 of the shaitan al-lain al-rajim, Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, wa'as-salatu wa'as-salam al-ashraf al-anbiya'i wa'al mursalin. Sayyidina wa nabi'ina ab-il-qasim, Muhammad al-Amin, wa'ala ahla baytah al-tayyibin, al-taahirin, al-ma'asumin, al-ma'alumin. Dear respected viewers, thank you once more for joining us live on your show from the Holy City of Karbala. Back to the basics in which you're joining me, your host, Yahya Seymour, in continuing to discuss what we have been discussing for the past few weeks, insha'Allah ta'ala. That is to say, our differences and disagreements, divergences with those who do not follow the same principles and set of beliefs as ourselves. What differs with this approach, and perhaps other shows you have seen which attempt to deal with similar issues, is that our concern is not primarily how to convince others. For indeed, we believe that Allah, as wajal, plays a large role in the ability of a person to determine whether or not a person has the ability to accept guidance. For indeed, accepting guidance is not merely an intellectual submission, but also a submission of the heart. It is one which requires the psychological factors of an individual to also be sound, in addition to merely them recognizing an ability of truth, or a degree of truth in that which they are going to accept. Of course, we have attempted to lay out a framework by which we discuss these divergences and differences in a manner which is befitting for those who follow the school of the Ahl al-Bait, alayum as-salatu wa s-salam. And what I mean by that is, in a matter which is in concordance and in agreement and sync with the principles we have been given by the Ahl al-Bait, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all. Of course, in the past few episodes we have been discussing atheism. That is to say the lack of a belief in a God, in a deity, in a supreme being who brought this universe into existence from nothing. And we've seen that believing in atheism has several consequences. But I believe it is two of those consequences which are particularly damaging for anyone that subscribes to that particular worldview. And what are those two consequences? Those two consequences are, of course, number one, the inability to trust our reasoning skills and trust that our rationality is bringing us into the right place. Which essentially decapacitates someone from being able to trust whether or not anything they know to be true or believe to be true is actually true. It places us into a massive vat of skepticism, so to speak, and really makes it almost impossible for us to know whether or not we basically live the life of a solipsist. Now, of course, some people would say that I am engaging with atheism with an extreme degree of skepticism, but we have, of course, seen through citing and quoting the thoughts of major atheist thinkers that this is indeed the thought process and thought pattern which they have accepted falls as a natural outcome of their particular beliefs. What I mean by this is we have seen that one of the principles given to us by the holy imams is the principle known as qa'idah tul-ilzam. This qa'idah, this principle, means that we would take a person's founding principles, the principles by which they abide by when looking at their worldview and ask them to roll with those principles, ask them to basically run along with them and see where those principles take them. And in doing so, we would see that they end up with quite nasty beliefs or inconsistent ones if worldview is flawed and fallacious. Because, of course, as the Quran states, had this book come from anyone other than God, you would have found in it much inconsistency and contradiction. Why? Because inconsistency and contradiction is a sign of not being from God. So we have looked at that as one of the first principles, namely that we cannot trust the mind and the dictates of the mind. And the second principle that we have looked at is, of course, our inability to know a concept known as objective morality. And by objective morality, we, of course, mean the ability to judge anything as objectively right or wrong or good or bad. Now, of course, this puts the atheist into a slight dilemma. And why is that? Because you would find that any objection they level against the truth is going to be premised upon one of those two things. Either it will be an intellectual objection, in which case, if they are leveling a rational objection, we need to be able to trust our rationality. And if atheism states that we can't, it's not very great that they have to borrow from my worldview in order to level an objection against my worldview, which is half the time quite fallacious anyway, and isn't really that rational. Secondly, it would be a moral disagreement. It would be a disagreement of saying that I don't like the fact that innocent babies die. And of course, these are all great issues to discuss when it comes to the existence of God and very necessary issues to discuss. But the problem is, if you belong to a worldview which accepts quite freely that there's no such thing as objectively good and no such thing as objectively bad, then it becomes extremely problematic for us to take seriously that you have a real objection against these issues. And what I mean by that is, it becomes real difficult for us to take seriously the possibility of accepting an objection against religion on the basis of something seems evil to you when your whole worldview and the position you adopt is that there's no such thing as evil in the first place. Now of course, these are some things that we understand through analyzing the major core principles of atheism which is to strip the physical world away from the metaphysical world, to strip the natural world away from the supernatural world and to reduce human beings just down to their physical properties. Of course, this is something that not every atheist would accept. Well, we have seen that many of the intellectual leaders of a modern day atheist movements, many of our classical philosophical geniuses have understood and accepted and even embraced these particular principles. So where does this leave us? It leaves us now rounding up with the discussion on atheism because of course, we don't want to waste our time too much discussing each particular worldview to a degree that we don't understand some of the more solid areas of discussion. And what do I mean by that? I mean that it is not within our interests to highlight and focus upon every single issue under the sun which can be raised in a discussion between a believer and an atheist because every single issue under the sun is not worth discussing when there are major issues pertaining to the sun and whether or not we can see with light on these issues in the first place. It is much better for us to focus upon those major issues such as can a person even trust their intellect if they are an atheist? Can a person even invoke concepts such as good and bad if they are an atheist before we start coming up with rational responses to dilemmas which are either intellectual or pertaining to ethics and morality? And what I mean by that is we need to make sure that in any discussion we have with anyone regardless of their worldview we are not merely allowing them to take the critic's seat. What do I mean by the critic's seat? Of course we all know what the word seat means it means chair. We're not allowing them to just sit down and start poking holes at the beliefs of others. No, because none of us are starting off at the position of neutrality. When an atheist comes to you and starts questioning you about your beliefs we likewise in accepting to respond about our beliefs need to ask them to answer some questions otherwise it's not a dialogue. It's a person being the interrogator and acting as if he has a privileged position by which he can interrogate your beliefs no matter what the religions are in the discussion no matter what the sects are no matter what the ideologies are we need to make sure that the one who thinks he can interrogate is likewise willing to be interrogated about the principles he has. And if he claims he has no principles then such a person we can't dialogue with them anyway because if someone is entirely neutral on everything then it means that they can't take a stance either negative or positive and essentially what you should be able to tell them their brain should absorb from the start because they claim to be entirely neutral on the topic. Now this is clearly not the case. There is the principle of non-excluded middle namely that something is either true or false and there is no position in between. So when it comes to these issues we need to make sure that we have a solid foundation and we need to make sure that this is the approach that we take all the time because you see when it comes to how the imams would debate with others they wouldn't use universal arguments which would convince every single person because you see a universal argument rarely exists rather for each person they would use a different argument depending upon that person's capability to understand the truth depending upon that person's presuppositions and in order to do so they needed to be familiar with what that person believed. So now we come to a very important point and what is that point? That point is whether or not we as believers can use this approach of worldview and what we've understood of the atheists to come up with a positive argument for God's existence. And I believe we can. I'm going to cite what is a chapter in an upcoming book. Well, I say upcoming but it was a book I began working on upon having a dialogue with an atheist here in Kerbala approximately, it must have been about four years ago and of course, Alhamdulillah, by the blessings of Allah Azawajal and the barakah of this holy city which has the barakah of the Ahl al-Bayt we saw, we as the brothers, we saw that this atheist came back to the Ahl al-Bayt but he was influenced by atheism at his university and he wanted to know of a positive case for Allah's existence. So I'll cite to you what I have written in this particular chapter. It is indeed a transcription of the conversation as it happened. I say and I quote, I can see you're frustrated. Now of course, there's a context before this which allows it to happen the way it did. I can see you're frustrated. You're wondering if you have wasted your time with me and have yet to hear a positive case for why I believe in God. I apologize. I felt that by giving you an introduction to me then you may come to appreciate I'm not the typical believer that you're used to. Dear viewers, I'm gonna leave the quotation there. We're gonna go for a very short break and when we come back I'll continue citing the rest. Wassalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Salam alaikum dear viewers. Thank you so much for joining us during that short break and my apologies today for any slight technical issues which you've been experiencing. Of course, as you know when it comes to filming live there will of course be slight technicalities especially in a country like Iraq where we are recovering from the numerous crises that the country has been in over the past few decades so please do forgive us and we return back to our topic in shah-la-ta'ala. I stated, so I hope the introduction has helped you in understanding a little more about me and how I was guided to by God to reach the point that I have come to over nine years ago. So now if you allow me to structure this as an argument I shall do my best. Do I promise it will convince you? No, not necessarily. Yet I hope you shall come to see what I said originally is the case. That we both see the evidence as clear as the sun in the middle of the day yet our approaches to interpreting differ. And what I mean by this is of course that reference I made to the concept of the worldview. The reference I made to the concept of how we as individuals who have a worldview we interpret all of the data we see in front of us in accordance with that worldview. So I mentioned this more in episode one of this show back to the basics. So those of you who want to understand what I'm saying here more can refer back to episode one in shah-la-ta'ala. I cannot lie to you and claim to be neutral. There is no such thing as neutrality on this issue. God either exists or he does not. And the law of non-excluded middle that is to say that something is either true or false and there is no position in between the two prevents me there from being any neutral grounds. I therefore will not pretend to be someone who claims that I am analyzing this as a neutral observer making a conclusion from zero. I submit to you that I am certain of God's existence and that deep down you are too of all you have suppressed this knowledge and need to be reminded of it. I see that you have gone from a muse to irritate it. I understand so perhaps it's best that I now offer my case in the form of a constructed argument that you have been waiting for all this time. I apologize if you feel I have taken too long to reach this point. My argument is as follows. I call it the proof of the thinker, Burhan al-Aqil. If you and I are having this conversation, then God exists. And you and I of course are having this conversation and therefore God exists. I see that your eyes are widening and you can't help but chuckle at my argument. Feel free to laugh at me. Since you have laughed previously at the concept of God it's not like I'm deserving of more respect. Yet I do ask, please give me time to elaborate the premises of my argument before dismissing me as being just another crazy believer. As I stated, again, if you and I are having this conversation and discussing this issue tonight, then God exists. But you and I are discussing this conversation and we are discussing this issue and therefore God exists. For the first thing we need in order for this discussion to take place is we need a universe in order to discuss it. That requires a powerful personal timeness and immaterial creator. Deists and atheists have constantly maintained throughout history that the universe itself was eternal. Contrary to Muslims and other monotheists who have maintained that the universe came into existence and was preceded by absence of existence. Thankfully, scientific discovery today now affirms that the Muslim perspective and since the early 20th century we have discovered that our universe is expanding and therefore could be traced back to have a beginning. Since this universe had a beginning we are left with two further possibilities. Either it began to exist due to a cause or it sprang into existence with no cause. The latter is an absurd irrational concept since out of nothing nothing comes the consequences of believing such an absurd theory are drastic and radical. It is more rational to believe in petty magic tricks such as cheat magicians pulling coins from behind their ears and rabbits out of their hats than to believe that something could randomly spring itself into existence. If you submit to me that you can believe the latter then I believe it is you who shall come across as irrational in this conversation. As for the former and only feasible explanation namely that the universe had a cause we must think at what qualities this cause must have had. This cause can neither be composed of matter nor bound by time since both matter and time came into existence with the universe. So the cause of our universe had to be both timeless and immaterial. Therefore it must further be either a natural cause or a personal cause. Natural causes are of course the kind of causes which we refer to when engaging in science. Personal causes are the kinds of causes we refer to when there exists agency namely free will and choice. An intentionality and someone who chooses to do something. It cannot be scientific as scientific explanations presuppose the laws of nature and yet nature did not exist in order to bring itself into existence. So the cause must be timeless immaterial and personal. The cause would also need to be powerful enough to bring the universe into existence out of nothing. And therefore we can gather from this fact alone that the cause is personal, timeless, immaterial and of immense power. Therefore from our temporal finite material universe we know that there exists in a timeless, personal, immaterial and powerful creator. Yet is this sufficient for us to be having our conversation tonight? Could we be having this conversation in just any odd universe? Of course not. In order for our discussion to be taking place tonight there must be a universe which is finally tuned for intelligent life. For forces, principles and constants of physics certain physical quantities and the ratio between the masses of atomic particles and the properties of elements and compounds had to be just right or we would not be here. Without gravity there would be no planets no stars and no galaxies and it wouldn't be possible for you and I to sit in the way we are today. Without a strong nuclear force protons and neutrons wouldn't be able to hold together the nucleus of an atom and we'd only have the element of hydrogen standing by itself on the periodic table. Without the electromagnetic force there would be no chemical interaction between the atoms and molecules necessary for life to form. Yet the fact that we have these principles and constants is not nearly as shocking as the fine-tuning of the numbers that physicists have given for these constants. This falls under an extremely narrow range which makes our universe's facilitation possible. Now you and I may suspect and I probably do suspect that you will probably argue that despite the extremely low probability discussed by physicists in regards to the fine-tuning of the universe to allow life to develop is just a pure chance and it's also potluck. I suspect that whilst it may seem reasonable to you whilst trying to escape the reality of God's existence you have not really thought of how absurd this seems. Imagine that a man were to take you to the side and he would place in front of your eyes a box with pieces of paper and each time these million pieces of paper out of it 10 would have a line scribbled on it and the rest would all be blank. He would tell you to put your hand blindly into the box without looking, close your eyes and draw out a piece of paper. You have to feel within the box and you pull out pieces of paper. You happen to pull out one of the scribble. You do this again another 100 times and each time after he places the paper back into the box and shakes it again, each time you pull out the piece of paper with the scribble. How long would it take before you start saying, hang on, someone's looking out for me here and clearly this game is loaded? Of course, this is how the rational person would think as for the irrational one. Then they think differently. Dear viewers, I'll continue with this argument tomorrow and inshallah ta'ala. Thank you so much for joining us once more. Wassalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.