SPECIAL: Aron Ra Discusses With Muslims If a Necessary Being Exists | Thought Adventure Podcast (2021-04-28) ​

0:00:06Music 0:00:08 i am
0:00:34 thank you for joining us once again in
0:00:36 this thought adventure podcast today
0:00:39 we have a very special episode where
0:00:40 we'll be talking to
0:00:42 our guest here aaron raw about whether a
0:00:45 necessary
0:00:46 being exists aaron is an extremely
0:00:49 well-known atheist he's an activist he
0:00:51 has
0:00:51 he's a podcaster he has a youtube
0:00:53 channel where he discusses
0:00:55 a lot of topics about religion
0:00:57 philosophy atheism
0:00:59 science and we're hoping this is going
0:01:02 to be a good discussion
0:01:03 good to have you here aaron thank you
0:01:05 very much and to the panelist assalamu
0:01:07 alaikum
0:01:07 how's it going
0:01:11 now arn maybe you can give us like a
0:01:12 brief intro about yourself
0:01:14 what you do uh your views and then we
0:01:17 can get right into it
0:01:19 well i'm a uh i'm a secular advocate i'm
0:01:21 an activist advocating for
0:01:23 science uh secular science and education
0:01:26 and also
0:01:27 secular policies in politics which of
0:01:29 course in the united states
0:01:31 of late has been quite a challenge
0:01:36 cool okay so um this discussion
0:01:40 is titled uh does a necessary being
0:01:42 exist
0:01:43 and of course we we we know it's highly
0:01:46 unlikely that you know
0:01:47 um aaron's gonna come out of this
0:01:49 discussion believing in god or that
0:01:52 jake sharif or i will will you know get
0:01:55 convinced in the opposite direction
0:01:57 but in order for this discussion to be
0:01:59 as intellectually fruitful as possible
0:02:02 we need to structure it in a way where
0:02:04 we can
0:02:05 lay out you know our views on the table
0:02:09 uh define our terms and uh try to
0:02:13 understand our respective epistemic
0:02:15 frameworks and deconstruct
0:02:17 the opposing views from there uh so that
0:02:20 we can actually
0:02:21 try to get somewhere uh so i guess
0:02:24 um uh yeah i mean that that is a
0:02:27 difficult goal to achieve but
0:02:29 if if if we go about it in the right way
0:02:32 and if we
0:02:32 sort of address the right questions and
0:02:34 the foundations
0:02:36 of this discussion keeping in mind that
0:02:38 we are
0:02:39 coming from different frameworks
0:02:41 different epistemic frameworks different
0:02:43 worldviews
0:02:44 we need to try to come to as common as
0:02:47 much common ground as possible so that
0:02:48 we can move forward
0:02:50 with the discussion in an intellectually
0:02:52 meaningful
0:02:53 uh manner uh so um i guess we can start
0:02:57 uh by
0:02:57 by asking uh uh aaron some questions
0:03:00 and i prepared some questions here so
0:03:02 that i can try to achieve that goal
0:03:04 uh we can try to achieve that goal in
0:03:06 this stream to the best of our ability
0:03:08 um so i i first want to ask aron about
0:03:11 his views well
0:03:13 is he a hard atheist a soft atheist
0:03:15 agnostic something else
0:03:18 all right well for the longest time i
0:03:20 was agnostic
0:03:22 the in that i didn't have a belief in
0:03:24 god and the belief
0:03:25 then i and i i left open maybe the
0:03:28 possibility
0:03:29 but now i understand that there's not
0:03:31 even a possibility literally
0:03:33 and so i i and all we have is evidence
0:03:36 that god has been made up
0:03:38 so my belief in god is now about the
0:03:41 same as your belief in leprechauns
0:03:43 it's not just that they don't exist but
0:03:45 they can't exist
0:03:48 okay and this like so so you're you're
0:03:50 defining yourself as a hard atheist and
0:03:52 this is
0:03:53 generally with regard to like a the
0:03:55 proposition for if i give you a
0:03:56 proposition
0:03:57 a necessary being exists are you saying
0:04:00 that you
0:04:01 are um you believe that that proposition
0:04:05 is outright false
0:04:06 right there's there's no such thing as a
0:04:08 necessary being the better question is
0:04:10 god
0:04:10 would be is god really necessary and i
0:04:13 don't even think that's a
0:04:14 that's a valid question there's no
0:04:16 indication of god
0:04:17 there's no possibility of god it's just
0:04:20 something we made up to feel comfortable
0:04:22 somehow
0:04:25 well okay since this discussion revolves
0:04:28 around our knowledge of
0:04:30 this specific proposition i'm putting
0:04:32 forward here
0:04:34 let me ask you about your epistemology
0:04:38 so in your view what are the acceptable
0:04:41 methods out there that we possess
0:04:42 as humans in order to come to know
0:04:44 anything
0:04:45 um um that must it be observable
0:04:49 uh can we can we infer things about the
0:04:52 unobservable what's your epistemology
0:04:54 how do you come to know things that's
0:04:56 going to help us
0:04:58 know how you've come to know that this
0:05:00 proposition is false
0:05:03 well a lot of people will think that
0:05:04 because they believe something
0:05:06 is the same thing as knowing it and that
0:05:09 i call that the fourth foundational
0:05:10 falsehood of creationism
0:05:12 that you can't actually if you can't
0:05:14 demonstrate the accuracy of your claims
0:05:16 to any degree at all
0:05:18 by any means whatsoever then you
0:05:21 can't actually know what you merely
0:05:23 believe
0:05:24 so you have to be able to show that
0:05:26 there's some truth to it
0:05:28 and if you can't show that there's a
0:05:29 truth to it that doesn't necessarily
0:05:30 mean
0:05:31 that it's false it just means there's no
0:05:34 truth you can show for it
0:05:36 and so you could leave open the
0:05:37 possibility if there is a possibility to
0:05:39 consider
0:05:40 but don't allow yourself to be convinced
0:05:42 by it you have to show me that there's a
0:05:44 there there
0:05:45 yeah but i guess our my question was
0:05:47 more along the lines of how do we come
0:05:50 to the conclusion that something is real
0:05:53 or not
0:05:54 provided we both think that we have
0:05:56 we're approaching this from like an
0:05:58 evidentialist
0:05:59 uh we have an evidentialist approach to
0:06:01 this that we believe we need to have
0:06:03 reasons and we need to show that our
0:06:04 beliefs are true so what i'm asking you
0:06:06 is
0:06:08 what is the epistemological framework
0:06:10 you're committed to
0:06:11 in you know determining whether
0:06:13 something is true or not
0:06:16 what i just said i mean if you want to
0:06:18 if you want to make a claim
0:06:19 okay i don't care what you believe all i
0:06:21 care is why you believe it
0:06:23 so so show me the facts and evidence
0:06:26 that
0:06:26 imply that that indicate that that is at
0:06:28 least a possibility and and
0:06:30 it should be a probability so
0:06:33 show me that but how can i show it to
0:06:36 you when you're not giving me a mean so
0:06:37 i agree with you in one sense that i
0:06:39 need to show you
0:06:40 i need to provide you with evidence or i
0:06:42 need to show you that
0:06:44 a certain belief that i have is likely
0:06:46 to more likely to be true than not
0:06:48 but then what i'm asking for is what you
0:06:51 regard as evidence what you regard as
0:06:54 justifiable reasons to regard
0:06:57 such a belief as true okay so you're
0:06:59 asking for a definition of evidence
0:07:02 a party of objectives verifiable facts
0:07:05 that are positively indicative of and or
0:07:07 exclusively concordant with
0:07:09 one available position or hypothesis
0:07:11 over any other
0:07:12 how are you defining facts here i just
0:07:14 said objectively verifiable data
0:07:18 no but it's you said objectively
0:07:19 verifiable facts but you don't need to
0:07:21 define redundant it's a bit redundant
0:07:23 because people don't understand the
0:07:24 reason i say that is because people
0:07:26 don't understand that the word fact
0:07:27 is already objectively verifiable data
0:07:31 so so it's not just because you say it's
0:07:33 a fact it's a fact when we can show that
0:07:34 it's a fact
0:07:36 is the law of non-contradiction a fact
0:07:39 i don't know if that qualifies as a fact
0:07:41 we we put this together we
0:07:43 analyze the universe in properties of it
0:07:46 and we try to work out the laws of those
0:07:48 that universe when when we
0:07:50 summarize by a mathematical equation or
0:07:52 a summary statement
0:07:54 what we think the properties of the
0:07:55 universe are we have gotten them wrong
0:07:58 before so it's our best estimation yeah
0:08:01 so so so the statement uh something
0:08:04 x cannot be both x and not x at the same
0:08:07 time in the same way that's not a fact
0:08:08 about reality
0:08:10 i would say that that i'm certainly
0:08:12 going to adhere to that but if it's
0:08:13 something that we worked out about the
0:08:14 universe again
0:08:15 it's up to human foibles i'm going to
0:08:18 say that to the
0:08:19 extent of our knowledge no you can't be
0:08:21 something in both not be that something
0:08:25 okay so i mean i guess i get i guess
0:08:28 i guess because for you i know you
0:08:31 appreciate science right and you value
0:08:32 science for a lot right
0:08:34 and uh the idea here is that science is
0:08:38 based on certain
0:08:39 logical frameworks and philosophical
0:08:41 presuppositions
0:08:42 and the discussion about what uh sorry
0:08:45 philosophical underpinnings
0:08:47 uh the discussion about what evidence
0:08:50 is is really a philosophical discussion
0:08:56 it's because you don't have any
0:08:58 experiment to answer that question you
0:09:00 don't have any
0:09:01 uh you can't take me to a lab and show
0:09:03 me under a microscope what evidence is
0:09:05 you need to define it first in order to
0:09:07 regard whatever you're going to show me
0:09:09 as evidence
0:09:10 so you need to have a certain epistemic
0:09:13 framework
0:09:14 prior to your your scientific
0:09:17 investigation
0:09:18 in order to regard anything at all as
0:09:20 evidence okay
0:09:22 so it's a philosophical exercise so i
0:09:24 guess what i'm asking the reason i'm
0:09:25 asking you what a fact is
0:09:27 is because we might disagree on that too
0:09:29 so you're saying an objectively
0:09:30 verifiable
0:09:31 fact and i'm asking if you're verifiable
0:09:34 data
0:09:36 uh a fact is objectively verifiable data
0:09:39 so the laws of non-con the law of
0:09:41 non-contradiction for example the laws
0:09:43 of logic mathematics
0:09:45 and the the philosophical underpinnings
0:09:48 of science
0:09:48 these are not facts we can take
0:09:50 mathematics
0:09:51 to be fact
0:09:55 okay uh so so
0:09:58 your view would you sorry really sorry
0:10:00 really quickly would you take the law of
0:10:01 non-contradiction as the data point
0:10:04 is that how we came to the conclusion or
0:10:06 how you came to the conclusion
0:10:08 about uh you know the law of
0:10:11 non-contradiction
0:10:13 i'm not sure about the question so i'm
0:10:16 saying
0:10:16 this is a either we use the logical
0:10:19 axioms
0:10:20 in order to interpret the data which
0:10:23 basically means it comes prior to
0:10:25 the observation or we're saying that the
0:10:28 logical axioms or these logical
0:10:30 principles
0:10:31 come after our observation
0:10:34 of the universe so i'm saying the law of
0:10:37 non-contradiction
0:10:39 which you agreed is generally what you
0:10:41 accept
0:10:42 because it comes through the data
0:10:46 my question about it being a fact is
0:10:48 whether it's objectively verifiable
0:10:50 i would assume that you know i'm happy
0:10:52 to assume
0:10:53 that it's true but i don't know how we
0:10:55 would verify that
0:10:57 i think we just have to assume that it's
0:10:58 true so in essence what you're saying is
0:11:00 that you will only believe in something
0:11:02 which is
0:11:03 demonstrable from the point of view of
0:11:06 empirically demonstrable
0:11:08 if it's not empirically demonstrable
0:11:10 then
0:11:11 you can't justify it as a fact or in
0:11:13 evidence
0:11:14 i can believe that something is likely
0:11:16 to be the case because when i say i
0:11:17 believe something i mean
0:11:19 i think i mean something different than
0:11:20 when a believer says that
0:11:22 if i say that i believe something i mean
0:11:24 that this is what i suspect to be true
0:11:26 or closest to the truth
0:11:28 but that i don't know it is because i
0:11:30 can't show that it is
0:11:31 whereas a believer will simply say that
0:11:33 you express their belief
0:11:34 as knowledge and say that they know that
0:11:37 it is because they believe that it is
0:11:39 yeah i don't think either any of us here
0:11:41 believes that you know we should believe
0:11:43 in something just because
0:11:44 we claim we believe in it and that's
0:11:46 simply enough
0:11:47 i think the issue is this is that when
0:11:49 we when we need to analyze this question
0:11:50 about a necessary being and obviously
0:11:52 you hold on to the hard
0:11:53 atheist position that there is
0:11:55 definitely no way uh
0:11:56 necessary being the question then
0:11:58 becomes okay we've got this would
0:12:00 be necessary uh what what do you mean
0:12:02 why would it be necessary
0:12:04 why would it be necessary so do you know
0:12:06 what a necessary being would be
0:12:08 what what that what that refers to
0:12:12 no i'm asking you okay so necessary
0:12:14 being means of that which exists
0:12:16 and couldn't be any other way yeah
0:12:19 so when we talk about a necessary being
0:12:21 we're saying that there's something that
0:12:22 exists
0:12:23 as a foundation to reality that has to
0:12:26 be
0:12:27 and couldn't be any other particular way
0:12:29 which is contrasted to something
0:12:31 which we call a possible or contingent
0:12:33 being
0:12:37 are you aware of these terms yeah i've
0:12:39 heard them before they're just nonsense
0:12:43 because why would you say that so badly
0:12:45 for there to be this being that you're
0:12:47 going to deem it necessary
0:12:49 when it's clearly not and not involved
0:12:52 not only is it not necessary but it's
0:12:53 not relevant
0:12:54 do you understand what being means in
0:12:56 this and in the in the term
0:12:58 what you mean by it how how are you
0:13:01 interpreting it in your own head
0:13:03 how are you interpreting this idea if
0:13:07 i would say something that exists and
0:13:09 also has consciousness
0:13:10 right so in philosophy we normally when
0:13:13 we talk about being we're talking about
0:13:14 that which exists
0:13:16 so we say necessary being or contingent
0:13:18 being we're talking about something that
0:13:20 has to exist
0:13:21 yeah it doesn't give a particular
0:13:23 ontology about consciousness or not
0:13:25 that's a separate discussion
0:13:27 but when we talk again about contingent
0:13:29 being we're talking about something that
0:13:30 possibly exists or it could exist in
0:13:33 another way
0:13:34 is that clear because it's quite
0:13:36 important because
0:13:37 if you say well nestling being doesn't
0:13:39 exist
0:13:40 then you need to be able to understand
0:13:42 what necessary means and also what being
0:13:44 means
0:13:44 in that context because of that and also
0:13:46 it goes back to the other discussion
0:13:48 which then becomes about
0:13:50 evidence and proofs used to justify
0:13:54 the existence for this necessary
0:13:57 existence or necessary thing that must
0:13:59 exist and cannot exist in any other way
0:14:02 does that make sense so so the point
0:14:04 that i was mentioning earlier
0:14:06 is if what we say or what you're saying
0:14:09 specifically
0:14:10 is that the only evidence that you see
0:14:12 to justify your position is that which
0:14:14 is
0:14:15 demonstrable from an empirical point of
0:14:17 view
0:14:18 yeah then in essence you're saying
0:14:20 anything that's outside of empiricism
0:14:23 cannot be you know established or
0:14:25 concluded
0:14:26 even to the least amount of doubt we're
0:14:28 not talking about being absolutist in
0:14:30 our knowledge or being absolutely
0:14:32 certain
0:14:32 but just simply saying that we have a
0:14:34 cell set of data
0:14:36 we come to certain conclusions is that
0:14:38 right then so basically
0:14:39 evidence for you fact data that allows
0:14:42 you to conclude
0:14:43 is only that which is demonstrably on an
0:14:46 empirical basis
0:14:48 well i would put it another way i mean
0:14:50 if if you can't
0:14:51 know something then you can't know it
0:14:55 yeah so the only yeah the only way we
0:14:57 can know something
0:14:58 is through empiricism that's what you're
0:15:00 saying as i said before if you can't
0:15:02 verify the accuracy of your claims
0:15:04 to any degree at all by any means
0:15:06 whatsoever
0:15:07 then there's no way to show what you
0:15:09 know there's no way to test your
0:15:10 knowledge
0:15:12 okay so let me just ask a question
0:15:14 because
0:15:15 we were talking about the law of
0:15:17 non-contradiction earlier
0:15:19 and you seem to say that you affirmed it
0:15:22 in the sense that that's how you use it
0:15:24 to operate
0:15:25 and to live by but
0:15:28 on the other hand it seemed like you
0:15:30 also said that we couldn't demonstrate
0:15:33 that the law of non-contradiction is
0:15:35 actually a true
0:15:36 principle um so i'm wondering
0:15:39 what you know sort of the connection
0:15:41 between those two things are
0:15:43 because if it can't be demonstrated
0:15:46 why are you at the same time taking it
0:15:49 uh
0:15:50 or believing in it i guess you would say
0:15:51 that you believe in it but you don't
0:15:53 know that it's true
0:15:55 i'm happy to assume that it's true i can
0:15:57 say that i know it's true to the to the
0:15:59 degree
0:16:00 that we can't show that it's false i
0:16:03 mean there's there's no way how do you
0:16:04 how do you falsify that you would have
0:16:05 to show something that is both it
0:16:07 itself and not itself yeah so we're not
0:16:10 going to have that
0:16:12 yes but i mean philosophical
0:16:15 philosophical conversations are just
0:16:16 completely lost on me i mean
0:16:18 i i'm waiting for the meat okay but
0:16:21 philosophical conversation they just
0:16:23 never show up
0:16:24 yeah so but the issue though is if you
0:16:26 if you have falsifiability as a
0:16:28 principle
0:16:29 in order to as you said demonstrate
0:16:32 something or
0:16:33 in order to have knowledge of it then
0:16:36 even by your own admission of what you
0:16:37 just said
0:16:38 we could never really have knowledge of
0:16:41 the law of non-contradiction and knowing
0:16:43 that it's true
0:16:45 because it can't be false i said we
0:16:47 can't verify it
0:16:49 as a fact we can we can assume it is a
0:16:51 fact but how would you test that
0:16:52 and i'm happy to assume that it is a
0:16:54 fact so then you're looking for the
0:16:56 relevance
0:16:57 so then you think that we can assume
0:16:59 that certain things are fact
0:17:01 without having knowledge of them and
0:17:03 that's okay
0:17:04 don't we have knowledge of that well i
0:17:07 thought you just said that we don't
0:17:10 i said that when you don't find
0:17:11 something as a fact because it's
0:17:13 objectively verifiable
0:17:14 how do you objectively verify that
0:17:16 something can be
0:17:18 and both can't be what it is right so if
0:17:21 if that's
0:17:22 if the standard for fact
0:17:25 we can still use the word knowledge
0:17:26 because we don't have we have we have
0:17:28 examples of things being what they are
0:17:30 we have no possibility of it not being
0:17:33 what it is
0:17:34 so then when we don't have that then we
0:17:36 can establish okay yeah then
0:17:38 that has to be true right well that that
0:17:40 would be considered
0:17:41 a necessary being or a necessary fact
0:17:46 yes it would because you just said it
0:17:47 couldn't possibly be another way
0:17:50 which means that it's necessary i said
0:17:52 there's no possibility of it
0:17:54 right which means that it's necessary
0:17:57 which means that there's literally no
0:17:58 possibility
0:18:01 it doesn't mean that it's necessary yeah
0:18:03 i think you're saying the same thing
0:18:05 i think you're gonna say whether
0:18:06 something is possible in order to say
0:18:08 whether something is well you can't
0:18:09 in science you can't say that something
0:18:11 is like religion always
0:18:13 you know uh certain facts that aren't
0:18:15 facts and
0:18:16 and uh pretends to know things nobody
0:18:18 can know right that's just
0:18:20 every religion does that but science
0:18:22 can't do that because that is
0:18:23 effectively lying
0:18:24 you say something is a fact it's not a
0:18:25 fact when you say you know things no one
0:18:26 can't even know those are both lies
0:18:29 but in order to say whether something is
0:18:31 true you have to have the evidence
0:18:33 indicating that you have to be able to
0:18:34 immediately show that there is evidence
0:18:36 indicating that
0:18:37 in order to say whether something is
0:18:39 possible
0:18:40 you have to show a precedent or a
0:18:42 parallel or verified phenomenon
0:18:44 indicating that such possibility exists
0:18:46 when you don't have that that doesn't
0:18:48 necessarily mean that it's not possible
0:18:50 it just means there is no possibility
0:18:52 so aren't you you're saying you're
0:18:54 saying that that religion
0:18:56 makes claims that you you couldn't
0:18:59 possibly verify
0:19:00 and you don't have evidence for first of
0:19:02 all i want to say you said you want to
0:19:04 get to the meat of it right
0:19:05 and and this is the problem that we are
0:19:07 coming from from different angles and
0:19:10 and we have different uh
0:19:13 epistemic commitments and what we want
0:19:15 to do is come to a certain common ground
0:19:18 in order for the conversation to move
0:19:20 forward we need to agree
0:19:22 what it means for evidence to be and
0:19:24 what it means for
0:19:25 for for varicate verification to be in
0:19:27 fact to be and all of these things
0:19:28 because a lot of times these discussions
0:19:30 just go on for hours of people talking
0:19:33 past each other
0:19:34 using these terms differently or not
0:19:36 even understanding what they are
0:19:37 whatsoever i mean the
0:19:39 the there's there's a lot of uh um
0:19:41 philosophical literature out there about
0:19:44 this and
0:19:44 it's not like uh uh any of this is
0:19:47 non-controversial
0:19:48 uh but you said that that religion
0:19:50 asserts things without
0:19:52 evidence so you asserted a while ago
0:19:54 that it is not a possibility that a
0:19:56 necessary being exists i'm wondering
0:19:58 what your evidence is for that
0:20:00 there is no possibility that a necessary
0:20:02 being exists
0:20:03 that's a positive statement i was
0:20:05 wondering what your evidence is for that
0:20:07 so what's the objectively verifiable
0:20:09 fact
0:20:10 that points you to the the
0:20:13 this proposition that unnecessary being
0:20:15 cannot exist
0:20:17 once again i repeat in order to say some
0:20:21 whether something is possible you have
0:20:23 to show that there is a
0:20:25 precedent or parallel or verified
0:20:27 phenomenon indicating that such
0:20:28 possibility exists
0:20:31 no one has ever presented one you're
0:20:33 welcome to prove me wrong by presenting
0:20:35 that
0:20:36 that possibility but if you don't
0:20:38 present that possibility then you're
0:20:40 going to have to concede
0:20:41 there is no possibility to present well
0:20:43 right the problem right now aaron is
0:20:44 that you're making
0:20:46 a positive ontological claim about
0:20:48 reality by saying that in order
0:20:50 to say that something is possible we
0:20:53 have to
0:20:54 uh show that it is possible through
0:20:57 objectively
0:20:58 verifiable facts
0:21:01 yeah but the problem is you yourself
0:21:03 right now are making a claim about
0:21:05 reality
0:21:06 and you're not holding yourself by the
0:21:07 same standard
0:21:09 myself by the same standard i'm saying
0:21:11 that believers have not presented any
0:21:13 such possibility
0:21:14 you are welcome to do so but until
0:21:17 someone does
0:21:18 my statement remains true no one has
0:21:21 ever produced a possibility that god
0:21:23 exists
0:21:24 so if no one ever let's let's for the
0:21:26 sake of argument for a second because i
0:21:27 disagree obviously
0:21:28 but but if no one ever produced a
0:21:31 possibility
0:21:32 if no one ever producing a possibility
0:21:34 that god exists
0:21:35 entails that it is not possible that god
0:21:38 exists
0:21:39 if that's your view it's that's your
0:21:41 view
0:21:42 that what do you i said exactly the
0:21:46 opposite
0:21:46 i said that just because you don't have
0:21:48 a possibility doesn't mean that it's
0:21:49 impossible
0:21:50 it just means there's literally no
0:21:51 possibility to discuss
0:21:54 oh okay so you're not a hard atheist in
0:21:56 the sense that you say
0:21:57 a necessary being does not exist you're
0:21:59 just saying
0:22:03 no i'm a hard atheist in the sense that
0:22:05 i know that god does not exist
0:22:08 in the same way for the same reasons and
0:22:10 to the same degree that i know that
0:22:12 leprechauns don't exist
0:22:14 but yeah what's your basis for that so
0:22:16 for example when we talk about
0:22:18 leprechauns so so so philosophers talk
0:22:20 about
0:22:21 about um you know there's the famous
0:22:23 saying
0:22:25 evidence of absence of evidence is not
0:22:27 evidence of absence and that of course
0:22:29 needs to be qualified
0:22:30 so philosophers normally say that they
0:22:33 speak about this and they say that
0:22:35 evidence of absence is
0:22:39 absence sorry absence of evidence is
0:22:41 evidence of absence
0:22:42 in a situation where the being that
0:22:45 you're positing
0:22:47 would actually leave what you would
0:22:48 actually expect for it to leave
0:22:50 evidence that you did not find when
0:22:53 you're investigating it so if you posit
0:22:55 that a leprechaun exists
0:22:56 or if you say that like bigfoot exists
0:22:59 or whatever we should expect
0:23:00 cert a certain type of evidence that we
0:23:03 can verify through which we can verify
0:23:05 the existence of such a being but
0:23:08 right now you're saying right now i'm so
0:23:10 i i
0:23:11 believe i don't believe that leprechauns
0:23:14 exist because i expect a certain
0:23:16 uh a certain you know a set of of of
0:23:19 data or evidence
0:23:21 if it were to exist i would expect that
0:23:23 kind of evidence that would verify its
0:23:24 existence now in the case of the
0:23:26 existence of god
0:23:28 what is that evidence that you haven't
0:23:30 found
0:23:31 that makes you come to the same
0:23:34 conclusion that we do about leprechauns
0:23:36 okay those are different topics uh first
0:23:38 of all you would expect to find evidence
0:23:40 of bigfoot
0:23:41 and we would have found it by now if
0:23:43 there was such a thing
0:23:45 uh and uh leprechauns on the other hand
0:23:48 are entirely supernatural
0:23:50 like god they are entirely supernatural
0:23:53 they
0:23:53 they leave no trace of themselves even
0:23:55 when they so
0:23:56 even when they supposedly do something
0:23:58 so people will attribute everything
0:24:00 that happens to god even when there's a
0:24:02 natural explanation for
0:24:04 it they don't care they know that
0:24:05 there's a natural explanation and
0:24:06 they'll just pretend that god
0:24:08 orchestrated that natural explanation so
0:24:10 natural explanations still become
0:24:12 explanations of god
0:24:14 and then they'll pretend things yeah but
0:24:16 that's sorry aaron that's precisely
0:24:18 the point so bigfoot there would be
0:24:20 evidence we don't we don't have the
0:24:21 evidence
0:24:22 bigfoot doesn't exist leprechauns
0:24:24 wouldn't leave evidence behind
0:24:25 therefore what a lot of people say is
0:24:28 that
0:24:29 in this case the absence of evidence is
0:24:31 not evidence of absence because there is
0:24:34 no
0:24:35 predicted set of uh there is not a
0:24:37 predicted set of data that you would
0:24:39 expect as
0:24:40 evidence were a leprechaun to exist so
0:24:43 right now i'm saying what is this
0:24:45 evidence
0:24:46 that you would expect to exist if god
0:24:50 existed
0:24:51 and and uh basically that we we don't
0:24:54 have access to so
0:24:55 that justifies you in concluding that
0:24:57 god does not exist
0:24:59 again referring to leprechauns you're
0:25:02 looking for a way to disprove
0:25:04 leprechauns
0:25:04 and the point that you're missing is
0:25:06 that there's no reason to believe
0:25:08 leprechauns that's two separate issues
0:25:10 though there's two separate issues
0:25:12 one yeah that's right you need to have a
0:25:16 reason to believe something that's one
0:25:18 thing the second thing is having
0:25:20 uh an understanding that something is
0:25:22 impossible
0:25:23 those are two separate issues okay now
0:25:25 what abdul is explaining he's saying
0:25:27 that look
0:25:28 if you just have an absence of evidence
0:25:30 of x it doesn't mean that x doesn't
0:25:32 exist
0:25:33 so if i turn around and i say x does not
0:25:36 exist
0:25:37 it means that i'm making a positive
0:25:39 claim now what abdul said
0:25:41 he said that to make that positive claim
0:25:43 that x does not exist
0:25:45 one of the ways would be to say well if
0:25:48 x
0:25:48 existed i would see this evidence
0:25:52 if this evidence doesn't exist therefore
0:25:55 that justifies me saying
0:25:57 that x does not exist so he's asking the
0:26:00 same question
0:26:01 because you're in a position where
0:26:02 you've made a hard atheist claim
0:26:05 that god exists what was my heart
0:26:07 atheist claim
0:26:08 so the hard atheist hard atheism i that
0:26:11 god is
0:26:12 does not exist that is your position
0:26:15 not that i don't believe in god because
0:26:17 of lack of evidence
0:26:18 a soft atheist claim but it's a hard
0:26:20 atheist claim so what abdullah is asking
0:26:22 is a very specific question he's saying
0:26:24 look
0:26:24 if you're making this claim that god
0:26:26 does not exist x does not exist
0:26:28 yeah you have to either demonstrate that
0:26:31 if god
0:26:32 existed or x existed we would see this
0:26:35 evidence
0:26:36 because we don't see this evidence then
0:26:38 i can discount god
0:26:39 yeah so you have to say you have to
0:26:42 explain what i've got a specific
0:26:43 question with you have to explain
0:26:45 what that evidence is that we would
0:26:47 expect
0:26:48 such that it doesn't exist leading us to
0:26:51 the conclusion
0:26:52 that god doesn't exist i feel like i'm
0:26:55 repeating myself an awful lot
0:26:57 you're asking questions i've already
0:26:59 answered but
0:27:01 we don't have a possibility we start
0:27:03 with that
0:27:04 uh and it's not just that we don't have
0:27:06 a possibility it's just
0:27:07 that things are defined in reverse i
0:27:10 mean you you want to imagine that
0:27:12 that somehow the mind exists
0:27:15 outside of the brain there's no support
0:27:17 for mind body dualism whatsoever
0:27:19 uh but you're assuming that that
0:27:21 consciousness pre-exists
0:27:23 matter and that and and there's no
0:27:26 logical conclusion that would lead to to
0:27:28 any of the gods that men have ever
0:27:30 devised
0:27:31 when you look at the entirety of the
0:27:32 cosmos there's just no way to conclude
0:27:34 there
0:27:35 that this thing cares that much about
0:27:38 the skin
0:27:39 on the tip of our penis if it created
0:27:41 eleventy jillion galaxies and so forth
0:27:44 there's there's not a possibility for
0:27:47 him to con
0:27:47 how does he control whether your team
0:27:50 wins the game or whether you find your
0:27:52 keys
0:27:53 how does he manipulate matter and
0:27:55 believers will commonly tell me that you
0:27:57 know that god helped them
0:27:59 in matters like this but it in that case
0:28:02 god had to manipulate other people's
0:28:05 minds control other people's free will
0:28:07 in order to you know manipulate
0:28:10 everything to these ends
0:28:11 and they're just not thinking this
0:28:13 through so what i need
0:28:15 is we need to show that there's a there
0:28:17 there or we literally have nothing to
0:28:18 talk about
0:28:20 yeah so this again like i said there's
0:28:22 two issues one issue
0:28:23 is to say make a positive claim that god
0:28:26 does not exist that's one issue
0:28:29 which it means that we're saying it's
0:28:30 logically impossible for god to exist
0:28:32 the second claim is do we have
0:28:34 justification
0:28:36 yeah so do we have justifications
0:28:38 reasons to believe
0:28:40 something yeah so there's two separate
0:28:41 issues and what we're saying is that
0:28:43 you're talking about is this this first
0:28:45 point which is you're basically saying
0:28:46 that's logically impossible
0:28:48 for x to exist some of the arguments
0:28:50 that you used was just simply to say
0:28:52 that
0:28:53 well if god exists there needs to be
0:28:54 consciousness and for consciousness to
0:28:56 exist there needs to be a body
0:28:58 to exist is that am i understanding your
0:29:00 particular definition of what a mind is
0:29:02 yeah i mean the mind is of mind is the
0:29:04 uh is the product of
0:29:05 of biology so if there's no biology how
0:29:08 can you have a mind
0:29:10 okay is that a conclusion that you come
0:29:12 through through an inductive process or
0:29:13 is that a conclusion that is detailed
0:29:15 by definition that's what i understand
0:29:18 so you have to redefine
0:29:19 what a mind is if you want to have a and
0:29:22 a
0:29:23 disembodied consciousness it requires a
0:29:25 redefinition of much in my understanding
0:29:28 yeah so nobody
0:29:32 when you when you when we say when we
0:29:33 talk about the issue of the mind nobody
0:29:35 turns around and says
0:29:36 mind by definition needs a brain or is a
0:29:38 brain yeah
0:29:39 that is where you put the the predicate
0:29:41 within the subject
0:29:42 nobody puts the predicate within the
0:29:44 subject to say that nobody needs to be
0:29:46 this nobody meaning me
0:29:48 and a lot of other people who actually
0:29:49 do that yeah because no because it's
0:29:52 like for example
0:29:52 look is as an example here if i turn
0:29:54 around and i say
0:29:56 uh an unmarried bachelor yeah well
0:29:58 that's where you put the predicate
0:29:59 within the subject
0:30:01 yeah so you're basically saying the same
0:30:03 thing yeah when you're saying that
0:30:05 nobody
0:30:06 you're saying that other people do
0:30:09 nobody does what we do no no i'm saying
0:30:11 you're saying by definition you're
0:30:12 saying
0:30:13 by definition i'm saying it's not by
0:30:15 definition that you can say that the
0:30:17 mind is reduced to the brain
0:30:18 well that wouldn't be the correct way to
0:30:20 say
0:30:22 you have to redefine mine so now you're
0:30:24 going to redefine mine for me no no i'm
0:30:26 saying
0:30:26 no because it comes down to the issue of
0:30:28 how we understand this term
0:30:30 by definition when you when we say fight
0:30:32 when we say by definition what we're
0:30:34 saying is
0:30:35 is that literally in the definition of
0:30:37 the word
0:30:38 we can come to this conclusion and i'm
0:30:41 saying that you don't
0:30:42 have to you know it's not even the
0:30:44 definition of the word
0:30:45 brain that you come to the conclusion of
0:30:47 a mind yeah
0:30:48 that would be faulty a fallacious link
0:30:52 between the two
0:30:53 because you'd have to have a further
0:30:54 justification that a brain causes or
0:30:57 produces the mind
0:30:59 so it's not by definition in that sense
0:31:01 that's why we have
0:31:02 experiments that's why we have
0:31:04 neuroscientists because they
0:31:06 they have to investigate this as opposed
0:31:09 to
0:31:09 just simply saying we can just define it
0:31:11 by the mind for example by definition
0:31:14 a triangle has three sides i don't need
0:31:16 to investigate i don't need to
0:31:18 empirically study this i can come to
0:31:20 that conclusion just by the definition
0:31:22 of the word
0:31:23 yeah so i'm just saying it's false to
0:31:25 argue that by definition
0:31:27 brain equals mind or mind equals brain
0:31:30 because well
0:31:31 i didn't say that i didn't say that if i
0:31:33 did not say that my i did not say that
0:31:35 mind equals brain
0:31:36 i said that mind is a product of biology
0:31:39 so
0:31:39 in the definition you just look up
0:31:41 common definition the element of a
0:31:42 person
0:31:44 that enables them to be aware of the
0:31:45 world and their experiences to think
0:31:48 and to feel the faculties of
0:31:50 consciousness and thought so
0:31:51 yes in the definition right there in the
0:31:54 definition
0:31:55 it is a product of biology where which
0:31:57 part i said
0:31:59 that that's by definition and it is by
0:32:00 definition you can verify it
0:32:02 and that you were going to have to
0:32:03 redefine mind
0:32:05 to take another one and now you are
0:32:06 going to redefine mind for me because i
0:32:08 was right
0:32:09 aaron which part of that definition do
0:32:11 you think that
0:32:12 it necessitates it being a product of
0:32:14 biology
0:32:16 the element of a person that enables
0:32:18 them to be aware of the world and of
0:32:20 their experiences
0:32:21 so yes it's pulling on the senses and
0:32:23 says that it is a person to think and to
0:32:25 feel and what part of the body thinks
0:32:27 so your body feels so you're assuming
0:32:30 that a person
0:32:31 is a biological structure what else is
0:32:34 it
0:32:36 it's not biological i think every person
0:32:38 that's ever existed has been biological
0:32:41 not on see the part of the issue here is
0:32:46 i think you're using sort of common
0:32:48 sense maybe
0:32:49 understandings or definitions but in
0:32:52 terms of philosophy they don't have the
0:32:54 definitions that you're implying
0:32:55 if you look up personhood in philosophy
0:32:58 it doesn't necessitate
0:33:00 a biological structure okay
0:33:04 but that's when we're talking about
0:33:05 personhood we're talking about the
0:33:06 definition of mind
0:33:08 well but you said person necessitates a
0:33:10 biological structure
0:33:12 it doesn't okay are we going to argue
0:33:13 the definition of definition next
0:33:15 because
0:33:16 with some philosophers i've actually had
0:33:17 that come up i was debating i was
0:33:19 arguing with a
0:33:20 a professor of philosophy a seminary
0:33:23 school where we actually did have to
0:33:25 bring up the definition of definition
0:33:27 because when he went the same
0:33:29 conversation that we're having now
0:33:30 when it comes to evidence he told me
0:33:32 that that evidence is not evident
0:33:33 because facts are not factual because
0:33:35 nothing can ever be objectively verified
0:33:38 because everything is imaginary and
0:33:39 everybody's reality is whatever they
0:33:41 want it to be
0:33:42 which is why iphone philosophy's so
0:33:43 utterly empty
0:33:45 uh i don't think we're trying to do that
0:33:48 aaron with respect i think the problem
0:33:50 here is this
0:33:51 is that you are you you're not very
0:33:54 concerned with the philosophy and when
0:33:55 you said you want to get into the meat
0:33:57 of it you want you basically want us to
0:33:59 talk about like
0:34:00 empirical evidence for god or something
0:34:02 but it seems like
0:34:03 it seems like you believe what you
0:34:05 believe that's yes but in order to do
0:34:06 that
0:34:07 because you're never going to come up
0:34:08 with that i need a reason you don't have
0:34:10 one
0:34:11 yeah but i want to know why you believe
0:34:13 i get that i get that aaron but then in
0:34:15 order for me to understand why you don't
0:34:17 believe i'll ha
0:34:18 i need to break your epistemology down
0:34:20 and understand what
0:34:21 in your view qualifies something to be a
0:34:24 justified belief and what doesn't and in
0:34:26 the same way you're going to need to
0:34:27 understand my point of view
0:34:28 but it seems that here you're really
0:34:30 unconcerned you're undermining the value
0:34:32 of philosophy and it seems like that's
0:34:34 why
0:34:35 there is a value of philosophy it's just
0:34:37 wholly misused in religion
0:34:39 but when you say that mind the mind is
0:34:41 by definition
0:34:43 a product of brain then you're just you
0:34:45 know you're you're
0:34:49 that's like like you know in the
0:34:51 philosophy of mind these discussions
0:34:54 are are huge and the literature out
0:34:55 there is is expansive
0:34:57 so when you say that it is by definition
0:34:59 a particular theory of mind so you
0:35:01 choose a particular theory of mind
0:35:03 that is not in any way uncontroversial
0:35:07 and you say that this uh particular
0:35:11 theory is by definition
0:35:13 what we're gonna link the term mind to
0:35:16 that that's just
0:35:17 that's that's that's very
0:35:18 philosophically
0:35:20 unsophisticated if i can put it like
0:35:22 that because there are a lot of
0:35:23 other theories of mind out there that
0:35:27 can preclude the idea of a brain
0:35:29 existing or at least they don't
0:35:31 necessitate the reliance on a physical
0:35:34 structure
0:35:35 so the the the problem here is that you
0:35:37 want to skip over a whole bunch of
0:35:39 philosophy
0:35:40 you want to bring your materialistic
0:35:42 presuppositions to the table
0:35:44 and you want us to provide you with
0:35:46 evidence based on your presuppositions
0:35:49 without us questioning them whatsoever
0:35:51 and i think
0:35:52 that's kind of contradictory with the
0:35:53 idea of you being a skeptic i mean you
0:35:56 should be skeptical about your views
0:35:57 right
0:35:58 we should question everything we should
0:35:59 be reasonable about our views
0:36:01 and i think with what you've presented
0:36:02 here so far you shouldn't be very
0:36:04 confident about your views because these
0:36:06 views
0:36:07 should form the foundation of your
0:36:09 atheistic belief and the foundation
0:36:11 of your rejection of god and to be
0:36:14 honest to be quite frank with you if
0:36:16 the foundation of your uh rejection of
0:36:19 the idea of a necessary being is this
0:36:21 flimsy
0:36:22 then then then honestly um i i really
0:36:26 don't know how
0:36:27 far we can go in terms of providing you
0:36:29 with evidence because it doesn't seem
0:36:31 like you're gonna accept
0:36:33 any kind of uh um leeway in terms of how
0:36:36 we're gonna move forward with this i'm
0:36:37 gonna have to jump in
0:36:38 i'm sorry i've been really trying not to
0:36:40 interrupt but when absolutely every
0:36:43 single thing you say in your assumptions
0:36:45 about my position and the things that
0:36:46 you think that i said when i said the
0:36:48 opposite
0:36:49 when everything you say about what i've
0:36:51 said is wrong
0:36:52 absolutely every assumption you've made
0:36:54 has been wrong and already corrected
0:36:55 before you made the assumption
0:36:56 i don't know what to do with that how do
0:36:58 i how do i let you jump to all of the
0:37:00 wrongest conclusions you can imagine
0:37:03 when i've already corrected them and you
0:37:04 assume the opposite anyway
0:37:06 i don't know what to do with that i'm
0:37:08 sorry can you tell me what
0:37:10 i misrepresented you and can you because
0:37:11 i don't i don't want to i don't want to
0:37:12 miss people
0:37:13 i want to do something that i don't want
0:37:15 to do
0:37:16 i should interrupt and tell you no i
0:37:18 don't want to do that i apologize i
0:37:20 apologize if i misrepresented you but if
0:37:21 you could just explain what i
0:37:23 misrepresented your views on and
0:37:25 i'll i'll be happy to retract it okay
0:37:27 well i wasn't taking rapid notes
0:37:28 about when you said that i want to do
0:37:30 the thing that i don't want to do
0:37:32 i don't remember what everything was
0:37:34 that you were telling me that that i was
0:37:37 the all of the assumptions you were
0:37:38 making no there was too many too fast
0:37:40 and the gist of my point the gist of my
0:37:43 point was that you're bringing
0:37:45 materialistic presuppositions
0:37:46 to the table that you don't want to
0:37:48 bring into materialistic presuppositions
0:37:50 yeah you're coming forward with the
0:37:52 materialistic theory of mind and you're
0:37:54 saying that mind is by definition
0:37:57 of mine yes yeah let me ask you a
0:38:00 question
0:38:01 um do you believe in you don't believe
0:38:03 in magic do you
0:38:04 that's the problem yeah i don't if there
0:38:06 was if there was a thing
0:38:08 like magic then at least we would have
0:38:10 something to base a god on because gods
0:38:12 are made of magic
0:38:13 so in order for a god to exist we have
0:38:15 to have some magic right
0:38:16 so how do you define magic the
0:38:18 supernatural
0:38:20 supernatural miracles miracles of magic
0:38:23 have the same definition
0:38:24 so if you how so you so we're saying
0:38:28 okay magic doesn't exist i agree with
0:38:29 you magic doesn't
0:38:30 exist now you're saying magic is
0:38:33 supernatural
0:38:34 let's take for example uh you've got
0:38:37 you've got you've got a naturalistic
0:38:39 being yeah a human being and he
0:38:41 he whips out a rabbit out of the hat
0:38:44 yeah is that magic
0:38:45 would that be false
0:38:48 there's a there's a saying among these
0:38:50 skeptics that real magic is false and
0:38:52 and and uh fake magic is real
0:38:55 right so he's fake what he's doing he's
0:38:57 pulling the rabbit out of the hat that's
0:38:59 the fake magic
0:39:00 that's the one that's real but the real
0:39:02 magic is false
0:39:03 okay so in terms of the person who's
0:39:05 pulling out the the rabbit from the hats
0:39:08 yeah and you're saying it's it's not
0:39:09 magic the reason why it's not magic is
0:39:12 because there's a naturalistic
0:39:13 explanation a materialistic explanation
0:39:15 yeah so you're saying in essence that
0:39:17 magic would be
0:39:19 that which doesn't have an explanation
0:39:22 for it
0:39:24 the way i like to illustrate this is if
0:39:25 there was a supernatural
0:39:27 then there would be at some point in
0:39:29 history people like
0:39:31 hermione and gandalf and obi-wan and
0:39:33 spock who would be able to demonstrate
0:39:35 those powers
0:39:37 reliably repeatedly and it would be such
0:39:39 that even if science could not explain
0:39:41 them
0:39:42 there would at least be a there there
0:39:43 there we can we can show that gandalf
0:39:45 really can do this thing and
0:39:46 and hermione really can do this thing
0:39:48 with her juan and we see that these
0:39:50 things happen and they really do happen
0:39:52 and in which case you know faith healers
0:39:54 would be working in hospitals and that
0:39:55 sort of thing
0:39:56 and profits would be correct
0:39:59 sometimes no no i understand what you're
0:40:02 saying aaron but what i'm trying to
0:40:03 understand
0:40:03 is how you define magic how do we define
0:40:06 this particular magic because i think
0:40:07 it goes to the heart of epistemology how
0:40:09 do we understand what we know
0:40:11 so what you're saying is that magic
0:40:13 doesn't exist because if you have an
0:40:15 event that doesn't have an explanation
0:40:17 yeah like or at least as a
0:40:19 non-materialist explanation
0:40:21 that that would be something that's
0:40:23 quite important magical and therefore
0:40:25 something that wouldn't exist
0:40:27 is that is that how you understand it
0:40:29 it's not just the fact that it breaks
0:40:30 the laws
0:40:31 the known laws of nature it's the fact
0:40:33 that it has no laws
0:40:35 to govern its uh it's uh coming into
0:40:37 being
0:40:38 yeah that that's that's pretty fair i
0:40:41 mean the the concise definition would be
0:40:43 that
0:40:43 magic and miracles miraculous magic you
0:40:46 know
0:40:47 magical miracles whatever they uh
0:40:49 they're the evocation of supernatural
0:40:51 forces or entities to control or
0:40:52 forecast natural events in ways that are
0:40:54 inexplicable by science because they
0:40:56 defy the laws of physics
0:40:58 making them physically impossible but if
0:41:01 there was
0:41:02 if there was magic then you could do
0:41:06 you could use magic to make things
0:41:08 happen and would be able to verify
0:41:10 when somebody used magic to make
0:41:12 something happen
0:41:14 there there be repeated demonstrations
0:41:15 and that sort of thing there's a way to
0:41:17 show that there's actually a truth there
0:41:19 even if we can't explain it even if
0:41:21 there's there's no scientific
0:41:22 explanation
0:41:23 possible for that yeah but whatever what
0:41:26 i'm saying
0:41:28 so let me give you an example of this
0:41:30 you know in the uh
0:41:31 the stars in galaxies the ones that are
0:41:34 on the edges of galaxies they
0:41:35 orbit at the same speed or faster
0:41:39 than the the stars that are closer to
0:41:42 the central mass the
0:41:43 supermassive black hole yeah now
0:41:45 according to the theory of gravity
0:41:48 yeah that's com that completely
0:41:49 contradicts that theory of gravity
0:41:51 because the stars and the edges of
0:41:53 galaxies should be slower
0:41:55 if it's not slower if it's going at the
0:41:57 same speed as the stars towards the
0:41:59 um the the closer to the central mass of
0:42:02 the galaxy
0:42:03 they would break its orbit yeah so
0:42:05 that's something that's great
0:42:07 what's that it's not that's not an orbit
0:42:09 i've seen the models of galaxy movement
0:42:11 and
0:42:12 and it's it's not that way and it's not
0:42:13 it's not an issue of their orbits they
0:42:16 don't orbit it i mean
0:42:17 when everything is rotating together
0:42:18 it's not an orbit
0:42:20 okay that that they're moving they're
0:42:22 rotating together
0:42:24 the ones at the end against gravity
0:42:26 there and even if there was
0:42:29 but but there's not no no it says
0:42:31 there's two things isn't it there's two
0:42:33 things they've
0:42:33 made these observations there's two
0:42:35 things that they could use
0:42:36 and this is what i'm trying to say about
0:42:38 the issue of uh magic
0:42:40 yeah why we don't appeal to it the first
0:42:43 way to interpret the data is to turn
0:42:45 around and say
0:42:46 that our whole theory of gravity is
0:42:48 completely wrong we need to re-change it
0:42:50 yeah uh in order to incorporate this new
0:42:52 observation that's
0:42:53 one way to solve the problem the second
0:42:56 way to solve the problem is to posit a
0:42:58 form of matter that exists
0:43:00 that exhibits gravity but we just can't
0:43:02 see it dark matter
0:43:04 and that's pretty much where the current
0:43:06 science is so what they're doing is they
0:43:09 unfortunately not the the right now the
0:43:12 the and this is recent so that's why you
0:43:14 wouldn't know about it was just days ago
0:43:16 that somebody's have just got a hundred
0:43:19 thousand dollar
0:43:20 grant to pursue uh a physical theory
0:43:23 that replaces dark matter where the need
0:43:25 for dark matter
0:43:26 with um you know not into physics so i
0:43:29 can't remember exactly what it was but
0:43:31 it's a subatomic particle
0:43:33 that instead of being massless is now
0:43:35 taken to have a small amount of mass and
0:43:37 can somehow account for
0:43:39 uh the necess the former necessity of
0:43:42 dark matter
0:43:43 yeah so it it doesn't really matter in
0:43:45 terms of the particular explanation or
0:43:46 theory or model that they
0:43:48 propose to explain this what i'm trying
0:43:50 to show
0:43:51 is that when it comes to our
0:43:52 observations as human beings what we do
0:43:54 is we think that the universe operates
0:43:56 according to comprehensibility something
0:43:58 that's comprehensible
0:43:59 and so if we see an event we seek an
0:44:02 explanation behind the event
0:44:03 if we don't have an explanation behind
0:44:05 the event we call it magical
0:44:07 and therefore we dismiss it because we
0:44:09 dismiss magic
0:44:11 i.e there has to be an explanation
0:44:13 behind
0:44:14 things that we observe within the
0:44:15 universe this is what i'm saying
0:44:17 so i'm saying i agree with you ari in
0:44:19 terms of
0:44:20 saying that magic doesn't exist and that
0:44:23 if we see
0:44:24 some sort of uh event within the
0:44:26 universe we look for an
0:44:28 underlying explanation for it yeah so i
0:44:31 agree with you on that
0:44:32 so and i agree with you that we cannot
0:44:35 therefore
0:44:36 come to a conclusion about something
0:44:37 that exists some event
0:44:39 that has no underlying explanation for
0:44:42 its existence within the universe yeah
0:44:44 this would be something that we would
0:44:46 dismiss out of hand
0:44:48 so for example if the magician literally
0:44:52 gets a rabbit out of the hat with no
0:44:54 explanation
0:44:55 we dismiss it yeah we in fact we
0:44:58 wouldn't say we just
0:44:59 uh you know literally is taking out the
0:45:00 hat we just simply say no there is an
0:45:02 explanation
0:45:03 it's just that maybe we don't know what
0:45:04 the explanation is yeah
0:45:06 so we look for explanation behind things
0:45:09 so we can call something
0:45:10 unexplained and when scientists call
0:45:12 something unexplained
0:45:14 the believers say translate that as
0:45:16 explained by god
0:45:18 no no we're not saying we're not saying
0:45:19 anything which is explained by god
0:45:21 nothing like that
0:45:22 but what i'm trying to show is this is
0:45:25 we don't just use observations rather
0:45:28 we have logical axioms yeah
0:45:31 in order to understand and interpret
0:45:33 those observations
0:45:35 so whether it is uh dark matter or this
0:45:38 new fundamental theory of particle
0:45:40 physics that explains why
0:45:42 the orbits of uh the the or the
0:45:45 rotations of stars around galaxies
0:45:47 that the speed that they're at whatever
0:45:50 it is what we're saying is
0:45:51 on the fundamental layer of these
0:45:53 observations is an explanation that
0:45:55 causes it to be the way it
0:45:57 is and therefore as human beings or
0:45:59 scientists we try to seek out an
0:46:01 underlying explanation
0:46:03 so i'm saying is that you have
0:46:04 observations here
0:46:06 you have logical axioms as well
0:46:09 and you bring them both together in
0:46:11 order to interpret the data
0:46:13 so in this situation this example what
0:46:15 you're using
0:46:16 is something called the principle of
0:46:18 sufficient reason
0:46:19 yeah i you're looking at reasons behind
0:46:22 our observations
0:46:24 as a presupposition or an axiom or
0:46:26 logical axiom
0:46:28 to interpret data does that does that
0:46:31 make sense
0:46:33 do you agree with that yes yeah so
0:46:36 so if you agree upon that then the next
0:46:38 question becomes okay
0:46:40 it's not just scientific data that we're
0:46:43 looking at
0:46:44 yeah it's not just empiricism there's
0:46:46 something that's more fundamental than
0:46:47 empiricism there are logical axioms
0:46:50 which is where we get into philosophy
0:46:52 now yeah so this philosophy out there
0:46:55 and this is one of those logical axioms
0:46:57 is this thing called the psr the
0:46:59 principle sufficient reason
0:47:00 which states that any observations that
0:47:02 we have within this universe requires an
0:47:04 explanation
0:47:06 for why it is the way it is so the
0:47:08 question then becomes is
0:47:09 what is it that we seek an explanation
0:47:12 in
0:47:13 yeah why do we seek that explanation for
0:47:16 example if i had
0:47:17 a red triangle i would seek an
0:47:19 explanation of why it's
0:47:21 red but i wouldn't seek an explanation
0:47:22 as to why it's got three
0:47:24 sides does that make sense
0:47:28 no okay so
0:47:31 in the definition of a triangle in a
0:47:33 definition of a triangle it hasn't had
0:47:35 three sides
0:47:36 by the definition of a triangle it
0:47:38 doesn't have to be red
0:47:39 object can be triangular in which case
0:47:42 i'm going to want to know why that thing
0:47:43 has three sides
0:47:46 no i i think sharif is talking about
0:47:48 stuff that are analytically true in the
0:47:50 sense that
0:47:51 something is true by definition so if a
0:47:53 triangle is
0:47:54 is by definition has three sides then
0:47:56 you're not going to seek an explanation
0:47:58 for why a triangle has three sides i
0:47:59 mean it's just
0:48:01 the the explanation is within the
0:48:02 definition right it's analytically true
0:48:05 yeah in this in this last eight minutes
0:48:08 now
0:48:09 i'd love to hear why you guys believe
0:48:12 because
0:48:14 nothing you have spoken about so far
0:48:17 is the reason you believe and you'll
0:48:19 know well first thing
0:48:22 why what makes you believe why would you
0:48:24 want to yeah so first thing that we've
0:48:26 established is that you can't be really
0:48:28 a hard atheist
0:48:30 you know it's not established there to
0:48:32 say that the second thing the second
0:48:34 thing
0:48:34 the second thing that i think we've also
0:48:36 established is that
0:48:37 it's not just empiricism that's
0:48:39 sufficient for us to come to certain
0:48:41 conclusions we also need logical axioms
0:48:44 and principles so the first thing you've
0:48:47 actually established
0:48:48 because the first thing you said you
0:48:49 established you hadn't established okay
0:48:50 but at least you accept that you need
0:48:52 logical axioms
0:48:53 you need philosophy you need philosophy
0:48:55 the reliability of the data is only
0:48:57 going to be reliable based upon the
0:48:59 logical axioms that you have
0:49:01 like for example the principle of
0:49:02 sufficient reason i don't deny that
0:49:04 philosophy has
0:49:05 value it does and i wish the philosophy
0:49:07 was taught in high school
0:49:09 though you would really want to control
0:49:10 how that is taught because it is so
0:49:12 grossly misused
0:49:14 by you know religious apologists yeah so
0:49:17 that's that's one thing that we've
0:49:18 established
0:49:19 the second thing that i think is
0:49:21 important to establish as well
0:49:23 is this idea or the third thing if you
0:49:25 want to say well second thing
0:49:26 the principle is sufficient reason that
0:49:28 things that we observe
0:49:30 within the universe have an explanation
0:49:32 for why they exist
0:49:33 because we dismiss this idea of magic
0:49:35 yeah so we dismiss
0:49:37 for example if i turn around and i say
0:49:40 something that begins to exist has no
0:49:42 cause
0:49:42 for its beginning we dismiss that
0:49:44 because that violates the principle of
0:49:46 sufficient reason
0:49:47 reasoning and that then starts to adhere
0:49:49 to this idea of
0:49:51 magic which we said we disagree with
0:49:53 which i agree
0:49:54 with you on that so the next point i
0:49:56 think and this is where with the
0:49:57 arguments building up
0:49:58 the next point is on what basis do we
0:50:01 apply the principle of sufficient
0:50:02 reasoning
0:50:03 and i'm saying when we look at things
0:50:05 which are possible
0:50:07 in a possible state yeah but they're
0:50:09 actualized so let's say there's an
0:50:11 actualized possibility as an example you
0:50:14 have a red triangle
0:50:16 it could have been a green triangle it
0:50:17 could have been a blue triangle
0:50:19 yeah because it's red in particular i'm
0:50:22 going to ask the question
0:50:23 why is it red as opposed to any other
0:50:26 color
0:50:26 i'm not going to ask the question why is
0:50:28 it got free site because that's
0:50:30 as abdul said it's an analytic
0:50:32 proposition it is where the
0:50:34 the predicate is contained within the
0:50:36 subject yeah meaning its definition is
0:50:38 it's by definition three sides but i'm
0:50:40 gonna it's not by definition that it has
0:50:42 to be read
0:50:43 so that's where i'm gonna look for an
0:50:45 explanation and that explanation is
0:50:47 gonna be outside
0:50:48 of the triangle or the existence of a
0:50:50 triangle
0:50:53 degree and that's how science generally
0:50:56 works science looks at things
0:50:57 which are possible existences that exist
0:51:01 and it tries to understand why using
0:51:03 this principle of sufficient reason
0:51:05 why it exists and it looks for an
0:51:07 explanation outside of the thing itself
0:51:11 can we agree that what what i get from
0:51:14 many apologists is the excuse that
0:51:16 anything is possible
0:51:18 and i know of many things and i could
0:51:20 list many things that are not possible
0:51:23 so can we agree that we cannot say that
0:51:26 anything is possible
0:51:27 yeah i agree with that okay good so so
0:51:32 and you agree with what i said so there
0:51:34 we go yeah
0:51:35 so what i would do is i would list uh
0:51:37 propositions into three general
0:51:39 categories yeah
0:51:40 one is called logical necessity second
0:51:42 one is logical possibility
0:51:44 and the third one is a logical
0:51:46 impossibility yeah a squared circle
0:51:49 would be a logical impossibility yeah
0:51:52 a logical possibility is what we do in
0:51:54 science we look for
0:51:56 things which are logically possible and
0:51:58 we investigate the way that they are and
0:52:00 why the way that they are
0:52:01 yeah so when we look at an observation
0:52:04 within the universe
0:52:05 and we're saying well it requires an
0:52:07 explanation
0:52:08 the explanation is not contained within
0:52:10 itself it's rather contained outside of
0:52:12 itself
0:52:13 yes then we're looking for the
0:52:14 explanation other than the thing itself
0:52:17 yeah now this is going to lead to
0:52:19 certain uh consequences
0:52:21 one of those consequences is if the
0:52:24 explanation itself
0:52:26 for this contingent being so contingent
0:52:28 being basically means something that's
0:52:30 possible
0:52:31 is another contingent being then we need
0:52:34 an explanation for that
0:52:36 and then you fall into a potential
0:52:38 infinite regress
0:52:41 do you affirm an infinite regress
0:52:43 because i say that's a logical
0:52:45 impossibility
0:52:48 i don't know
0:52:52 uh i'm trying to think because what very
0:52:55 often comes up is
0:52:56 arguments of cosmology which is another
0:52:58 topic that i don't even discuss
0:53:00 i don't have any serious objections to
0:53:04 it other than i don't think that it's
0:53:05 but it's well thought out or well
0:53:07 analyzed
0:53:08 well maybe maybe it is well thought out
0:53:10 given the data that we have but we don't
0:53:12 have a whole lot of data about it
0:53:14 and what we're talking about is what
0:53:15 we've learned in the last century and
0:53:17 most of what we've learned in only in
0:53:19 the last half of that
0:53:24 i understand what you're saying uh aaron
0:53:27 but the issue is this is that it's not
0:53:29 about the particular model like for
0:53:30 example the rotation of stars in
0:53:32 galaxies is not about
0:53:33 whether we have to change the theory of
0:53:35 gravity whether it's dark matter whether
0:53:37 it's this
0:53:38 new uh particle that's in existence that
0:53:41 explains why
0:53:43 it is what we're doing is we're seeing
0:53:45 an observation we're saying there is an
0:53:47 explanation
0:53:48 there is an explanation yeah for it now
0:53:51 what that particular explanation is
0:53:53 we'd have to investigate further but
0:53:55 what i'm saying is that if we accept
0:53:57 that as a principle then
0:53:59 if we're saying these things which are
0:54:01 possibilities i contingent beings yeah
0:54:04 require an explanation now either the
0:54:06 explanation is going to be upon another
0:54:07 thing which is contingent which then
0:54:09 requires another explanation
0:54:11 or it's going to be upon an explanation
0:54:13 that's founded upon something that's
0:54:15 necessary which means it doesn't require
0:54:18 any further explanation
0:54:20 than its own existence like a
0:54:22 three-sided triangle
0:54:24 you don't ask the question of why it's
0:54:25 three sides all right you've got
0:54:27 two minutes left and i apologize that we
0:54:30 haven't
0:54:32 gone anywhere with this at all i mean
0:54:35 aren't uh what are you saying you're
0:54:36 leaving
0:54:38 it's been an hour oh okay we we weren't
0:54:41 aware that we're limited to an hour
0:54:44 but i mean i think we're getting
0:54:45 somewhere so um
0:54:47 so it's sad that you have to leave uh
0:54:49 maybe you can consider staying
0:54:50 i think the gist of what sharif is
0:54:52 saying after you know
0:54:54 you've committed to a principle of
0:54:55 sufficient reason you've accepted
0:54:58 that everything has an explanation and
0:55:01 sharif explained what contingent things
0:55:03 are and how they have explanations
0:55:04 external to themselves
0:55:06 you also accept logic so a logical
0:55:09 entailment of that is
0:55:10 everything in existence uh everything
0:55:13 that is contingent in existence has some
0:55:16 explanation beyond it and that
0:55:18 explanation that is beyond it by
0:55:20 definition and biological entailment
0:55:22 can't be contingent itself because
0:55:24 it's already an explanation of all
0:55:25 contingent things
0:55:27 and by that using logic reason
0:55:30 and even uh you know empirical reality
0:55:33 because we observe contingent things
0:55:35 we've established the existence of a
0:55:38 necessary being now what do you have to
0:55:40 say about that
0:55:42 i like how philosophers uh try to define
0:55:46 their god into existence
0:55:48 well aaron you you agreed with every
0:55:51 step
0:55:52 that leads to the conclusion i've just
0:55:54 provided you agreed with the use of
0:55:56 logic
0:55:57 you agreed you agreed that everything
0:55:58 has an explanation and you committed to
0:56:00 a psr
0:56:01 and you you definitely a principle of
0:56:04 sufficient reason that every contingent
0:56:06 thing has an explanation
0:56:07 so you agree with every step of the
0:56:09 chain but then you throw the whole chain
0:56:11 out all together once it's done
0:56:13 when you get up to the point where
0:56:14 you're supposed to provide that
0:56:15 sufficient reason
0:56:16 and then you don't you simply jump to
0:56:18 your conclusion without okay so so
0:56:20 tell me where the problem is there are
0:56:22 contingent things in the world you
0:56:23 accepted that contingent things require
0:56:25 explanations external to themselves
0:56:27 i even saw one of the definitions you
0:56:28 put on your website kind of indicates
0:56:30 that you
0:56:31 you you commit to a sort of uh
0:56:34 principle sufficient reason and when we
0:56:37 take
0:56:37 everything that exists that is
0:56:39 contingent the set of all existing
0:56:40 things that is contingent whether it is
0:56:42 finite or infinite
0:56:43 doesn't matter so the set of contingent
0:56:45 things uh
0:56:47 that has an explanation beyond it so if
0:56:50 we
0:56:50 can conclude that the set of contingent
0:56:52 things is contingent
0:56:53 of course we can argue for that but just
0:56:56 just
0:57:02 you threw all of that out and jumped to
0:57:04 magic invisible man
0:57:06 no i see what we're what we're
0:57:08 discussing right now are and i don't
0:57:09 want you to i don't want you to
0:57:11 to change definitions here the reason
0:57:12 we've made this discussion about a
0:57:14 necessary being
0:57:15 is because it kind of streamlines the
0:57:17 discussion we're not concerned with
0:57:19 all the other properties we can have a
0:57:21 different stream where we discuss the
0:57:22 other properties that we say god has
0:57:24 but in order to get somewhere we have to
0:57:26 kind of streamline the discussion
0:57:28 and not keep jumping around to different
0:57:30 places when we actually make some
0:57:31 progress
0:57:32 so right now everything in existence
0:57:34 that is contingent
0:57:35 by your admission and by your concession
0:57:37 requires an explanation
0:57:39 external to itself because you've
0:57:41 already said that everything requires an
0:57:42 explanation
0:57:43 so if we can establish that a
0:57:45 multiplicity of contingent things
0:57:48 doesn't make it necessary like for
0:57:49 example my laptop requires an
0:57:51 explanation
0:57:52 100 laptops requires an explanation an
0:57:54 infinite
0:57:55 an infinite number of laptops also
0:57:56 requires an explanation and we take the
0:57:58 set of all contingent things
0:58:00 in existence and we say that it requires
0:58:03 an explanation external to itself
0:58:05 by definition that explanation cannot be
0:58:07 contingent because we've already said
0:58:09 that it explains
0:58:10 all contingent things then we've
0:58:12 estimated
0:58:13 that you jumped to god
0:58:16 right now right now right now we're
0:58:18 talking about a necessary being
0:58:22 hold on a second we didn't we didn't get
0:58:23 there yet aren't we we're just trying to
0:58:25 figure out
0:58:26 if we even agree on their being
0:58:28 unnecessary
0:58:29 and then we could we could there's lots
0:58:32 we could okay
0:58:34 yeah i mean because the thing is if we
0:58:36 come to an agreement that there's a
0:58:38 necessary being
0:58:40 doesn't necessitate that it's god but
0:58:42 then as you haven't come to the
0:58:44 future of the show very being what's
0:58:47 that
0:58:47 less that it's got so we have to we have
0:58:49 to get to that first assumption which we
0:58:50 haven't gotten to
0:58:51 and then that it is god which we're not
0:58:54 going to get okay but aaron can you
0:58:55 explain which part
0:58:57 hold on hold on abdul please
0:59:00 so what what i'm saying on is that
0:59:04 we were trying to build an argument for
0:59:06 the necessary being
0:59:07 you agreed to the principle of
0:59:09 sufficient reason so we're on the same
0:59:11 page there
0:59:12 then what we're trying to explain is we
0:59:14 have all these different things that we
0:59:16 experience in reality that are
0:59:18 contingent
0:59:19 that require an explanation for them
0:59:21 outside of themselves
0:59:22 and so the question is do we get to a
0:59:26 bedrock thing that is necessary that
0:59:29 explains
0:59:30 all these other contingent facts or do
0:59:32 we just keep going on
0:59:34 ad infinitum with all these different
0:59:37 contingent beings
0:59:38 the only two really possible options at
0:59:41 this point
0:59:42 is to say well there has to be some sort
0:59:44 of necessary being that is the grounds
0:59:47 and explains all these other contingent
0:59:49 facts
0:59:49 or we just keep adding on more and more
0:59:52 contingent facts
0:59:53 ad infinitum and we don't really get
0:59:55 anywhere
0:59:56 so matter and energy are eternal never
0:59:59 created
1:00:00 and that we don't have this problem at
1:00:01 all but then you would say but then you
1:00:03 would say that matter and energy in that
1:00:05 case would be necessary and then you
1:00:07 have a necessary being it just happens
1:00:09 to be matter and energy right
1:00:10 the reason being that it's not possible
1:00:13 for there to be absolutely nothing
1:00:16 well but i'm saying even in that
1:00:18 equation if you rejected an
1:00:20 infinite regress and you said well the
1:00:22 thing that's eternal
1:00:24 is this matter and energy well the
1:00:26 question is
1:00:27 is that matter and energy that's eternal
1:00:30 is it necessary or is it a contingent
1:00:32 fact
1:00:33 if you say that it's contingent then it
1:00:35 needs an explanation out of its
1:00:37 outside of itself or if you say that
1:00:40 it's necessary then you agree with us
1:00:42 that there is something that is
1:00:43 necessary
1:00:44 you just think that it's matter and
1:00:46 energy and then we could have a
1:00:47 discussion about that
1:00:48 okay so i mean which one of those
1:00:52 options would you
1:00:53 at this point would you go with would
1:00:55 you say that
1:00:56 you think matter and energy is eternal
1:01:00 but
1:01:00 doesn't have to be necessary and then we
1:01:03 still have to figure out well what
1:01:04 is necessary the only thing that makes
1:01:06 it necessary is that it's not possible
1:01:08 for there to be absolutely nothing at
1:01:10 least i don't think it's possible
1:01:12 for there to be absolutely nothing and
1:01:14 that impossibility would make the
1:01:16 existence of something necessary
1:01:19 right it's something that is relevant to
1:01:21 what works well no
1:01:22 it is it is because we're using
1:01:25 as we described in the beginning what
1:01:27 being was um
1:01:28 we're not restricting it to
1:01:32 this sort of god with consciousness and
1:01:34 all that stuff we're not adding that
1:01:36 baggage into the equation
1:01:38 we should we can have another
1:01:39 conversation
1:01:41 we could we could but before you go i
1:01:43 want to be clear on where we're leaving
1:01:45 off
1:01:46 at this point to me it seems like you're
1:01:48 agreeing that there is something
1:01:50 necessary
1:01:51 by the fact that you're saying you don't
1:01:53 think that there could ever be
1:01:56 absolutely nothing and if that thing
1:01:58 that is necessary
1:02:00 is something like matter and energy or
1:02:02 some configuration of it
1:02:04 then that in terms of philosophy would
1:02:07 be
1:02:07 a necessary being in that respect
1:02:10 we would disagree with that but at least
1:02:12 we would agree that there is something
1:02:14 that is necessary
1:02:16 and then we could have a further
1:02:17 discussion about which model
1:02:20 best describes what should actually be
1:02:22 considered necessary and what shouldn't
1:02:24 again i don't i don't deal with physics
1:02:26 at all
1:02:27 and i know that sean carroll although i
1:02:30 would have said that it's impossible for
1:02:31 there to be nothing i know that sean
1:02:32 carroll said that it is
1:02:34 conceptually possible for there to be
1:02:36 absolutely nothing
1:02:38 and so with that being the case that
1:02:40 means that matter and energy if never
1:02:42 created are not necessarily necessary
1:02:46 so
1:02:54 we would agree that conceptually nothing
1:02:56 is not impossible so we agree logically
1:02:59 that's
1:02:59 basically we're saying it's logically
1:03:01 possible for there to be nothing
1:03:03 it's only logically possible for there
1:03:04 to be something so we agree upon that
1:03:06 what jake was saying is that look what
1:03:08 we're coming to the conclusion
1:03:10 is this is that you've got contingent
1:03:12 being here
1:03:13 contingent being requires an explanation
1:03:15 either it has another explanation which
1:03:17 is another contingent being
1:03:18 an infant item in a series of contingent
1:03:21 beings and a chain that goes back
1:03:22 forever
1:03:23 or there's a necessary foundation and
1:03:26 necessary
1:03:27 thing within reality now if and the
1:03:30 necessary thing
1:03:31 could be the eternity itself
1:03:34 we agree with you but and that's what
1:03:36 we're doing against the argument
1:03:38 we're yeah but no we're agreeing with
1:03:40 you and right now
1:03:41 we're just trying to decide if there's
1:03:43 anything necessary in reality or
1:03:46 everything is contingent if we could get
1:03:48 to a point where we agree that
1:03:50 something has to be necessary even if we
1:03:53 don't know what it is
1:03:54 then we could have a further discussion
1:03:57 about what the necessary being would be
1:04:00 in terms of examining it and things like
1:04:02 that
1:04:04 because if we don't even agree that
1:04:07 there's a necessary being
1:04:09 then it makes no sense to skip that step
1:04:12 trying to go through this process okay
1:04:16 so if you want to have another
1:04:17 discussion i mean i could be open to
1:04:19 that but i certainly don't want to delve
1:04:21 into this because i don't see where it
1:04:23 goes anywhere and it's pointless
1:04:25 there are a lot of other things we could
1:04:27 talk about so pitch
1:04:28 concepts to me and and maybe i can come
1:04:31 back well the newspapers here are and i
1:04:33 think this was fruitful because
1:04:34 at least we answered the question but i
1:04:36 mean this normally doesn't happen so the
1:04:38 title of the stream is does a necessary
1:04:40 being exist
1:04:44 i think it's clear from the discussion
1:04:46 that all four of us here agreed
1:04:48 that a necessary being no that there is
1:04:51 no necessary being
1:04:52 there is something necessary but that's
1:04:55 what we agree
1:04:56 there's nothing necessary no but arn
1:04:59 do you think that it's possible that
1:05:02 matter and energy could be that
1:05:04 necessary thing
1:05:06 could be is it possible that it could be
1:05:08 necessary
1:05:09 yes it's possible that it could be
1:05:11 necessary it's also possible
1:05:13 it could not be necessary and therefore
1:05:16 it's not necessarily necessary
1:05:19 okay but that's that's why i'm asking
1:05:20 nothing the answer to the question is no
1:05:22 there is not a necessary being
1:05:24 and i'm now 10 minutes over time okay so
1:05:27 you
1:05:27 don't think that okay all right i mean
1:05:31 i'd be happy to have you back on because
1:05:33 but when
1:05:34 i come back on i want to know why you
1:05:36 all believe what you believe
1:05:37 not well sure but this is this is the
1:05:39 process
1:05:40 this is part of the process this is part
1:05:42 of the process and we want to have you
1:05:44 on for longer right
1:05:45 we're explaining to you why we believe
1:05:48 in certain things so one of the reasons
1:05:49 why we believe is because we believe in
1:05:51 the principle of sufficient reason not
1:05:52 magic
1:05:53 yeah one of the reasons you can get to
1:05:55 islam through this
1:05:56 one of the world there is one one way
1:05:58 one of the other you know
1:06:00 one of the things what are the other
1:06:01 reasons and this is not how you got
1:06:03 there why
1:06:04 absolutely one of the reasons why well
1:06:06 to be honest
1:06:07 aaron i don't think you've really read
1:06:09 any books philosophical books
1:06:11 written by these classical islamic
1:06:12 scholars on the proof of
1:06:14 islam because i'm out thank you
1:06:18 we'll have another conversation another
1:06:19 time thank you good having you honorary
1:06:21 i appreciate it i i quite enjoyed the
1:06:23 discussion and i appreciate you coming
1:06:25 on
1:06:26 thank you thank you take care all the
1:06:28 best
1:06:30 so yeah so i think that was good i think
1:06:32 we made some progress although
1:06:35 uh there was a bit of back pedaling
1:06:36 towards the end there but i think i
1:06:38 think we made some progress because i
1:06:39 think the entailment of what he said at
1:06:42 towards the end of you know it could be
1:06:44 necessary but then it could have not
1:06:46 existed altogether
1:06:47 well if it could have not existed
1:06:49 altogether and an absolute
1:06:50 philosophical nothingness was real then
1:06:53 magic's right so then it popped into
1:06:55 existence out of nothing
1:06:56 the fact that something exists indicates
1:06:59 that there is something that is
1:07:00 ontologically necessary
1:07:02 and also metaphysically necessary so so
1:07:05 i i think
1:07:05 uh i think that that last bit there is a
1:07:08 bit problematic
1:07:10 that uh how how he's appealing to a
1:07:11 philosophical nothingness
1:07:13 that could have been the case and that
1:07:15 the energy
1:07:16 matter could have been possible but it
1:07:18 might have not existed
1:07:20 listen we have to be clear the guy came
1:07:23 on here and towards the end when i was
1:07:25 asking him questions and kind of
1:07:26 pressing them on it
1:07:28 he literally said that it's impossible
1:07:31 for there to be nothing
1:07:32 therefore he is positing some sort of
1:07:36 necessity
1:07:37 about the nature of reality something
1:07:40 that exists
1:07:41 has to be necessary because it's
1:07:43 logically impossible
1:07:45 for there to be absolutely nothing now
1:07:47 when i explained the implications of
1:07:49 that
1:07:50 he realizing that he is positing a
1:07:52 necessary bean
1:07:54 he kind of flip-flopped at the same time
1:07:56 he said well
1:07:57 sean carroll says it's it's possible
1:07:59 that there is
1:08:00 nothing and that uh but he even in
1:08:03 within that statement
1:08:04 he said i disagree with sean so
1:08:07 yeah again still affirming that there is
1:08:11 something that is necessary because the
1:08:14 uh the opposite of that which would be
1:08:18 that there's absolutely nothing he said
1:08:20 is impossible
1:08:22 yeah yeah i mean i think i think it was
1:08:24 a good discussion because he
1:08:26 went back on it i think i think because
1:08:28 i think sharif took him down the
1:08:29 the line of reasoning and and i think uh
1:08:31 i mean i appreciate the fact that he
1:08:33 actually
1:08:33 listened and he agreed on many of the
1:08:35 points i think it's just the logical
1:08:37 entailment
1:08:38 of that and or or the outcome of
1:08:40 whatever he agreed on agreed upon that
1:08:42 he wasn't very comfortable with
1:08:44 and uh and yeah i think i think there's
1:08:46 a problem with with
1:08:47 again undermining philosophy and this
1:08:50 happens a lot of times with
1:08:52 some internet atheists and even theists
1:08:54 the idea that you know
1:08:56 philosophy is good but come on give me
1:08:58 the science give me give me you know the
1:08:59 meat and potatoes of the discussion
1:09:01 and then through their line of reasoning
1:09:04 and when trying to ex
1:09:05 you know explain their position and
1:09:08 reason their way with
1:09:09 with with uh you know through the
1:09:11 discussion with their interlocutor
1:09:12 you see that they're using a lot of
1:09:14 philosophy
1:09:16 that is actually misplaced and faulty it
1:09:18 just shows the the importance of
1:09:20 philosophy and if you're going to
1:09:21 undermine philosophy in this way
1:09:23 you're kind of undermining science
1:09:24 altogether because the philosophical
1:09:26 underpinnings
1:09:27 upon which science is based need to be
1:09:30 reliable in order for science to be
1:09:32 reliable if the foundation is not
1:09:33 reliable then you know the whole
1:09:35 building collapses so i think there's
1:09:37 this problem that you often see with
1:09:40 internet atheists that you know
1:09:43 forget the philosophy give me the actual
1:09:45 evidence not realizing
1:09:47 that their position on you know their
1:09:49 conceptualization of what evidence is
1:09:51 and what it means
1:09:53 to provide a justification for a belief
1:09:55 is a philosophical position
1:09:57 their views on science and how it's
1:09:59 reliable
1:10:00 is a philosophical position their views
1:10:02 on god and all of that stuff
1:10:04 is a philosophical position but at the
1:10:06 same time you kind of
1:10:08 want to you know sweep the philosophy
1:10:09 under the carpet and and
1:10:11 and talk science not realizing that
1:10:13 you're just going to be talking
1:10:14 philosophy
1:10:15 without knowing anything about it so i i
1:10:17 think that's one of the main problems
1:10:19 here and that was that was one of the
1:10:20 main barriers to the discussion
1:10:22 but we got somewhere and i think i think
1:10:25 we answered the question of the stream
1:10:26 which is something that i didn't i
1:10:28 didn't think would happen
1:10:29 i think i was telling you guys that i
1:10:30 don't think that's going to happen but
1:10:32 um
1:10:34 i'm happy to actually i think what it is
1:10:36 is that look
1:10:37 thursday i i appreciate aaron roth from
1:10:40 coming on yeah
1:10:41 obviously it's not easy for somebody to
1:10:43 come on
1:10:44 onto a muslim channel to discuss with
1:10:47 free muslims
1:10:48 or theists on this particular subject
1:10:50 matter yeah
1:10:51 so you know appreciate him coming on but
1:10:54 and this is the issue
1:10:55 is people come on a lot of atheists come
1:10:58 on in my experience very
1:11:00 you know bullish we disagree there is no
1:11:02 evidence there's none of this
1:11:04 you know where's your evidence there's
1:11:06 no uh proof of the existence of the
1:11:07 creator et cetera et cetera or necessary
1:11:09 yeah however when you start to go and
1:11:12 you start to
1:11:12 demonstrate the very steps of the
1:11:15 argument
1:11:16 it's entailing this discussion it's
1:11:19 entailing the conclusion of a necessary
1:11:21 being and i think
1:11:22 that's uh that's what i thought was
1:11:25 quite clear and evident
1:11:26 the point at the end was simply to say
1:11:28 that
1:11:29 if you've got if you agree that we we
1:11:32 have contingent realities contingent
1:11:34 realities are things which could have
1:11:36 been an another way
1:11:37 so even if you want to say that energy
1:11:39 and matter
1:11:40 could have been another way it doesn't
1:11:43 have to be necessary
1:11:44 then by definition it's a contingent
1:11:46 reality and by definition
1:11:48 we would have to look for an explanation
1:11:50 outside of itself
1:11:52 now if he is going to or anybody is
1:11:55 going to turn around and say
1:11:57 well you know maybe something exists it
1:12:00 came into being
1:12:01 it had its particular properties but
1:12:03 there's no explanation for it
1:12:05 that is appealing to magic yeah yeah
1:12:08 that's the point that's the reason why i
1:12:09 asked that question about uh for the
1:12:10 audience
1:12:11 who are listening doesn't really want to
1:12:12 ask a question about magic because
1:12:14 magic you know a lot of atheists are
1:12:16 like dismissive of supernatural magic
1:12:18 all these types of leprechauns or
1:12:20 whatever it is
1:12:21 but then would accept this idea that
1:12:24 something contingent being can exist as
1:12:26 a brute fact or come into being
1:12:28 for no reason or no explanation or no
1:12:30 cause whatsoever
1:12:32 and that's problematic that means that
1:12:34 he's left with two possibilities really
1:12:36 either contingent beings are dif
1:12:38 explained by
1:12:39 other external contingent beings yeah or
1:12:42 ultimately there has to be a necessary
1:12:45 foundation or necessary being
1:12:47 that is a foundation for all contingent
1:12:49 beings yeah and i think there was
1:12:50 actually two arguments abdul gave one
1:12:53 argument and jake sort of um
1:12:56 uh implied another a third argument a
1:12:59 second argument
1:13:00 uh maybe just to explain really quickly
1:13:02 maybe abdul could uh confirm
1:13:04 abdul's argument is that in essence
1:13:07 argument in essence is this is that
1:13:09 if all contingent beings exist
1:13:12 then they all require an explanation
1:13:14 outside of itself
1:13:16 so even if they exist infinitely or
1:13:18 there's an infinite number of
1:13:20 contingent beings you'd still need an
1:13:22 explanation outside of itself
1:13:24 and that explanation would either be
1:13:26 another contingent being
1:13:27 but it would be in that same bracket as
1:13:29 all contingent beings
1:13:31 therefore he would need another
1:13:33 explanation would be a necessary being
1:13:35 so it's not within that bucket of all
1:13:37 contingent beings yeah
1:13:39 that was one really it's a purely
1:13:40 logical exercise and it doesn't depend
1:13:42 on the idea of whether there's
1:13:44 there's an infinite regress or not i
1:13:46 mean there could be an infinite number
1:13:47 of contingent things
1:13:48 but the same thing applies does does the
1:13:51 the the set of all contingent things
1:13:53 have an explanation beyond itself
1:13:55 and you can even you can you can apply a
1:13:57 strong or weak psr here
1:13:59 uh proust uses a weak psr to to to come
1:14:02 to the conclusion that an
1:14:03 unnecessary personal being uh actually
1:14:06 exists i mean we didn't talk about the
1:14:07 personal aspect here
1:14:08 but yeah the the the the the infinite
1:14:11 regress part and the infinity doesn't
1:14:12 have to be part of the equation you can
1:14:15 logically conclude from the fact that
1:14:18 all the set of all contingent things
1:14:20 requires an explanation external to
1:14:21 itself
1:14:22 that that explanation must be necessary
1:14:25 because by definition it is not part of
1:14:27 the set
1:14:28 it you know attempts to explain but i
1:14:30 also want you to raise another point
1:14:31 which is uh the point that jake
1:14:33 mentioned because jake said look
1:14:35 in essence you could have you know even
1:14:37 if you want to go down his route which
1:14:38 was to talk about an infinite regress
1:14:40 and i even asked them the question as
1:14:42 well do you believe in
1:14:44 the possibility of an infinite regress
1:14:46 because i believe it's a logical
1:14:48 impossibility
1:14:49 and a logical incoherency and what did
1:14:51 he say he said well it's possible
1:14:53 you know it's a plausible thing so it's
1:14:56 really interesting because think about
1:14:57 if you think about it this way
1:14:59 he's saying that it's possible even
1:15:01 though science can never ascertain it
1:15:03 it's possibility science is about the
1:15:06 quantifiable
1:15:07 and he's saying that you can come to a
1:15:08 possibility of something that's
1:15:10 non-quantifiable that science would
1:15:12 never be able to
1:15:13 establish at the beginning of the stream
1:15:16 he said a possibility
1:15:18 is that which science demonstrates that
1:15:20 it's possible in its existence
1:15:22 yeah so he's contradicting himself by
1:15:26 affirming an infinite regress
1:15:28 because science can never affirm the
1:15:30 possibility of an infinite regress
1:15:32 ever because it's unquantifiable
1:15:35 and therefore the definition of science
1:15:37 it would be impossible so he would
1:15:39 if he's using the same epistemic basis
1:15:41 he would have to deny an
1:15:42 infinite regress which then means that
1:15:45 the only logical entailment he has
1:15:47 of his observations is that contingent
1:15:50 beings
1:15:51 require a necessary being yeah a
1:15:54 necessary foundation something that has
1:15:56 to exist
1:15:57 that's eternal that has no explanation
1:15:59 outside of itself
1:16:01 and that is the cause and the
1:16:02 explanation for all possible contingent
1:16:04 beings
1:16:06 yeah there's something else i wanted to
1:16:08 mention as well because a lot of times
1:16:09 and and i've seen this again with a lot
1:16:11 of uh
1:16:12 with a lot of internet atheists um that
1:16:15 the idea that listen it might sound a
1:16:16 little bit
1:16:17 so he might sound a little bit
1:16:18 derogatory calling him an internet
1:16:20 atheist
1:16:20 no i'm not calling aren't an internet
1:16:22 atheist i'm talking generally about my
1:16:24 experience with
1:16:25 some internet atheists i mean i'm i'm
1:16:27 not trying to generalize
1:16:29 some are very philosophically equipped
1:16:31 uh so
1:16:32 this this idea that you know you're
1:16:33 talking about a necessary being or even
1:16:35 if you're going to specify like a
1:16:36 conscious
1:16:37 uh uh cause of of all contingent things
1:16:41 but you're not talking about god who who
1:16:43 who cares about
1:16:44 morality or or or is you know all loving
1:16:47 and stuff like that
1:16:48 and this is this is a problem it's
1:16:50 almost like you don't want to take
1:16:52 our position seriously if you're asking
1:16:54 somebody why they believe in something
1:16:56 you have to follow them in their line of
1:16:58 reasoning and not try to jump around
1:17:01 and ask them you know with red herrings
1:17:03 and ask them to prove
1:17:05 something that is completely unrelated
1:17:08 to the line of reasoning they're trying
1:17:10 to drive you
1:17:11 through now the idea here is that like
1:17:13 for example if i wanna if i want to
1:17:15 prove that
1:17:16 if someone wants to wants to make an
1:17:18 argument for you know abdu's existence
1:17:20 so let's say abdul
1:17:22 was walking down the street now they're
1:17:24 going to describe
1:17:25 certain properties of me right so maybe
1:17:26 they'll talk about my hair
1:17:28 my height whatever right they don't have
1:17:31 to describe
1:17:31 every single property about me in order
1:17:34 to kind of infer or provide
1:17:36 evidence for the idea that i you know
1:17:39 pass by the road and in the same sense
1:17:41 if i'm going to provide you with
1:17:43 evidence
1:17:44 for for for the existence of god you
1:17:47 can't lump
1:17:47 all the properties of you know the god
1:17:50 of abraham
1:17:51 as as as per scripture together and tell
1:17:54 me no your evidence isn't evidence
1:17:56 unless you provide evidence for all of
1:17:58 these attributes
1:17:59 at one go that's completely unreasonable
1:18:01 i mean i don't know
1:18:03 what what methodology uh you
1:18:06 this would actually uh work in like like
1:18:09 what
1:18:09 uh um what can you prove using this
1:18:12 methodology you'd have to basically know
1:18:14 everything about an inference or a
1:18:17 hypothesis
1:18:18 in order to infer in the first place
1:18:19 you'd never get off the ground
1:18:21 in making inferences about stuff because
1:18:23 you have to have kind of
1:18:24 indicators first right so this is my
1:18:27 line of reasoning that brings me
1:18:29 to this particular conception and
1:18:32 build upon that look at the the
1:18:34 inferences that you can make from that
1:18:37 and there are other lines of reasoning
1:18:40 you can use to infer different things
1:18:41 about
1:18:42 the same idea so this this idea it seems
1:18:44 like you know
1:18:45 you have to provide an argument for
1:18:48 everything about god
1:18:49 in order for that to be an argument
1:18:51 about god that's just completely uh
1:18:53 ridiculous in my view i mean i'm not i'm
1:18:56 not talking about specifically aren't
1:18:57 here i'm talking about the idea
1:18:59 yeah yeah and i think there's another
1:19:00 point that i think i just wanted to
1:19:02 address i never
1:19:03 really got to address it right at the
1:19:05 end because aaron
1:19:06 uh had to go you know i can't pronounce
1:19:08 his name he said it's not aaron
1:19:11 yeah i i i i'm having practicing
1:19:14 i think it's oran yeah i'd say aaron but
1:19:17 i don't know yeah we say aaron
1:19:18 aaron yeah anyway yeah
1:19:22 right at the end he goes oh this is not
1:19:23 going to lead you to the islam islam or
1:19:25 the islamic conception of god or islam
1:19:27 yeah
1:19:28 and what i wanted to say at the end was
1:19:30 you know
1:19:31 our scholars of islam they spoke about
1:19:34 this
1:19:35 thousand years ago yeah so al imam
1:19:38 jawaini he wrote a book called al
1:19:39 arushad
1:19:40 even has him he talks about this
1:19:43 evidence
1:19:47 he has three different evidences for the
1:19:49 existence of god one of them is the
1:19:50 contingent beings
1:19:53 so this is not like something which is
1:19:56 uh
1:19:56 absence from the islamic conception in
1:19:58 fact they lead
1:20:00 the discussion by saying that one of the
1:20:02 reasons for the proofs for islam or one
1:20:05 of the
1:20:05 explanations that islam is more likely
1:20:08 to be true
1:20:09 amongst loads of others but one of them
1:20:11 is that the islamic conception of god
1:20:13 fits with our rational conception of a
1:20:16 necessary being which has a will and
1:20:18 intelligence we
1:20:18 have we didn't really get on to discuss
1:20:20 those two aspects of it
1:20:22 so you know it's really important but
1:20:24 and i think this is where i always get a
1:20:25 little bit
1:20:26 uh and i think jake pointed it out
1:20:28 earlier although he's dropped off the
1:20:30 stream
1:20:30 which is that whenever you walk people
1:20:33 to this conclusion of a necessary being
1:20:36 they realize the consequence and they're
1:20:39 suddenly
1:20:40 you know it's like no no i just don't
1:20:42 yeah backtrack
1:20:44 no i don't want it yeah and he's like
1:20:45 come on man tell me what argument
1:20:48 within what we discussed did not lead to
1:20:51 that necessary conclusion
1:20:53 of a necessary being yeah and if you
1:20:54 can't explain that
1:20:56 then i don't know yeah yeah maybe more
1:20:59 thinking on this
1:21:00 and yeah i mean i mean that that's
1:21:03 that's that's the problem you know that
1:21:04 that backpedaling towards the end it's
1:21:06 the idea that okay
1:21:07 these are these are the consequences of
1:21:09 what i've committed to
1:21:11 or sometimes generally that happens that
1:21:13 you have you
1:21:14 someone comes to a realization that
1:21:15 certain belief he holds you know leads
1:21:17 to certain consequences
1:21:19 so there's a bit of like you know you
1:21:22 know intellectual tension
1:21:23 there going on and and and that's fine
1:21:26 you just need to adjust your views so
1:21:28 so so if you want to suddenly accept
1:21:30 magic then then you can go for it i mean
1:21:32 it's it's not a problem uh so so yeah
1:21:35 and i think the problem also is what he
1:21:37 was saying about this is not how
1:21:39 you've come to believe in god and i
1:21:41 think that's problematic
1:21:42 and and and and i didn't really like
1:21:44 that because you can you can kind of
1:21:46 like you know psychoanalyze anybody i
1:21:48 can tell you are and
1:21:49 that's everything you're saying about
1:21:51 evidence and science is not why you
1:21:53 disbelieve in god
1:21:54 you just believe in all because you want
1:21:55 to disbelieve in god you want to do
1:21:57 whatever you want to do
1:21:57 you just you know you're emotionally
1:21:59 troubled from the idea of god yeah you
1:22:01 had a troubled
1:22:02 childhood with religion or whatever you
1:22:05 know
1:22:05 that's that's that's an easy game to
1:22:07 play and you know two can play that game
1:22:09 really
1:22:09 but the idea is that what you want to do
1:22:12 is you want to be charitable towards
1:22:14 your interlocutors views right
1:22:16 and and many of us really many of us
1:22:18 growing up
1:22:19 uh especially over the past like 20
1:22:22 years or so in the west
1:22:23 have gone through phases of like you
1:22:25 know doubt and like you know
1:22:26 agnosticism even closet agnosticism that
1:22:29 i've personally been through and
1:22:31 through many of these arguments we've
1:22:33 actually
1:22:34 come to the conclusion that a necessary
1:22:37 being
1:22:38 exists and from there god exists now
1:22:41 the the problem here is that you're
1:22:44 going to say that no there's an
1:22:45 emotional aspect you want to believe and
1:22:47 whatnot
1:22:47 well i can say that about you too you
1:22:48 know there's an emotional aspect and
1:22:50 there's you know there's a
1:22:52 cognitive dissonance and you want to
1:22:53 disbelieve in god too
1:22:55 so it's better to you know put these
1:22:56 games aside and try to be charitable to
1:22:59 each other's views
1:23:00 and assume that you know that your
1:23:02 interlocutor actually has a well thought
1:23:04 out theory about things
1:23:06 and try to deconstruct it that's what we
1:23:08 were trying to do with iron that's why
1:23:10 we were asking him many questions about
1:23:11 his epistemology and how he comes to
1:23:13 know things
1:23:14 because we know that generally the the
1:23:17 the most common sense and rational
1:23:19 answers to these questions
1:23:21 lead to this conclusion of a necessary
1:23:24 being
1:23:25 of course you can disagree but then
1:23:28 again the idea is to be charitable to
1:23:29 your interlocutors you and not just
1:23:31 assume that you know
1:23:32 they're they've just been emotionally
1:23:34 manipulated into their beliefs
1:23:36 yeah yeah um i don't know if jake wants
1:23:39 to say anything i know he's
1:23:41 off he hasn't got his video on but yeah
1:23:43 yeah no
1:23:44 no i'm here um yeah i just kind of want
1:23:47 to
1:23:47 give my recap of what i think happened
1:23:50 in the conversation um
1:23:53Music 1:23:54 from what i can tell aaron you know it
1:23:57 was i think it was a good conversation
1:24:00 we got more out of it than i thought we
1:24:02 would have anyway
1:24:03 uh because the stream was does the
1:24:05 necessary being exist
1:24:07 i felt towards the end there sharif he
1:24:10 did most of the legwork but
1:24:11 i felt towards the end there when i was
1:24:14 sort of giving arn the
1:24:16 the different options and looking at
1:24:19 what he actually said
1:24:20 he literally said that it's it's
1:24:23 impossible for there to be nothing
1:24:26 so there had to be something which means
1:24:28 he's saying that there
1:24:30 is something that is necessary and
1:24:31 eternal now
1:24:33 of course we as muslims believe that
1:24:35 this is god this is allah
1:24:37 but um we didn't get into that further
1:24:40 conversation
1:24:42 about what sort of properties uh this
1:24:44 being must possess
1:24:46 we could have went into things like this
1:24:48 being must possess a will
1:24:50 uh and use sort of imam zali's argument
1:24:53 of explaining how that is
1:24:55 uh we didn't get to get to that part but
1:24:58 i think we did make a lot of
1:25:00 uh cover a lot of ground and him
1:25:03 on the one hand by his own words seeming
1:25:06 to admit
1:25:09 that there is a necessary being but then
1:25:11 when we
1:25:12 actually put that into words and
1:25:15 tried to say what the implications of
1:25:18 what he said
1:25:19 is he sort of backtracked to something
1:25:22 else
1:25:23 and so um i thought that was really
1:25:25 interesting i think it was
1:25:27 a good discussion if he's willing to
1:25:29 come back to have a further discussion
1:25:32 of first of all solidifying that there
1:25:35 is a necessary bean
1:25:36 that would be great and then second to
1:25:39 analyze
1:25:40 what the properties of this necessary
1:25:42 being must be
1:25:44 um i think we could have a second uh you
1:25:46 know part two
1:25:47 discussion yeah on that and that would
1:25:49 be very good
1:25:50 well what i find really interesting is
1:25:52 that aaron has been around
1:25:54 for a while yeah and he talks to a lot
1:25:57 of theists
1:25:59 or but he he seems to be you know i
1:26:02 don't want to be critical of him because
1:26:04 he you know
1:26:04 he came onto our show but he seemed to
1:26:07 be quite ignorant
1:26:08 yeah on some of these basic points about
1:26:11 what a contingent being is
1:26:12 what a necessary being is even you know
1:26:15 complete the idea of being with
1:26:16 personhood
1:26:17 as though oh sorry to cut you but i
1:26:20 wanted to actually
1:26:21 make that point because i saw in the
1:26:24 chat somewhere that
1:26:25 somebody said that they thought we
1:26:27 should have
1:26:28 clarified what a being was and that a
1:26:31 being just meant a
1:26:32 thing or an existent thing but i don't
1:26:35 know if the person is
1:26:37 but sharif actually clarified that and
1:26:40 he
1:26:40 he explicitly stated that because when
1:26:42 aaron thought
1:26:44 as we knew and we thought that it would
1:26:46 happen and
1:26:47 even other atheists who heard about it
1:26:49 they thought he was going to think that
1:26:50 a bean is some kind of conscious thing
1:26:53 and we're saying no we're not saying
1:26:55 that a being in terms of philosophy and
1:26:58 sharif pointed this out
1:27:00 is simply just anything that exists it's
1:27:03 literally just
1:27:04 a thing so um
1:27:07 i i do want to point out that we i think
1:27:09 we did make that clear
1:27:11 now as well yeah he accepted that point
1:27:14 now
1:27:14 yeah and i think aaron agreed to it as
1:27:16 well because i did
1:27:18 want to point that out maybe the person
1:27:20 who commented didn't see that part
1:27:22 but that is something really important
1:27:24 and that's why
1:27:25 even towards the end it's like he
1:27:28 accepted it but then at the end when i
1:27:30 said oh so aaron you do believe in a
1:27:32 necessary being
1:27:33 but then he was like well no i don't it
1:27:36 seemed like he was going back to
1:27:38 assuming that
1:27:39 being meant something like god you know
1:27:41 what jason is yeah i
1:27:42 i think i only think jake i think what
1:27:44 it is and this is
1:27:46 all with all due respect to aaron is
1:27:49 i don't think he wants to be seen as
1:27:50 conceding on the point of a necessary
1:27:52 being
1:27:53 because that's a pretty big uh
1:27:56 concession that he's making and i think
1:27:59 if he did
1:28:00 accept and he said yeah okay i accepted
1:28:03 necessary
1:28:03 being in the context of a necessary
1:28:05 thing or an essay foundation to reality
1:28:08 i think that's a big concession and i
1:28:09 think it was just something that
1:28:11 he didn't want to
1:28:16 and jake i mean i don't know about you
1:28:18 but i find it very surprising
1:28:20 like again no disrespect to aaron i
1:28:22 think we've had a very good discussion
1:28:23 and i think he was he was respectful and
1:28:25 and
1:28:26 and i honestly enjoyed the discussion
1:28:27 with him but it's just
1:28:29 surprising that some an atheist who is
1:28:33 so popular
1:28:34 and who is advocating for for atheism
1:28:37 and you know for uh you know
1:28:41 scientific method and enlightenment and
1:28:43 you know intellectual discourse and
1:28:47 in the topic of you know philosophy and
1:28:49 theology
1:28:50 doesn't know what the term necessary
1:28:53 being means and he's been around for
1:28:55 quite
1:28:56 a long time i i so i don't get how this
1:28:59 works i mean
1:29:00 i mean uh how do you
1:29:03 how do you become such a big figure in
1:29:06 the atheist community
1:29:08 with such a a you know respected
1:29:11 voice without knowing such a basic
1:29:15 term about the world view your entire
1:29:18 life
1:29:18 revolves around critiquing i mean i
1:29:22 i i don't get it i honestly i i'm just
1:29:25 it's just strange to me because this is
1:29:27 not something difficult you can just
1:29:28 google
1:29:29 necessary being stanford encyclopedia
1:29:31 philosophy and just
1:29:32 look at what it means i mean this just
1:29:35 doesn't take much time
1:29:36 and it's a very basic term so
1:29:40 so so i don't know it's just it's just
1:29:41 maybe maybe what it is up to is that
1:29:44 some purpose some people they don't like
1:29:46 to talk about these
1:29:48 they don't they think they dismiss
1:29:49 philosophy yeah i was all like you know
1:29:52 crazy weird non-practical theorizing
1:29:56 but the problem is and this is the
1:29:57 problem is he was using philosophy
1:30:00 throughout
1:30:01 all of his justifications for evidence
1:30:04 of course and then obviously we even got
1:30:06 to the point where he agreed that
1:30:08 empiricism on its own is not sufficient
1:30:10 you need empiricism
1:30:11 and logical axioms in order to come to
1:30:14 certain conclusions
1:30:15 within science you can't just have
1:30:17 empiricism so you need to have things
1:30:19 like the law of non-contradiction
1:30:21 or the principle of sufficient reason in
1:30:23 order to make into uh you know make
1:30:25 sense of
1:30:25 of data or of interpret observation
1:30:29 right someone in the chat go ahead go
1:30:31 ahead jake
1:30:32 yeah i was just gonna say that sharif he
1:30:35 when we were trying to go when abdul was
1:30:37 questioning him in the beginning about
1:30:39 you know evidence and his standards of
1:30:41 the evidence and his epistemology
1:30:44 he didn't see like at one point when you
1:30:47 came in sharif you're like well
1:30:48 this is a philosophical question it's
1:30:50 not a scientific one
1:30:52 and he was in at the beginning he was
1:30:55 opposed to that
1:30:56 and then when you kind of repeated the
1:30:58 point two or three times
1:31:00 he accepted that well yeah it is a
1:31:02 philosophical one
1:31:03 so he he did concede
1:31:06 to several things throughout the
1:31:08 discussion and i think
1:31:10 what people need to see whether it be
1:31:13 atheists muslim or whatever is maybe
1:31:16 some of these finer points
1:31:18 could have gone over people's head if
1:31:20 they weren't paying attention
1:31:21 i suggest that people go back and listen
1:31:24 to
1:31:25 and watch the stream again after we
1:31:28 close this out
1:31:29 and really pay attention to what happens
1:31:32 in the conversation from beginning to
1:31:34 end and
1:31:35 maybe even take notes on it because
1:31:37 there were
1:31:38 very important concessions throughout
1:31:40 the conversation
1:31:41 all the way up until the point of him
1:31:43 saying that it's impossible for there to
1:31:45 be
1:31:46 absolutely nothing which entails that
1:31:49 well then
1:31:49 there has to be something that is
1:31:51 necessary because nothing isn't
1:31:53 necessary
1:31:54 so it has to be something that's
1:31:55 necessary but then when we pointed that
1:31:57 out
1:31:58 he kind of went back on it and i agree
1:32:00 with your uh
1:32:01 assessment of sharif i think it's
1:32:03 because the
1:32:05 actual question of the conversation was
1:32:08 is there a necessary being
1:32:10 when he sort of realized that he was
1:32:12 admitting that there is a necessary
1:32:14 being
1:32:14 he didn't want to explicitly state that
1:32:17 because
1:32:17 it wouldn't really look good so i'm
1:32:21 hoping that
1:32:22 nevertheless that he'd be willing to
1:32:24 come back on for a part two
1:32:26 to solidify that point for him to openly
1:32:29 admit
1:32:29 that there is a necessary being and then
1:32:32 once we
1:32:33 he does that then we can further the
1:32:37 conversation
1:32:38 as to the properties of this
1:32:42 is and has to be and upon analysis
1:32:45 we would argue that it cannot actually
1:32:47 be matter and energy because matter and
1:32:49 energy are contingent things
1:32:51 rather than necessary things and we
1:32:53 would argue that it has to be something
1:32:55 like god yeah i think uh uh
1:32:59 we'll probably have to go soon but i
1:33:01 think um
1:33:02 yeah it was a good conversation i think
1:33:04 uh definitely
1:33:05 be good to have a second uh conversation
1:33:09 uh regards in regards to what he was
1:33:11 saying uh you know if we continue
1:33:13 but one thing i think is really
1:33:14 important um is
1:33:18 our aaron has very negative views about
1:33:20 islam
1:33:21 and about probably generally muslims
1:33:24 because muslims adhere to islam yeah
1:33:26 he probably thinks we're irrational he
1:33:28 probably thinks we don't have any good
1:33:29 reasons
1:33:30 or good explanations or whatever it is
1:33:32 yeah but he generally has
1:33:34 quite negative views about islam what i
1:33:36 suggest
1:33:37 whether it's people like aaron or others
1:33:40 who may have these negative views is
1:33:42 engage with us engage with muslims
1:33:44 sincerely
1:33:45 and try to understand it from their
1:33:47 perspective try to understand
1:33:49 even if you disagree try to understand
1:33:51 and engage
1:33:52 with people so that you could try to
1:33:53 understand from their perspective why
1:33:55 they believe
1:33:56 and why they accept certain premises and
1:33:58 certain ideas
1:33:59 and i think if he did that rather than
1:34:02 i think what he does at the moment is he
1:34:04 reads the quran and then he puts his
1:34:06 sound bites in there
1:34:08 really tries to engage in the tradition
1:34:10 to understand it
1:34:11 or amongst the muslims to understand why
1:34:13 they believe what they believe
1:34:14 i think he'd be uh i think he would
1:34:18 appreciate better his own position and
1:34:20 secondly i think he would start to
1:34:22 appreciate that actually
1:34:23 there are good reasons as to why muslims
1:34:26 accept the positions that they accept uh
1:34:29 you know
1:34:30 to the point where he's actually almost
1:34:33 becoming a you know somebody who
1:34:34 believes in a necessary eternal thing
1:34:36 anyway
1:34:38 yeah and i do want to just sort of
1:34:39 emphasize what you guys said earlier
1:34:42 about
1:34:43 um i mean let me just be quite frank
1:34:45 when i say this
1:34:47 is that aaron on many of the key things
1:34:50 like he defined a mind
1:34:52 as necessarily being dependent on a
1:34:55 biological structure
1:34:58 yeah and then when he went i i don't
1:35:00 think he really
1:35:01 understood what by definition meant but
1:35:04 because then when he went to by
1:35:05 definition and read what
1:35:07 mind the definition of mind was on
1:35:09 google even reading it i'm saying
1:35:11 oh i agree with that and he's saying you
1:35:14 see that by definition mind
1:35:16 necessitated yeah and i said which part
1:35:19 of that definition
1:35:21 means that it is dependent upon a
1:35:23 biological structure
1:35:25 and he said a person well i mean
1:35:28 the the definition of personhood and my
1:35:30 trinitarian friends might enjoy this
1:35:33 the definition of a person is widely
1:35:36 disputed there's many different
1:35:37 definitions of it
1:35:39 many of which don't depend on anything
1:35:42 whatsoever to do with the biological
1:35:44 structure
1:35:45 so which i i said that to him and he
1:35:48 sort of
1:35:49 also conceded that point my point of
1:35:52 bringing up these numerous different
1:35:53 examples
1:35:54 is that aaron for being a popular
1:35:58 atheist on youtube and having all these
1:36:01 hundreds of thousands of
1:36:03 subscribers and followers is
1:36:06 extremely philosophically naive and i
1:36:09 don't
1:36:10 mean that with disrespect but i think
1:36:12 it's the reality of the case and he may
1:36:14 even admit that himself
1:36:16 but i think that was demonstrated time
1:36:18 and time again throughout the
1:36:19 conversation
1:36:21 yeah he almost tried
1:36:25 he made that point about personhood to
1:36:26 you of all people i mean i was i was
1:36:28 kind of laughing there
1:36:29 but uh yeah yeah because because
1:36:32 someone someone brought this up in the
1:36:34 chat after i said that you know
1:36:36 i i was surprised about how
1:36:38 philosophically naive he was on certain
1:36:40 matters he was saying that aaron is
1:36:42 known because of
1:36:43 his knowledge and evolution not he's not
1:36:46 not of his knowledge and philosophy but
1:36:47 but that's a problem for
1:36:49 two reasons first of all he always makes
1:36:51 the argument or
1:36:52 requests from the theist to provide
1:36:54 evidence for the existence of god
1:36:56 because
1:36:57 he having surveyed the evidence has
1:37:00 found no reason or no evidence for the
1:37:01 belief in god so that that's that's a
1:37:03 philosophical claim and he's
1:37:04 already engaging and he's been engaging
1:37:06 for years in these philosophical
1:37:08 discussions about the existence of god
1:37:10 aside from evolution also with regard to
1:37:13 evolution
1:37:13 what jake just said about personhood and
1:37:15 the brain and the mind
1:37:17 well someone who is well known and well
1:37:20 for for being you know well-versed in
1:37:22 evolution
1:37:23 should be aware of of of these things
1:37:26 like
1:37:26 the mind body problem and and how how
1:37:28 they
1:37:29 they do you know pose problems to a
1:37:31 physicalist account
1:37:33 of of the mind uh so so i mean that's a
1:37:36 huge huge point
1:37:38 abdul even if you read a simple
1:37:41 introductory text
1:37:42 to philosophy of mind you will realize
1:37:46 that
1:37:46 nobody makes the claim that
1:37:50 mind by definition necessitates a
1:37:53 biological structure
1:37:54 now people may take that position and
1:37:58 do what's called the identity theory and
1:38:00 equate mind
1:38:02 and brain yes there are people that take
1:38:05 that position
1:38:06 but they argue it out philosophically
1:38:08 and scientifically
1:38:10 they don't argue it by definition in the
1:38:13 same way that
1:38:14 a triangle has three sides as sharif
1:38:17 said
1:38:18 no that's not in no academic
1:38:22 in that field would take that argument
1:38:24 seriously
1:38:26 that mind is by definition a biological
1:38:30 structure or dependent upon a biological
1:38:33 structure
1:38:34 they may make the argument that the end
1:38:35 of the day that it is
1:38:37 but not by definition by either
1:38:39 philosophical
1:38:40 or scientific argumentation or a
1:38:43 combination of the two
1:38:44 and it has to be it has to be a
1:38:45 combination of the two obviously because
1:38:47 scientifically you can't really
1:38:48 observe the mind from a third person
1:38:50 perspective so you have to make certain
1:38:51 philosophical leaps in order to come to
1:38:53 that conclusion
1:38:53 but this is the problem i was trying to
1:38:55 point to him that he's coming forward
1:38:56 with the materialist presupposition or a
1:38:58 physical as presupposition about
1:39:00 you know his you know he's bringing his
1:39:02 materialist or physical
1:39:03 theory of mind to the table as if it's a
1:39:05 fact and he's telling us that this is by
1:39:07 definition the case
1:39:09 and based on this we want i i want
1:39:11 evidence or we want to
1:39:13 discuss this and this is act this was
1:39:15 actually the problem with the entire
1:39:16 discussion
1:39:17 or generally his approach to these
1:39:19 discussions as a whole
1:39:20 that he brings these philosophical not
1:39:23 scientific
1:39:24 philosophical presuppositions to the
1:39:26 table
1:39:28 almost regards them as dogma and it's
1:39:30 like you want to prove anything to me it
1:39:32 has to be based on
1:39:34 this criteria and when we try to
1:39:37 question the criteria
1:39:39 it's suddenly frustrating where's the
1:39:40 evidence i want the evidence based on
1:39:42 the criteria
1:39:43 but then as a skeptic you should be
1:39:46 skeptical of the criteria you're putting
1:39:47 forward
1:39:48 isn't that the idea of being a skeptic
1:39:50 is shouldn't you question everything
1:39:52 shouldn't you not believe things without
1:39:53 evidence shouldn't you be open
1:39:55 to critiques about your worldview so the
1:39:58 idea
1:39:58 is that the reason uh we tried
1:40:01 deconstructing his view in the beginning
1:40:03 is for precisely this reason is because
1:40:04 we know
1:40:05 that in these discussions people often
1:40:07 bring their presuppositions and assume
1:40:09 they're set in stone
1:40:11 and say that whatever evidence you're
1:40:13 going to provide me or
1:40:15 you know however you're going to prove
1:40:18 to me the validity of your position
1:40:20 has to be based on my philosophical
1:40:23 presuppositions and that's yeah
1:40:24 yeah and abdul i mean the the key thing
1:40:27 we have to point out here
1:40:28 okay is that the issue of whether or not
1:40:32 god exists and the question to god
1:40:34 question
1:40:36 is a metaphysical or philosophical
1:40:39 question
1:40:39 it is not a scientific one so
1:40:42 part of the reason why i at least and
1:40:45 maybe you guys as well
1:40:47 are pointing out some of the examples
1:40:50 that demonstrate
1:40:52 aaron's philosophical naivete
1:40:55 and why i'm stressing that on that is
1:40:57 because what the audience needs to
1:40:59 realize
1:40:59 is that aaron is philosophically naive
1:41:03 and he's coming into a discussion
1:41:05 and has been doing so for many years
1:41:09 about a metaphysical or philosophical
1:41:12 question which is whether or not god
1:41:14 exists where he may only know
1:41:16 a certain degree in science and he even
1:41:19 admitted he doesn't really know much
1:41:21 cosmology so maybe only in the realm of
1:41:23 biology and specifically evolution but
1:41:27 that is not going to tell you whether or
1:41:29 not god exists
1:41:31 so once you establish that the god
1:41:33 question
1:41:34 is a metaphysical or philosophical one
1:41:37 and that mr raw is not really
1:41:40 philosophically
1:41:41 equipped for that discourse
1:41:45 it's very important that people realize
1:41:47 the connection between the two and again
1:41:49 i'm not trying to disrespect the guy but
1:41:52 i think that the examples we brought up
1:41:55 were evident it would be like me i'm not
1:41:58 that knowledgeable in evolution
1:42:00 if i went on to his show and he started
1:42:02 telling me
1:42:03 about uh basic terms in
1:42:06 uh evolutionary uh the the field of
1:42:09 evolution
1:42:10 and i didn't know them and i was making
1:42:12 basic errors about
1:42:14 what adaptation was or all of these
1:42:17 different things
1:42:18 i would expect for that also to be
1:42:20 pointed out so
1:42:21 i think it's very important that people
1:42:23 notice that
1:42:24 this question is a philosophical one
1:42:28 and arn with all due respect doesn't
1:42:30 seem to
1:42:31 be knowledgeable in the area of
1:42:33 philosophy and to be quite frank doesn't
1:42:35 even seem to care to be
1:42:37 knowledgeable in the area so um yeah i
1:42:40 just wanted to point that out
1:42:44 cool i don't know if there's uh we're
1:42:46 gonna end it now
1:42:47 abdullah abdul haman i think you need to
1:42:49 announce next week's show as well
1:42:52 oh yeah uh next week this sunday right
1:42:55 this sunday
1:42:56 yeah this sunday we're having a show on
1:43:00 a deism inshallah so yeah
1:43:03 yeah inshallah so same time at 6pm
1:43:07 yeah inshallah we'll be joseph ponders
1:43:09 will be back in charlotte couldn't make
1:43:10 it today
1:43:11 but shall i be back but make sure also
1:43:13 for the audience to like share subscribe
1:43:16 uh helps us with our content uh helps us
1:43:19 you know support us in getting the
1:43:21 message out there as best as possible
1:43:23 inshallah
1:43:25 yeah and if you give me one second
1:43:26 because i'm just about to get to my
1:43:28 computer
1:43:29 uh if you want to make any final
1:43:31 statements abdul before
1:43:32 i play the intro i mean the outro and
1:43:35 then we can
1:43:41 yeah go ahead i was going to say jake's
1:43:43 uh muslim metaphysician to
1:43:44 subscribe to that pondering soul uh
1:43:47 people should subscribe to him as well
1:43:49 sorry what were you gonna say sir yeah i
1:43:51 mean just just to sum it up
1:43:53 while jake returns to his computer i
1:43:55 think overall it was a good discussion i
1:43:57 mean we we
1:43:58 were kind of critiquing aaron raw for a
1:44:00 while there but the positive side is
1:44:02 that he
1:44:02 engaged very well he was responsive to
1:44:05 our points he was very civil in his
1:44:07 approach
1:44:08 he wasn't argumentative most of the time
1:44:11 so i i appreciate that about him i
1:44:13 appreciate him coming on
1:44:14 and and i hope we can have another uh
1:44:17 discussion with him or
1:44:19 another number of discussions with him
1:44:21 because this this was really great and
1:44:22 we got somewhere so
1:44:24 i hope i hope he realizes i really hope
1:44:27 he realizes
1:44:29 the level of this discussion for himself
1:44:31 how how it would be beneficial for him
1:44:33 though i'm not sure how much he would
1:44:35 realize that
1:44:36 this isn't about ego and about you know
1:44:38 he's gonna be
1:44:40 you know uh he's gonna defeat the other
1:44:42 person it's not you know
1:44:44 gladiatorial combat here it's about
1:44:46 trying to understand people's world
1:44:48 views and try to appreciate
1:44:49 their arguments their evidences that
1:44:51 they bring forward and i hope he
1:44:53 understands that because
1:44:54 even if he wants to still maintain
1:44:56 atheism he'll be
1:44:57 he'll be a better atheist for it because
1:45:00 he will understand the arguments
1:45:01 exactly at the moment at the moment with
1:45:04 a lot of
1:45:05 a lot of internet youtube atheists is
1:45:08 that they come across as
1:45:09 very angry very emotional very
1:45:12 antagonistic towards religion and
1:45:13 believers
1:45:14 making very much top-line you know
1:45:18 sloganistic statements
1:45:19 yeah you need to make it better the
1:45:22 discourse
1:45:22 yeah and i hope you appreciate it just a
1:45:25 very important point there is just the
1:45:26 last thing i want to say
1:45:28 is that that's a very good point i mean
1:45:29 it's going to make your atheism stronger
1:45:31 like
1:45:32 if your worldview depends on
1:45:35 the critique of another worldview which
1:45:37 atheism does depend
1:45:38 and largely depend on the critique of
1:45:40 pism then
1:45:41 it really makes your atheism stronger to
1:45:44 critique the strongest form of theism
1:45:47 not to focus on matters like hey why
1:45:49 does god
1:45:50 care about you cutting off whatever
1:45:52 right i mean
1:45:53 that's that that's really that's not
1:45:55 really that's not really the same
1:45:56 ridiculous argument
1:45:58 that's not really the strongest argument
1:45:59 for theism believe it or not
1:46:01 so if if if that's gonna be if you're
1:46:03 just attacking a caricature of theism
1:46:06 and and you're basing you're basing your
1:46:08 atheism
1:46:09 on almost a straw man of theism
1:46:12 then that doesn't make your atheism very
1:46:14 strong there are
1:46:16 philosophical atheists out there who
1:46:18 base their atheism
1:46:19 on the strongest representation of
1:46:22 theism and i think that's what
1:46:23 a lot of people need to do and that's
1:46:25 what a lot of people really don't
1:46:27 understand they think that
1:46:28 undermining the other position or you
1:46:30 know attacking the weakest
1:46:31 form of the other uh person's position
1:46:35 actually kind of like you know gives you
1:46:38 the advantage i think on the contrary
1:46:40 it makes you look weaker what what i
1:46:43 personally want to do and i think
1:46:44 generally what we want to do here is
1:46:46 when we're talking when we're discussing
1:46:47 whether it's atheism
1:46:49 christianity other religions or whatnot
1:46:51 we want to
1:46:53 critique the strongest form or the
1:46:55 strongest representation of these
1:46:57 these these worldviews and we want to
1:47:00 critique them based on what they say
1:47:02 about themselves
1:47:03 not what we think about them not just
1:47:06 based on what the layman atheist says
1:47:09 about
1:47:09 atheism based on what top philosophers
1:47:12 within atheist academia has to say about
1:47:16 atheism based on the strongest cases for
1:47:18 naturalism
1:47:19 that's what we want to critique because
1:47:20 if we critique a weaker form that just
1:47:22 makes us look weaker and i think
1:47:24 atheists should be internet atheists
1:47:27 should be thinking in the same way
1:47:29 yeah definitely sharif you won't have
1:47:31 anything to add before i end it
1:47:33 uh no man i think we've said
1:47:38 that being said guys appreciate you all
1:47:40 for watching
1:47:41 uh do consider liking subscribing and
1:47:44 sharing this video as well as the other
1:47:47 videos on our channel and we'll see you
1:47:49 on sunday
1:48:02 inshallah