 In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful, and the most Merciful. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon the Prophets, the Prophets, the Messengers, our Master and our Prophet, Abu Al-Qasim, Muhammad Al-Ameen, and the people of the house of the good, the pure, the pure, the humble, and the humble. Dear respected viewers, thank you for joining us once more on this, your show, live from the holy city of Karbala, back to the basics, in which, of course, we will continue with our analysis of the differences between us and of those who follow other paths, other worldviews, and indeed share different beliefs from those other than our own, believe in different religions, or indeed believe in no religion whatsoever. We are, of course, continuing our discussion today of what we have been on the past, what we have been discussing, rather, for the past few days, that is to say, the worldview of atheism. Now, just like I state very cautiously in indeed every episode pertaining to atheism, we must recognize and indeed call something for what it is. A spade is indeed a spade, and a rock is indeed a rock. When someone tells you that atheism is not a worldview, they have, of course, deceived themselves into believing that it is merely the abstraction of a God or God from the picture. They argue that in the same way that you as a Muslim reject Jesus as God, or in the same way that you reject the Buddha as God, although many of you, of course, the analogies they give are not actually very representative, because they don't actually always represent the reality of the religions. They are contradicting or, indeed, giving the analogy of. But they will say that because you reject, for example, Zeus, or Amenra, or even four, that you, likewise, are an A-thorist, an A-Amenraist, or an A-Zeusist. And the only difference is I've gone one step further and rejected your God as well. And, of course, when we reach the appropriate place, we'll see that in some ways they have good reasons for rejecting some of the so-called monotheistic gods believed in today, or the conceptions of the monotheistic gods believed in by humanity today. But in regards to whether or not they have a good basis for rejecting the God, namely the creator of the universe and sustainer of it, namely Allah Azim-e-Jal, we find that it does, indeed, lead them into what we would describe minimally as a form of world view. World view, of course, is a view of the world based upon an interconnected set of beliefs which dictates how we understand the world around us and, indeed, our own experiences. And we've seen that not only is this something that we as believers would state when understanding or analyzing atheism, but rather it is also stated by some of the leading proponents of atheism itself. This is not merely an abstract belief, rather this is something that's recognized by very intelligent, very well educated, and very well meaning atheists in their own arguments for why God does not exist and why we ought to reject belief in God. So what does the atheist world view look like? If we could describe the varying ways that believers accept certain things, we'd say that the believers trust, verify senses, that the believers, at least the believers in Islam, believe that we have a thing called the fitrah, which allows us to know certain things as well. They believe that we have the ability to trust our rationality and that we live in a very rational universe. What I mean by that is a universe which is rationalizable. We're able to rationalize our experience and attempt to form a coherent picture of everything we see around us and have indeed seen and most likely will ever see. The atheist on the other hand is quite a different view of the world and we saw this in a few episodes previously in which we discussed some of the ways that the atheist doctor or professor Alex Rosenberg described in his book The Atheist Guide to Reality in which he describes atheism as more than just smack down arguments against the existence of God, but a whole very, very unique and interesting breathtaking view of the world and there's a whole world view to go alongside of it. Some of you who may be tuning in for the first time will not remember what Dr. Alex Rosenberg states, but in the questions he asks as a precursor to understanding his world view, he states that reality is essentially whatever physics says it is, for indeed he has reduced reality to merely the physical properties studied in the science of physics, chemistry and biology of substances. Alex Rosenberg thereafter argues that human history has no meaning, that love is merely a strategic solution to a particular problem, namely the need to survive and more importantly, that the concept known as thought or the ability to think is but an illusion cast upon the human mind and that's essentially because everything is physical and physical things are not about other things, hence not able to think, we have no such thing as the ability to think. He argues likewise that morality is something which is subjective and there's no reason to be good or bad other than because it makes you feel better and of course this is the world view of Dr. Alex Rosenberg in addition to saying that we have no will of course, we have no free will and that everything we do is preceded by another physical event. So based upon this we have come to analyze one of the major, dare I say, chinks in the armor of the atheist world view and that is of course the problem of morality. We've stated quite consistently that when we analyze any atheist dilemma against the problem of religion, they always fall into two distinct categories. Number one, an ethical dilemma leveled against religion in that your laws do a certain thing and this is problematic and barbaric and therefore we're not going to accept it. Or they would state that I have a rational objection against your God. Now the problem with both of these issues is when you believe in atheism you essentially play a Russian roulette with all six bullets loaded and prevent yourself from being able to level either of these objections because number one, you don't believe in such a thing such as thoughts, this is one of the logical outcomes of your belief and number two, it's very difficult to ground an ethical or moral theory in order for you to condemn something as morally backwards, wrong or disturbing. So essentially what we're left with are you personally telling me that you don't like something and not bringing me an objective standard for why you dislike it. Of course this is not something which I as Yahisim or your host, I'm arguing as a believer but rather this is something which has been noted and indeed recognized by numerous prominent and dare I say very, very prominent atheists who themselves recognize this problem. We have in the past quoted and cited Jean-Paul Sartre who says that when we speak of abandonment we speak of the consequences of removing God from the picture. And he states and I quote, when we speak of abandonment a favorite word of Heidegger we mean only to say that God does not exist and it is necessary to draw the consequences of his absence right to the end. The reason I cite these passages so frequently dear viewers is I know that many of the believers who are interested in matters of theology particularly those who are not well grounded in what we would call the philosophy of science or indeed any philosophical discipline they refuse to believe that atheists could literally be saying this and they refuse to believe that anyone could be so dare I say reductionist in their own view of the world that they themselves would denounce and renounce belief in morality but allow me to quote this quote so we see that there are indeed intelligent atheists who admit and acknowledge that the logical consequence of denying a God or the God denying Allah is that one would fall into a belief of if you were to be consistent and a moral view. He states when we speak of abandonment a favorite word of Heidegger we only mean to say that God does not exist and that it is necessary to draw the consequences of his absence right to the end. The existentialist is strongly opposed to a certain type of secular moralism which seeks to suppress God at the least possible expense. Towards 1880 one of the French professors endeavored to formulate a secular morality they said nothing will be changed if God does not exist. We shall rediscover the same norms of honesty, progress and humanity and we shall have disposed of God as an out of date hypothesis which will die away quietly of itself. The existentialist on the contrary finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist for there disappears with him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that good exists that one must be honest or must not lie since we are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky once wrote if God did not exist everything would be permitted and that for existentialism is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist and man is in consequence forlorn for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. That was Jean-Paul Sartre. Paul Kurtz he says the following the central question about moral and ethical principles concerns their ontological foundation if they are neither derived from God nor anchored in some transcendent ground they are purely ephemeral. Julian Beguini says the following if there is no single moral authority i.e. no God we have to in some sense create values for ourselves and that means that moral claims are not true or false you may disagree with me but you cannot say I have made a factual error. Richard Dawkins, no stranger to any of the viewers I'm sure he states the universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom no design no purpose that is to say no God no evil no good nothing but pitiless indifference he concedes afterwards it is pretty hard to defend absolutist morals on grounds other than religious ones so we see these atheists they admit that which many rational believers have been saying all along they admit that without a commander it would make no sense to believe in the issuing of commands and what are moral laws other than commands and prohibitions there are series of do's and don'ts now if there is no one to tell you what not to do and what to do then how are we to make sense of the concept of objective morality when I say objective I mean that which lays outside the realm of human thought and agreement or disagreement because if humans are to agree upon something that still makes it subjective to the will and desires of human beings dear viewers we're going to go for a very short break and afterwards I'll continue elaborating on this point Wassalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh dear viewers prior to the break we were discussing how the atheists those who deny the existence of Allah are left in a slight dilemma in regards to how one ought to ground the concept of moral values and we stated that in the absence of an objective commander who commands human beings so he cannot be from within the human framework it is impossible to think of where commands a series of do's and don'ts would actually emanate from now of course there have been attempted solutions to resolve this dilemma but it remains one of the greatest problems in ethical philosophy how are we to make sense of a command how are we to make sense of a command telling me to do something a command telling me not to do something if there is no one outside of the human race to have told me to do something or not to do something now of course there are some that would say well what's the problem why can't I assume that the human race is good enough in and of itself to construct a set of moral values which would benefit us to a certain degree well the problem is as we see in contemporary moral and ethical debates human beings are terrible at restricting the barrier between rights and responsibilities and what do I mean by that if we define a human being to be anything which has consciousness and which has life and is produced by two human beings or is produced or indeed shows the same properties as a human being then we would say that abortion is prohibited if we say that no but you have the right to do whatever you want it's your body after all and you're carrying that baby then we would say abortion is allowed if we were to say that the reason two parents cannot eat their children is because if everyone did that then there would be no human beings left then we would say the same thing about homosexual marriage because if everyone did a homosexual marriage there would be no procreation and no one would be produced from these marriages and therefore homosexuality would be banned so we see that it opens up a can of worms when we try to limit things for ourselves as a purely rational endeavour between human beings more importantly have we not seen the dangers of where human beings try their luck at producing moral theories have we not seen how in Nazi Germany a eugenics project occurred in which using the findings at that time of Darwinian evolution a flawed project of eugenics aimed at saying that certain races of the human race were deficient were inferior to others allowed millions according to most statistics to be killed in the great tragedy of the Holocaust is this not a stain upon the pages of human history but the question is this if tomorrow in a flawed exercise every one of the 7 billion human beings on the face of the earth who possesses rationality had agreed that certain people deserve to die for no reason other than them being inferior let's take the portion of people who do not have rationality would this now make you objective morality would you and I who live before this scenario occurs be able to say right now that that is objectively wrong and that it would be wrong in any circumstance or would we fall prey to this disease of saying subjectively that well I feel it's wrong but that's wrong for me and it could be right for you you see there are those who in the post-modernist world are quite happy to say that there's no such thing as capital O objectivity and there's no such thing as capital T truth and I'll argue well it's right for me but it might not be right for you you see again this fails on a world view scale because why it's not liveable try walking into a bank and saying that try the attempt to withdraw more money than you possess in your bank account and when the person at the cashier tells you I'm sorry sir you can't withdraw two thousand dollars you've only got one thousand two hundred dollars in your account you would say to him that's right for you but it's not right for me what's true for me is that I have two thousand dollars such a person would laugh at you imagine you were applying for a job and when you showed up for your appointment late and were questioned by your new future potential employer if you showed up late sir you would say well it's nine o'clock for you sir but according to me it's still eight ten would this get you anywhere in life would we be able to deal with the world in a liveable functioning manner if we engaged in this form of relativism now of course there are those who try to bring this relativism to the absolute forefront of even religious values and so you find this absurd analogy given by Rumi the poet may Allah deal with him accordingly for what he has said about the killer of Imam Ali alaihi salam Rumi the poet he states what he likens religion and the differences amongst religions to the analogy of an elephant in a dark room he says that one man he feels the trunk another feels the leg another man feels the tail and another man feels the side and each of them has a perception of reality and that perception of reality is not false but unfortunately it's a limited perception of reality perfect so according to this many of the pluralists today will say so based upon that sir you can't claim to have the whole truth because that's essentially the nature of reality right so I'm not allowed to claim I have the full truth based upon this analogy because apparently it makes me backwards it makes me judgmental it makes me arrogant but of course the pluralist is allowed to claim that he has the whole take on reality because he's the only one that can see the elephant analogy in the first place you see we need to break past these rhetorical games things that sound nice are often flowery without much substance and we need to make sure that when we discuss truth we are discussing things which are objectively objectively problematic when I bring things down to a subjective level and I say I dislike that or I say well I don't want to accept your religion because I dislike it what am I essentially saying I'm essentially saying that I am the arbitrator I'm essentially saying I have no external standard by which to judge anything other than myself and when I do that in any conversation it's not a case of well I'm going to reject this because according to this fact that fact becomes problematic or that so-called fact is clearly false no, Robert just turns into I don't like it I decide what I don't like therefore that's how it is well if religion and truth is meant to conform to that which you like then we're not going to get very far we can't even have a conversation with such a person because that person is being a cosmic dictator we're essentially telling you that the only way something can be true is if it conforms to their whims and their desires a pact of conversation on morality when it comes to morality we need to understand that if there is no objective standard if there is not that commander who gives us commands and issues commands to us then we are in deep trouble for indeed we have relativized morality to such a low standard that essentially it's impossible to define and impossible to give firm guidelines for there are those who would argue things like well we as human beings have morality in order to allow us as a species to survive well that's fine but if you accept the concept of the human species and you believe that the concept of the human species is somehow above you but at the end of the day I don't owe anything to the theory of evolution I don't owe anything to the species and if we want to go with the species argument if we really want to go down that route and say specifically as people do that we are no different from animals who evolved in a blind process of what we call natural selection then there are dire consequences there are extremely dire consequences to this and we'll see how in theory those who base a moral system upon evolutionary ethics have really shot themselves into the foot and more importantly will bring down the downfall of humanity and everything which we as a society at the very least have considered good no one can operate in a world which is governed by the principle of survival of the fittest and God forbid it happens what's going to happen to all the weak out there the disabled, the elderly the children how will we defend our rights in a world where survival of the fittest becomes a governing moral principle and tomorrow inshallah we'll elaborate further upon that dear viewers thank you so much for tuning in and I apologize if I have offended anyone I'm not meaning to caricature anyone's beliefs if you are an atheist and have heard what I have to say and are offended then do understand that this is a large part of the discourse between believers and atheists what I'm saying is not necessarily objectionable by many atheists and I'd be more than willing to listen to what you have to say in response to this