence and because
0:19:51 there isn't sufficient evidence god
0:19:53 would have given us sufficient evidence
0:19:55 and that's the reason why people
0:19:56 disbelieve and therefore god doesn't
0:19:58 exist because god would provide
0:20:00 sufficient evidence but that presupposes
0:20:02 there isn't sufficient evidence what
0:20:03 evidence would we be looking for i think
0:20:06 somebody in the comments section he said
0:20:07 well evidence of a bigfoot would be
0:20:10 footprints of bigfoot yeah that would be
0:20:12 evidence for a bigfoot yeah because we
0:20:14 don't have evidence we don't have
0:20:15 evidence of footprints of bigfoot
0:20:18 therefore bigfoot doesn't exist what
0:20:20 evidence would we expect of a necessary
0:20:22 being the evidence of a necessary being
0:20:24 would be contingent beings contingent
0:20:27 beings is what we observe
0:20:28 yeah and therefore it's it would
0:20:31 therefore logically entail that a
0:20:33 necessary
0:20:34 being with intentionality created and
0:20:37 was the cause for contingent being so so
0:20:40 again there is sufficient evidence
0:20:42 that sufficient evidence some people may
0:20:44 acknowledge some people not and the
0:20:46 third point sorry to go on sorry you can
0:20:49 jump in it's okay it's okay the third
0:20:52 point is this is let's say this point
0:20:54 about reasonable disbelief let's say
0:20:56 even if we grant people have reasons not
0:20:59 to believe in god or reasons not to
0:21:01 believe in islam
0:21:02 there is within the islamic paradigm
0:21:05 evidence or uh certainly a position that
0:21:09 says that a disbeliever a kafir and
0:21:12 somebody who's judged on the day of
0:21:14 judgment will be judged based upon the
0:21:16 information evidence that they have what
0:21:19 occurred to their mind
0:21:20 if they had quote-unquote reasonable
0:21:23 disbelief yeah either had certain
0:21:25 reasons not to believe in islam let's
0:21:27 say
0:21:27 generally
0:21:29 then allah we believe will take that
0:21:31 into account it's not the case that he
0:21:32 will be punished
0:21:34 yeah so it's not a case of the fact that
0:21:37 he didn't see the evidence and therefore
0:21:41 he's going to be punished anyway
0:21:43 no we believe that allah will punish him
0:21:45 based upon what he knew not based upon
0:21:48 the fact that he didn't see a particular
0:21:50 evidence or an argument uh and there's
0:21:53 more to be said about reasonable
0:21:54 disbelief because you could argue yeah
0:21:56 it's
0:21:56 reasonable at a certain point in time
0:21:59 for somebody not to believe in god they
0:22:01 may have certain reasons but over a
0:22:03 lifespan yeah over the various arguments
0:22:06 that come to them then you can say well
0:22:08 the person is no longer just being
0:22:10 reasonable in his disbelief he's rather
0:22:12 being obstinate within his disbelief as
0:22:14 well
0:22:16 so yeah
0:22:17 for that um
0:22:19 i mean
0:22:20 one of the thoughts that comes to mind
0:22:22 and i'm going to ask you this yusuf um
0:22:25 is is about um
0:22:29 i mean could there could there exist a
0:22:31 sincere non-believer who isn't so so
0:22:34 forget about stephen fry richard dawkins
0:22:36 and you know all these guys who say that
0:22:38 if they see god you know if they walk up
0:22:40 to the pearly gates they would still
0:22:41 reject god
0:22:43 um think of somebody who would accept
0:22:44 god if he if he sees the evidence but he
0:22:47 just hasn't seen it
0:22:48 is there a do you think like i'm maybe
0:22:52 more psychological than anything do you
0:22:54 think there there could be a
0:22:56 non-resistant non-believer who is
0:22:58 sincere who if presented with the
0:23:00 evidence provided he has the
0:23:02 intellectual capacity to grasp it he
0:23:04 would believe but he just hasn't seen it
0:23:06 he be seeking a relationship with god or
0:23:09 at least he's not resistant to it
0:23:12 um
0:23:13 does that person exist because i mean if
0:23:14 if we're if we're uh if we're accepting
0:23:17 premise two that non-resistant
0:23:19 non-believers exist uh
0:23:21 than that that person does exist so what
0:23:23 do you think
0:23:24 yeah i would say definitely because
0:23:26 you've got to keep in mind that a life
0:23:28 is
0:23:28 a series of moments
0:23:31 and
0:23:31 you know if you're just pointing
0:23:33 sorry i've got
0:23:34 series opening up for some reason um so
0:23:36 yeah life is a series of moments
0:23:39 and
0:23:40 you may come across someone who's a
0:23:42 disbeliever now
0:23:43 who is sincere who in the future will
0:23:46 become
0:23:47 a believer you know they may be at the
0:23:49 very beginning of their life we've seen
0:23:51 shahadas where
0:23:52 people have taken it you know in their
0:23:54 80s or however long you know much much
0:23:57 later on in their life
0:23:58 um and maybe sometimes some people go
0:24:01 through a process of several decades of
0:24:03 research before they eventually submit
0:24:05 um and that person could in that state
0:24:08 of disbelief
0:24:09 very well be sincere
0:24:11 um so yeah i would say that is the case
0:24:14 that you can have
0:24:16 a you know someone who sincerely does
0:24:17 disbelieve
0:24:19 um and that you know they haven't come
0:24:22 across all the arguments they haven't
0:24:23 come across the things that are going to
0:24:26 make it click
0:24:27 so
0:24:28 and and you think they could die in that
0:24:31 state right um it's yeah it's possible
0:24:34 it's possible they could die in a
0:24:36 sincere state um whether or not that's a
0:24:39 rational position this is a obviously a
0:24:41 completely separate thing
0:24:42 um
0:24:43 but yeah yeah so because for me that's
0:24:46 one of the most obvious flaws with with
0:24:48 uh the way schellenberg's argued i've
0:24:51 i've read and seen him argue
0:24:54 about
0:24:55 one of the premises in one of his
0:24:56 formulations that god should always
0:24:59 always be open to relationships uh
0:25:02 if he is a morally perfect or all or
0:25:06 perfectly loving god i mean of course uh
0:25:08 there's a caveat there i mean
0:25:10 we're gonna have to we would have to
0:25:12 discuss what perfectly loving means
0:25:14 because i think perfectly loving from
0:25:16 within a christian and islamic paradigm
0:25:19 are radically different so there's also
0:25:21 that aspect that i have with this
0:25:22 problem and the problem of evil
0:25:25 as well is that uh you know there's an
0:25:27 aspect of subjectivities with regard to
0:25:29 how you judge the consequences of
0:25:31 certain perfections and these are the
0:25:34 this these are the kinds of arguments
0:25:36 you hear some atheists making as well
0:25:38 with regard to perfection right because
0:25:40 because when you talk to them perfection
0:25:42 and you know moral superiority and stuff
0:25:44 like that it's
0:25:45 they always do put on that subjective
0:25:47 lens well according to who will
0:25:49 subjective perfection is a value
0:25:51 judgment so how are you going to make
0:25:54 that judgment but so let's grant it
0:25:56 let's just grant the standard meaning of
0:25:58 a perfect love and one of the problems i
0:26:00 have is the bold claim that
0:26:02 god should always like always be open to
0:26:05 a relationship even during this finite
0:26:08 life
0:26:09 uh like
0:26:11 he wouldn't even consider uh you know
0:26:13 the the the fact that the possibility of
0:26:15 this person
0:26:16 getting into an infinite or sorry
0:26:19 eternal relationship with god in the
0:26:20 hereafter as sufficient answer because
0:26:23 then there's that
0:26:24 first part that finite life where he
0:26:27 would regard as uh you know uh lacking
0:26:31 when when you consider it in the light
0:26:32 of a
0:26:34 perfectly loving god and i think the
0:26:35 problem with that is is is that i i
0:26:38 think that's a very
0:26:40 broad assumption it's it's a bull or
0:26:42 something to make that it will always be
0:26:44 the case and i think this has to do i
0:26:47 was discussing it with uh friends a
0:26:48 couple a friend a couple of days ago uh
0:26:51 fisher john fisher and it has to do with
0:26:54 doxastatic volunteerism and volunteerism
0:26:56 now what just what those words mean
0:26:59 there's just a very fancy way of saying
0:27:00 like um you know of describing two
0:27:03 different positions in philosophy where
0:27:05 you are able to choose your own beliefs
0:27:08 versus you know uh in volunteerism where
0:27:11 you are incapable of choosing your own
0:27:13 beliefs and i think the the idea that
0:27:17 that god isn't uh
0:27:22 you know
0:27:23 immediately available to anybody who
0:27:25 just searches for him like it's got the
0:27:27 existence of god couldn't be as obvious
0:27:31 as one plus one equals two one plus one
0:27:33 equals two is always obvious to anybody
0:27:36 you couldn't not believe that one plus
0:27:38 one equals two if i it's not it's not
0:27:40 that's it i tried i asked my daughter
0:27:42 the other day what's one plus four
0:27:46 and she said 18 because that's her
0:27:47 favorite number
0:27:49 i'm sure
0:27:50 i'm i'm sure she doesn't understand what
0:27:51 the words mean though right because she
0:27:53 couldn't right because if you brought
0:27:54 her to two toys she'd know that there
0:27:56 are two toys there well i didn't really
0:27:58 think it was like how many's that she
0:27:59 said one i said how old is that
0:28:04 yeah but assuming that everybody
0:28:06 everybody does believe that one plus one
0:28:08 equals two and nobody could believe that
0:28:10 one plus one equals five or eighteen uh
0:28:13 that then then yeah that that's the kind
0:28:15 of belief that you can't not believe so
0:28:18 so you're coerced into that belief
0:28:19 there's no you don't have a choice not
0:28:21 to believe it and and i i think the
0:28:24 problem is if belief in god was like
0:28:26 that then uh
0:28:28 the theistic position or the theistic
0:28:31 narrative that this life was created as
0:28:33 a test to to to you know test our our uh
0:28:37 you know moral conduct
0:28:39 it becomes because it just entirely
0:28:41 collapses because if you can if every
0:28:44 time you look at the sky you see god and
0:28:46 you see heaven and hell then how is what
0:28:49 how is anything you do morally
0:28:50 significant how is it morally
0:28:52 significant if i if i have if i put a
0:28:54 gun to your head
0:28:55 and i'm trying to test you know see okay
0:28:58 what you're gonna do you need to do the
0:28:59 right thing if you do the wrong thing
0:29:01 i'm gonna shoot you and you know for a
0:29:02 fact that you're gonna get shot in the h
0:29:04 head
0:29:05 and you know that you know with
0:29:07 absolute certainty
0:29:09 then
0:29:10 you know your abstaining from doing
0:29:13 immoral actions
0:29:15 is not really morally significant you're
0:29:17 just being forced not to do moral acts
0:29:19 so so i i've always thought this idea
0:29:21 that you know if if god's existence was
0:29:24 just as obvious as that well the whole
0:29:26 theistic narrative would would kind of
0:29:28 collapse so i i feel that this is one
0:29:31 part of the argument that doesn't really
0:29:32 take the theistic position seriously
0:29:35 because because
0:29:37 yeah yeah go ahead i was gonna say i
0:29:39 think what it is is that
0:29:41 there are
0:29:42 what you're giving you is a possible
0:29:43 argument yeah so there's a possible way
0:29:45 of explaining
0:29:47 why it's not obvious
0:29:48 in in in one particular way so it's
0:29:51 basically saying well
0:29:53 one
0:29:54 this divine hiddenness argument doesn't
0:29:56 try to reduce the belief in a creator's
0:29:59 logical contradiction it's about
0:30:00 evidential is it plausible you know
0:30:04 given the state of the evidence as it is
0:30:06 and our understanding of nature of the
0:30:08 creator and you're giving one plausible
0:30:09 argument but let's take another
0:30:11 plausible argument or possible argument
0:30:13 uh let's say that
0:30:16 what god wants is not
0:30:18 just belief he wants what jake said
0:30:20 submission let's say this is
0:30:24 the the best way to create the most
0:30:27 number of people to submit to god
0:30:30 i the idea that it's not in a way which
0:30:32 is
0:30:33 directly accessible like one plus one
0:30:36 equals two but rather it requires
0:30:38 sincerity to seek out this intellectual
0:30:42 answer this this rational answer that
0:30:44 there is a creator and that therefore
0:30:47 needs to you need to submit to
0:30:49 so let's say that's actually the
0:30:51 possible the the best possible world to
0:30:54 allow the most number of people to
0:30:56 submit is one where people will submit
0:31:00 when they've gone through this sincere
0:31:02 rational
0:31:03 you know
0:31:04 having humility process in order to come
0:31:07 to the existence of a creator so there's
0:31:09 sufficient evidence one and secondly is
0:31:12 that this is the best way to get to
0:31:15 the the stated purpose which is to have
0:31:17 the maximum number of people saved
0:31:20 yeah i want to say something about this
0:31:21 comment because saying the argument
0:31:22 doesn't imply that believing in god
0:31:24 would be like
0:31:25 like believing that one plus one equals
0:31:27 two yes it does imply that it doesn't
0:31:28 play that because it implies that you
0:31:30 know mere non-resistance gets you to god
0:31:33 so i mean the only way you could not
0:31:35 believe that one plus one equals two is
0:31:37 if you were like psychologically
0:31:38 resistant to it or something or if you
0:31:39 had some like you know uh um
0:31:42 problem like mental problem or whatever
0:31:44 whatever a deficiency in in your ability
0:31:47 to to understand the world around you
0:31:49 but then
0:31:50 the idea is as soon as you're
0:31:52 non-resistant to the idea you're there
0:31:54 because what schellenberg does is he
0:31:56 says that god should always that means
0:31:58 there shouldn't be a moment where you
0:32:00 are non-resistant
0:32:02 to the existence of god where you're not
0:32:05 already in a relationship with god so
0:32:06 you should instantly see it and that's
0:32:08 just that that's just coercive belief
0:32:10 right there i mean that's just something
0:32:12 you couldn't choose not to believe uh
0:32:15 so so um
0:32:16 i mean if it were like what you're
0:32:18 saying and the argument doesn't imply
0:32:19 the belief in god would be like
0:32:20 believing that one plus one equals two
0:32:22 then then we're fine with that because
0:32:23 yeah then there could be
0:32:25 non-resistant non-believers that you
0:32:27 know get into some sort of gradual uh uh
0:32:31 you know journey towards belief in god
0:32:33 which i think is
0:32:35 honestly more meaningful than than this
0:32:38 just you know instant uh you know zap in
0:32:40 your head as soon as you're
0:32:41 non-resistant so yes i think the
0:32:43 argument doesn't imply that believing in
0:32:44 god would be like believing that one
0:32:46 plus one equals two
0:32:47 um
0:32:48 so
0:32:49 so i
0:32:52 oh did you mute
0:32:54 sorry does does anybody else have
0:32:56 anything to say about premise one
0:32:57 because i think um we've dealt with uh
0:33:00 we've dealt dealt with it very fairly
0:33:02 well of course there's much more to say
0:33:04 but uh
0:33:06 uh
0:33:07 sharif yusuf yeah i would just um push
0:33:10 for justification even more so on it
0:33:12 like like why is it like i think you've
0:33:15 pretty much just said the same thing
0:33:16 really but like why is it the case
0:33:20 that the um if god exists there are no
0:33:23 non-resistant non-believers i'd say that
0:33:26 there needs to be a separate argument to
0:33:28 justify this premise because it's just
0:33:30 being put forward as a statement we
0:33:32 don't necessarily just have to go on the
0:33:34 defensive and sorry you're talking about
0:33:36 premise one right yeah yeah
0:33:39 yeah if god exists there are no
0:33:40 non-resistant believers why why is that
0:33:42 the case
0:33:43 yeah well normally they provide defenses
0:33:46 of it from from you know the um you know
0:33:49 perfect being theology as in like you
0:33:52 know god's moral perfection god's
0:33:53 perfect love and what that entails like
0:33:56 the consequence of god's perfect love is
0:33:57 that he would always want to be or he
0:34:00 would always be open to relationship
0:34:02 with
0:34:03 non-resistant finite beings that was the
0:34:05 next thing i wanted to comment on so
0:34:06 this being always being open so
0:34:09 you know
0:34:09 even with our theology we understand um
0:34:12 allah
0:34:14 says that the doors of repentance are
0:34:15 always open
0:34:17 so he is always open to it
0:34:19 the issue is is whether or not the
0:34:20 person is going to reciprocate that
0:34:23 so you know
0:34:25 there you can conceive of
0:34:27 god being always open to
0:34:30 developing a relationship with people
0:34:32 and people resisting that opportunity um
0:34:35 even and that's sort of add further to
0:34:37 it so we have this understanding as well
0:34:40 um
0:34:41 the everyone is born upon the fitra
0:34:44 and there are arguments and essays that
0:34:47 can collaborate this is also um the
0:34:49 essay by paul bloom which talks about
0:34:51 natural uh religion is natural it's very
0:34:53 short essay um but it this article shows
0:34:56 you know children even when they're
0:34:57 raised by atheistic parents yeah
0:34:59 wherever they are on the planet they
0:35:02 naturally come to
0:35:04 certain beliefs that is they believe for
0:35:06 example in some sort of transcendental
0:35:08 power they believe in
0:35:11 mind body dualism so they believe in a
0:35:13 soul they believe in life after death
0:35:15 they believe in everything having an
0:35:17 innate purpose like there's there's a
0:35:19 lot of beliefs that children
0:35:22 come to that are theistic
0:35:24 in you know about all by themselves
0:35:26 obviously they're very vague but they're
0:35:28 there and within the
0:35:31 islamic paradigm we have this notion
0:35:33 that we do testify prior to our birth
0:35:36 that there is only one god
0:35:38 and allah says that you know um and we
0:35:40 say this and then when we're held to
0:35:42 account
0:35:43 on judgement day that we won't have any
0:35:45 excuses because we've already testified
0:35:48 and this idea of kufur
0:35:50 is this covering up
0:35:52 so that there is
0:35:53 we and i i
0:35:55 really do think this that
0:35:56 there is a innate natural position that
0:35:59 belief in god is the neutral position or
0:36:02 belief in the supernatural belief and a
0:36:03 higher power is a neutral position um
0:36:06 and then there's a lot of complexity
0:36:08 that goes on to cover it which is what
0:36:11 means to cover
0:36:13 and so this this is a good segue to to
0:36:15 premise to you so i mean so because it
0:36:18 seems like you're saying that uh i mean
0:36:21 non-resistant non-believers don't exist
0:36:23 is that we're saying or because because
0:36:25 what do we mean by non-resistance again
0:36:28 so so as soon as you don't have any like
0:36:31 rational or psychological you know if
0:36:33 you don't have any uh ulterior motives
0:36:36 to not believe in god right like you're
0:36:38 sincere you're just looking for the
0:36:40 evidence
0:36:41 you should be able to believe in god
0:36:43 like like there's nobody who is sincere
0:36:45 in that way who doesn't have that kind
0:36:47 of internal resistance
0:36:49 who
0:36:50 uh what's it called doesn't believe in
0:36:52 god because as soon as they're
0:36:53 non-resistant they immediately believe
0:36:55 in god uh the premise to reject premise
0:36:57 two says that there are people who are
0:36:59 non-resistant and still don't believe
0:37:04 see i think with premise too you can
0:37:06 accept that you can have some people who
0:37:08 are non-resistant who don't believe in
0:37:10 god the question is that could they be
0:37:13 that way
0:37:14 when
0:37:15 you know over a period of time where the
0:37:17 different arguments where they think
0:37:19 about it themselves where they
0:37:20 contemplate you know i think that's the
0:37:23 problem that's when you find that well
0:37:25 they go from being reasonable
0:37:28 to
0:37:29 a position of obstinacy yeah
0:37:32 because there's just too many arguments
0:37:34 too many angles by which you look at
0:37:35 when it comes to the existence of a
0:37:37 creator that seems to indicate you know
0:37:40 even like uh i think joseph was
0:37:41 obviously mentioned about the fit of a
0:37:43 human being but even many atheists
0:37:46 will acknowledge
0:37:47 yeah that belief in religion is natural
0:37:50 in human beings and they might give some
0:37:52 sort of evolutionary argument for it for
0:37:54 what they're basically saying
0:37:56 yeah but this is what the the basic
0:37:58 point is this
0:37:59 is we're inbuilt we're innate we want to
0:38:02 create societies where we have a
0:38:04 metaphysical or supernatural beliefs or
0:38:06 beliefs in in a theistic
0:38:09 god
0:38:10 or creator
0:38:11 we want to do that this is what we want
0:38:14 to do yeah and then we've got good
0:38:16 rational reasons to establish this
0:38:18 whether that's transcendental arguments
0:38:20 whether it's arguments and consciousness
0:38:22 whether it's contingency arguments or
0:38:24 different cosmological arguments for the
0:38:26 existence of creator
0:38:28 all of these things seem pretty
0:38:30 reasonable to be pushed in the direction
0:38:33 of belief in a creator so yeah you might
0:38:36 have at a particular moment somebody
0:38:38 who's non-resistant
0:38:40 and has a reasonable disbelief but over
0:38:42 a period of time and look my own
0:38:44 experience i've never come across a
0:38:48 atheist
0:38:49 or a disbeliever non-muslim who was
0:38:52 sincere
0:38:53 yeah
0:38:54 and looked at the arguments and didn't
0:38:56 become a muslim yeah i've never come
0:38:58 across a person who i felt he's this
0:39:01 really sincere guy but he just doesn't
0:39:02 want to be a muslim
0:39:04 yeah i've every discussion i've had and
0:39:07 i know that's anecdotal yeah so it's not
0:39:09 justification for evidence but i'm just
0:39:11 saying from my own experience that's
0:39:13 what i've seen and i've seen the
0:39:15 opposite where i've seen people who will
0:39:17 say to me and jake and you guys have
0:39:20 heard it as well where they'll say you
0:39:22 have a reasonable logical position but i
0:39:25 just don't believe it yeah so they will
0:39:28 accept the most logical and reasonable
0:39:30 but they just don't want to do it and
0:39:32 you know there's something psychological
0:39:34 factors regardless maybe it's because in
0:39:36 their mind they've got
0:39:38 christianity in the background or the
0:39:41 negative aspects of you know religions
0:39:44 and things like that that pushes them
0:39:46 from really accepting the logical
0:39:48 rational position
0:39:51 yeah i i think
0:39:52 um i mean i mean one of the one of the
0:39:55 you know the burdens this arguments
0:39:56 carries uh you want one of its costs and
0:39:59 uh is is the idea that you know god
0:40:02 should always be open to a relationship
0:40:06 so so you don't have that transitional
0:40:08 phase they can't afford that it's that
0:40:10 non-resistant non-believers don't exist
0:40:12 so and the problem also on another
0:40:15 another another issue is that
0:40:17 i mean because if you do allow for a
0:40:19 quick transition that okay so there's a
0:40:21 period then the person instantly sees it
0:40:22 well
0:40:23 there's going to be an arbitrary i mean
0:40:25 how long is that period going to be how
0:40:26 long are you going to allow for a person
0:40:28 to transition from resistant to
0:40:30 non-resistant than theist or is it
0:40:33 resistant than theist instantly because
0:40:36 if it's that if it's resistant then just
0:40:38 you know the zap in the head and
0:40:39 instantly
0:40:41 theist i mean that's i think that's
0:40:43 ridiculous and i think that's absolutely
0:40:45 ridiculous but if you're allowing for a
0:40:47 transitional period well it's always
0:40:49 going to be arbitrary how how long does
0:40:51 the argument allow for
0:40:53 in terms of this transition from
0:40:56 non-theism to theism and uh and and
0:41:00 in that case we're just going to appeal
0:41:01 to to some kind of like gradualism in in
0:41:04 in people in non-resistant non-believers
0:41:07 in a non-resistant non-believer's
0:41:08 journey towards god and yeah i think
0:41:11 that's the way it should be yeah yeah
0:41:12 well what you're saying is is correct
0:41:14 because what what do they mean do they
0:41:16 mean non-resistance to you know to
0:41:18 acceptance are they saying that you know
0:41:21 you just because you have to go for a
0:41:23 set of arguments and understand the
0:41:25 evidence
0:41:26 does that negate belief in a creator
0:41:28 does it doesn't really make sense and
0:41:30 just as i find i want to also make this
0:41:32 other point just remembered you know
0:41:34 when you talk about trivial you know
0:41:36 truths like one plus one equals two
0:41:38 and then the one of the one of the
0:41:40 reasons as well one of the possible
0:41:42 explanations about why
0:41:45 belief in a great particularly in
0:41:46 today's day and age in a very secular
0:41:49 day a day and age is because the
0:41:51 implications of these ideas
0:41:53 when you have certain ideas which have
0:41:55 implications
0:41:56 on a person's life
0:41:59 irrespective of the evidence people will
0:42:02 have cognitive biases
0:42:04 or biases regards regards to the
0:42:06 evidence or cognitive dissonance
0:42:08 regardless of the evidence because it's
0:42:10 about changing beliefs
0:42:12 changing outlooks and that's difficult
0:42:14 for people so it can be the case that
0:42:17 these are very cogent clear arguments
0:42:20 but what happens are there are
0:42:22 psychological factors because of the
0:42:24 acceptance that this is going to have an
0:42:26 impact on a person's life that they are
0:42:28 going to be resistant and they're going
0:42:30 to try to bring arguments
0:42:32 against it rather than just simply
0:42:35 accept
0:42:36 you know the entailment of like a one
0:42:37 plus one equals two because no impact in
0:42:40 a person's life yeah okay i'm a good
0:42:42 example of that sorry jake you go first
0:42:44 well you can go if you want to make a
0:42:46 quick comment because i'm going to be a
0:42:47 while
0:42:48 yeah so my comment was simply just that
0:42:50 i'm i'm an example of that so like when
0:42:52 i went from being like hard atheist to
0:42:55 more agnostic
0:42:56 um there was a period of time where like
0:43:00 speaking to my friends i got to a point
0:43:01 where i pretty much
0:43:03 had like affirmed the different elements
0:43:06 of the shadows i did believe that there
0:43:08 was a god
0:43:09 i did believe
0:43:10 at some point that the and that
0:43:13 i kind of went a back steps from this
0:43:15 later on um but it wasn't necessarily
0:43:17 because of any argumentation or anything
0:43:19 like that it was just because of the
0:43:20 context that it was in but so i would
0:43:23 affirm that the quran was the word of
0:43:24 god muhammad
0:43:26 was salam was the prophet of god
0:43:29 but i just didn't want to take my
0:43:30 shahada
0:43:31 and it was because i had all of these
0:43:32 plans and these things that i wanted to
0:43:34 do
0:43:35 um and becoming a muslim was going to be
0:43:37 something that got in the way of that
0:43:39 and so at that time i didn't take my
0:43:40 shahadah
0:43:41 um and then i just continued sort of
0:43:43 living as i was living
0:43:45 um and then i sort of
0:43:47 stopped thinking about it and so you
0:43:49 know the the
0:43:50 the belief in all of these things just
0:43:52 didn't interest me for a period of time
0:43:55 but i was there i was like i pretty much
0:43:57 said or affirmed all the points that
0:43:59 would make you a muslim
0:44:01 um
0:44:02 specifically or the only step that
0:44:04 wasn't there was my testifying it
0:44:07 properly
0:44:09 and wanting to become a muslim
0:44:11 yeah
0:44:12 so the first point i want to bring up
0:44:15 i'm going to read some quran verses here
0:44:18 because
0:44:19 if you're going to do an internal
0:44:21 critique when come people come on they
0:44:23 need to understand the islamic theology
0:44:25 and what
0:44:26 our beliefs are so
0:44:29 in quran chapter 49 verse 14
0:44:32 it says the bedouins say we have
0:44:34 believed say you have not yet believed
0:44:37 but say yet instead
0:44:40 we have submitted for faith is not yet
0:44:42 entered into your hearts and if you obey
0:44:44 allah and his messenger he will not
0:44:46 deprive you from your deeds of anything
0:44:48 indeed allah is forgiving and merciful
0:44:50 so the point is there were people coming
0:44:52 to the prophet he said i'm saying oh we
0:44:55 believe
0:44:56 and what does he tell them say no you
0:44:58 submit and if you look in the
0:45:00 uh
0:45:01 throughout the quran
0:45:03 when people came to the quote-unquote
0:45:05 belief in god or however you want to
0:45:07 frame it
0:45:08 they said like abraham uh said islam to
0:45:12 be
0:45:13 i submit to myself to the lord of the
0:45:15 worlds so
0:45:17 what allah or god from our perspective
0:45:20 is concerned with is not just oh
0:45:22 recognition that he exists he's
0:45:24 concerned with submission to him and
0:45:27 worshiping him properly
0:45:29 second thing is that this whole point
0:45:31 about well
0:45:33 people are claiming they just need a
0:45:35 sign and they just need this they need
0:45:37 that
0:45:38 why don't all these things happen like
0:45:40 these miracles in the past no the quran
0:45:43 says and they swear by allah their
0:45:45 strongest oaths that if a sign came to
0:45:48 them if an ayah a sign came to them they
0:45:51 would surely believe in it say the signs
0:45:55 the ayat are only with the law and what
0:45:57 will make you perceive that even if a
0:46:00 sign came they would not believe
0:46:02 so no the quran is challenging this idea
0:46:04 that even if they have a sign oh and
0:46:06 even if they know exactly god exists
0:46:08 they don't care they just want to go on
0:46:10 doing what they're doing and the quran
0:46:12 is saying that this is not necessarily
0:46:14 true so second thing is we don't accept
0:46:17 this narrative that oh if i just had a
0:46:19 sign i would believe and i would become
0:46:21 muslim and all this no the quran is
0:46:23 rejecting that
0:46:24 third thing is
0:46:26 in chapter 4 verse 153 it actually talks
0:46:29 about people who already believed had
0:46:32 all the signs and then gives an example
0:46:34 of what happened to them it says the
0:46:36 people of the book the jews and
0:46:37 christians
0:46:38 ask you to bring down to them a book
0:46:41 from the heaven
0:46:42 but they asked they had asked moses of
0:46:45 even greater than that and said show us
0:46:47 a law outright they wanted to see allah
0:46:50 directly
0:46:51 so the thunderbolt struck them for their
0:46:53 wrongdoing and who does that sound like
0:46:55 the the eighth modern day atheists
0:46:57 and then even after they had all this
0:47:00 they took the calf after moses left for
0:47:02 a short time and they even still had um
0:47:05 aaron with them haroon with him
0:47:08 after clear evidence had had come to
0:47:10 them what
0:47:12 and we pardoned them and we gave moses a
0:47:14 clear authority so these were people who
0:47:16 had clear signs from god and were still
0:47:18 oh they were begging
0:47:20 to see allah and they had all these
0:47:23 clear signs they had prophets with them
0:47:24 and they started worshiping a golden
0:47:26 calf right after moses was gone for a
0:47:29 short time
0:47:31 so
0:47:32 second point third point is that i want
0:47:34 to dispel this notion that again we have
0:47:36 clear and again this is our theology so
0:47:39 you can disagree with it but this is
0:47:40 coming from the quran even people who
0:47:42 had the signs they went astray even
0:47:45 clear signs from allah
0:47:47 another point is
0:47:49 these people on judgment day right
0:47:52 chapter 35 37 says this
0:47:56 and they will cry out therein this is
0:47:58 talking about uh people in hell and and
0:48:00 uh after you know the world ends
0:48:03 they will cry out therein our lord
0:48:05 remove us we will do righteousness other
0:48:08 than what we were doing so these are
0:48:10 people that are in hell that were doing
0:48:12 bad things when they were on earth and
0:48:13 they're saying oh just take us out put
0:48:15 us back on earth and we'll do good deeds
0:48:18 what does he say but did we not grant
0:48:20 you life enough for whoever who would
0:48:23 remember therein to remember and the
0:48:26 warner had come to you so taste the
0:48:29 punishment for there is not for the
0:48:31 wrongdoers any help so he's saying no
0:48:33 first of all you guys already had enough
0:48:36 of a chance while you were on earth and
0:48:37 if you're in hell you deserve it plain
0:48:39 and simple and there's another verse as
0:48:41 well in the quran that actually talks
0:48:43 about these people asked to be sent back
0:48:46 and allah says even if we did send you
0:48:48 back you still wouldn't do what you're
0:48:50 supposed to and he calls them liars so
0:48:52 this is the quranic uh position now
0:48:56 another verse i just got a couple more
0:48:57 here on judgment day
0:49:00 about this whole non-resistant
0:49:01 non-believer stuff first of all i'm
0:49:03 skeptical of that notion and i
0:49:05 understand that you guys think that
0:49:07 there are me and me and sharif are a
0:49:09 little bit more skeptical um you could
0:49:11 call it wisdom i don't know but um no so
0:49:15 these people
0:49:17 uh that are supposedly non-resistant
0:49:19 non-believers let's say for the sake of
0:49:21 argument that they exist i'm very
0:49:22 skeptical of them and if they do exist i
0:49:25 think they're in very small number but
0:49:26 let's say there's some of them well what
0:49:28 does allah say he says so today talking
0:49:31 about day of judgment no soul will be
0:49:33 wronged at all and you will not be
0:49:36 recompensed except for what you used to
0:49:38 do so even if they did exist right
0:49:41 the idea is those people who are quote
0:49:44 unquote non-resistant non-believers will
0:49:46 not be punished in hell for eternity
0:49:49 because the quran wouldn't do that if
0:49:51 they legitimately had justification for
0:49:53 their disbelief allah will not send them
0:49:56 to hell they will not be wronged okay so
0:49:59 even if those people do exist we don't
0:50:01 have that problem because we don't
0:50:02 believe that belief alone or the lack of
0:50:05 belief quote unquote is not sufficient
0:50:08 just to send somebody to hell if they
0:50:10 actually had justification for as imam
0:50:13 uh hazali actually talks about
0:50:15 that if somebody was presented such a
0:50:18 distorted version of islam and they
0:50:20 rejected it well then of course because
0:50:22 they're not even rejecting something uh
0:50:24 that is the truth now further on uh
0:50:28 i think what really this comes down to
0:50:31 is whether or not there actually is
0:50:32 sufficient reason to believe for most
0:50:34 people and we would argue i at least
0:50:36 myself would argue that yes there is and
0:50:39 not only that but that you are to serve
0:50:42 and your creator and submit to his will
0:50:44 and i think we've tried to give
0:50:46 arguments for that many times over but
0:50:48 what i think is going to happen
0:50:50 is that these conversations
0:50:52 this argument is not sufficient on its
0:50:54 own to really dispel the notion of a god
0:50:57 it's eventually going to go back to the
0:50:59 actual arguments and evidence for god's
0:51:01 existing and on this the quran says
0:51:04 indeed the worst of the living creatures
0:51:06 in the sight of allah are the deaf and
0:51:09 dumb who do not use reason those who
0:51:11 don't use their ah don't those who don't
0:51:13 use their reason these kind of people
0:51:16 who actually have the ability to know
0:51:18 that god exists and to serve him
0:51:20 appropriately and they don't do it of
0:51:22 course they're going to be in hell and
0:51:24 god is just for sending them the hell
0:51:26 now why does he say that these are the
0:51:28 worst of living creatures and in other
0:51:30 verses he actually compares them to
0:51:31 cattle but he says no you're actually
0:51:33 worse than cattle why because a cow
0:51:36 wasn't granted with the intellectual
0:51:38 rational faculties that man has in order
0:51:40 to know his creator right and so they're
0:51:43 not going to be bland you know i can see
0:51:45 cows in hell that type of deal you know
0:51:47 what i mean but these people who have
0:51:50 been granted that ability and what they
0:51:52 do
0:51:52 they're kuffar why part of the reason
0:51:55 and the terminology is because they're
0:51:57 ungrateful they don't actually even use
0:51:59 what god has given them in order to come
0:52:02 to proper knowledge of him and submit to
0:52:05 his will because they just throw it in
0:52:07 the bin and i'm sorry to say but my
0:52:09 experience of dealing with most atheists
0:52:11 and these people online is we have
0:52:14 i don't want to put a percentage on it
0:52:16 but the quran uses most a lot so i'll
0:52:18 use the word most
0:52:20 most people walking around they're worse
0:52:22 than cattle they don't use their
0:52:23 intellect and they're just a bunch of
0:52:25 philosophical zombies walking around and
0:52:27 uh i think that is the whole point and
0:52:30 then the final verse in the quran
0:52:32 chapter 47 verse 24
0:52:35 it says do they not ponder upon this
0:52:37 quran or are there locks upon their
0:52:40 hearts so those are your two options you
0:52:42 don't ponder upon this quran your heart
0:52:44 is going to be locked up and so with
0:52:46 that i know it was a bit of a lecture
0:52:48 but i think we needed to include some uh
0:52:50 quranic verses and islamic theology
0:52:53 behind all this so people can understand
0:52:56 the world view and how
0:52:58 the this argument and these problems are
0:53:01 severely lessened if not completely
0:53:03 evaporate in virtue of the text that i
0:53:06 just read and i firmly believe in
0:53:08 everything that i just read so
0:53:12 which is all clubhead
0:53:16 a little bit busy because uh he's still
0:53:17 got his newborn that is uh
0:53:20 that he's still uh looking after
0:53:22 inshallah so yes i know alhamdulillah i
0:53:24 think that's uh it's i think what you're
0:53:26 saying is really important because
0:53:29 obviously the quran has answers to these
0:53:31 particular types of questions that are
0:53:33 being raised by atheists or you know
0:53:36 people who
0:53:37 have a particular skepticism towards the
0:53:39 islamic belief or general belief in a
0:53:41 creator so i think it's really important
0:53:43 to make this point because this is the
0:53:44 islamic paradigm because a lot of the
0:53:47 arguments about divine hiddenness seems
0:53:50 to be attacking the christian paradigm
0:53:52 but when it attacks the christian
0:53:54 paradigm makes the generalization about
0:53:56 all theistic claims
0:53:58 and that's really you know quite
0:54:00 problematic because then everybody
0:54:02 starts to lump islam into this and i
0:54:04 think again it just goes back to that
0:54:07 singular point which is
0:54:09 if they're saying that god is not
0:54:12 providing them sufficient evidence
0:54:14 really the question then becomes what is
0:54:16 that evidence that theists muslims in
0:54:19 particular point to to demonstrate the
0:54:22 reason why we believe yeah and you know
0:54:25 the reason why we believe are the
0:54:26 various arguments that we have whether
0:54:28 that's the
0:54:29 rational arguments for the existence of
0:54:31 the creator or the the quranic arguments
0:54:34 uh for the proof of the messengership
0:54:36 etc yeah and sharif that's my point is
0:54:39 that this is going to go back to the
0:54:41 arguments for god's existence and the
0:54:44 evidence anyway because the whole
0:54:47 sort of underlying principle of this
0:54:49 divine hiddenness argument is already
0:54:51 assuming that there isn't already good
0:54:53 enough sufficient rational justification
0:54:57 for the belief in god that's part of the
0:54:59 thing that's underpinning it and of
0:55:00 course we reject it and that's part of
0:55:02 what we do here on tap is we try to
0:55:04 provide that evidence so
0:55:06 if if i'm going to reject that and
0:55:08 somebody brings up this argument i'm
0:55:10 saying it's immediately going to go to
0:55:13 the evidence and arguments for god's
0:55:14 existence anyway and the battle is going
0:55:17 to be had there as to whether or not
0:55:19 there is sufficient evidence and of
0:55:21 course we're going to argue that there
0:55:22 is
0:55:25 yeah i mean
0:55:26 when when the argument is approached
0:55:28 like that like from the angle of hey why
0:55:31 is god god's existence not obvious hey
0:55:33 where is the evidence uh you know uh as
0:55:36 some of the people on the chat seem to
0:55:37 be you know alluding to i think you're
0:55:39 right i mean that just kind of begs the
0:55:41 question because we think that the
0:55:43 evidence is there and we think that it
0:55:44 is obvious and we think that he isn't
0:55:46 hidden so if it's if it's approach in
0:55:48 that sense i mean
0:55:50 from from that angle then then yeah it
0:55:52 just totally begs the question because
0:55:53 the person you're speaking to doesn't
0:55:55 agree with you that it isn't obvious
0:55:57 that god exists
0:55:59 um
0:56:00 so
0:56:01 um are we done like covering
0:56:04 a good enough part of the argument for
0:56:05 us to start the calls or do you guys
0:56:07 want to i mean i'm good to go i'm fired
0:56:10 up baby
0:56:11 okay so um i don't know use of uh yeah
0:56:14 i'm cool to go uh we'll just yeah we
0:56:16 gotta what put the uh
0:56:18 we gotta put out the link yeah so yeah
0:56:20 i've done that now
0:56:22 all right and i'm gonna pin it to the
0:56:24 chat
0:56:26 okay
0:56:27 yeah and i just want to make an
0:56:28 announcement guys pr i mean we'll take
0:56:30 muslims on if we have to uh but we want
0:56:34 to give preference obviously to the
0:56:35 atheists because this is you know sort
0:56:38 of their problem so to speak and
0:56:41 their argument so we do want to front
0:56:43 load any atheists or agnostics that
0:56:47 think that this is a good argument and
0:56:48 want to make a comment or question about
0:56:50 this uh we would like to speak to them
0:56:53 first preferably and also keep it on
0:56:56 subject don't come on and start
0:56:58 rambling yeah yeah we're not gonna
0:57:02 cover again yeah we're not gonna go on
0:57:04 to some other complete nonsense that's
0:57:05 irrelevant to the subject and then um of
0:57:08 course theists are welcome christians
0:57:10 muslims if you if
0:57:13 i think we have our first guest seems to
0:57:15 be
0:57:16 christian i think hey reincarnation
0:57:18 hi
0:57:21 hi hi how are you
0:57:23 we're good thank you please just
0:57:24 introduce yourself tell us whether
0:57:26 you're a theist atheist and uh you know
0:57:28 what you think of the argument
0:57:30 i'm an atheist i i haven't actually i've
0:57:32 just come into the stream so um are we
0:57:34 only talking about the divine hiddenness
0:57:35 or
0:57:37 yes yes yeah
0:57:38 okay
0:57:40 and you missed everything we said for
0:57:42 passover
0:57:44 yeah
0:57:44 i mean you you you could just give us
0:57:46 your thoughts on the argument uh i guess
0:57:48 i mean okay
0:57:50 um
0:57:56 um
0:57:58 well i i i've always argued that um
0:58:02 yes god does remain hidden and it's
0:58:03 weird that if there is a god why doesn't
0:58:05 he
0:58:06 sort of prove that he exists to all of
0:58:08 us
0:58:09 why doesn't he just do that if he if he
0:58:11 loves us or hates enough some of us and
0:58:13 wants us to do things at a certain way
0:58:15 why doesn't he just come down and prove
0:58:17 that he exists so i have argued that and
0:58:19 that's basically the same as divine
0:58:20 hiddenness isn't it i mean that's what
0:58:21 the one thing that's really mean
0:58:23 yeah
0:58:24 so i've always argued i mean we did we
0:58:26 did try to answer that for the past hour
0:58:28 so it is a bit
0:58:30 a bit frustrating that you missed all
0:58:32 right i apologize i'll give them a
0:58:33 little bit of a recap so like basically
0:58:36 we would say
0:58:37 in short that he's not really that
0:58:39 hidden
0:58:40 that there is plenty of evidence
0:58:42 available
0:58:43 um to the the sincere seeker
0:58:47 to establish belief in him um you know
0:58:49 the the existence of considered things
0:58:51 in and of themselves
0:58:52 um
0:58:53 you know existence the fact that there
0:58:55 is something rather than nothing
0:58:57 yourself your own being your your own
0:59:00 experience of consciousness all these
0:59:02 type of things
0:59:03 are
0:59:04 things that make inference to the
0:59:06 existence of a powerful being that
0:59:09 created them all um and because of that
0:59:12 we would say that it's it's not that
0:59:14 hidden um you know even the quran refers
0:59:17 to creation as ayat as signs
0:59:21 for the existence of the creator and
0:59:24 i think this is
0:59:25 it's quite clear
0:59:27 you know as far as we're concerned um
0:59:30 and so that he's not that hidden he's
0:59:31 not that hidden there are signs
0:59:32 everywhere
0:59:34 yeah when that just gets us into that
0:59:36 arguments from my argument for
0:59:37 contingency and the column so you can
0:59:38 actually present the evidence that
0:59:41 that's something that well that's that
0:59:42 that's that's what my point was is that
0:59:44 the
0:59:45 divine hitting this argument in the way
0:59:47 that you're saying it
0:59:48 really doesn't do anything because then
0:59:50 it just goes back to the whole argument
0:59:52 and evidence discussion anyway and to
0:59:54 see whether or not there is
0:59:56 i agree
0:59:57 yeah i agree 100 yeah it does just get
0:59:59 us back and forth for so long i spent
1:00:01 time avoiding that
1:00:02 as an atheist i've been an atheist for
1:00:04 quite a while now and i didn't really
1:00:06 question the evidence too much i always
1:00:07 attacked the definition of god like why
1:00:09 you know
1:00:10 um
1:00:12 but i'm back now to questioning the
1:00:13 evidence for god like the argument for
1:00:15 contingency and the claim were my two
1:00:16 main ones that i'm going for
1:00:18 uh
1:00:19 against that but they're probably not
1:00:20 very good arguments i mean i'm i'm
1:00:22 taking a big step back from atheism to
1:00:23 be honest because i've been talking to
1:00:24 people like you like i've been on efd
1:00:26 twice and um
1:00:29 so
1:00:30 have you watched your other streams uh
1:00:32 reincarnation
1:00:34 i've won yeah i've watched um
1:00:36 uh your a bit on the miracles one i
1:00:39 thought that was quite interesting
1:00:40 okay
1:00:42 because because we did do a lot of
1:00:44 streams on some of the arguments and
1:00:46 evidence for god's existence and um i
1:00:49 mean we could go over a couple things
1:00:51 with you right now just for a little bit
1:00:53 but i do recommend that you watch those
1:00:56 streams where we went into them in some
1:00:58 detail
1:00:59 at greater length
1:01:01 so
1:01:02 because if you agree if i mean if you
1:01:04 agree
1:01:06 in principle with what i'm saying that
1:01:07 eventually i mean well yeah then it just
1:01:09 goes down to whether or not there is
1:01:12 sufficient evidence and so that's going
1:01:13 to push us back to the arguments anyway
1:01:16 then it seems to me that this argument
1:01:19 for divine hiddenness against god isn't
1:01:22 sufficient to really either
1:01:24 be even probabilistic against god's
1:01:26 existence or show that he doesn't exist
1:01:29 because it's just going to beg the
1:01:30 question and go back to whether or not
1:01:32 there is any evidence anyway so um
1:01:36 i mean i don't know how you guys want to
1:01:38 pursue this anyway yeah i was just going
1:01:39 to ask him what what how do you
1:01:41 understand the contingency or the
1:01:43 cosmological arguments
1:01:45 so um what weaknesses do you think you
1:01:48 think yeah they may have well
1:01:51 for the item from contingency
1:01:52 uh i don't really know the premises very
1:01:54 well but uh like i do with the collect
1:01:56 with the column but i know it talks
1:01:58 about necessary existence and
1:01:59 contingents and contingent things and i
1:02:01 think i i think maybe that's a false
1:02:03 dichotomy
1:02:04 because there could be something which
1:02:06 changes but still exists something which
1:02:08 can be dismantled
1:02:09 but it actually saves us within
1:02:11 everything so the original thing
1:02:13 uh that created everything else
1:02:16 um
1:02:17 may have changed it became dismantled
1:02:19 and i exist it's imbued within
1:02:21 everything and that's that's what i'm
1:02:23 sort of leaning towards believing
1:02:25 rather than necessary existence
1:02:27 uh but i may have got that wrong and
1:02:30 like a lego and then lego
1:02:33 disassembles and then reassembles into
1:02:35 another
1:02:36 well i think what it is we need to
1:02:37 understand what contingent is because
1:02:40 contingency um doesn't have to
1:02:43 imply beginning to creation yeah or
1:02:47 beginning to the thing that exists you
1:02:50 can have
1:02:51 theoretically a contingent thing that
1:02:53 exists but theoretically is eternal we
1:02:56 disagree with that i'm just saying for
1:02:58 the sake of the argument
1:03:00 contingency fundamentally is about how
1:03:03 the existence of the thing itself
1:03:06 and its properties are not explained by
1:03:09 its own existence yeah so for example i
1:03:12 always give this example the red
1:03:14 triangle
1:03:15 yeah the property red is a contingent
1:03:18 property yeah so even if you had an
1:03:20 eternal triangle a triangle has always
1:03:22 existed the fact that it's red as
1:03:25 opposed to blue or green or yellow
1:03:28 requires an explanation
1:03:30 the explanation is not contained in the
1:03:32 existence of a triangle like three sides
1:03:35 yeah a three-sided triangle is that the
1:03:38 very definition or the property of being
1:03:40 three sides is in the very definition of
1:03:42 being a triangle so it's exist it's
1:03:44 property is explained by its existence
1:03:47 of a triangle yeah three sides but the
1:03:50 color red is not
1:03:52 does that make sense
1:03:53 uh i wasn't quite following it so i'm
1:03:55 okay with my concentration but
1:03:57 no but let me let me just repeat it
1:03:59 really quickly again so
1:04:01 if you've got a triangle it has to be
1:04:03 three sides isn't it
1:04:05 yeah it has to be three times again
1:04:06 right so that's a property the property
1:04:08 of a triangle is that has three sides
1:04:11 now
1:04:12 do we ask the question why does a
1:04:14 triangular free sides
1:04:17 we just say it's true by definition
1:04:18 isn't it through my definition yeah yeah
1:04:21 meaning the existence of the triangle
1:04:23 explains the existence of y as three
1:04:25 sides
1:04:26 so we're not going to go outside of the
1:04:28 existence of a triangle to say why does
1:04:30 it have three sides just true by
1:04:32 definition
1:04:34 now if it was a red triangle
1:04:36 the property read
1:04:38 of the triangle is explained by it being
1:04:42 a triangle
1:04:44 could you have a blue triangle
1:04:46 yes you could yeah it's not it's not
1:04:49 that doesn't explain it being a triangle
1:04:50 yeah
1:04:51 exactly so now you're seeing this
1:04:53 property
1:04:54 that is not explained by the existence
1:04:57 of the triangle so you're going to ask
1:04:58 the question why is it red
1:05:02 you're not going to ask the question why
1:05:03 is it three-sided but you are going to
1:05:05 ask the question why is it red so now
1:05:07 you're looking for an explanation
1:05:09 outside of the triangle
1:05:12 other than a triangle so even if the
1:05:14 triangle existed for eternity
1:05:17 it would still be a contingent thing
1:05:21 yeah right so we would still need to
1:05:23 have an explanation outside of this
1:05:26 triangle to explain the triangle
1:05:29 so that's where necessary comes in and
1:05:31 necessary being is whose existence is
1:05:34 contained within its own self or its
1:05:36 property is contained with its own
1:05:38 existence and it's eternal yeah
1:05:41 so therefore
1:05:43 that would be the basis by which
1:05:46 fundamentally explains all contingent
1:05:48 beings or contingent things that we see
1:05:50 so we need to have a necessary
1:05:51 foundation
1:05:53 so that's why we can move from
1:05:55 contingency to necessary so contingency
1:05:57 doesn't mean that it began to exist
1:06:00 contingency means that it has properties
1:06:03 that could have been another way
1:06:05 than the way it is
1:06:07 i've heard it described as possibly
1:06:08 absent
1:06:09 yeah
1:06:11 that's the second way so the first way
1:06:13 is that it could be in a different way
1:06:16 yeah could be it's a properties could
1:06:18 have been different than the properties
1:06:21 that we see that's one
1:06:23 way of identifying contingency the
1:06:24 second way is possible existence meaning
1:06:27 it doesn't have to exist it could exist
1:06:30 it could not exist
1:06:32 if we can identify one or both those
1:06:35 things we don't have to identify
1:06:37 it could have existed or could not have
1:06:39 existed we can just identify the fact
1:06:42 that it is a
1:06:43 contingent property meaning a property
1:06:45 that could have been another way
1:06:47 if we can identify at least one of those
1:06:49 aspects of a thing then we're going to
1:06:51 call it contingent yeah and therefore
1:06:54 we're going to ask what is it dependent
1:06:55 upon
1:06:57 is isn't there that third option i'm
1:06:58 talking about that there's something
1:07:00 which it's impossible for it not to
1:07:02 exist but also so it's kind of necessary
1:07:05 but it also has an element of
1:07:06 contingency because it can change it can
1:07:09 be dismantled like you were talking
1:07:10 about the lego box being dismantled so
1:07:12 can it be can there be a third option
1:07:14 that's third
1:07:16 you're still you're still admitting to a
1:07:18 necessary being there anyway i mean
1:07:20 really you're still admitting to a
1:07:22 necessary being there anyway because it
1:07:24 was i didn't see that
1:07:25 what's that
1:07:26 i don't see that why is that necessary
1:07:28 if it can change it can be dismantled
1:07:31 joshua rs museum says because the
1:07:33 original thing the original state was
1:07:35 necessary and then even if it changes
1:07:37 from there it still was necessary
1:07:39 originally
1:07:41 there's still something originally
1:07:42 originally eternal
1:07:44 sorry there's still something that
1:07:46 you're appealing to that's eternal yes
1:07:49 originally it hadn't changed then at one
1:07:51 stage it changed this is what i'm trying
1:07:53 to get up to that's why that's what i
1:07:55 believe in if that's necessary then
1:07:56 that's necessary but
1:07:59 so you're saying that it has to be
1:08:00 something that's eternal yeah yeah but
1:08:02 it's going to be turned up but it
1:08:04 changed and now it exists within
1:08:05 everything so it's still changed from
1:08:07 one state to another state automatically
1:08:10 yeah but the reason why is it does it
1:08:12 have a fundamental
1:08:14 is it made up of something fundamental
1:08:17 so even if it's made
1:08:19 i'm not sure even the fundamentals
1:08:21 of something
1:08:22 so sheriff gave the example of the lego
1:08:25 so yeah
1:08:26 you know you've got these lego pieces
1:08:28 and you know you can take them apart and
1:08:30 build them in different ways and so
1:08:31 there's this change taking place
1:08:34 but those lego pieces are always there
1:08:37 that's the fundamental aspect of it so
1:08:39 the the lego is always present the lego
1:08:41 that would be the fundamental substrate
1:08:43 off
1:08:44 reality
1:08:45 and so if you're saying that these lego
1:08:47 bricks can
1:08:48 change you know formation
1:08:50 and they can be taken apart put back
1:08:52 together again the lego bricks
1:08:54 themselves would be considered necessary
1:08:55 here because they've always existed
1:08:58 whether or not they change
1:08:59 form or shape there's still a necessary
1:09:02 existence of some sort that being in
1:09:04 that example the lego
1:09:07 rugby knee lego blocks can be sort of
1:09:09 created from it
1:09:11 there can be like new lego blocks coming
1:09:13 up coming up from it i guess it's kind
1:09:16 of sort of like that but now i think in
1:09:17 terms of like mata
1:09:19 and that's like
1:09:20 i don't know
1:09:23 so just really quickly so
1:09:25 um
1:09:27 if you're looking at contingency what
1:09:29 you're looking at is if this thing x
1:09:32 let's call it x if this x which is
1:09:34 eternal
1:09:36 and it could become something else
1:09:38 the thing that it becomes does it become
1:09:40 contingent if it becomes contingent
1:09:43 then itself is not necessary yeah it's a
1:09:47 self-contradiction something cannot be
1:09:49 necessary and contingent
1:09:51 i or something that cannot be eternal
1:09:53 and then cause itself to be non-eternal
1:09:56 at the same time
1:09:57 uh would be an impossible existence does
1:10:00 that make sense
1:10:02 i think sort of yeah i mean as i say i
1:10:05 do think the thing that created
1:10:05 everything else is eternal but it's just
1:10:07 he just it's but yeah i was going to
1:10:09 repeat what i just said that they
1:10:10 changed i mean i don't i don't know what
1:10:12 else
1:10:13 what else to add was my point
1:10:15 to that but um
1:10:17 yeah
1:10:20 if i move my actual argument would be
1:10:22 that um
1:10:24 so we live in a universe of change and
1:10:26 for an original thing to create
1:10:28 something new the original thing had to
1:10:31 change well that's the examples with
1:10:33 basically everything there is in
1:10:34 existence energy changing into matter or
1:10:36 um
1:10:37 you know a tree via human intelligence
1:10:40 changing it to a table the table doesn't
1:10:42 just pop out the tree you know it
1:10:44 changes inside so how about so how about
1:10:46 reincarnation
1:10:48 yeah sorry to cut you off i just i just
1:10:49 don't want us to go too long on this
1:10:50 argument because it's not specifically
1:10:52 the the the topic but then um i just how
1:10:55 about we try to simplify it so so just
1:10:57 think of like all of
1:10:59 reality the reality we exist in with
1:11:01 these
1:11:02 random stuff around us seemingly like
1:11:04 arbitrarily limited right
1:11:07 uh like they have these properties like
1:11:09 something is green and not red it's blue
1:11:10 and like yellow it's you know
1:11:13 different shapes different forms
1:11:14 different properties
1:11:16 basically the world we live in and we
1:11:17 look at stuff and we investigate the way
1:11:20 these things work what caused them
1:11:22 what's the reason
1:11:24 this thing is this way and not that why
1:11:26 is it limited in this way
1:11:28 uh and not another so just think of all
1:11:31 of that reality just put all of that
1:11:33 reality in a box all right just it's
1:11:35 just just just a thought experiment
1:11:36 right and
1:11:39 do you think it has an explanation
1:11:41 the reality as a whole like all of these
1:11:43 stuff that are just changing and that
1:11:44 have limitations everything within this
1:11:48 material world that we uh we experience
1:11:52 do you think that this reality as a
1:11:54 whole
1:11:55 has an explanation so if if you accept
1:11:58 like the classical laws of logic the law
1:12:00 of excluded middle either it has an
1:12:02 explanation or it doesn't have an
1:12:03 explanation right
1:12:05 you don't really have to commit like you
1:12:07 know to say 100 it has an explanation
1:12:10 but
1:12:11 would you looking at that box with
1:12:13 everything in everything
1:12:16 in the box right everything contingent
1:12:18 in the box
1:12:19 would you lean towards explanation or no
1:12:21 explanation
1:12:23 well i would say space time energy and
1:12:25 matter was created from something else
1:12:29 that was eternal so it has an
1:12:30 explanation for its existence
1:12:33 okay so
1:12:35 so so now that we're there and it has an
1:12:37 explanation
1:12:39 do you think we can say anything about
1:12:41 that explanation like anything at all
1:12:43 yeah yeah that it's eternal you said
1:12:45 it's a term yeah
1:12:47 yeah uh it's immaterial not made of
1:12:49 space-time energy matter i would say
1:12:51 physical i don't think it's made of
1:12:53 nothing
1:12:54 um
1:12:55 yeah but it depends on what you mean by
1:12:56 physical right because um
1:12:59 like are you are you are you going for
1:13:01 like a a broader physicalism where
1:13:03 physicalism where phys physical
1:13:06 things can be whatever physics discovers
1:13:09 physical things to be
1:13:11 i mean so it depends on what you mean by
1:13:12 physical you mean like the fundamental
1:13:14 particles of this universe or
1:13:17 well it wouldn't because a particle is
1:13:19 like a bit of matter isn't it it's like
1:13:20 a small bit of magnetic amount of matter
1:13:22 so yeah so what do you mean by physical
1:13:24 so by physically it's a substance it has
1:13:26 a substance yeah something real
1:13:28 yeah fine so there's something real it's
1:13:30 not spatial it's not material
1:13:32 and it caused the world to exist
1:13:35 where how far do you think you are from
1:13:36 god in in that like would you just
1:13:38 remain agnostic about like do you think
1:13:41 if we added a will to that
1:13:43 you'd be you'd have a god that would be
1:13:45 far enough that's the thing i get into
1:13:47 with my with my debate partner is that
1:13:49 um
1:13:51 i think it's an automatic creation
1:13:54 um it happened automatically not without
1:13:56 will
1:13:58 um has it always been happening or did
1:14:01 it just happen at some point i think i
1:14:03 think it happened well i put without
1:14:05 time it happened
1:14:07 outside of time
1:14:09 um
1:14:10 without
1:14:12 without will and it happened once
1:14:14 probably well then how do you explain
1:14:16 the beginning of the universe if it's if
1:14:18 it's 14 point whatever billion years old
1:14:20 yeah i think space-time energy and
1:14:22 matter began to exist but the the
1:14:24 universe itself
1:14:26 depending on what we mean by that is it
1:14:28 is is it essentially eternal yeah but
1:14:30 he's asking you he's asking you why it
1:14:32 has a specific age so why at that point
1:14:34 why not another at another point like
1:14:37 why is it specifically that age if there
1:14:39 was no
1:14:40 you know will to choose what specific
1:14:43 point it wanted to actualize it why does
1:14:45 it have to be so
1:14:46 why does it have to be well why couldn't
1:14:47 it be an automatic like a mechanical no
1:14:50 but if it was automatic why is it only
1:14:52 14.8 billion years ago i don't
1:14:54 understand
1:14:56 um
1:14:57 why is it only 14. yeah why why not 13.
1:15:01 why not why not 13 why not 22.
1:15:04Music 1:15:06 um well yeah i don't know why i guess we
1:15:09 could ask why but it's that's a
1:15:10 confusing question to me yeah off the
1:15:11 top of my head no i mean
1:15:14 our answer is that because
1:15:15 god has a will and he created it
1:15:18 at that moment so i don't understand how
1:15:20 you get and this goes back to the
1:15:22 argument for the will how you get a
1:15:24 temporal effect from an eternal cause
1:15:30 how are you getting a temporary
1:15:31 affectionately well god is an eternal
1:15:32 cause isn't he he's a teacher so how do
1:15:35 you get a temporal effect from an
1:15:37 eternal cause without a will
1:15:40 well as i said all i can use is the one
1:15:42 this is the thing i get into with my
1:15:43 debate partner all i can use is the word
1:15:45 automatic that it just it just happened
1:15:47 but i'm saying if it's automatic if it's
1:15:49 automatic why isn't the effect
1:15:53 also eternal with the cause i don't
1:15:55 understand
1:15:56 sorry why isn't the effect eternal
1:16:01 with the cause if the cause is eternal
1:16:04 and the cause is automatic
1:16:06 then it would automatically produce the
1:16:08 effect and therefore the effect would
1:16:10 also be eternal
1:16:12 cause
1:16:14 honestly i would have to reincarnation
1:16:15 if a if a is sufficient for b so a being
1:16:18 the necessary entity and b being the
1:16:21 contingent world if a is sufficient for
1:16:23 b then whenever there's a there's b so
1:16:26 is a sufficient for b is the necessary
1:16:28 being sufficient or the necessary entity
1:16:31 sufficient for causing the contingent
1:16:35 world it has to be you said it's
1:16:36 automatic yeah yeah so if it's
1:16:38 sufficient then whenever there is a
1:16:40 there's b so why isn't that the case
1:16:43 with your necessary b
1:16:46 well what's
1:16:50 antecedent this is anti-seizing
1:16:52 properties like some something that has
1:16:54 to has to occur
1:16:56 some something that logically exists
1:16:58 before the other thing so a has to be
1:17:00 has to fall away
1:17:03 yeah
1:17:05 you're saying it's automatic if
1:17:07 something is automatic
1:17:08 it just happens that's it it doesn't
1:17:10 yeah it doesn't it's not it's not like
1:17:12 at a certain state for
1:17:14 however long and then all of a sudden it
1:17:16 just happens out of nowhere i mean it's
1:17:18 yeah reincarnation
1:17:20 reincarnation
1:17:22 oh sorry it just because it it it
1:17:24 happens automatically
1:17:26 it only had the power to do it once
1:17:28 okay so then it wasn't sufficient to
1:17:30 produce the effect prior to it then
1:17:33 so that means there some had to be some
1:17:35 type of change that allowed it to then
1:17:38 be sufficient to produce the effect so
1:17:40 it wasn't always sufficient to produce
1:17:42 the effect and then you'll have to
1:17:44 explain so if you if you want to say
1:17:45 that change itself is mechanistic you'll
1:17:47 have to explain how it took an eternity
1:17:50 for that change for that necessary
1:17:52 change to occur i mean i think when you
1:17:53 see eternity it's like that's an
1:17:55 eternity of time i mean you know well i
1:17:58 can also ask a question couldn't tell
1:18:00 yourself the question how did god create
1:18:02 with will i mean you would say using
1:18:04 will but yeah honestly
1:18:06 well this is still uh let me use this
1:18:08 reincarnation so we can cut to the chase
1:18:10 why do you think it doesn't have a will
1:18:13 or are you just agnostic about it
1:18:16 no no um
1:18:18 why why doesn't it have a will yeah why
1:18:20 is it yours yeah yeah why do you think
1:18:22 it does not have a will
1:18:25 well i don't think it has intelligence
1:18:26 but
1:18:28 let's let's stick with will because
1:18:29 intelligence complicates things uh let's
1:18:31 stick with will like because we know
1:18:33 what a will is right like i will i will
1:18:36 to come on this call right i had a will
1:18:38 and i decided so why do you think that
1:18:40 this necessary entity does not have a
1:18:43 will
1:18:46 well i don't believe in free will but
1:18:47 why does it have why doesn't it have a
1:18:50 will
1:18:51 i've never been asked that question
1:18:52 that's actually a really good question
1:18:53 before i never ever really considered
1:18:54 like why it doesn't have a will i just
1:18:56 always argued for automatic creation
1:18:59 um
1:19:01 why doesn't that happen well
1:19:03 can i help i just feel like why does it
1:19:04 have a will sorry i can't i can't think
1:19:06 of it
1:19:07 let me help you out maybe you could
1:19:08 argue maybe you could argue
1:19:10 that it's simpler
1:19:12 it's a simpler explanation yes yes i i
1:19:15 have argued that
1:19:16 foreign is it is it a simpler
1:19:18 explanation that i don't have a will
1:19:21 because
1:19:22 because you know you know you know in
1:19:23 philosophy you know the problem of other
1:19:25 minds right
1:19:27 no i'm not i don't know much about
1:19:28 philosophy it's okay that's fine that's
1:19:30 fine so the problem with other minds
1:19:31 basically how do you know minds other
1:19:33 than your own exist basically you have
1:19:36 access to your first person subjective
1:19:37 experience you have access to your
1:19:39 experience but you don't have access to
1:19:41 anyone else's experience
1:19:43 it could be the case i mean it's
1:19:44 conceivable
1:19:46 might be ridiculous to think about but
1:19:48 it's conceivable that you know the
1:19:50 humans around you are just robots or
1:19:51 zombies or figments of your imagination
1:19:54 why do you attribute will to
1:19:59 things or minds to things other than
1:20:01 yourself
1:20:03 uh now
1:20:04 you can think about that for a bit but
1:20:06 uh just just to tell you where i'm going
1:20:09 with this is that uh i think the most
1:20:12 fundamental at the core
1:20:15 uh uh you know level of of of of our
1:20:18 reasoning
1:20:20 it's not it's not um it's not just
1:20:23 automatic you know it's not it's we
1:20:25 infer it
1:20:26 obviously not not consciously but we
1:20:29 infer it from the behavior of things if
1:20:32 i look at a rock tumbling down a
1:20:34 mountain or a hill right
1:20:37 how do i know it's just
1:20:39 how do i know it's not moving itself it
1:20:41 doesn't have a will right it's just
1:20:43 reacting to its physical surroundings
1:20:46 well because it seems to be behaving in
1:20:49 a way that's just deterministic it's
1:20:51 just cause effect you throw it moves the
1:20:55 wind blows it it moves you know
1:20:57 it reacts to gravity in that way there's
1:20:59 no
1:21:00 resistance that's not a direct result of
1:21:03 its physical surroundings so objects
1:21:06 around us they only react to their
1:21:08 physical surroundings and we don't see
1:21:11 them behaving in a way that's not
1:21:12 predictable like my laptop is not going
1:21:15 to suddenly get up and go get a cup of
1:21:17 tea right so so we know that they behave
1:21:20 in a way that's bound by their physical
1:21:22 constraints but when i look at a cat so
1:21:26 i have two cats right so when i look at
1:21:28 my cat and
1:21:29 suddenly the cat decides to jump on the
1:21:31 couch
1:21:33 well i can't explain that from anything
1:21:35 that happened around the cat it looks
1:21:37 like the cat decided to do that on its
1:21:38 own right
1:21:40 it's not like something pushed it up or
1:21:41 kicked it up right
1:21:43 so i i think at the very basic level we
1:21:46 look at the world around us and there's
1:21:48 most things are just you know
1:21:51 objects that react to their physical
1:21:53 stimuli but then there are a few things
1:21:56 that seem to be
1:21:58 behaving in a non-deterministic manner
1:22:00 in a manner that's not predictable in a
1:22:02 manner that seems like okay
1:22:04 this person is moving his own self
1:22:07 right
1:22:07 now that's the core that's that's that's
1:22:10 i think that's the foundation of how
1:22:14 we
1:22:15 can come to know that things have wills
1:22:17 and minds
1:22:19 and
1:22:20 you said you don't believe in free will
1:22:21 i i might understand why because we have
1:22:24 these physical surroundings that might
1:22:25 be influencing us to do things but you
1:22:28 believe in a necessary foundation that
1:22:30 doesn't so maybe you could make that
1:22:32 argument for us although i wouldn't
1:22:33 agree with it i think we do have free
1:22:35 will but
1:22:36 for the necessary foundation what
1:22:38 physical stimuli could it have to move
1:22:40 it
1:22:41 i mean it's the it's at the very bottom
1:22:44 it's at the core it's at the beginning
1:22:46 of the causal chain there's nothing else
1:22:48 that influences it so
1:22:51 the
1:22:52 the idea here is that i think if if if i
1:22:55 were to witness this necessary entity
1:22:58 just causelessly as in without an
1:23:01 antecedent cause that precedes it doing
1:23:03 things like creating the universe i
1:23:06 would have more reason to believe that
1:23:09 this necessary entity has a mind or a
1:23:12 will
1:23:13 then i do believe that
1:23:15 you or
1:23:17 my wife has a mind
1:23:18 or a will right
1:23:20 i might get in trouble for that but
1:23:23 you you get you get what i'm saying
1:23:25 you know what i'm saying i think i'm
1:23:26 vaguely vaguely yeah i'm not really i'm
1:23:28 not good at what people say are you
1:23:30 surprised
1:23:31 let me put it this way people move
1:23:33 themselves it looks like the difference
1:23:35 between you and a rock is that you are
1:23:37 moving yourself there's nothing outside
1:23:39 of you pushing you to move
1:23:41 and there is definitely a lot of stuff
1:23:43 outside of a rock pushing it to move
1:23:46 right so reincarnation what i'm saying
1:23:49 if you saw a rock on a flat piece of
1:23:52 surface and it's moving
1:23:55 yeah and there's no way we can explain
1:23:58 any external cause for its movement
1:24:01 what are you going to think about that
1:24:02 rock
1:24:05 there's no what you can't explain in
1:24:07 external force that move the rock
1:24:09 no there is no explanation
1:24:13 what do you think there was that
1:24:15 let's say this wasn't let's say you've
1:24:17 investigated it yes so you see these
1:24:20 little legs walking around in the rock
1:24:24 what are you going to say about it
1:24:28 so there were
1:24:39 isn't it
1:24:40 intentional to agency
1:24:43 well well that that comes from within
1:24:45 the brain wouldn't it would come from
1:24:47 within the brain i was saying that this
1:24:49 isn't
1:24:50 yeah it doesn't matter about the brain
1:24:51 because i don't need to i don't need to
1:24:53 see your brain in order to know you have
1:24:54 will
1:24:56 yeah because i can infer the fact that
1:24:59 because you have agency
1:25:02 you're like that rock on a flat piece of
1:25:04 surface walking around
1:25:06 you're doing things that cannot be
1:25:07 explained directly through
1:25:10 physical laws you know antecedent
1:25:12 physical laws causing you to do what
1:25:14 you're doing here
1:25:16 i can infer a will
1:25:18 so what i'm doing saying here abdul here
1:25:20 saying he's saying
1:25:22 that when you see something that's acts
1:25:25 non-deterministically
1:25:28 you understand that it has a will
1:25:32 it has agency
1:25:34 the power to do things
1:25:37 yeah
1:25:38 so he's saying because we come to a
1:25:40 conclusion that there's a necessary
1:25:42 being
1:25:43 the necessary being is doing things
1:25:46 according to its own internal self
1:25:51 by definition that would be called will
1:25:54 or at the very least agency
1:25:56 it's not doing something that's
1:25:58 compelled by something other than itself
1:26:03 yeah
1:26:04 that sort of brings me back to the brain
1:26:05 again because it's like i think in the
1:26:07 brain everything's just going on
1:26:08 automatically like clockwork sort of
1:26:10 mechanically automatically yeah but we
1:26:12 can we can grant you that remember what
1:26:14 i said i said we can grant you the brain
1:26:16 because you have physical stuff around
1:26:18 us that maybe you can appeal to we don't
1:26:20 agree with it but for the sake of this
1:26:21 argument i can grant that to you you can
1:26:23 you're going to say we seem to be free
1:26:25 but there's this stuff in the brain that
1:26:27 explains it and we're actually not fine
1:26:29 okay but then
1:26:31 but we're not free but in the case of
1:26:33 the necessary foundation of reality i
1:26:36 mean how are you are you gonna feel
1:26:37 something
1:26:38 mechanistic because there is gonna
1:26:40 there's gonna be a limit so if it's a
1:26:42 mechanistic process that initiates
1:26:44 creation then that mechanistic process
1:26:47 is internal to this necessary being
1:26:49 right because there's nothing outside of
1:26:50 it that compels it to react it's just
1:26:53 the necessary foundation right so if
1:26:55 it's mechanistic from within it
1:26:57 well then still you're gonna have a
1:26:58 causal chain and it's gonna reach a
1:27:00 point where you know there's an edge
1:27:03 there it's not gonna it's not gonna go
1:27:05 like you know ad infinitum all the way
1:27:06 backwards you know turtles all the way
1:27:08 down then and you're not gonna get any
1:27:10 action right but then so so since
1:27:13 there's going to be an edge even if you
1:27:14 want to appeal to something mechanistic
1:27:16 within that necessary foundation there
1:27:19 is going to be something there that's
1:27:21 behaving without
1:27:23 anything causing it to behave without
1:27:26 anything as an external to the thing
1:27:28 itself
1:27:29 causing it to behave and you're gonna
1:27:31 have to accept that otherwise there is
1:27:33 something external so what i'm saying is
1:27:36 you you know you believe i have a
1:27:38 mind at least or a will so you put free
1:27:41 will aside just think of mind you
1:27:43 believe i have a mind because i behave
1:27:46 in these ways that are non-deterministic
1:27:48 i'm not just pushed around by my
1:27:50 physical surroundings
1:27:52 and i'm saying you have more reason to
1:27:55 believe that the necessary foundation
1:27:58 which necessarily couldn't be pushed
1:28:01 around by physical surroundings because
1:28:03 it has none
1:28:04 you have more reason to believe that
1:28:05 that has a mind then you do
1:28:08 believe that i have a mind that that's
1:28:10 that's that's the gist of the arg that's
1:28:12 that's how i think about this just
1:28:14 generally speaking does that make sense
1:28:17 reincarnation or are you i it just does
1:28:20 a little bit yeah it doesn't know about
1:28:21 it i have to i think i have to go away
1:28:22 and think about it can i give you a
1:28:23 third argument to think of that
1:28:26 okay so
1:28:27 you know when we talked about the red
1:28:29 triangle
1:28:30 and we said the redness
1:28:32 is a possible property of a triangle
1:28:35 yeah it's not a necessary property
1:28:37 and we're saying well you've got all
1:28:39 these possibilities of colors that the
1:28:41 triangle could have
1:28:43 because it has one possibility out of a
1:28:46 number of possibilities what are you
1:28:48 going to infer about the cause
1:28:50 for the triangle
1:28:54 well so we said there has to be a cause
1:28:57 to explain why this triangle is red
1:29:00 it's red
1:29:02 there's all these options there's all
1:29:04 these options of what it could have been
1:29:07 but one was selected
1:29:09 so what can we say about that cause
1:29:11 that's selected one possible option
1:29:14 over a number
1:29:18 it was selected somehow something
1:29:20 you i would want to say something
1:29:22 selected it or yeah and you'd probably
1:29:25 say intentionality
1:29:29 well in the case yeah in a case of
1:29:31 triangle someone would say a human would
1:29:32 have colored it red
1:29:34 yeah
1:29:35 so there's intentionality what i'm
1:29:38 saying is i'm laying the foundation the
1:29:39 foundation is this is that when you've
1:29:41 got a number of possibilities and one
1:29:44 possibility is selected it requires some
1:29:47 sort of intentionality to select one out
1:29:50 of a number of possibilities
1:29:52 now you could say yeah but maybe there's
1:29:54 a machine maybe there's a machine that
1:29:56 selects it
1:29:57 but then even that machine that selects
1:29:59 it selects it from a code
1:30:01 and then you still have possible codes
1:30:04 and one of them has to be
1:30:06 uh actualized out of the number of
1:30:08 possibilities
1:30:10 i said isn't that what you call the
1:30:12 anthropomorphic
1:30:14 fallacy
1:30:17 it's different yeah it's different to
1:30:18 the anthropic principle yeah it's
1:30:20 similar to this point but it's not it's
1:30:22 not the same thing all i'm saying is
1:30:23 this is that you've got this eternal x
1:30:26 yeah so it's eternal x
1:30:29 we're just going to call it unknown for
1:30:30 the time being but we know it's eternal
1:30:32 we know it's necessary yeah
1:30:34 and we're just trying to see well is
1:30:36 this eternal x can we say anything else
1:30:37 about the properties we know this
1:30:39 eternal x selected
1:30:43 properties
1:30:44 out of a number of possibilities
1:30:46 so it made the election process
1:30:49 but in the case of the universe maybe
1:30:51 maybe this uh sort of space-time energy
1:30:53 matter
1:30:54 maybe there was only one possibility
1:30:56 that it could always be
1:30:58 but then you're saying that everything
1:30:59 is necessary that's the problem is it
1:31:01 collapses and makes everything necessary
1:31:05 and we know that not everything is
1:31:06 necessary because he made the
1:31:08 distinction between the triangle and the
1:31:09 color of the triangle and that shows
1:31:12 that not everything is necessary
1:31:14 therefore you wouldn't be able to say
1:31:15 that
1:31:17 but
1:31:18 um it would make more sense
1:31:19 reincarnation would it not to say
1:31:22 if you got a necessary x
1:31:25 that
1:31:26 select actualized one out of a number of
1:31:29 possibilities
1:31:31 the ability to do that
1:31:33 and consistently so
1:31:35 yeah
1:31:37 would be
1:31:38 uh
1:31:39 would require some sort of
1:31:40 intentionality an intention to do that
1:31:44 and intention implies will that would
1:31:46 make more
1:31:47 rational sense
1:31:48 to say it's necessary that the universe
1:31:51 had to be the way it is you have to
1:31:54 provide an argument to demonstrate why
1:31:56 it is necessary
1:31:58 yeah
1:31:59 for example if i was to turn around and
1:32:01 i was to say a triangle is three sides
1:32:04 then i have an argument
1:32:06 to demonstrate why triangle has to be
1:32:08 freestyle or why bachelors are unmarried
1:32:10 i have an argument yeah to demonstrate
1:32:13 why that's necessarily the case but
1:32:15 there's nothing necessary in the
1:32:17 universe it's a contingent thing
1:32:20 yeah the the planck's constant could
1:32:22 have been another
1:32:23 uh figure than the figure that that it
1:32:26 is at the moment you know which is the
1:32:27 universal constant of the universe
1:32:29 so you've got possibilities you've got
1:32:32 all these range of possibilities
1:32:34 and then you've got something x that's
1:32:37 eternal that selects one out of a number
1:32:40 of possibilities
1:32:42 the best explanation would be will
1:32:45 intention
1:32:47 okay okay but yeah i just my mind just
1:32:50 keeps wondering it's not compelled
1:32:52 because
1:32:53 the necessary being can't be compelled
1:32:55 can it
1:32:57 it can't be compelled
1:33:00 yeah because it's compelled implies
1:33:02 something external is causing it to do
1:33:05 something yeah there's nothing external
1:33:07 to to the original exactly anything else
1:33:13 so what's that what's the what's the
1:33:15 opposite of compulsion
1:33:19 what's the office of compulsion to not
1:33:21 be
1:33:22 compelled to do something
1:33:26 it's free will isn't it
1:33:28 to be free
1:33:30 to be free isn't it
1:33:32 yeah so if this necessary being is not
1:33:35 compelled you said it's not compelled
1:33:37 there's nothing external to it to compel
1:33:38 it the opposite of that would be
1:33:42 free will
1:33:43 free free free will
1:33:45 yeah um
1:33:47 i don't know where to go with that
1:33:48 because i just haven't thought about it
1:33:49 enough uh i i know i haven't thought
1:33:51 about it thinking about this specific
1:33:54 uh counter to the to the um
1:34:00 so reincarnation you were given
1:34:02 you're giving free actually four
1:34:04 arguments here for a will
1:34:06 first argument is
1:34:08 contingent things began to exist
1:34:11 yeah so they had a beginning whereas the
1:34:14 necessary being is eternal the necessary
1:34:16 cause is eternal if you have an eternal
1:34:18 cause you have an internal effect if
1:34:20 there's no choice
1:34:22 but you don't have that you have an
1:34:23 eternal cause but you have an effect
1:34:26 that is not eternal it begins yeah
1:34:29 so the best explanation in that
1:34:31 situation would be somebody intended to
1:34:33 cause at this moment
1:34:35 the second argument that abdul gave
1:34:38 yeah
1:34:39 was an argument to say that when you
1:34:41 identify something is not compelled
1:34:43 externally
1:34:45 yeah to do an act
1:34:46 you identify that it is internal from
1:34:49 the will
1:34:51 like the rock rolling down the hill
1:34:53 compared to a rock running around on a
1:34:55 flat piece of surface
1:34:57 yeah you're gonna think
1:34:58 it's alive yeah i has a will
1:35:01 um and the third argument is when you've
1:35:04 got a number of possibilities
1:35:06 and one is selected
1:35:09 to do the ability to select or actualize
1:35:12 one out of a number of possibilities
1:35:14 requires a will
1:35:16 and the third one was the fact that this
1:35:17 thing this necessary being is not
1:35:20 compelled
1:35:21 which we agree because there's nothing
1:35:23 external to compel it so the opposite of
1:35:25 compulsion
1:35:26 would be
1:35:29 free will
1:35:31 so it makes most sense
1:35:33 makes most sense if we come to the
1:35:35 conclusion that there's a necessary
1:35:36 being the most
1:35:38 the best explanation the logical
1:35:40 entailment if you want to use that word
1:35:42 as well
1:35:43 uh
1:35:44 makes
1:35:45 the fact that this necessary being has a
1:35:48 will
1:35:49 yeah decided to create
1:35:54 and there's no arguments to say uh why
1:35:57 we would say compelled in fact the idea
1:35:59 of an essay being compelled
1:36:01 automatically to create seems to
1:36:04 contradict the whole notion of what a
1:36:05 necessary being is
1:36:09 yeah we're gonna you can make a final
1:36:11 comment but i think we're gonna have to
1:36:12 move on because most of this has been on
1:36:15 contingency argument and we do want to
1:36:16 get to uh some people who are waiting
1:36:19 that might have comments on the divine
1:36:21 but reincarnation come back on later on
1:36:23 but have a few yeah these points yeah
1:36:25 check out some other streams
1:36:28 okay we had we had a stream on this we
1:36:29 had a stream about from necessary being
1:36:31 to god
1:36:32 yeah which was a second
1:36:34 episode
1:36:36 it's episode six of
1:36:38 four
1:36:39 i i think it's the most interesting
1:36:41 argument i'll just end with saying fully
1:36:43 for the existence of that and the column
1:36:44 and the fine tuning argument uh and it's
1:36:47 something i have to study a lot more and
1:36:48 think about a lot more before i can join
1:36:50 the conclusions but i do for my eight
1:36:52 years and being pushed back a little bit
1:36:53 i'll admit that you know it's being
1:36:54 pushed back a little bit pushed back a
1:36:55 little bit from my agnostic atheism from
1:36:58 just like
1:36:59 i'm not almost certain anymore that
1:37:01 there's no god i'm like probably no god
1:37:03 but um you've definitely shown me a
1:37:05 thing or two that i need to think about
1:37:07 and i'll come back up on the stream
1:37:08 sometimes and reincarnation wouldn't you
1:37:10 want wouldn't you want to be wrong as
1:37:12 well
1:37:13 of your atheism
1:37:15 well you mean pascal's wager
1:37:19 whatever it is wouldn't you want this
1:37:21 idea that there is meaning
1:37:23 there is purpose well i don't like the
1:37:25 idea of morality of hell i fear death so
1:37:29 i don't know it's eternal paradise
1:37:32 it's not only hell it is
1:37:34 yeah
1:37:35 there is the ability to have
1:37:37 absolute bliss
1:37:39 yeah wouldn't you want to have
1:37:42 that
1:37:43 the idea that there's more meaning than
1:37:45 just this cosmic nihilism that we're
1:37:48 just accidents
1:37:50 yeah and that we're just robots thinking
1:37:52 we have the illusion of consciousness
1:37:54 and free will
1:37:56 you know it seems to me even if i put my
1:37:59 you know put myself in an atheist shoes
1:38:01 i'd want to be wrong
1:38:04 and i know because there's compelling
1:38:05 arguments
1:38:07 what's that no because the idea of hell
1:38:09 is so horrible to me that i think almost
1:38:11 for certain nothing bad happens after
1:38:13 you die but it could be something bad uh
1:38:16 for all of us um and that's quite that's
1:38:19 what that makes me fear that we believe
1:38:21 we we believe god is merciful
1:38:23 and that anybody who's sincere yeah
1:38:28 then
1:38:29 allah the creator he will show mercy to
1:38:31 that person
1:38:33 yeah the doors to repentance are always
1:38:34 open
1:38:35 yeah yeah but the fact that there's a
1:38:37 hell at all is really just like i think
1:38:39 i think that's like almost psychological
1:38:40 terrorism that there's like
1:38:43 the idea of health
1:38:47 well we talked about that on the other
1:38:49 stream problem of evil so i mean you can
1:38:52 yeah but we're gonna have guys we're
1:38:53 gonna have to move on yeah
1:38:56 thanks a lot it was a good time
1:38:58 appreciate it thanks a lot very much
1:38:59 thank you bye bye okay take care before
1:39:01 you bring somebody else on because we're
1:39:03 going to go to carlos next he was
1:39:05 waiting in and out the longest
1:39:07 i just want to address one comment here
1:39:09 when sharif and i were talking about
1:39:11 contingency
1:39:12 our good friend uh mr ceased to know
1:39:15 nonsense you have no grounds to claim
1:39:17 what is actually contingent and what
1:39:19 isn't
1:39:21 how to so
1:39:23 i actually invited him on i said i would
1:39:25 like you to make that comment um
1:39:28 please make that comment on video so we
1:39:30 can capture
1:39:31 atheists who say that we can't actually
1:39:34 you know what he would probably do well
1:39:36 you know what what about this pen is it
1:39:38 necessary
1:39:40 yeah we would get
1:39:42 it's irrelevant
1:39:43Laughter 1:39:47 i mean come on dude if you can't tell
1:39:49 the difference between one plus one
1:39:50 equaling two and my pen then
1:39:52 sorry enjoy your atheism my friend
1:39:56 i'm looking for the emoji now
1:39:59 yeah
1:40:00 that's already up there
1:40:02 howdy carlos
1:40:05 hello
1:40:06 hello how are you doing hey carlos it's
1:40:08 been a while all right hi yeah good
1:40:11 evening guys how you doing yeah is my
1:40:12 audio okay
1:40:13 yeah
1:40:14 yeah it's a little cracking yeah it's
1:40:15 not too bad
1:40:17 okay yes for some reason my internet's
1:40:18 really rubbish i keep dropping out so i
1:40:20 might do a part with just persevere see
1:40:22 how we go um
1:40:24 so yeah it's an interesting conversation
1:40:25 what was happened before um i know we've
1:40:28 talked about it before um i don't want
1:40:29 to go off topic so i'll just stick to
1:40:31 the um topic of the
1:40:33 discussion today about
1:40:35 divine hiddenness because this is
1:40:36 probably
1:40:37 for me i know there's atheists that
1:40:40 atheist all kinds of reasons for me this
1:40:42 is probably one of the biggest reasons
1:40:44 why i'm an atheist because
1:40:47 i used to be religious when i was
1:40:49 younger
1:40:50 and
1:40:51 i
1:40:53 didn't get anything from god as much as
1:40:55 i tried to speak to god as i prayed to
1:40:57 god as much as i believed in god
1:40:58 genuinely
1:41:00 growing up
1:41:03 oh
1:41:05 oh he cut out yeah he's got internet
1:41:07 problems because i noticed even when he
1:41:08 was back
1:41:09 waiting he kept going in and out so
1:41:12 we'll give him a second because he
1:41:13 didn't take too long to jump back on
1:41:15 what carlos needs here is carlos what
1:41:18 you need is an ethernet cable
1:41:21 that's what you need hello
1:41:23 can you hear me yeah sorry i don't think
1:41:25 i don't know if this is going to work
1:41:27 out
1:41:27 you need to invest in an ethernet cable
1:41:30 and if you don't have a laptop or
1:41:31 computer you can get an extension for
1:41:33 your phone
1:41:34 so you can plug your phone your phone
1:41:36 into the ethernet
1:41:37 right and then you won't have these
1:41:39 problems usually it's just because wi-fi
1:41:42 okay well i'll try and make my point
1:41:43 quickly as i can
1:41:45 so basically talk about what kind of
1:41:48 evidence we would want to to know that
1:41:51 god actually does exist
1:41:52 um i mean according to yourselves i mean
1:41:55 he has already given
1:41:56 some sort of evidence of his existence
1:41:58 through revelation and through miracles
1:42:01 and things like that which maybe you
1:42:02 consider is sufficient to
1:42:05 gauge that he does actually exist
1:42:08 but
1:42:09 obviously when i ask people about that
1:42:11 they say that it's for the people of the
1:42:13 time it's not
1:42:15 it's not something that would
1:42:16 necessarily happen now and i'm my
1:42:18 question would be what is so different
1:42:20 about the people of that time
1:42:23 versus now i mean why would god reveal
1:42:25 himself then and not reveal himself now
1:42:28 that's my major question
1:42:34 are you talking about why are there no
1:42:36 miracles today is that what you're
1:42:37 saying
1:42:38 well yeah normally the answer is given
1:42:40 is that whenever something happened in
1:42:42 the past it was done for the people at
1:42:44 that time or revelations for the people
1:42:46 that time where
1:42:48 what what
1:42:49 what it was
1:42:52 different about their time versus our
1:42:54 time yeah but it was it was never the
1:42:56 norm for human beings to see miracles
1:42:59 it was only came about with regards to
1:43:01 certain messengers that came to
1:43:04 demonstrate the proof of their
1:43:06 messengership
1:43:08 yeah but this is slightly different to
1:43:10 the topic about belief in a creator
1:43:12 because a belief in a creator is not
1:43:14 dependent upon seeing a miracle if i'm
1:43:16 if for example look if i'm an atheist
1:43:18 and i see a miracle quote-unquote
1:43:20 miracle
1:43:21 my first because i'm gonna i'm gonna
1:43:24 look at an event through my metaphysical
1:43:26 commitments and my metaphysical
1:43:28 commitments will say this isn't a
1:43:30 miracle this is maybe some sort of
1:43:32 trickery this is some sort of
1:43:33 materialistic explanation
1:43:36 that
1:43:36 um we don't have an explanation for but
1:43:40 it has a materialistic foundation to it
1:43:42 because i'm going to view it from that
1:43:44 materialistic paradigm
1:43:46 so a miracle in and of itself is not
1:43:48 going to be sufficient
1:43:50 until you've established
1:43:52 fundamentally that there is a
1:43:55 non-materialistic explanation to events
1:43:57 that that can occur and uh potentially
1:44:00 does occur or certainly does occur
1:44:02 regardless of the existence of the
1:44:03 universe
1:44:04 but you have to come to that conclusion
1:44:06 first do you not think call us
1:44:08 um yeah so you're saying that those
1:44:10 miracles and revelations on their own
1:44:13 wouldn't be sufficient is what you're
1:44:14 saying
1:44:15 i'm saying that for a person who's an
1:44:17 atheist he might look at those things he
1:44:20 might question you maybe it might be
1:44:22 sufficient for him i'm not going to
1:44:24 necessarily say it's not but i'm just
1:44:26 going to say for a lot of people they
1:44:27 would look at or not a lot of people but
1:44:29 for some people who are atheist
1:44:31 they will look at certain events through
1:44:33 their own paradigm through their own
1:44:35 metaphysical commitments
1:44:37 so for example let's take the example of
1:44:39 the quran yeah so the muslims and i
1:44:41 think we've had this discussion before
1:44:43 for the muslims we believe that's a
1:44:44 quite self-evident miracle yeah
1:44:47 but it requires investigation yeah so
1:44:50 it's not just something that is one plus
1:44:52 one equals two you're gonna have to
1:44:54 study it so for example you'd have to
1:44:56 study
1:44:57 uh its contents you'd have to study
1:45:00 maybe
1:45:01 the style of language that it's written
1:45:03 in in terms of i'm not saying you have
1:45:04 to study arabic but you'd have to look
1:45:06 at you know
1:45:08 its claim to being inimitable in its
1:45:10 production you'd have to look at maybe
1:45:13 look at the
1:45:14 uh the
1:45:17 experts of the arabic language what
1:45:18 they've said about it maybe the countess
1:45:21 to that
1:45:22 and you'd have to look at it investigate
1:45:24 all of these things in order to realize
1:45:26 that the quran is beyond human
1:45:29 productive capacity
1:45:31 however if you're going to be a person
1:45:33 who is committed
1:45:35 to a materialistic explanation or
1:45:37 materialistic paradigm
1:45:39 for events
1:45:41 you're going to look at the quran and if
1:45:43 you can't explain something
1:45:45 you're just going to be committed to
1:45:46 your materialistic explanation so you
1:45:48 need to break that first
1:45:50 except that there can be a
1:45:52 non-materialistic explanation to the
1:45:54 universe
1:45:55 and for miracles it would be a
1:45:58 non-naturalistic event or an event that
1:46:00 occurs that cannot be explained by the
1:46:02 known laws of the universe
1:46:05 yeah and i think
1:46:07 any one miracle on its own would not
1:46:09 suffice as evidence for god
1:46:12 but it would be good evidence for god
1:46:15 you know um it's like evolution is all
1:46:18 the evidence is for evolution you know
1:46:20 just finding a fossil would not give you
1:46:22 the conclusion that evolution is true
1:46:24 even though the evidence around the
1:46:26 fossil is conclusive so
1:46:29 yeah i i definitely
1:46:31 wouldn't say that a miracle was
1:46:33 sufficient i'm not saying that it would
1:46:35 be sufficient but we don't even see any
1:46:37 evidence of those and those these are
1:46:40 these are the supposed
1:46:42 evidences of god's actually
1:46:45 demonstrating his existence
1:46:47 so so like i said one thing would be
1:46:50 that we believe that god demonstrates
1:46:51 his existence through contingent
1:46:53 realities
1:46:54 these are signs for the existence of god
1:46:58 okay
1:47:00 you agree isn't it you and i agree that
1:47:02 there is a necessary being
1:47:04 we do
1:47:05 yeah
1:47:06 you differ upon the whether the
1:47:08 necessary being logically entails
1:47:10 or through best explanation that it has
1:47:13 a will
1:47:15 yeah i would contest that yeah yeah
1:47:18 so you're under a burden of proof to
1:47:21 demonstrate why you think it doesn't
1:47:23 have a will and i'm under a burden of
1:47:24 proof why i think it does have a will
1:47:27 um i'm open to the um argument so i'm
1:47:30 open minded to anything but so i don't i
1:47:33 wouldn't say that i have a burden proof
1:47:38 um well i'm not making a claim that um
1:47:42 that it's so you're speaking
1:47:44 sorry i'm not go
1:47:46 call us
1:47:47 oh no
1:47:49 hopefully you'll come back look what you
1:47:50 did you told him to leave and then i
1:47:52 know he's such a bully cherry
1:47:54 unbelievable man
1:47:57 we're gonna have to have a meeting after
1:47:58 this episode guys
1:48:01 okay kicks off
1:48:05 you should jump back on he didn't save
1:48:06 too long there we go yeah and he's back
1:48:09 sorry about that i know uh
1:48:11 sharif gets a bit pushy sometimes sorry
1:48:14 i'm back
1:48:15 you did you didn't rage quit did you
1:48:17 call us no not yet no yeah i'm not yet
1:48:20 gone
1:48:21 but yeah i'm not saying i'm not
1:48:23 logical
1:48:24 yeah but you are but you are inclined to
1:48:28 the fact that it's not as a will it
1:48:30 doesn't have a will
1:48:31 yeah i'm saying that there's also a
1:48:32 possibility that that it could just be a
1:48:35 natural event yeah so are you so you're
1:48:37 just agnostic now
1:48:39 pretty much yeah i'd say yeah 50 50.
1:48:43 well
1:48:44 i don't know about 50 50. i mean if
1:48:46 there's two choices then then i suppose
1:48:48 it is a 50 50. but
1:48:50 yeah
1:48:51 so
1:48:52 did you listen to the discussion we had
1:48:54 with the previous guest
1:48:57 he left again but but notice what's
1:48:59 happening it's it's going back into the
1:49:02 evidence for god
1:49:03 i mean that's that's all it does it's
1:49:05 like has to
1:49:07 oh yeah but that's kind of my point
1:49:09 because
1:49:10 maybe when carlos comes back i'd like to
1:49:12 ask him if he agrees with the the three
1:49:14 premise argument that uh
1:49:18 yeah yeah sorry sorry guys i'm probably
1:49:21 have to give up on this um sorry i don't
1:49:24 know what happened
1:49:25 get yourself an estimate cable
1:49:41 did you hear did you hear the points
1:49:43 that we were discussing with uh
1:49:45 with the previous caller
1:49:47 reincarnation yes
1:49:49 yes i did yeah so we gave four arguments
1:49:53 uh for from will
1:49:55 have you got one
1:49:57 for non-will
1:49:59 i think what we have to say is that our
1:50:01 understanding of time
1:50:05 and it's time for you to go
1:50:10 yeah every time he leaves it's pretty
1:50:13 funny yeah let's go to uh brother
1:50:15 zechariah for a second here
1:50:17 salaam
1:50:36 keep up the good work may allah bless
1:50:38 you increase you in knowledge rank
1:50:40 humility everything else i mean i mean
1:50:43 are you the brother that's always um
1:50:45 talking about my accent
1:50:48 i'm not talking about your accent now
1:50:50 but
1:50:56 i don't wanna i don't wanna i don't want
1:50:57 to derail the conversation
1:50:59 at all
1:51:00 but i have noticed that shadeep has made
1:51:03 a concerted effort not to say
1:51:05 isn't it
1:51:08 and whatnot
1:51:10 and whatnot man
1:51:12Laughter 1:51:16 good to see you all it's past midnight
1:51:18 where i'm at so i'm not gonna and i
1:51:20 don't want to keep you from uh talking
1:51:22 with other people so
1:51:23 uh i'm just gonna log off and
1:51:26 inshaallah see you all later
1:51:29 all right salaam brothers
1:51:31 see you insha'allah take care
1:51:37 something about carlos's point about
1:51:39 there he is so i guess you guys continue
1:51:42 first i'll bring this point up later
1:51:46 yeah i mean carlos i just wanted to ask
1:51:48 the point about uh what you think of the
1:51:50 argument so um
1:51:53 the hiddenness argument you know it says
1:51:55 premise one if god exists
1:51:58 then there are no non-resistant
1:52:00 non-believers what do you think of that
1:52:02 premise
1:52:08 carlos
1:52:11 are you resisting he wasn't it wasn't me
1:52:14 it wasn't me
1:52:15 he's resisting he's not muted let me get
1:52:18 rid of the uh
1:52:20 sheriff his mean comment just so we can
1:52:21 see
1:52:23 yeah we don't we don't need to display
1:52:25 the obvious
1:52:28 i don't know what's going on come on
1:52:30 carlos
1:52:34 carlos what if i roll my arse when i say
1:52:37 your name
1:52:38 carlos
1:52:40 yeah he's not here
1:52:43 there was a bit of an interference
1:52:45 though like there was
1:52:46 some noise
1:52:48 there's no one in the back either so
1:52:50 it's not yeah i wanted to i wanted to
1:52:52 try to get him to interact with the
1:52:53 argument to see if he agrees with
1:52:55 premise one if god exists and there are
1:52:57 no non-resistant non-believers
1:53:00 um
1:53:01 carlos nick someone else's phone maybe
1:53:07 but what's interesting is is that um
1:53:10 this is seen as one of the key
1:53:13 arguments for atheism the divine
1:53:15 hiddenness argument and you know it's
1:53:17 always been the case for me is that when
1:53:19 people brought up the divine hiddenness
1:53:21 argument i just thought
1:53:22 what a rubbish argument
1:53:25 i've never liked this argument
1:53:28 the argument the argument of the problem
1:53:30 of evil has much more force i think uh
1:53:33 you know yeah i don't think this
1:53:35 argument is works because it just look
1:53:37 what's happening it just goes back to
1:53:39 the whole discussion about the arguments
1:53:41 for god yeah
1:53:42 just just just a point on the miracles
1:53:44 because it's related to the whole you
1:53:45 know non-resistant non-believers thing
1:53:47 so so why don't we have miracles right
1:53:49 now
1:53:50 and and sharif brought this point up
1:53:52 earlier that people in the past you know
1:53:54 they witnessed miracles and still
1:53:56 disbelieved actually most of them did
1:53:59 now the thing is so so what what kind of
1:54:01 miracles are you looking for like what
1:54:03 level like maybe one event in your life
1:54:05 two
1:54:06 or do you want likes you know scientific
1:54:08 uh
1:54:09 certainty like repeatability and
1:54:11 testability in the sense that i don't
1:54:13 know i i i think there's there's an
1:54:15 atheist youtuber
1:54:17 i forgot which one it was who says that
1:54:19 you know a good evidence for god would
1:54:21 be that whenever he prays for something
1:54:22 it happens like you know he
1:54:25 prays for a million dollars
1:54:26 right there right yeah
1:54:28 yeah
1:54:29 yeah yeah
1:54:30 exactly and and the problem is
1:54:33 this again goes back to the discussion
1:54:35 about you know uh uh you know the belief
1:54:38 and
1:54:39 you know a
1:54:40 coercive belief you know
1:54:42 because because
1:54:43 in a sense if if that is the case then
1:54:46 it couldn't be the case for any of our
1:54:49 acts to be morally significant
1:54:52 if if it's if you're looking right at
1:54:55 god
1:54:56 and you're looking right at heaven and
1:54:58 hell to the extent that whenever you
1:55:00 play for pray for a million dollars it's
1:55:02 there so you know then then how are you
1:55:04 more how is anything you do morally uh
1:55:07 significant how is anything you do
1:55:10 uh you know
1:55:13 anything other than just trying to avoid
1:55:15 hell and get have the heaven that you
1:55:18 can see and avoid the hell that you are
1:55:20 certain of so so it just again it
1:55:22 depends on what kind of science you're
1:55:24 looking for because we would say
1:55:25 miracles still do exist but it just
1:55:27 depends on what you're looking for
1:55:29 yeah i think it is a nice quote
1:55:32 from one of the leaders of the quraish
1:55:35 uh who was an obstinate um enemy to
1:55:39 islam and to the prophet sallallahu
1:55:41 alaihi wasallam because he was also a
1:55:44 well-known poet he
1:55:46 you know understood arabic language at a
1:55:48 very high level and when he heard the
1:55:50 quran
1:55:51 you know he basically testified that
1:55:53 it's beyond human productive capacity
1:55:55 certainly beyond the
1:55:56 productive capacity of the prophet
1:55:58 muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam
1:56:00 and he said
1:56:01 after hearing some verses of quran he
1:56:03 said by god there is not a man amongst
1:56:06 you he's better versed in poetry than me
1:56:09 or has more knowledge of prose
1:56:12 uh or ancient or something called an
1:56:14 ancient arabic poem with rigid rigid uh
1:56:18 tripartite structure than me yet in the
1:56:21 quran there is sweetness and beauty
1:56:24 and in it there is grace and elegance
1:56:27 and at its highest it is fresh and leafy
1:56:30 and it is lowest it is copious and
1:56:33 abundant verily it is the highest and
1:56:36 nothing is higher than it so what's
1:56:38 really interesting about this uh
1:56:39 particular quote is that he remained a
1:56:42 non-muslim so he recognized the
1:56:44 the inimitable nature of the quran and
1:56:46 what we believe as muslims as a miracle
1:56:48 and martin which we can test today
1:56:51 but he he didn't want to submit and
1:56:53 that's the key issue and i think this
1:56:55 goes back to what jake was saying about
1:56:57 it's not just about acknowledging god
1:56:58 exists or acknowledging the miracle
1:57:00 particular miracle it's about willing to
1:57:02 submit to the will of god
1:57:05 i think we've got a another caller
1:57:07 though
1:57:18 his name is ray
1:57:19 is it right it's not ray that's what
1:57:21 hamza makes me go under
1:57:24 he doesn't like all right
1:57:26 wow even the baby didn't like us calling
1:57:28 you ray
1:57:30 okay funny
1:57:32 um
1:57:33 all right so uh i really don't
1:57:36 i really don't use as an atheist uh
1:57:40 this argument of uh hiddenness
1:57:43 um
1:57:44 y'all like it you don't like it
1:57:47 i think it's kind of irrelevant
1:57:50 wait hold on a second sir
1:57:53 it's irrelevant okay well no i mean
1:57:56 it's irrelevant to think of a god as
1:57:58 either being able to be seen or hidden
1:58:01 now i do think that
1:58:03 it's kind of strange
1:58:05 that a guy would pick and choose
1:58:08 uh
1:58:10 who they want to be seen by or speak to
1:58:12 but that in the theory of like
1:58:15 of god i guess it makes sense that they
1:58:18 could be uh peculiar in who they want to
1:58:21 speak to
1:58:23 so ray why do you think that why do you
1:58:25 think some atheists are uh
1:58:28 use this argument and why are they so
1:58:30 disturbed by this whole thing
1:58:33 why do you think that is
1:58:35 uh
1:58:36 i'd say atheists use the argument
1:58:38 because they probably they think that
1:58:39 it's relevant it's relevant to
1:58:40 themselves
1:58:42 like that's the thing is it's not an
1:58:44 argument that
1:58:46 i think is relevant to all people that's
1:58:48 the reason i say it's irrelevant because
1:58:50 it's an argument that people who believe
1:58:54 don't
1:58:55 don't need to see proof and even people
1:58:58 who disbelieve
1:59:00 don't
1:59:00 have to not
1:59:02 see god to disbelieve in it if that
1:59:04 makes sense to you
1:59:06 okay
1:59:07 all right
1:59:08 so i mean what i mean by that
1:59:12 yeah i don't think that first of all i
1:59:14 don't think god is a physical object so
1:59:16 i don't think he can be seen in this
1:59:19 life in that way
1:59:20 and um
1:59:24 actual uh you know
1:59:26 uh
1:59:27 traditional sunni islam or elise as far
1:59:29 as the sahaba
1:59:31 went because you know
1:59:33 the original beliefs is
1:59:35 not not that you can
1:59:37 imagine
1:59:38 like god looks like a human because it's
1:59:41 outside of human imagination even of
1:59:44 what god looks like but god does have
1:59:47 literal body parts that muslims are told
1:59:49 to believe in not only that
1:59:51 not only that you have the um
1:59:54 you have the hadith when muhammad sees
2:00:11 i'm saying first of all this is off
2:00:12 topic second of all if if if you're
2:00:14 going to make claims please provide
2:00:15 evidence um otherwise it's off and
2:00:18 you're not providing evidence we don't
2:00:19 believe god has body parts right sorry
2:00:21 even even so when god says he has a shin
2:00:25 you think it's not a body part
2:00:27 yeah yeah so so so yeah so what's what's
2:00:29 the verse what's the verse
2:00:31 though
2:00:32 what's the verse what's the verse
2:00:34 oh my gosh dude this is you're
2:00:37 you know that yeah
2:00:42 i know in arabic and there are
2:00:45 interpretations there are you're going
2:00:47 to have to ask us which position we take
2:00:48 because
2:00:49 you know in the arabic language
2:00:52 uh that expression is used when there is
2:00:56 something like in a situation where
2:00:58 you know it's uh
2:01:00 something very serious is happening
2:01:02 something concerning like in battle and
2:01:04 stuff like that and and so it's
2:01:08 you're not going to be able just to
2:01:09 refer to one verse take a specific
2:01:11 literal interpretation of it which which
2:01:13 which some muslims do hold it's a mama
2:01:15 yeah
2:01:17 they don't say it's a body yeah exactly
2:01:19 even them they don't say it's a body
2:01:20 part they don't say it's physical we
2:01:22 don't say nobody says it says god is
2:01:24 physical no muslim says god has body
2:01:26 parts but i'm saying even if they do for
2:01:28 you to come here and say that islam says
2:01:31 this as if you know we're going to have
2:01:34 to be
2:01:39 provide evidence they did not believe in
2:01:41 literal physical body parts
2:01:43 no sahabi believed that god had body
2:01:46 parts so maybe next time you can come we
2:01:48 do this every two weeks next time just
2:01:50 do a bit of homework come with a bit of
2:01:52 references so you can you know whatever
2:01:54 you say you can back up with evidence
2:01:55 because we just don't accept it you know
2:01:57 so so yeah so maybe next time provide
2:02:00 references and also we're off topic so i
2:02:03 think uh do you want do you have
2:02:05 anything to say on
2:02:06 the he already did he doesn't he doesn't
2:02:08 you like the argument he doesn't think
2:02:10 it's a good argument he already
2:02:11 commented on the argument
2:02:13 why is he okay why is
2:02:15 why so religious why is he an atheist
2:02:19 why are you an atheist
2:02:23 right
2:02:25 well i mean
2:02:26 all right okay
2:02:35 you're breaking up buddy
2:02:38 i'm breaking up
2:02:39 hold on
2:02:41 hold on
2:02:42 okay you gotta start over
2:02:44 why are you in atheism yeah you got to
2:02:46 start over buddy we couldn't hear you i
2:02:47 always
2:02:49 i always feel like when muslims ask me
2:02:51 this question it's kind of redundant in
2:02:54 the sense that
2:02:55 in your belief system allah is already
2:02:57 covered why i don't believe i'm asking
2:03:00 you asking me is yeah so why are you
2:03:03 asking me
2:03:05 why are you asking me is either a long
2:03:08 words are sufficient for you or you need
2:03:10 me to explain i want you to explain so
2:03:15 what are you talking about
2:03:17 ray why do you gotta be like this buddy
2:03:19 we're just asking you a question man
2:03:21 you're thinking about that you're
2:03:22 thinking
2:03:25 yeah but that's not your answer because
2:03:27 you don't believe in the quran so give
2:03:28 us your answer no
2:03:30 i'm giving you an answer of why i think
2:03:32 it's a redundant question but i will
2:03:34 answer your question irrelevant is it an
2:03:36 irrelevant question i i i don't
2:03:38 i don't this is an irrelevant question
2:03:44 it's like this right i don't have to
2:03:47 disprove god exist i just have to
2:03:50 disprove your god exists by the words
2:03:53 that you attribute to your god
2:03:56 so do you still not answering the
2:03:58 question why are you an atheist
2:04:01 why don't you believe in anything there
2:04:02 is
2:04:04 so
2:04:05 for as far as he is um every uh
2:04:09 every words that i have read
2:04:12 that are attributed to a deity
2:04:15 have some form of inaccuracy that does
2:04:18 not
2:04:19 uh actually relate to
2:04:21 universes but that wouldn't prove that
2:04:23 there's not a god let's say all the
2:04:24 scriptures are wrong there could still
2:04:26 be a god now let me finish
2:04:28 so that's what i'm saying i'm breaking
2:04:30 it down from theism to deist
2:04:32 now
2:04:34 after that would be the concept of like
2:04:37 you could have like a ds
2:04:39 pantheist belief
2:04:41 but to me
2:04:42 even a dies belief
2:04:45 doesn't make
2:04:46 i don't want to say that it doesn't make
2:04:48 sense it's just that
2:04:50 for one there's no evidence to support
2:04:53 that there has to be
2:04:55 a creator
2:04:56 of
2:04:57 of the universe let's say
2:04:59 that there is now there is the belief
2:05:02 system that you there has to be a
2:05:04 creator but belief systems are not
2:05:06 necessarily true
2:05:08 so right until then why do you believe
2:05:11 what would you consider evidence
2:05:15 um honestly i wouldn't know until it's
2:05:18 presented to me probably
2:05:20 well that's part of the problem
2:05:24 but surely i'm sorry are you are you are
2:05:26 you an agnostic
2:05:27 are you an agnostic
2:05:29 let me uh let me let me just answer lisa
2:05:31 what the problem is
2:05:33 but
2:05:34 well if you take that stance that's like
2:05:36 saying part of the problem with
2:05:39 lightning always being attributed to
2:05:42 zeus for so long is because they
2:05:44 did not know what lightning was and how
2:05:45 it actually uh came into formation
2:05:49 uh scientifically but then once
2:05:52 but but once we learned once we learned
2:05:54 about it we learned um
2:05:57 how it occurs it takes away
2:06:00 the uh the
2:06:03 what i need as sufficient evidence
2:06:05 because it actually proves itself
2:06:07 okay okay okay
2:06:09 so if there were no explanation if there
2:06:11 were like no explanation for lightning
2:06:13 you would then attribute it to god
2:06:18 no
2:06:19 not me personally no i would just say
2:06:21 that i don't you would think it's
2:06:22 justified it's explanation
2:06:25 so you think it's just i would know that
2:06:26 it's justified because it happens
2:06:32 upon no explanation for lightning that's
2:06:34 what i'm asking
2:06:37 what'd you say if if you you're
2:06:39 mentioned that people used to believe
2:06:41 that lightning is caused by god but
2:06:42 right now we have a scientific
2:06:44 explanation i'm asking you a
2:06:45 hypothetical if there were no scientific
2:06:48 explanation for it right like at all and
2:06:50 it just happens do you think it would be
2:06:53 justified to believe in god
2:06:57 no i wouldn't say that just because you
2:06:59 don't understand something doesn't mean
2:07:00 that you could so what's the point of
2:07:02 bringing it up then i mean so so what's
2:07:04 so what's the point no that wasn't that
2:07:06 was in response to them
2:07:08 yeah no the point is this if listen
2:07:12 right if you don't have a standard by
2:07:14 which you judge or some type of criteria
2:07:17 then of course you're not going to know
2:07:19 or even be able to evaluate the claims
2:07:22 you'd have to be agnostic you you can't
2:07:24 be atheist if you don't know what the
2:07:26 evidence is that you're looking at
2:07:27 atheists atheists is just a lack of
2:07:29 belief atheism is not the defined no
2:07:32 it's not russian that's not a philosophy
2:07:36 look up the definition oh here we go ray
2:07:39 ray
2:07:40 so now we go
2:07:43 if y'all are going to tell me to bring
2:07:45 evidences of verses why can't i tell you
2:07:48 to bring evidences of your definitions
2:07:51 no but listen okay so let's work with
2:07:53 your definition so you just lack a
2:07:55 belief in god right okay so i lack a
2:07:57 belief in let's say aliens right so if
2:07:59 you ask me what evidence i would require
2:08:02 to believe in aliens i'll tell you
2:08:04 because i have a coherent epistemology
2:08:06 i'll tell you how i come to know things
2:08:08 so how do you ray come to know things
2:08:11 what's what's your epistemology
2:08:14 i mean if you don't even know how you
2:08:16 come to know things and you're like i
2:08:17 don't know i mean i have a
2:08:19 i have like i said i have a lack of
2:08:21 belief in theism due to the readings of
2:08:24 the books and the texts and then when it
2:08:26 goes down to deism i have a lack of
2:08:29 belief in deism because there's uh
2:08:32 no reason in my mind that as far as i
2:08:35 can see everything in the universe that
2:08:37 we've tried to explain within the past
2:08:39 400 years we've come
2:08:42 really close and expounded upon it
2:08:44 okay so stop right there stop right
2:08:46 there so you're saying okay stop right
2:08:47 there to the
2:08:48 concept okay sorry sorry i don't mean to
2:08:51 cut you off i just want to focus on that
2:08:52 point so you're saying that everything
2:08:54 we've come across we found an
2:08:56 explanation okay and you're providing
2:08:58 that as a re
2:09:00 no no okay whatever i mean
2:09:02 most things most
2:09:04 yeah just one second most things we
2:09:06 found an explanation what i'm so that's
2:09:08 why i asked you earlier does that mean
2:09:10 that if we didn't find explanations for
2:09:13 most things you would find reason to
2:09:15 believe in god
2:09:17 no because i still
2:09:19 have a reason to
2:09:21 to
2:09:21 attribute them to god personally
2:09:24 so then it's irrelevant then you
2:09:26 bringing this up about us finding
2:09:28 explanations
2:09:29 as an explanation we gotta read this we
2:09:31 gotta read this here to mr right right
2:09:33 so you asked for proof okay we're on
2:09:35 stanford encyclopedia entry of
2:09:38 philosophy on the uh term atheism and
2:09:41 agnosticism it says right here
2:09:43 definition of atheism
2:09:45 atheism is typically defined in terms of
2:09:47 theism
2:09:48 theism in turn is best understood as a
2:09:51 proposition something that is either
2:09:53 true or false it is often defined as the
2:09:56 belief that god exists but here belief
2:09:59 means something believed
2:10:00 it refers to the propositional content
2:10:03 of belief
2:10:04 not to the attitude or psychological
2:10:06 state of believing
2:10:08 this is why it makes sense to say that
2:10:10 theism is true or false and to argue for
2:10:13 or against theism if however atheism is
2:10:17 defined in terms of theism and theism is
2:10:19 the proposition that god exists and not
2:10:22 the psychological condition of believing
2:10:24 that there is a god then it follows that
2:10:27 atheism is not the absence of the
2:10:29 psychological condition of believing
2:10:32 that god exists
2:10:33 the a in atheism must be understood as
2:10:37 negation instead of absence as not
2:10:41 instead of without therefore in
2:10:44 philosophy at least
2:10:46 atheism should be construed as the
2:10:48 proposition that god does not exist or
2:10:52 more broadly the proposition that there
2:10:54 are no gods
2:10:56 so will you retract your statement ray
2:10:59 where's your evidence so that is
2:11:01 so once again
2:11:03 you're talking about a position that i'm
2:11:04 not taking i'm not taking a
2:11:06 philosophical position no ray you know
2:11:08 no no no you
2:11:11 that this is what atheism is and then
2:11:13 you asked us to give you proof that
2:11:15 atheism is something else that you just
2:11:17 did why don't you no why don't you
2:11:20 just do a definition of atheism by like
2:11:36 no
2:12:01 a philosophical position
2:12:03 would be like your contingency argument
2:12:06 that's a philosophical position that
2:12:08 does not necessarily atheism is a
2:12:10 philosophical position
2:12:14 okay dude if you say so
2:12:17 we just read it out to you on the
2:12:19 stanford encyclopedia philosophy which
2:12:21 is the standard
2:12:23 it is right i didn't feel philosophical
2:12:25 debates
2:12:26 and this is a this is a philosophical
2:12:28 discussion come on ray
2:12:30 so when i'm talking about evidences
2:12:36 of evidence is
2:12:37 what's your point so
2:12:41 yeah yeah but rick you're right right
2:12:43 right i'm just simply saying buddy don't
2:12:46 double down just admit that you could
2:12:47 have been wrong about this and then we
2:12:49 can move on
2:12:52 dude i'm not going to deny that
2:12:53 philosophically atheism does hold
2:12:57 a
2:12:58 god does not exist affirmative as
2:13:01 opposed to in the definition
2:13:04 that people use daily as opposed to
2:13:06 philosophical if you just look it up
2:13:08 merrim webster or cambridge or wherever
2:13:11 you want to it is a lack of belief of
2:13:13 god yeah and if you type
2:13:19 i never said that god couldn't exist
2:13:22 i said that i have a lack of belief now
2:13:25 the difference along with like
2:13:27 agnosticism is saying i do not know now
2:13:30 that's the reason there's the debates
2:13:32 about is atheism the same as agnosticism
2:13:35 because a lack of belief
2:13:37 okay
2:13:38 uh could be attributed to
2:13:41 not knowing
2:13:42 right
2:13:56 to say that you're not having a
2:13:57 philosophical discussion
2:13:59 with people
2:14:01 no no
2:14:02 the whole point is to have a
2:14:03 philosophical discussion do you want to
2:14:05 have a discussion on philosophy
2:14:07 and if not
2:14:10 everything
2:14:19 that i spoke about was how i do not use
2:14:22 the the argument of uh hiddenness so i
2:14:25 went there and was willing to talk about
2:14:27 that it wasn't me that kept changing the
2:14:29 the topics
2:14:31 no because we we we concluded that topic
2:14:35 and then i asked you the question why
2:14:37 are you an atheist
2:14:38 right correct and then we and i said
2:14:42 and my my reasons my reasons was
2:14:45 about evidence and how if you started
2:14:48 theism
2:14:49 and then i didn't i i spoke about why i
2:14:52 don't believe in theism and then
2:14:54 reading free uh from reading texts
2:14:57 and then um
2:14:58 i spoke about deism and i spoke about
2:15:01 not really uh
2:15:03 attributing things to a god that because
2:15:08 they do
2:15:10 tend to have answers that we find out so
2:15:12 we do we have so hold on hold on so
2:15:14 you're saying the reason why you're not
2:15:16 an atheist is because we have
2:15:18 materialistic explanation
2:15:21 wait the reason i'm not an atheist sorry
2:15:24 the reason why you don't believe in god
2:15:26 is because we have materialistic
2:15:27 explanation is that what you think
2:15:30 um
2:15:31 that's one of the things but the other
2:15:33 thing is i just don't believe it to be
2:15:34 true
2:15:36 okay so why don't you believe it to be
2:15:38 true let's look at that second reason
2:15:42 because i don't think it's necessary
2:15:45 like the arguments tend to be that god
2:15:47 is a necessary being if that's your
2:15:50 position i think
2:15:52 that you'd have a hard time even
2:15:54 presenting that to me in a way that i
2:15:56 see it as uh
2:15:58 as true slash necessary
2:16:01 so
2:16:02 so
2:16:03 why
2:16:04 see i think ray is my personal opinion
2:16:07 from your discussion that we've just had
2:16:08 here
2:16:09 is you said
2:16:11 firstly that you lack belief
2:16:13 secondly that
2:16:14 you don't know what the evidence is
2:16:17 to define
2:16:19 whether god exists and then you're
2:16:21 saying you don't think it's necessary
2:16:23 for god to exist
2:16:26 i said i wouldn't know
2:16:28 i wouldn't know the evidence of what god
2:16:32 exists until it was presented to me
2:16:34 because as of right now
2:16:37 my position is
2:16:38 uh everything that
2:16:40 that happens in the universe
2:16:43 uh can be explained
2:16:46 or possibly explained i don't think
2:16:48 anything is explained by science
2:16:54 okay
2:16:56 nothing is that's your position
2:16:58 i can prove it
2:17:02 okay what is why does water boil why
2:17:04 does water boil what what degrees
2:17:07 so so what do you mean by nothing is
2:17:10 explained by science let's start there
2:17:12 first is going to give you an example
2:17:13 now so i'll give you an example yeah why
2:17:16 does nothing boil give me what you mean
2:17:19 i mean that fundamentally science is not
2:17:21 in the explanation of why things exist
2:17:24 they only really explain how things
2:17:26 operate and to explain how things
2:17:29 operate
2:17:30 is sufficient for a scientist
2:17:33 to operate within the universe so it
2:17:35 doesn't actually explain for example
2:17:37 why gravity exists
2:17:40 why
2:17:40 bodies within space-time causes
2:17:43 deformation which causes a gravitational
2:17:46 force
2:17:47 that's exerted upon other bodies there's
2:17:49 no explanation why that is that the
2:17:51 position we have an explanation of how
2:17:53 it occurs and the relationship that
2:17:55 bodies have with other bodies within the
2:17:58 universe
2:18:01 so
2:18:02 who's making the argument that science
2:18:04 explains why
2:18:08 you did
2:18:10 how
2:18:11 because you said science has explained
2:18:15 things within the universe and ice or
2:18:17 events and i said no it doesn't
2:18:20 because that's not the role of science
2:18:25 science only explains to me how things
2:18:27 operate
2:18:28 yeah or yeah how things operate they
2:18:30 don't explain to me why they
2:18:32 fundamentally operate in that way
2:18:36 yeah but that doesn't that doesn't
2:18:38 actually go to my my position so for
2:18:41 example if i ask you the question why
2:18:43 why is there lightning
2:18:45 why is there lightning
2:18:48 we're going to talk about electrical
2:18:49 fields aren't you
2:18:52 and then if i ask you the question why
2:18:54 do you have electrical fields
2:18:56 you might talk about forces
2:18:58 electromagnetic forces and then i'm
2:19:00 going to ask the question why is there
2:19:01 electromagnetic forces and then you're
2:19:04 going to say well they're fundamental
2:19:05 forces it's a brute contingency
2:19:08 well no it would be electrical forces
2:19:10 because
2:19:11 of uh
2:19:12 like the core of the earth
2:19:15 yeah but i can keep asking the question
2:19:18 why yeah because ultimately you're going
2:19:20 to get to a question about fundamental
2:19:22 forces of the universe
2:19:23 the four fundamental forces of the
2:19:25 universe
2:19:26 one's electromagnetism that doesn't
2:19:28 actually address anything that i talked
2:19:30 about
2:19:31 that's like a red herring it doesn't no
2:19:33 you're trying
2:19:34 no what you're trying to do is say that
2:19:37 okay science only talks about the action
2:19:40 in a way right it only tells you how
2:19:43 something occurs it doesn't tell you why
2:19:45 is that your position yeah
2:19:48 so
2:19:49 so what what then
2:19:52 so look at your question why is there
2:19:56 lightning
2:19:57 if you're saying that science doesn't
2:19:59 explain the why
2:20:01 you are saying that sanctuary explains
2:20:03 why it only explains to how then it's
2:20:05 not providing an explanation is it
2:20:08 no it is
2:20:10 you realize there's different forms of
2:20:12 explanation right like i do understand
2:20:20 so what the why explanation the why
2:20:23 explanation
2:20:25 of why
2:20:26 lightning strikes
2:20:28 does science explain it
2:20:31 uh or does it know about i don't i don't
2:20:34 know enough about uh
2:20:37 about meteorology i guess do you believe
2:20:39 in brute contingency
2:20:42 do you believe in brute contingent facts
2:20:46 so great contingent facts are things
2:20:48 where uh irreducible to any other
2:20:51 explanation beyond that explanation
2:20:55 that there are things within the
2:20:56 universe that you cannot explain
2:20:58 anything you cannot explain further
2:21:04 yeah we just have to accept
2:21:07 i don't know
2:21:08 there's no way to actually prove that
2:21:11 though until the end of time
2:21:13 no
2:21:16 so no at the moment the way science
2:21:18 works
2:21:19 so you know at the moment
2:21:21 i know everything yeah exactly that's
2:21:24 fine so you were appealing in the future
2:21:27 you were appealing to science you were
2:21:29 appealing to science and you were saying
2:21:31 science last 400 years has given all
2:21:33 these explanations of why and i'm saying
2:21:36 actually
2:21:37 science at this moment in time has to
2:21:40 come to brute contingent facts and ass
2:21:42 that assumes them to be true
2:21:45 has no further explanation for them
2:21:47 because maybe they reach epistemic
2:21:49 limits of science maybe they might not
2:21:52 have reached the epistemic limits of
2:21:53 science but the moment they have
2:21:55 they have to assume these things and
2:21:58 then from these assumptions they then
2:22:00 try to provide explanations of how other
2:22:02 things operate based upon these brute
2:22:05 contingent facts
2:22:08 your claim only works if
2:22:10 like let's say tomorrow
2:22:13 everything ends
2:22:14 and then there's no further learning no
2:22:17 rain i'm using your argument you say
2:22:20 last 400 years
2:22:22 we have science explaining things
2:22:26 i'm saying science doesn't explain why
2:22:28 things
2:22:29 it reduces to brute contingent facts at
2:22:32 this moment in time so forget about the
2:22:35 last 400 years all those 400 years up to
2:22:38 now we still have these brute contingent
2:22:40 facts
2:22:42 we have to assume like laws of
2:22:44 thermodynamics how gravity or why
2:22:46 gravity operates the way it does here we
2:22:50 have to assume these things that's what
2:22:52 science has reduced us to to these brute
2:22:54 contingent facts at this moment in time
2:22:57 maybe they'll extend it in the future
2:22:59 and get further arguments but then i
2:23:02 don't like that
2:23:07 that argument
2:23:09 isn't relative to me because what i am
2:23:12 speaking about is the possibility of it
2:23:14 right now it's not really faith-based
2:23:16 like you're saying faith is the belief
2:23:18 without uh evidence
2:23:21 no it's not
2:23:22 no it's not ray
2:23:24 so now should we have to show you that
2:23:26 definition too right come on brother
2:23:29 come on why so
2:23:31 tell me what the the definition is that
2:23:33 i can go off of your definition
2:23:36 yeah we don't believe that faith we just
2:23:38 take it without evidence that's not our
2:23:40 position at all in fact the quran says
2:23:43 the fractal quran says that you
2:23:45 shouldn't that doesn't mean anything let
2:23:47 me
2:23:48 ray i'm trying to explain something to
2:23:49 you
2:23:50 the quran says that you shouldn't
2:23:52 believe anything without knowledge
2:23:54 you need evidence
2:23:56 you need it you need evidence
2:23:57 you need it
2:24:17 what are we doing here we're not who are
2:24:19 you talking to okay right right i think
2:24:21 look you're making a lot of statements
2:24:23 you seem to be quite confident in your
2:24:25 statements but i think the problem is is
2:24:27 that i think you you are too confident
2:24:30 to what you actually know
2:24:32 you made mistakes about what the quran
2:24:34 says about body parts
2:24:36 you made comments about the sahara he
2:24:39 will reveal his
2:24:44 we've had the upper hand in this
2:24:46 discussion
2:24:47 yeah ray we already explained that right
2:24:51 right you didn't even get the joke
2:24:54 no
2:24:58 it went over my head a bit with that
2:25:00 jake as well actually well you know
2:25:03 i've got dry humor folks what can i say
2:25:05 i thought the brits had dry humor too
2:25:08 yeah
2:25:09 but um but yeah so regularly abdul's
2:25:11 already explained that point to you yeah
2:25:13 and then you didn't have a reference for
2:25:15 you then you claimed about sahabi didn't
2:25:17 have a reference for that then you
2:25:18 claimed that science answer rules all
2:25:19 these questions and i said i know it
2:25:21 doesn't moan about us not
2:25:31 i think you're too confident for the
2:25:33 knowledge that you've actually got i
2:25:35 think bit of humbleness about your
2:25:37 position
2:25:38 i think it's ironic that it is you are
2:25:41 calling me
2:25:42 calling me
2:25:44 saying that uh i'm too confident
2:25:47 when
2:25:48 you play you pretty much base your whole
2:25:52 belief system off of faith of a miracle
2:25:58 why are you you just keep making these
2:26:00 things you keep making these claims
2:26:01 you're just making this
2:26:03 before i even came on here you used an
2:26:05 example about how the quran is a miracle
2:26:08 because a man in seventh century arabia
2:26:11 who was a poet said that he knows more
2:26:13 about arabic and the poetry and this and
2:26:16 that there's no way that it could have
2:26:18 came from anything but god that's right
2:26:20 so does it follow from that does it
2:26:22 follow from when sharif made that
2:26:23 statement that that's the only thing
2:26:25 that we base our beliefs
2:26:28 does it no it doesn't don't talk
2:26:29 nonsense don't talk
2:26:31 you're talking it's definitely
2:26:33 it's definitely one of the biggest
2:26:35 claims that muslims use as their belief
2:26:37 is that the quran is a miracle yeah who
2:26:39 are you talking about are you talking to
2:26:41 the muslims are you talking are you
2:26:42 talking to the muslims here or are you
2:26:44 talking to abdul jake yusuf and sharif
2:26:47 well it's also it's also the fact that
2:26:50 you wouldn't have
2:26:51 you also you know you have
2:26:53 you wouldn't have your belief without
2:26:55 the quran you're right yeah we wouldn't
2:26:57 have to believe we wouldn't have the
2:26:58 belief in the prophethood of the
2:27:00 messengership without the quran but you
2:27:03 can still have belief in the in the
2:27:05 creator without the quran the problem
2:27:09 the problem that you have parade the
2:27:10 problem that you have raised this
2:27:12 is you're talking about things like
2:27:15 science answers or questions
2:27:18 science answers the questions about why
2:27:19 lightning occurs
2:27:21 and when i ask you the question well
2:27:22 what is the scientific answer you like i
2:27:24 don't know
2:27:26 yeah i don't know i don't know studied
2:27:28 that no i said i didn't
2:27:38Music 2:27:41 that things reduced back to a brute
2:27:43 contingent reality or fact this is what
2:27:46 science has to premise upon these brute
2:27:48 contingent facts you were like yeah but
2:27:51 in the future we might be able to prove
2:27:54 you know something you know we might
2:27:56 have to get away from these brute
2:27:57 contingent facts
2:27:58 uh but i'm saying your claim was because
2:28:02 science has answered xyz questions
2:28:05 therefore it will answer all questions
2:28:08 i'm saying it hasn't even answered any
2:28:10 fundamental
2:28:13 i never said that it will
2:28:15 i said there's i said that there's
2:28:17 reason to think that it will there's a
2:28:19 reason to say that it is possible that
2:28:22 it will i never said that is absolute
2:28:25 yeah well
2:28:26 as a final question what reason what
2:28:28 reason do you think it will answer
2:28:32 because just within the short time that
2:28:34 we have actually applied scientific
2:28:37 method in the causes of human uh humans
2:28:40 we have actually advanced in our
2:28:42 knowledge of the universe we as opposed
2:28:44 to
2:28:45 as opposed to this were you involved in
2:28:47 that
2:28:48 why so religious we got the forefront of
2:28:50 volunteering let rey let very finished
2:28:54 as opposed to the days of prophets
2:28:56 getting scented messages from the god
2:29:00 that didn't really improve life
2:29:03 standards at all
2:29:04 like you can make arguments that for the
2:29:06 people that were not ever part of the
2:29:09 religions that these scriptures were
2:29:11 sent from their lifestyles were dramatic
2:29:15 drastically altered in the negative by
2:29:17 the people who follow that religion
2:29:20 ray thank you very much i think
2:29:22 obviously we fundamentally disagree i
2:29:24 don't think you're really that
2:29:25 interested in engaging in the arguments
2:29:28 and
2:29:29 i don't i think you're changing your
2:29:31 position to be honest i don't think
2:29:33 you're sincere in the discussion but
2:29:35 appreciate you coming into my position
2:29:38 because you and usually my condition is
2:29:41 right
2:29:43 there's no point discussing any further
2:29:44 i'll be honest with you yeah
2:29:47 appreciate you coming on though thank
2:29:48 you
2:29:50 sorry man
2:29:51 i'm just thinking we're just going to go
2:29:53 around in circles on this
2:29:55 yeah
2:29:56 like i said i think the problem is some
2:29:58 people are too confident in their
2:30:00 positions
2:30:01 and
2:30:02 you know and he's going always ironic
2:30:04 you muslims you believe in you know you
2:30:06 have a quote-unquote faith here
2:30:09 and yet he's appealing to faith in
2:30:10 science we'll answer all questions when
2:30:12 he when i said and i made a very bold
2:30:14 claim yeah and i say this to some
2:30:16 atheists sometimes just to make them
2:30:18 think that science hasn't answered any
2:30:20 why questions
2:30:22 yet why is there lightning science
2:30:24 doesn't answer that question
2:30:26 it just answers how the universe
2:30:28 operates and we get more details about
2:30:30 how the universe operates and we can use
2:30:32 that details
2:30:34 to operate and manipulate things or
2:30:37 materials within the universe based upon
2:30:39 how the laws operate but it doesn't
2:30:41 explain why they operate in the way that
2:30:43 they do and that's really fundamental
2:30:45 and there's a really interesting
2:30:46 um
2:30:48 a statement that neil tyson degrasse was
2:30:50 it neil degrasse tyson i was getting
2:30:53 neil degrasse tyson he was asked a
2:30:55 question on
2:30:56 joe rogan's podcast where he was asked
2:30:59 about what is gravity
2:31:02 yeah what is it you know joe was like
2:31:04 that type of person like what is it yeah
2:31:06 that simple man on the street and
2:31:08 neil degrasse tyson says well in science
2:31:11 it's not
2:31:12 explaining why something occurs it's
2:31:15 simply explaining how it occurs and if
2:31:17 we've explained how then that's
2:31:19 sufficient for us really so we don't
2:31:21 really know why or what it really is
2:31:24 we're just happy to know how it works
2:31:27 how it operates
2:31:28 and that's you know that's that's the
2:31:30 epistemic limits that we have so there
2:31:33 are no real questions of why
2:31:36 fundamentally that's being answered it's
2:31:38 deferring at best it defers
2:31:41 the why question or why explanation
2:31:43 something else until you get to a brute
2:31:46 contingent fact
2:31:47 a lot of atheists don't like to
2:31:49 acknowledge that point because it sort
2:31:52 of explodes their worldview
2:31:56 anybody else yourself
2:31:58 yes hello how are you doing tonight
2:32:00 oh how are you doing eric i'm doing fine
2:32:04 um good to see you i was enjoying your
2:32:06 broadcast i was enjoying a listen to uh
2:32:08 talk to the atheists there
2:32:12 yes yes eric is somebody that we've
2:32:15 spoken to a couple of times on the
2:32:17 facebook calls although
2:32:18 we've not spoken for a while
2:32:21 what was your thoughts about the uh the
2:32:23 topic uh and which was divine hiddenness
2:32:26 you're you're
2:32:27 you're a theist aren't you eric
2:32:29 i am a theist and uh you know
2:32:32 i don't think it's i i actually don't
2:32:35 think the atheist has a good argument
2:32:37 against theism at all
2:32:40 i think as a matter of fact atheism is
2:32:42 rather
2:32:43 foolish position to hold i can
2:32:46 understand that somebody has a position
2:32:47 of an agnostic
2:32:49 to me that makes a lot more sense than
2:32:51 somebody choosing the position of an
2:32:52 atheist
2:32:54 and in my opinion
2:32:56 most atheists don't even know what
2:32:57 atheism is they accept the
2:33:00 the title of atheists without realizing
2:33:03 that their actual their position is
2:33:05 probably agnostic
2:33:07 and
2:33:09 i think a lot of them choose the
2:33:10 position of atheism though
2:33:14 out of
2:33:15 i don't know what it could be maybe
2:33:16 arrogance maybe
2:33:19 maybe maybe rebellion maybe anger
2:33:21 against god i think there are very few
2:33:24 real atheists although i do notice a few
2:33:27 i do notice a few that are very sincere
2:33:29 in their atheism so
2:33:32 i don't find fault with them they're
2:33:33 able to discuss things rationally and
2:33:36 civilly
2:33:37 but uh
2:33:38 i i do think it's rather funny that they
2:33:41 choose to define themselves as somebody
2:33:43 that simply lacks belief a ping pong
2:33:46 ball lacks belief you know
2:33:49 so that's a rather foolish position i
2:33:51 think
2:33:52 um
2:33:54 but i i was enjoying your show i would
2:33:56 like to add though if you if you guys
2:33:58 don't mind i have to admit when it comes
2:34:00 to philosophy i'm a novice and you guys
2:34:02 would leave me in the dirt you often do
2:34:04 that's why i love listening to abdul and
2:34:06 you guys
2:34:07 sitting around talking philosophy
2:34:09 because i learned but
2:34:10 when it comes to science and theology
2:34:12 though i
2:34:14 i really think that we have reason to
2:34:17 believe that there's a god and we have
2:34:20 scientific reason to believe that
2:34:21 there's god for instance
2:34:23 there's the science of biogenesis that
2:34:26 and that's a
2:34:27 completely observable science and
2:34:30 a billion times a day it doesn't matter
2:34:32 if it's bacteria it doesn't matter if
2:34:34 it's insects or animals
2:34:37 we see that life only comes from life
2:34:40 that's the only way it ever comes about
2:34:42 we never see
2:34:44 um life just randomly forming and
2:34:47 popping to uh life it just doesn't
2:34:49 happen it's a rather absurd idea
2:34:52 and it doesn't matter how they try to
2:34:54 bring it about in in the laboratory it
2:34:56 just never comes about what if they say
2:34:58 eric uh
2:35:00 that one day
2:35:01 scientists will
2:35:03 create life in a lab would that now
2:35:07 disprove your position
2:35:09 no no i i guess i guess it possibly
2:35:12 could happen
2:35:14 but uh my position is that
2:35:16 is simply we never observe it happening
2:35:19 in nature or in the lab and so it's far
2:35:22 more likely there's a god
2:35:23 and then when they say god isn't even uh
2:35:26 god is a supernatural object that can't
2:35:29 we can't even detect god with a
2:35:31 scientific means so
2:35:32 why even ask the god question in science
2:35:36 but i think dark matter and dark energy
2:35:38 prove that wrong dark matter and dark
2:35:41 energy you could almost consider a
2:35:43 supernatural object because it's uh
2:35:45 invisible
2:35:47 uh that is it's not a tangible object
2:35:50 that you can touch and feel and yet it's
2:35:53 supposed to be omnipresent it holds all
2:35:56 of creation together it's expanding the
2:35:58 universe
2:35:59 and
2:36:00 you know these are things that are uh
2:36:02 these are attributes that god is
2:36:04 supposed to have
2:36:05 yeah so
2:36:07 you know science is acknowledging the
2:36:09 force that we would call that if i mean
2:36:12 if under any other circumstance see
2:36:14 what's interesting eric is you know the
2:36:16 previous caller
2:36:18 and i think it was
2:36:19 uh he wasn't really listening i don't
2:36:21 think he was going to get anywhere
2:36:23 but he was trying to say something like
2:36:25 religion doesn't you know he has no
2:36:28 positive impact
2:36:29 but one thing that he doesn't realize is
2:36:32 what religion and what
2:36:34 theism gives you it gives you a
2:36:36 grounding for science
2:36:38 so
2:36:38 we understand that science is where you
2:36:41 have predictable patterns
2:36:43 that future events
2:36:45 will follow past experience
2:36:48 now from a materialistic purely
2:36:50 materialistic point of view
2:36:52 you can't say that there are patterns
2:36:54 within the universe
2:36:56 but from a theistic point of view
2:36:59 and certainly like christianity and also
2:37:01 islam pushes this point which is that
2:37:03 god created the universe and the world
2:37:05 with a particular system with a
2:37:06 particular order
2:37:08 so
2:37:09 for for christian science or muslim
2:37:11 scientists it was always a case of we
2:37:13 would investigate
2:37:14 what that order is what that pattern is
2:37:17 and so we're using the scientific method
2:37:19 which is predicated on this idea that
2:37:21 the universe is predictable and follows
2:37:23 patterns because we have a theological
2:37:26 justification for it yeah
2:37:29 so
2:37:30 this is why he doesn't realize that uh
2:37:33 you know
2:37:34 how religion how islam or you know like
2:37:37 your particular faith christianity how
2:37:39 it forms a particular foundation by
2:37:42 which we then operate yeah so they want
2:37:44 to take all the benefits quote-unquote
2:37:45 atheism
2:37:47 but then try to discard it at the end
2:37:50 that's very true too
2:37:51 and i've also observed with atheists
2:37:54 they reverse the roles
2:37:56 and the roles that they assign to
2:37:58 theists are the roles that they
2:38:01 themselves embrace
2:38:03 and the roles that they claim to embrace
2:38:05 or the roles that we actually fulfill
2:38:08 uh for instance they claim that our
2:38:10 faith is blind uh we we have faith in
2:38:13 things there's absolutely no evidence
2:38:15 for it
2:38:16 that's just a completely absurd
2:38:19 claim
2:38:20 uh i'm i'm sure you guys are like me you
2:38:23 have faith in what you've seen
2:38:26 your faith in god would be the same
2:38:28 faith that i have i believe that
2:38:30 the same faith when you when you're
2:38:32 walking to a light switch to flip that
2:38:34 light switch on
2:38:36 you're welcome to that switch in faith
2:38:38 you're about to flip that on you never
2:38:41 stop and question whether or not that
2:38:43 light is going to turn on you just walk
2:38:44 over there and flip it you know it's
2:38:46 going to turn on you have a trust
2:38:48 yes
2:38:49 it's not based on a lack of evidence
2:38:51 though
2:38:52 you do have reasons
2:38:54 for that approach towards a light switch
2:38:56 with faith that's right it's based on
2:38:58 what we've seen
2:38:59 it's not going to blow up or electrocute
2:39:01 you or harm you or in any way or that
2:39:03 it'll just turn on at all exactly
2:39:06 on the other hand you take the atheist
2:39:08 faith in a biogenesis
2:39:11 brother that's a that's that's a blind
2:39:13 faith
2:39:14 absolutely 100 i agree with you 100 eric
2:39:17 because i've used the argument as well
2:39:19 with atheists because atheists they say
2:39:21 oh well you know because they like the
2:39:23 reason why they like to have this
2:39:25 agnostic but call themselves atheists is
2:39:27 because they're trying to say we have no
2:39:29 metaphysical commitments we have no
2:39:31 beliefs
2:39:32 you know we're just neutral yeah we're
2:39:34 just trying to look for evidence and so
2:39:36 i always bring up a biogenesis point
2:39:38 here and i always say look
2:39:40 a biogenesis do you believe it's true or
2:39:43 not
2:39:44 and they think about it and then i
2:39:46 explain life from non-life or do you
2:39:49 think that it's always the case that
2:39:51 life as a result either directly or
2:39:53 indirectly was caused by something
2:39:55 that's living
2:39:56 then they'd have to say well yeah it has
2:39:58 to be a biogenesis okay what evidence
2:40:00 have you got zero okay so
2:40:03 you're basing it upon what your
2:40:06 metaphysical commitment of materialism
2:40:09 that ultimately everything is explained
2:40:11 by physical non-conscious non-living
2:40:14 matter
2:40:15 yeah and as soon as you explain to that
2:40:17 i think some of them they have a light
2:40:19 bulb movement and they oh yeah that's
2:40:21 true actually do make these uh these
2:40:24 leaps of faith when it comes to
2:40:26 uh you know certain beliefs about
2:40:28 materialism
2:40:30 um and so you see this a lot and i think
2:40:33 the problem with a lot of people is and
2:40:36 we can also fall into this is that we
2:40:38 don't realize what our hidden
2:40:39 assumptions are what our
2:40:41 presuppositions or metaphysical
2:40:43 commitments that we hold and that we
2:40:45 don't really question and it's about
2:40:47 getting to really understand that and
2:40:49 then
2:40:49 be critical of our own metaphysical
2:40:51 assumptions and obviously get atheists
2:40:53 to do that in order to realize where
2:40:55 their beliefs are
2:41:00 absolutely absolutely
2:41:02 yeah
2:41:03 i i think the atheist position is just
2:41:06 really one of
2:41:07 absurdity all the way around
2:41:09 uh the the claims that you actually hear
2:41:12 atheists make uh
2:41:14 are absurd like atheism isn't a belief
2:41:17 system i hear that all the time i say
2:41:20 absolutely atheism is not a belief
2:41:22 system in itself
2:41:24 but yet it corners you into a belief
2:41:26 system that you have to embrace you're
2:41:28 forced to embrace it you have no other
2:41:30 choice you can't believe in creation so
2:41:33 you have to believe in a biogenesis you
2:41:36 can't believe that god created after
2:41:38 animals after their own kind so you have
2:41:41 to believe in evolution even if you
2:41:42 never see one thing evolving into
2:41:44 another kind of animal
2:41:47 outside of their family for instance
2:41:49 uh if you choose family and genus and
2:41:52 species and that sort of thing
2:41:54 uh you just never see that and you can't
2:41:56 prove it in the fossil record they say
2:41:59 well we can prove common ancestors in
2:42:01 the fossil record well no you can't
2:42:03 you can hypothesize it
2:42:06 you can put it all on a phylogenetic
2:42:07 tree but that's all complete hypothesis
2:42:10 and now if you want to falsify that you
2:42:13 have to have the opportunity to prove it
2:42:15 false
2:42:16 potentially prove it false and you can't
2:42:19 do that without the dna you cannot test
2:42:22 these families
2:42:23 and then they say well morphology and i
2:42:25 say well
2:42:26 morphology is nothing dude uh
2:42:29 the dire wolf is a perfect example of
2:42:32 why you cannot uh use morphology to
2:42:35 assign an ancestry
2:42:37 we it was taught for decades that the
2:42:40 dire wolf was
2:42:41 an ancestor to
2:42:43 the wolf families
2:42:44 but now we know we have the dna from the
2:42:47 direwolf direwolf we've sequenced it
2:42:50 and they they've proven that it's a
2:42:53 completely different line
2:42:55 from our wolves so you know it's not the
2:42:58 ancestor of the wolves
2:43:00 so uh
2:43:01 you know the whole thing is completely
2:43:03 hypothetical and
2:43:05 there's just no way they can falsify any
2:43:07 of that so they are cornered into a
2:43:09 belief system
2:43:10 uh that they have to hold to
2:43:13 cool thank you eric i appreciate you
2:43:16 coming on and your support
2:43:18 uh for this channel
2:43:20 yeah
2:43:20 uh you know so you know really
2:43:22 appreciate you coming on we will go to
2:43:24 another guest uh but hopefully we'll
2:43:26 speak to you again and hopefully you'll
2:43:28 tune in again and subscribe to our
2:43:30 channel
2:43:31 um
2:43:32 now bye-bye okay excellent thanks all
2:43:34 right take care
2:43:37 uh what is that
2:43:39 oh
2:43:43 okay here we really interest
2:43:45 i did an up though
2:43:48 okay
2:43:56 i think he did it he did it quite a lot
2:43:58 when he first got his mic he was always
2:43:59 on youtube that was the first time come
2:44:01 on give me a break that was a good
2:44:03 couple of times
2:44:05 um
2:44:06 somebody in the chat mr john lee
2:44:09 uh let me he had an important comment
2:44:11 here that i wanted to put because i
2:44:13 think some people are gonna say this as
2:44:15 well
2:44:17 i'm a little disappointed that vine
2:44:18 hidden this hasn't been discussed at all
2:44:20 that's why
2:44:22 well i responded i posted a long message
2:44:25 uh
2:44:28 yeah i said look
2:44:30 john lee we spoke about it for the first
2:44:32 hour we explained what the argument is
2:44:35 and why we think it doesn't work we then
2:44:37 invited atheists on to defend the
2:44:39 argument unfortunately
2:44:41 none of them really agreed with the
2:44:43 divine hiddenness argument and went into
2:44:45 proof for god this is ultimately where
2:44:48 it will always go hence why divine
2:44:51 hiddenness isn't a good independent
2:44:53 argument against god
2:44:56 yeah i mean it's not what do you think
2:44:58 we can jump button
2:45:03 he's just saying that nobody came on to
2:45:05 really debate um divine hiddenness i
2:45:07 mean what do you want us to do
2:45:10 there's no one even in the back now yeah
2:45:12 it's not it's always good just for the
2:45:13 uh for the audience i think it's
2:45:15 evidence of the fact yeah i think it's
2:45:17 evidence of the fact that it's not a
2:45:20 good independent argument against god by
2:45:22 the fact that even the atheists that
2:45:24 came on didn't generally support it
2:45:26 and it always is going to go back into
2:45:29 proof for god anyway so it's yeah
2:45:32 so but like i was just going to say just
2:45:34 go and show you
2:45:36 i was just going to say before we forget
2:45:37 um carlos sent me
2:45:39 his
2:45:40 question oh i can't see the whole thing
2:45:43 um let me get rid of that thing at the
2:45:44 bottom
2:45:47 uh so the first thing he mentioned
2:45:50 uh was he was asking
2:45:51 about the difference between our current
2:45:54 times versus the people at the time who
2:45:56 benefited from miracles and revelation
2:45:59 so just in answer to that as well
2:46:01 i think one of the reasons is because
2:46:03 usually these miracles like sheriff
2:46:06 mentioned are associated with prophets
2:46:09 and we know um from the islamic
2:46:11 perspective for example that muhammad
2:46:13 allah is the final prophet and the final
2:46:15 messenger and if he is the final prophet
2:46:17 final message then it would make sense
2:46:19 as well from that perspective that there
2:46:21 wouldn't be any miracles as well
2:46:23 following on from him until those um
2:46:26 where the the antichrist or the digital
2:46:28 and those that have been prophesied
2:46:30 um have been mentioned and at that point
2:46:32 obviously these
2:46:34 miracles or these things that you see
2:46:37 um would be an evidence of the the times
2:46:40 that you're in i.e the end times that
2:46:43 the dajjal is there
2:46:44 and so the miracles here would then
2:46:46 obviously operate
2:46:47 in a very particular way and we're
2:46:49 waiting for that moment now
2:46:50 um and so within the islamic paradigm at
2:46:53 least um that's going to be a clue of a
2:46:56 particular moment in time and who we're
2:46:58 dealing with and that this person is a
2:47:00 false prophet
2:47:02 um that is the antichrist to the john
2:47:04 or a false messiah um
2:47:06 so i don't know if anyone wants to add
2:47:08 to that
2:47:09 or respond to that section in particular
2:47:12 i i don't know if you touched upon what
2:47:13 i said earlier because you want to
2:47:14 quickly reiterate that if you're looking
2:47:16 for the kind of miracle that is going to
2:47:17 be something repeatable and testable and
2:47:19 you know that every like every time you
2:47:21 pray for a million dollars it just pops
2:47:23 up in your living room that that was
2:47:25 never the concept of miracles so that
2:47:26 that's never going to be repeated
2:47:27 because it never happened but
2:47:29 so the idea is that miracles are also
2:47:31 going to be something that you know the
2:47:33 atheist is going to question and there
2:47:35 are you know claims to miracles these
2:47:38 days and the quran sort of has this
2:47:40 theme where although it does take
2:47:42 miracles seriously it reports them
2:47:44 also
2:47:45 it makes it clear that it itself the
2:47:47 quran itself is a sign for mankind and
2:47:51 puts forward the inimitability challenge
2:47:53 although although it does all that it it
2:47:55 kind of um
2:47:57 takes this this this request for
2:47:59 miracles very uh
2:48:01 like it almost it almost belittles it
2:48:04 like uh there there's a verse where
2:48:06 allah responds and says
2:48:09 and in their own selves right in the in
2:48:12 their own selves do they not look do
2:48:14 they not see right
2:48:17 it actually starts off with you know
2:48:19 signs of nature and everything and
2:48:22 speaks about
2:48:23 the world and says that you can look
2:48:25 around you and look within yourselves
2:48:27 and see the signs now granted i i know
2:48:29 you're not convinced with that carlos
2:48:31 but then the idea is that the evidence
2:48:35 is always going to be
2:48:37 in that way not not in not in the manner
2:48:39 that you're thinking that you know every
2:48:40 time you pray for a million dollars is
2:48:42 going to be there because then in that
2:48:43 way as i mentioned earlier it's not it's
2:48:45 not going to be
2:48:46 really a test your acts won't be morally
2:48:48 significant and the existence of god
2:48:50 would be as obvious as one plus one
2:48:52 equals two the whole world would be
2:48:53 praying for a million dollars and
2:48:54 getting it the existence of gold would
2:48:56 be as much a fact as anything
2:48:59 so you know considering there's eternal
2:49:01 hell out there
2:49:03 there is no morally significant act you
2:49:06 can do because you got the gun to your
2:49:07 head and it's a it's not just a gun to
2:49:09 your head it's eternal hell that you can
2:49:11 see you can witness every day in your
2:49:12 living room so i mean if that's what
2:49:15 you're asking for then it kind of
2:49:16 defeats the purpose of the uh
2:49:20 the theistic narrative
2:49:22 so yeah so
2:49:24 so miracles are more signs and that's
2:49:26 really the word used in the quran it's a
2:49:28 sign it's always going to be a sign
2:49:30 and the sign of something is not going
2:49:32 to be the thing itself so yeah i didn't
2:49:35 think on the issue of the quran being a
2:49:37 living miracle obviously we believe it's
2:49:39 a miracle but the problem is is that
2:49:41 you have to study it yeah uh what the
2:49:45 the quranic claim is and
2:49:47 just like for example when it comes to
2:49:49 the belief in a creator you have to
2:49:50 think about it deeply so the same thing
2:49:52 with the quran you know if you
2:49:54 understand
2:49:56 you would understand
2:49:58 you know how you construct meaningful
2:50:00 sentences you would understand
2:50:06 um
2:50:08 sorry so you understand these these
2:50:11 sciences that the quran has and uh
2:50:13 utilizes and how these are beyond but
2:50:15 like i said it requires
2:50:17 some further investigation and you know
2:50:20 i encourage a lot of muslims to do that
2:50:22 but going back to the specific part the
2:50:25 first pathway says that uh i think he
2:50:28 was addressed to jake about uh temporal
2:50:31 cause and eternal effect and he's saying
2:50:33 well we don't have any you know we don't
2:50:36 have what is what was he saying he was
2:50:38 saying we don't have sufficient evidence
2:50:40 he doesn't think we can make claims uh
2:50:43 yeah can you can you go back to the
2:50:45 image here
2:50:46 yes um
2:50:48 at the bottom he said essentially using
2:50:50 epistemology to come to ontological
2:50:52 conclusions is a category error
2:50:55 this is something i've alluded to before
2:50:57 therefore a natural unconscious
2:50:59 necessary existence as the cause of our
2:51:03 temporal
2:51:04 universe is not a logical impossibility
2:51:07 um yeah like when he his statement there
2:51:10 using epistemology to come to
2:51:12 ontological conclusions is a category
2:51:14 error
2:51:15 this is just t jump man this is this guy
2:51:18 you watch listen
2:51:20 listen i'm gonna tell you something uh
2:51:22 carlos you seem like a nice enough guy
2:51:24 buddy
2:51:25 but stop watching t jump you got a
2:51:28 better chance watching cartoons and then
2:51:31 coming up with something meaningful than
2:51:33 watching t jump i'm sorry to tell you
2:51:35 and i can see it in your statements
2:51:38 uh the things that you say
2:51:40 i watch and i've heard enough t-jump to
2:51:43 see that you're regurgitating t jumps
2:51:46 rubbish and nonsense so please stop
2:51:49 watching t jump watch some more tap
2:51:51 and and maybe we can get further but the
2:51:53 the point the point here is is that
2:51:57 the statement you're making about oh
2:52:00 using epistemology to talk about
2:52:02 ontology
2:52:03 well that's what you're doing even what
2:52:06 uh abdul mentioned earlier about the
2:52:08 problem of other minds or the reality of
2:52:11 the external world what do you think
2:52:13 you're doing do you think that other
2:52:15 minds exist do you think that i'm
2:52:17 talking to you right now do you think
2:52:19 that the external world is real well if
2:52:21 you do
2:52:22 what does that tell you
2:52:25 that tells you that you're making
2:52:27 ontological statements based on your own
2:52:30 epistemology i.e what seems to be the
2:52:33 case or what seems to be evidence for x
2:52:36 is evidence for x and it seems that x is
2:52:39 true that's what you're doing when you
2:52:41 have these philosophical conclusions
2:52:43 about other things so the problem is is
2:52:46 that now you're using that for other
2:52:48 things but once it comes to this other
2:52:50 thing you're inconsistent you don't want
2:52:52 to apply it there you don't want to say
2:52:55 oh what seems to be the case actually
2:52:57 probably is the case because you're
2:52:59 uncomfortable with the conclusion that
2:53:01 it's going to lead to and i'm sorry but
2:53:03 that's just inconsistent and and that
2:53:06 statement once again is just t-jump
2:53:09 nonsense yeah i think
2:53:11 just to reiterate that point as well is
2:53:13 that you gotta have if as best as
2:53:16 possible anyway consistency in your
2:53:18 epistemology so if you're gonna if
2:53:20 you're gonna hold certain views so for
2:53:22 example like abdul gave the example that
2:53:25 we come to the conclusion of other minds
2:53:27 because indeterminate acts of an
2:53:29 individual or a body yeah so a
2:53:32 non-determinate act of a body will
2:53:34 conclude that the person has
2:53:36 will yeah as agent causation they cause
2:53:40 what they want to do
2:53:42 so if you're going to use that now
2:53:44 you're going to use it consistently yeah
2:53:46 you can't use it in one respect to infer
2:53:49 other minds of other human beings or
2:53:52 animals and then say well
2:53:54 does this it's not a category error like
2:53:56 how are you going to split it's a
2:53:57 category because though the whole just
2:54:00 just one thing to say about the whole
2:54:01 epistemology thing is
2:54:03 watch all as i don't do echo chambers
2:54:05 i'm not telling you to do an echo
2:54:07 chamber but i'm telling you not to watch
2:54:09 t-jump so there's a difference you don't
2:54:11 have to you don't have to do echo
2:54:13 chambers and we don't do echo chambers
2:54:16 we invite people like you guys on
2:54:18 uh i don't do echo chambers either i go
2:54:20 on clubhouse i talk to hindus atheists
2:54:25 yeah all different kind of stuff
2:54:27 yeah
2:54:28 just a point on the whole epistemology
2:54:30 thing i mean
2:54:31 there there there aren't really too many
2:54:34 options about how
2:54:36 uh the universe or the cosmos or the
2:54:38 contingent contingent reality could have
2:54:40 come into being right sure i mean in
2:54:42 terms of how uh you know that
2:54:45 mechanistically or physically may have
2:54:47 happened or what the actual
2:54:49 mechanistic explanation is if there is
2:54:51 one
2:54:52 of course there could be like an endless
2:54:54 number of explanations but then in terms
2:54:56 of like purely logical categories there
2:54:58 aren't so many options i mean if you're
2:54:59 either going to say
2:55:01 you can be agnostic about it but then
2:55:02 you can you can be gnostic and still say
2:55:04 that it's either going to be some kind
2:55:05 of brute contingency as in like they're
2:55:08 just there's just this contingent
2:55:10 reality that is you know
2:55:12 has
2:55:13 its arbitrary limits it could have been
2:55:15 otherwise it has these properties these
2:55:19 similar properties to other things that
2:55:21 we identify as contingent or it's going
2:55:23 to be something that's not that right so
2:55:25 it's either that or it's not that right
2:55:28 now if it's that if it's if it has the
2:55:31 same properties of contingent things
2:55:32 then
2:55:33 it might boil down to intuition but then
2:55:36 i mean
2:55:37 if if you say the the
2:55:39 just to give it an example to simplify
2:55:41 it if you say that
2:55:43 the necessary existence or the
2:55:46 explanation for for reality is some
2:55:48 red ball right so it's a very
2:55:51 arbitrary thing it's just random it's
2:55:53 and it's arbitrary limited right and it
2:55:55 has these certain limited causal powers
2:55:58 well i think epistemically from from our
2:56:01 epistemic viewpoint at least right
2:56:03 we're going to look at that we're going
2:56:04 to look at these certain properties and
2:56:06 we're going to ask the very same
2:56:07 questions we ask about things around us
2:56:10 and and science you you might want to
2:56:12 say that you know
2:56:13 um it could not happen it could be it
2:56:17 could be the case that it doesn't have
2:56:18 an explanation but that isn't how we
2:56:20 think so at least from an epistemic
2:56:22 perspective it's going to be analogous
2:56:24 to us looking at the reality around us
2:56:27 and maybe looking at a certain
2:56:29 phenomenon and somebody coming and
2:56:30 telling you hey there is no explanation
2:56:32 beyond it right it's it's it's there's
2:56:34 no explanation to to this thing and the
2:56:37 properties it hasn't and i think even
2:56:38 scientists uh
2:56:40 especially cosmologists they don't like
2:56:42 these answers they don't like these
2:56:43 arbitrary answers they i think we
2:56:45 fundamentally assume there's an
2:56:46 explanation right
2:56:48 and and you can say what everyone you
2:56:50 could say that assumption is based on
2:56:51 experience you could take an empirical
2:56:53 route whatever it is you do
2:56:56 that second option because there i think
2:56:58 there are two options it's either a
2:57:00 contingent reality as a whole
2:57:03 or a
2:57:04 non-contingent reality so contingent
2:57:06 explanation brute contingency or
2:57:08 necessity and i think that first one
2:57:11 whatever
2:57:12 you know causal principle or explanatory
2:57:14 principle you have in your epistemology
2:57:17 it's it's always going to uh you know be
2:57:21 the same as
2:57:22 us looking at something in reality
2:57:25 and
2:57:26 you know uh positing that there might
2:57:28 not be an explanation for it
2:57:30 i mean on the atheistic view that the
2:57:32 brute contingency is all there is
2:57:34 but then a lot of us don't do that
2:57:37 i'm just trying to be very modest
2:57:41 here i mean as philosophers and and and
2:57:43 physicists cosmologists
2:57:45 when it comes to ultimate explanations
2:57:47 we don't do that because whenever we
2:57:49 look at something that is limited
2:57:51 whenever we look at something that has
2:57:52 certain
2:57:53 arbitrary properties we
2:57:55 explain
2:57:56 we try to look for an explanation and
2:57:58 you might say well everything we
2:57:59 experience has arbitrary properties and
2:58:01 so so it's inductive well that's the
2:58:02 whole point the whole point is that
2:58:05 that's how we operate
2:58:06 so i think with that first option it's
2:58:09 just in principle i mean you don't need
2:58:11 to wait for future investigations in
2:58:13 principle you couldn't be faced with a
2:58:15 situation
2:58:16 where that
2:58:19 you know naturalistic
2:58:21 necessary thing a hypothetical
2:58:22 naturalistic necessary thing isn't
2:58:25 looked at from our human perspective in
2:58:27 the same epis with the same epistemic
2:58:29 lens as we look at other contingent
2:58:31 things it's just the same it's just it's
2:58:33 an in-principle thing really considering
2:58:36 it's it's it's the same well i think
2:58:38 that many of us will go for that second
2:58:40 option and say wait a second
2:58:42 that has an explanation
2:58:44 i don't even care if you just call it
2:58:46 intuition it's just being consistent i
2:58:47 think in my in my own view and
2:58:50 then
2:58:51 the necessary explanation is going to be
2:58:53 a necessary thing and then from there
2:58:56 you're going to
2:58:58 move towards these discussions about
2:59:00 will and other minds and you know
2:59:02 eternal cause finite uh effect all these
2:59:06 kinds of stuff but to say we can't know
2:59:08 anything
2:59:09 well i i think the issue is we already
2:59:11 know stuff that's direct that are
2:59:13 directly related to the things we as
2:59:16 theists claim to know about ultimate
2:59:17 reality it's it's it's actually stems
2:59:20 from these very basic things we know
2:59:23 and it's directly analogous to the
2:59:25 claims we make about ultimate reality so
2:59:27 i think this this extreme skepticism
2:59:28 fine you can be skeptical
2:59:30 that it's your prerogative and even on
2:59:32 the islamic view if you know if you're
2:59:33 sincere and you just can't see it i i
2:59:35 have no problem with that but to say we
2:59:37 can't say anything well i i just think
2:59:39 that's
2:59:40 blatantly false even from an atheistic
2:59:42 perspective a lot of people would argue
2:59:43 that you know uh evolution evolution uh
2:59:46 evolutionarily speaking we have evolved
2:59:49 to believe in god so the intuition is
2:59:52 there but i'm not just speaking about
2:59:53 intuition here i'm speaking about the
2:59:54 foundation of our epistemology and how
2:59:56 it directly links to the claims that we
3:00:00 uh do make as theists about ultimate
3:00:02 reality so um
3:00:04 yeah i think also just
3:00:06 from
3:00:07 consistency point of view from just
3:00:09 saying okay
3:00:10 we observe
3:00:12 things
3:00:13 that are not causally caused to act
3:00:16 we infer will
3:00:18 so
3:00:19 just from an inductive point of view it
3:00:22 makes sense that if we come to a
3:00:23 conclusion of a necessary being that
3:00:26 causesly
3:00:28 causes an act we're going to infer will
3:00:31 you have you have warrant
3:00:33 to hold that position and that's why i
3:00:35 said
3:00:36 on what basis is he justifying that the
3:00:40 the necessary being doesn't have a will
3:00:42 he has to have an explanation for that
3:00:43 now if he's being on this fence and he's
3:00:45 saying i'm agnostic and on the one hand
3:00:48 you've got four five six arguments
3:00:50 saying there is a will
3:00:52 and he has not one defeater to those
3:00:54 arguments
3:00:55 then he should be on the position of
3:00:57 saying well actually
3:00:59 my inclinations would be the necessary
3:01:02 being has a will and therefore is a god
3:01:04 that's where his position that's where
3:01:07 the the following of the argument and
3:01:08 the evidence should uh should push him
3:01:11 towards
3:01:14 yep and uh
3:01:16 so i think
3:01:18 i think considering we have no more
3:01:20 guests and yeah
3:01:22 yeah last thing here philosophy is
3:01:24 epistemology and on its own are just
3:01:26 hypotheses science is the next step from
3:01:29 a hypothesis no it's not i mean that's
3:01:32 it's just wrong bro i mean even your
3:01:34 statement right there
3:01:36 like that of epistemology i mean i mean
3:01:39 it's wait i mean the argument itself
3:01:40 isn't epistemology you use a certain
3:01:42 argument
3:01:43 you use this technology to make a
3:01:45 strategically just saying just talking
3:01:47 philosophy doesn't get you anywhere
3:01:48 that's his point you need scientific
3:01:50 confirmation for uh philosophical points
3:01:54 that's basically what he's doing yeah
3:01:55 yeah and the point is
3:01:57 like like like in science is science
3:02:00 relies on rational inference as well
3:02:02 right so i mean what so you want an
3:02:03 empirical basis for this stuff we're
3:02:05 talking about well there is an empirical
3:02:06 basis everything around you so we make
3:02:08 rational inferences from that doesn't
3:02:10 make it scientific because it doesn't it
3:02:12 doesn't you know adhere to the
3:02:13 methodology but i'm saying he's not
3:02:14 consistent with that abdul he does so
3:02:16 many he believes in so many things
3:02:18 without scientific confirmation yes yes
3:02:21 like other minds and
3:02:22 external world realism and stuff like
3:02:23 that yep
3:02:25 um yeah so so i so i think we've went on
3:02:28 for a bit and we've really got off topic
3:02:29 because i think
3:02:31 most of our atheist guests didn't really
3:02:32 challenge the argument
3:02:34 um so i think
3:02:36 if you guys have any last words uh you
3:02:39 can go for it and then and then we can
3:02:40 end the stream yeah the divine
3:02:42 hiddenness argument is bunk it's it's
3:02:44 terrible
3:02:46 i think that was demonstrated by the
3:02:48 fact that nobody really came on even the
3:02:51 atheists to come on and defend the
3:02:53 argument and uh it's based on
3:02:56 assumptions that we're free to reject
3:02:58 and again it just points back to whether
3:03:00 or not there actually is sufficient
3:03:02 evidence for god
3:03:04 and in that case it doesn't really it's
3:03:06 not even a tiebreaker it doesn't even
3:03:08 really operate in any meaningful way in
3:03:11 the philosophical discussion mr ray
3:03:14 but uh yeah yeah i mean i i'd give it
3:03:16 second place after
3:03:18 after the problem of evil and um i mean
3:03:21 reason reason uh reason for that is
3:03:23 because well if you if you look at it
3:03:24 just in a vacuum if you you just think
3:03:26 of hey this is an intelligent uh a god
3:03:29 who is all loving
3:03:31 and and you know you look at a world
3:03:33 where there are non-resisting
3:03:34 non-believers well that in a vacuum fine
3:03:36 okay you wouldn't you wouldn't expect
3:03:38 that that thought alone doesn't predict
3:03:40 that but i mean that's not the whole
3:03:42 story really if you if it's if it's a
3:03:44 critique of theism i think you need to
3:03:46 take the theistic narrative into account
3:03:48 uh use of uh any final words
3:03:51 uh no no i think we've covered pretty
3:03:53 much everything i'm happy to
3:03:56 leave it there okay sharif
3:03:59 any final words okay
3:04:01 everybody for joining thank you so much
3:04:03 for joining thanks to the panelists
3:04:05 thanks to everybody and
3:04:07 inshaallah will see you in two weeks
3:04:08 time
3:04:14 for me
3:04:20Music 3:04:24 ah
3:04:41 you