 او بله من الشيطان العين الرجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم والصلاة والسلام على أشف الأنبياء والمرسلين سيدنا ونبينا أمل قاسم محمد الأمين وعلى أهل بيته الطيبين الطاهرين المعصومين المظلومين ولعنة الله على الداحم أجمعين من الآن إلى قيام يوم الدين أمين يا رب العالمين مرحبا أمين شكرا لك for joining me your host دي أحيسي مورم نحن مرحبا على شوةكم من الهولي سيدي كربلا هذا مرحبا بسيق في which we are discussing of course our points of contention are very basic and most fundamental points of contention with those who happen to follow other very popular ideologies and sets of beliefs out there in the world of course we call these ideologies these sets of beliefs these packages of beliefs a worldview because it is through that worldview that we use almost as a form of a lens by which we understand ourselves others and the entire universe around us it's essentially that which gives us an entire view of the world quite literally and so last night we were discussing the worldview of deism and why this has become a popular hiding spot for those who more commonly could really be called atheists or those who deny the existence of God outright of course dear viewers my congratulations and my salutations are in order for it is a very auspicious night and of course we are commemorating the date upon which say the Zainab may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon her the daughter of Imam Ali and of course the great survivor at the massacre which occurred here in the holy city of Kerbala the one that really took up the representation of the imams in that long and terrible very tormenting journey to the city of Damascus but of course we're here to look at the positives and of course the birth of say the Zainab is a very positive occasion so we ask Allah as well that on such an occasion we would all be able to benefit from the blessings of such a night in which Allah as well brought one of the saints of God namely say the Zainab into the world last night for those of you who don't remember we were of course discussing deism just to define it once more is the belief in the existence of a generic God but this generic God does not have any attributes of similarity other than existence with the Abrahamic God and what I mean by that is he shares very little in common with the God of the Qur'an the God that is believed in by the Jews and the God that's believed in by the Christians for indeed the deistic God is that God who has no concern whatsoever nor does he obligate us to do anything nor do we have any responsibilities or favors from him he essentially is the Creator who after the creation of the universe chooses to be entirely aloof and has absolutely zero relationship with the creation now I did mention that this is a very popular spot for those who happen to be atheists traditionally and what is the reason for that the primary reason for why this is a very popular spot with atheists is because those who are atheists would traditionally be able to hide behind deism without really changing their beliefs the outcome is exactly the same the outcome is entirely the same because in the outcome of deism the Creator is entirely aloof from the universe and therefore we don't have such a thing as divine intervention there's no such thing as miracles there's no such thing as revelation there's no such thing as natural revelation and there's no such thing as prophets there's also no such thing as laws and basically all the effects of organized religion such as service such as worship such as supplications all these things such as moral teachings now go out the window so you can imagine back in the days in Europe it was quite popular to say I'm a deist because that way you wouldn't be hunted down in a heresy trial or at least throughout some periods of European history you wouldn't be hunted down for saying you're a deist but at the same time you wouldn't be forced to explain away your non-committal nature to religious worship despite the fact that some deists did continue to function in a church as more of a social thing and we've stated that deism is often when we apply this approach of pointing out to the atheist that look if you don't believe in a god then it has all these nasty side consequences such as a lack of morality a lack of explanation for where existence itself comes from a lack of an explanation of how something has come from nothing and numerous other drastic consequences so what they'll do is they'll now invoke the hyper-phetical deistic god now is that actually a committal to that belief? no half the time when someone tells you a deist they don't really believe that there is a god that created the universe all they want to do is dodge the questions that are raised when you make a commitment to atheism and yesterday I pointed out why sometimes the deist thinks he's on very strong ground to invoke the concept of the deistic god for I quoted one of the modern day atheist arguments which is quite popular and I'll quote it for you once more just so we're on the same page and insha'Allah I'll endeavor to explain away why we don't find this objection particularly difficult to respond to one of the most critical popular British philosophers working in the field of popular philosophy when I say popular philosophy that is to make philosophy popular by breaking it down for everyone to understand is someone by the name of Steven Law Steven Law is of course a British philosopher he is of British origin and his main area of expertise is as far as I'm aware epistemology epistemology of course is something we've spoken about before that is the study of knowledge how do we know anything to be true of course Steven Law is also a radical skeptic and what I mean by that is he's someone that disbelieves in God in order to justify his disbelief in God and come up with an argument against the existence of God Steven Law formulated an argument which was not uniquely his there were a couple others that also came up with the same argument at the same time if I'm not mistaken one of them is Peter Millican and this argument goes along the following lines they say that Muslims Christians and Jews when looking at the existence of God would normally use the argument known as the cosmological argument that is to say that whatever begins to exist must have a cause now if science is correct then we do have good reason to believe the universe began to exist because the whole concept of a big bang means that there was a bang and that prior to the bang there was no universe so if we were constantly expanding it would suggest that there was a point where the expansion began and hence that the universe has a beginning so the fact that the universe does have a beginning is very popular science at the moment this isn't a quack theory not many scientists do believe that the universe is eternal and just for the record whilst many religious people today might get very intimidated by the concept of the big bang you ought to realize that in the 1950s when the big bang model was gradually replacing that theory we knew as the steady state theory that the universe is eternal and has been a steady state many non-religious scientists came out and said that look you religious people are trying to throw in the big bang because you want to bring God into the picture so we see that the whole concept of the big bang is one which is not necessarily against religion back to my point because we have good reason to believe that this universe had a beginning everything that comes into existence must have a cause the universe did come into existence therefore the universe has a cause now of course I don't want to talk about the validity of this argument it is a very valid argument and I know that some very shallow atheist out there will say well why can't we say God has a cause well you see the reason for that my friends is there's no atheist out there that believes God came into existence so if we can just stick to precise definitions you'll see that there's no problem with the argument but if you want to argue that the universe is eternal that's fine you'll just go up against the majority of scientists and I thought you said it was religious people but are not very scientific but coming back to my point so we'll look at this argument let's look at the premises again whatever comes into existence has a cause the universe came into existence therefore the universe has a cause we'll look at this argument now instead of saying the atheist won't say yes you're right the universe must have a cause the atheist will come forward and say okay what's the cause of God now the problem with this is it's not actually engaging with the argument it's just from the challenge one step further back now let's assume that whatever created the universe had a creator we'll say that the very thing that's at the end of that chain of creation is God problem solved now if the atheist comes forward and says well I believe the universe is eternal that's fine if you want to go against the consensus well not consensus but majority of scientists who posit that this universe came into existence and had a beginning you can go against science if you want to but I would suggest not being so dogmatic and allowing science to speak for itself and leaving your beliefs outside of the scientific روم of discovery إن شاء الله يا ربين سوف نذهب بسرعة و سوف نتمر this argument بعد ذلك السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته يا ربين شكرا لك for enjoying that very short break so that is the arguments and we've seen that there are already a few games that can be attempted to be played with this argument but that's not my intention tonight my intention is to invoke what sounds like a very serious and rational argument when you first hear it instead of going down the route of well how do we know the universe has a beginning Stephen law doesn't want to do that instead of asking who created God Stephen law doesn't want to play that game either because Stephen law is far too intelligent to know that no Muslim no Christian no Jew believes that God is created and anyone who does think that would be a heretic and a disbeliever according to all these religions when you're dealing with a defined concept you have to engage with that defined concept so someone tells you that I don't believe God had a beginning and my belief about God is that he is the eternal in the past and will be the eternal in the future it doesn't make sense to the world who created him then because if you don't believe he's created the question makes no sense it's essentially like asking say if you graduate from high school you meet one of your mutual friends that was one of your best friends at high school but you've both moved on because you've gone to university you've both had a mutual friend that is not presence and so you ask your friends that you've just met say your friend's name is Bob you say Bob how is Dave doing have you seen Dave recently and he says yeah Dave's doing well he's gotten out of he's just graduated from university and he's got a job as a mechanic he said okay how did university go it went really well he's a proper upright citizen if you were to turn around and say Bob when's Dave getting out of prison Bob would be really confused because he's not told you Dave's in prison Dave hasn't in fact been to prison and from everything he's told you you have good reason to believe the opposite of that fact you have no good reason to believe Dave is in prison in the first place so the question as to whether or not Dave is coming out of prison anytime soon to Bob is as wise as the question of who created the uncreated God to be theist now if you want to posit that as a separate question why there could be something that isn't created that's a good separate discussion but it's not really a valid discussion in the discussion regarding the cosmological arguments so Stephen Law is far too intelligent to use these arguments Stephen Law he says what instead he says when we look at the argument yes let's look at it whatever comes into existence has a cause the universe probably did come into existence therefore the universe probably does have a cause that cause you say is God Stephen Law says hang on hang on hang on take a step back you have jumped from a generic creator to a God that possesses good attributes Stephen Law would therefore say I'm going to throw the problem of evil at you the fact that evil exists in this universe and you as a believer will be able to justify it and say that God has good enough reasons for allowing evil to exist despite the fact that his nature is not evil but there are good reasons for why he allows it Stephen Law says thank you that's all I want to hear from you and so what does Stephen Law say he says look the argument went from the universe requiring a cause to now you saying there's a good God if that's your response and what you've derived from the universe then what if I derived from this that there was an evil God who created the universe now of course when I first heard this as well I was a bit baffled because at the end of the day it's a visit quite crudely he's an atheist and he doesn't believe in an evil God so it's like me trying to claim that Hitler didn't exist because he was a bad guy or trying to offer evidence of him being a bad guy to match the solution that he didn't exist but nonetheless maybe someone would say it's a low blow for me Stephen Law he argues what he argues I believe that the God who created this universe is a purely evil being contrary to the evil to the good God that you believe in and he says when you show me good exists in the world I'll justify it in the same way that people who believe in a good God justify the evil in the world and he says what's the problem with this he goes in the same way that your mentality your rationality your intellect allows you to dismiss entirely the hypothesis of an evil God I therefore am able to dismiss entirely your hypothesis of a good God and he argues that because they both carry the same amount of explanatory power those two things that I've discussed in a worldview anyone is free to dismiss either of them because if I can mentally reject the hypothesis of an evil God and it carries just as much weight as the hypothesis of a good God then I can mentally reject all these things now the big problem with this is does it really possess the same level of weight as a good God's hypothesis what does it mean to say someone is purely evil you see evil is the binary opposite of good and so to say that there's a purely evil thing is very difficult to do because in order for us to know what evil is as a basic attribute we need to know what good is so if it is God's nature to be purely evil there would need to be some good in him too therefore refuting the fact that he's purely evil because if he was purely evil we could even never know what that is because evil doesn't exist without a vacuum and that vacuum is a vacuum of good now that doesn't make sense what I'm saying is that whilst good has an essential property there are things that we could say are good evil if you look at what evil is is merely to fall short of good or do the opposite of good now something can't exist if it's opposite doesn't exist therefore a purely evil God could never exist now let's go for one step further and say that God is purely evil according to the Stephen Law Hypothesis purely evil God loves death and destruction because these are evil qualities purely evil God lives therefore purely evil God destroys himself therefore no universe you see if the God of the universe was purely evil he would have stopped anything coming into existence by just destroying himself because he'd be that much of a sadist so this argument is not very strong from that angle either now let's take this one step further too his argument is because good God and evil God الشيخ يريد أن يحصل on the same amount of explanatory power that they are equal in terms of being an explanation for the reality that we see around us of creation therefore we should reject both well, I don't know in which world that really makes sense you see there are quite a few hypothesis that are equally as valid as one another from a purely explanatory power perspective أرى أن الشيء الذي يمكنني أن أكون أبناء و أبناء like a matrix-like scenario وكل حقيقة التي أرى بي is computer signals being fed into my brain is equally as valid as the fact that reality around me is real They both carry as much weight as a legitimate explanation for someone looking for an explanation of explanatory power yet would I ever engage with reality as if I am a brain in a vet? Would I ever engage with reality as if I am in a matrix? Not unless I'm an atheist and because I'm not an atheist I engage with reality as realistically as it comes So to argue that something is just as weak as another hypothesis is the same explanatory scope just because you choose to dismiss one it's not really a great argument to be honest with you and it's quite confusing as to why so many people are baffled by this Now on the last point which I think is very necessary for us to mention we would say that when it comes to the issue of morality that is to say when it comes to the issue of good and evil Steven Law has no objective reason to even invoke good or evil and the very fact that we have this notion of morality written on our hearts the very fact that Steven Law is even able to invoke the concept of an evil God shows you that there is objectively a concept known as good and likewise there is objectively as the absence of good a concept known as evil Now if we acknowledge this, if we acknowledge that yes there is objectively a concept known as good and a concept known as evil the very thing you require in order to even make this argument then we would see that there are substantial problems with Steven Law's argument because in trying to get you to atheism he's just invoked the very thing which undermines atheism entirely namely objective good and objective evil So it sounds like no matter where these people turn at times they're always going to struggle and it seems that whilst this was thought to be a smackdown argument not only did it not get you to atheism but it just showed how many gymnastics people are willing to play in order to escape the reality and that reality is of course their God and my God, their Creator, my Creator, my Sustainer and their Sustainer Dear viewers, thank you so much for tuning in once more and I pray that you'll be able to join me tomorrow in which we begin looking at a different worldview والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله ورحمة الله