 The respected viewers, thank you once more for joining us back on your show, live from the holy city of Karbala, this is back to the basics and I am your host, Yahya Seymour. Of course, for those of you who are tuning in once more, just in case it happens to be your first time, although really I should assume that you can all go back and catch what I am talking about just from the gist of the episode content, but in general this is your show, live from the holy city of Karbala, in which we are trying to come up with a productive means for us to dialogue with others and start off in the appropriate order with a framework and methodology which is in line with that given to us by the Ahlul Bayt. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon them. It's very important for me to clarify the start of this episode. This entire methodology is meant to exist in order to, number one, save time for the dear viewer who happens to be Shia and wants to discuss with others. Number two, in order to afford a level of respect and a level of dignity towards the discussions that you may have with others. One thing I would definitely state is naturally in any conversation, in any disagreement, things will always get heated to a certain degree. Things will always take a, dare I say, things will have a tendency to get slightly hostile, particularly when we are talking about things as chorus beliefs, and you've seen how people get upset just through discussing things as minute as football disagreements, in addition to disagreements in politics, or even things as minute as what one's favorite movie is, or whether or not a movie was good, or along those lines. And therefore, if naturally people's aggressions will get aroused in a discussion pertaining to sport or entertainment, it makes much more sense that people will get naturally quite angry when it comes to discussing religion. However, one thing we ought to realize is if indeed we are a missionary religion, that is to say, if indeed we pray for the Hedaya of people, we pray for our guidance, or we pray in order to be able to be guided ourselves, depending on what kind of conversation you're having, you may have a conversation with someone who wants to attack your beliefs. And so what you're doing is you're preserving the guidance that you're upon, or you may be having a conversation where you've initiated the conversation, in which case you're trying to guide someone else. In either case, we need to make sure that our achlaq, that it's to say our etiquette, that it's to say our demeanor, our behavior, is befitting of someone who is a religious person. Now, of course I understand that in today's world, we live in a world of Islamophobia, we live in a world where people really can be quite derogatory, and that's generally because those who have nothing to say will always be reduced to mocking, or those who choose to act immature, and once maybe vent of some steam that they have in their lives, they'll always be quite derogatory, they'll always use words which are not really appropriate, words which often we would think to ourselves, would he appreciate if his parents heard him say that, would he appreciate if his children heard him say that, would he appreciate if his brother or sister heard him say that, or even sometimes it's someone from the opposite gender, so would they appreciate it if their children heard that, or would she appreciate it if her parents heard that? It's quite necessary for us to adopt a methodology and a way of behaving and carrying ourselves, which is in line with, number one, the general agreed upon spirit of religion, and number two, which is just conducive to anybody listening, and is one which is going to prevent personal animosity. Now of course, in any discussion, we're aiming to bring people light, and light obviously has a small component of heat, but that is not to say that we cannot hold ourselves in a manner which is befitting of people who claim to follow the Holy Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi, who we claim was the peak of Akhlaq. Now that's just the first thing I wanted to state before moving on back to the topic we were on, and our topic of course was we were rounding off with the worldview of atheism, and the worldview of atheism, the worldview of atheism's attitude when it comes to the issue of morality and ethics. Of course, we had stated that one of the major outcomes of denying a supernatural element of a world, or an element of a world which is now non-physical, and an aspect of denying even just metaphysics. Now metaphysics, for those of you who have not seen my previous episodes, you would know that meta comes from the word to be above, to be beyond something, and physics is just a description of literally what the science of physics is, a study of a physical world. So, when we say metaphysics, we mean that which goes beyond the physical world, that which is above physics, so to speak. When we deny the concept of God, and we adopt this naturalistic worldview in which the only things which exist are material, they are physical, there will be several consequences. We have seen this over the past few episodes, and for anyone that wishes to review what has been said, you may go to one of the previous episodes where we have almost beaten to death, some of these quotes from very prominent atheist thinkers, philosophers, and scientists who have acknowledged these things quite freely. So, what was the major consequence that we were looking at over the past few episodes? Of course, that major consequence we've been looking at was the abstract inability to ground the concept of objective morality in any particular place. And what we mean by that is, if you believe that the only thing which exists in this world are things that we can physically observe, and you believe that this world is free of a divine creator, and you believe that this world has essentially come out of a big bang, and the only thing which has caused life is a random accident, so to speak. It's undirected, uncaused, but rather to speak of direction and cause is to speak of something meaningless as many atheists would state. Then really, one big problem we will have is the ability to ground objective morality. For those of you who have been watching, you would know that objective morality, by that we mean a morality which we can stipulate in any case would absolutely be wrong, and in every case would absolutely be the right thing to do. Now, there are, of course, many who will state, what do you mean? What do you mean I can't believe in objective morality? I'm a good person, I don't believe in God. Of course, I've already stated that, of course you're a good person. Many atheists are better people than believers are many days of a week. But the problem here is, the question is not whether or not you can be a good person. The question is, where does this concept of morality find its grounding? And what I mean by that is this. I believe that this world has been created by a Creator God. I call that God, Allah Azawajal. And I have a bunch of experiences which I now explain away using the worldview and the scope and lenses of my worldview. I say that human beings have a knowledge of morality because Allah Azawajal has endowed us with an intellect and with that intellect and with revelation, we can know what Allah Azawajal wishes from us as human beings. But then there is another portion of humanity who state that they do not believe in the concept of a God. They do not believe that the God or God or Allah Azawajal has brought the universe into existence. They do not believe that he has brought humanity into existence. Rather, we are fundamentally nothing more than an accident which has evolved from the same soup which brought us every other living species today. Now, because we see in the animal kingdom that sharks do not have a concept known as Ajalla Kamaladir viewers rape. We see that certain species do not have a concept known as murder. We see that this level of agency has been stripped from these animals. And what is it that gives humans the agency therefore to perceive this concept known as morality? Why is it that when it comes to the way we live our daily lives on a day-to-day basis, we perceive morality? If someone were to attack a parent of ours, we would feel sad. We would condemn such a person as a horrible human being. If someone were to murder a baby on the streets, we would condemn such a person as a horrible human being. Why? Because we have this natural observable morality which we as humans all share in common. Now, the problem is not whether or not someone can be good. I've stated this world is the world of Allah, in my worldview. And therefore it's not strange for me that someone could be an atheist and yet be moral. My question is, how can someone be an atheist and find a grounding for that morality? How can someone be an atheist and find a justification for that morality, explanatory power for the phenomenon of reality? Now, we've seen that we have several prominent atheists who have admitted that if we were to take their world view to its logical consistency, then morality doesn't exist. The first one we cited was, of course, several days ago that was Dr. or Professor Alex Rosenberg, the writer of the book The Atheist's Guide to Reality. The second, of course, was Jean-Paul Sartre, the famous existentialist philosopher who is again an atheist, states again, once we remove God from the picture one of the consequences, one of the consequences is the concept of morality has to go as well. And to quote his phrase, there is no longer a heaven to ground that morality in. And all we find in the universe is a plane of men. Now, if there's just a plane of men, how do you ground a morality that exists outside the minds of men? Another person that concedes this is, of course, the British philosopher Julian Bagini, and we cited him too, and also Richard Dawkins. Now, the question is, how do we ground this concept of morality? In what can the atheist possibly find a grounding if he turns to the conscious objections and consensus of humanity? Then an atheist could turn around and say, I'm sorry, I don't owe humanity anything. What you lot designed as a group doesn't really affect me whatsoever. I don't owe anything to evolution. And if I want to take evolution to its natural, to its natural degree, then why would I want to have a bunch of intelligent guys competing with me in order to replicate my genes? Let me take them out now while I still have a chance. Now, you see, of course, with evolution and without God in the picture, no one can tell you what you're doing is objectively wrong. All they could tell you is, according to what society has decided, what you're doing is bad. They can never invoke the fact that you're evil, truly wicked, or wretched, or bad. All they could do is say, what you have done is distasteful to the vast majority of people. It's essentially like saying that instead of supporting, say for example, Glasgow Celtic, you supported Rangers. And that is a bad thing to do and punishing you for that, despite the fact that they're two relatively simple and subjective claims. Now, I cite those two because the team in my city of Scotland is absolutely terrible, so there's no point of citing them. But when we come to this issue of morality, we need to understand objectively that without giving us a real means to ground the concept of morality, then all it is is subjective. It's your whims and desires. Now, we have seen several times that every time humanity tries to come up with a golden rule to dictate morality, which they believe is objective, it backfires in the foot. Dear viewers, in Charlotte Island, we're going to go for a very short break. Join me after it, in which we'll continue. Wassalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Salamu alaikum warahmatullahi, dear viewers. Thank you so much for joining us on that very short break. Now, just to warm the dear viewers, of course, since this show is being filmed live in the Holy City of Kerbala, and we are right directly parallel to the shrine of our master Abul Fadlil Abbas, then one thing you would note is that there are several loud noises in the background. Of course, this is one of the beautiful scenes that we would see every day here in Kerbala because of the caravans and the groups of pilgrims which come from all over the world in order to visit the blessed shrines here in the city. And so, what we're hearing at the moment is aza or lamentations of mourning. I believe it's in the Farsi language, but inshallah to Allah it's not disturbing myself and I pray it's not disturbing you or preventing you from hearing what I have to say. So, we've seen that these man-made rules by which they claim would objectively govern morality have a tendency to backfire upon them. So, for example, when you would ask them, why can't two parents eat a newborn baby if they choose to? Now, of course, don't get me wrong, but I'm even putting forward this question. I'm not suggesting that the average human being would want to do this. Of course, I believe that it's written upon our souls to know that this is grotesque, but the question is on which grounds could an atheist objectively say this is truly wrong if they don't believe in the law giver, the one who gives us the concept of the moral law? Now, the problem with this is many of them would respond, oh okay, you see, you're ever fickle. Don't you understand that if you were to allow everyone to do that, there would no longer be anyone to populate the earth? Well, if that's the rule we're going to go by, I've heard believers counter-argue in legitimate scholarly debates, might I add, that if you want to opt of that rule, then you as atheist liberals should not support the institution of homosexual marriage because the consequences would be the same. On one hand, if everyone was allowed to eat their children, there would be no one to populate the earth because everyone would be eating their children. On the other hand, if everyone was allowed to do homosexual marriage, there would be no one to populate the earth because, again, there would be no one to produce babies naturally. So if they want to come up with such laws and arguments, half the time these laws and arguments backfire upon their very selves and are unable to come up with what we call universal laws by which to govern morality. We cited in the episode on Thursday night a very prominent atheist professor of ethics. Ethics, of course, being the study of morality and decent values as opposed to good and as opposed to bad behavior, rather. His name is Professor Joel Marx and for many years he used to write a column called A Moral Manifesto in which he completely defended the concept of being moral but at the same time not believing in God. And for those of you who saw it the other day, you'll remember what I cited him as saying. He states the following. I think the time has come to therefore to reveal it to the world and in particular to you, dear reader, who have patiently considered my defenses of a particular sort of moral theory for the last 10 years. In a word, this philosopher has long been laboring under an unexamined assumption namely that there is such a thing as right and wrong. I now believe there isn't. How I arrived at this conclusion is the subject of a book I have written during this recent period tentatively entitled Bad Faith, a Personal Memoir on Atheism, Amorality and Animals. The long and the short of it is that I became convinced that atheism implies amorality and since I am an atheist I must therefore embrace amorality. I call the premise of this argument hard atheism. And what he goes on to state is the following. So I was until I experienced my shocking epiphany that the religious fundamentalists are correct. Without God there is no morality but they are incorrect I still believe about there being a God. Hence I believe there is no morality. Now why do I accept hard atheism? I was struck by the salient parallels between religion and morality especially that both avail themselves of imperatives and commands which are intended to apply universally. In the case of religion and most obviously theism these commands emanate from a commander and all these people and this all people call God as Aquinas might have put it. The problem with theism is of course the shaky grounds for believing in God but the problem of morality I now maintain is that it is an even worse shape than religion in this regard. For if there was no God, if there was a God rather his issuing commands would make some kind of sense but if there is no God as of course atheists assert then what kind of sense could be made of there being commands of this sort. In some whilst theists take the obvious existence of moral commands to be a kind of proof for the existence of a commander i.e. God I now take the non-existence of a commander as a kind of proof that there are no commands i.e. morality. So what we see is what we see that whilst everyone else in the world everyone that believes in God we would see the information in front of us we would of course approach it we would say it makes sense if there's no God there would be no morality but clearly I experience morality on a daily basis therefore there must be a God. Instead no these atheists in their desire to affirm the absence of a God despite the fact that they work as professors arguing for the defense of morality for 10 years they now come forward and say well you know what if there is no God there is no morality but despite the fact I've been arguing for morality for 10 years and I clearly believe in it because I've been writing an article called a moral manifesto instead of admitting that I'll just say there's no God. And that seems to be really the reasoning that goes on here now of course I agree with the reasoning entirely if there is no God there can be of no objective grounding for morality but the scary thing is I believe that every human being knows and it's written upon his soul that there is such a thing as morality when certain calamities fall upon humanity we know that what was done was objectively wrong. And could society function without such a thing as morality? Of course these are very very important questions and I believe dear viewers this shall expose to you a large degree of the problems that are understood in the issue of religious debates. Speaking of debates I have been asked to comment upon something which is being going on in my previous adopted city of London that is to say religious debates which are going on between people who are of course Shi'a and those who affiliate themselves with the Ahl-e-Sunnah or Salafis more particularly I believe I've been asked to throw in my two cents my two cents is that anyone who is involved in this series of discussions should of course be someone who is familiar with the doctrines and teachings of a religion they should not be people who look up arguments in order to debate because that can allow no success rather they need to be students of knowledge from both the Sunni and the Shi'a site and those are my two cents may Allah forgive me if I've said anything wrong may Allah forgive me if I've contributed to this negative atmosphere of these debates from my past actions as well As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh