 اللهم من الشيطان الرجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم والصلاة والسلام على أشرف الأنبياء والمرسلين نبينا والسيدنا أبل قاسم محمد الأمين وعلى أهل بيته الطيبين الطاهرين المأسومين المبلومين أهل بيتي بيورز شكرا لك for joining me from the holy city of Karbala ونحن مرحبا على مرحبك باستخدام باستخدام باستخدام بعض الأشياء بيننا and others when it comes to maintaining a sophisticated respectable and nonetheless necessary dialogue with those who might question our beliefs or differ with us on major points of dare I say world view or even creedal doctrines Throughout this show we've been attempting to come up with a framework by which we can avoid entering into the nitty-gritty subtleties which are often the ventures that we enter into when discussing with anyone for indeed many of our discussions have been very reactionary that is to say we have allowed others to dictate the way in which we are discussing Over the past few episodes we have discussed the concept of our أقيدة as not merely a set of abstract isolated beliefs but rather as a complete package and it is this assertion that we are comparing world views as opposed to isolated beliefs that is to say we are returning back to the bigger questions the questions that shape and govern our very way of thinking that has been the constant train of thought throughout the previous episodes I have demonstrated I believe that the imams of the أهل البيت may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all the true successors of the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه و آله laid out a framework by which they wished for us to follow a framework which depended upon us by making the very principles of others and applying those principles consistently to see where they end up leading us and in many ways this was done in order to reduce the opposing argument to what we could call absurdity or a level in which we could see that this argument is not going anywhere of course this is not done according to our subjective whims this is not done according to while sheism teaches this and another doctrine teaches that and therefore I'm going to reject it because it goes against this that's arbitrary and that's unfortunately how many of our discussions have been going in the previous years many of the discussions which we see take place on YouTube or other social media venues they tend to take this form rather we wish to stay away from that form and we wish to take a more objective method in analyzing these differences of course the very study what it means to believe in anything is something which is discussed rather succinctly in any major theological works or works of rational theology and this is known as the study of epistemology what does that word mean? epistemology is an English word but it comes from the Greek word episteme to mean knowledge and it refers to a framework or theory of knowledge which allows us to understand what provides us with knowledge or a level of certainty what are the sources of human knowledge and any book of rational theology in the Arabic language any sophisticated Muslim scholarly work regardless of the sect engages with this topic quite thoroughly it's called in the Arabic language نضرية المعرفة a theory of knowledge again how do we know things and that is indeed the very pin point in question which we have advanced towards different world views one of the first questions is what is the nature of human beings one of the second questions is what is the nature of our knowledge how do we gain knowledge can we trust that knowledge that we gain and we've discussed how when one reduces the human mind or the intellect the very thing we use to gain knowledge to something which cannot be trusted then what we have is a very deficient uncertain shaky and dare I say blind faith based world view and such a world view would never make the cut in a sophisticated scholarly discussion so it is my contention that there are certain world views which necessarily even if they do not say it outright would lead to this particular issue we've already seen that this is the case with the Salafi school of Islamic theology which postulates that whilst we can apparently trust our intellect we are to believe in a deity whose very nature and very attributes would cause us to believe in rational absurdities due to this fact we would have to reject such a world view as a world view that brings nothing to the table and in last night's episode I began discussing how likewise the new belief or rather I should rephrase that it's not a new belief it has existed throughout human history but rather the ideology which presents itself as atheism and particularly the newest form of atheism or scientific materialism is likewise a world view which renders human knowledge to be something which cannot be trusted now in last night's episode I laid out a slight pretext by introducing the fact that many atheists will sincerely take objection to what I am saying why so? an atheist may come forward and say look, at the end of the day atheism is not a comprehensive world view it's merely the absence of a belief in a deity it's literally just a negation of theism namely the belief in a god and it's a single belief you can't claim it's a world view you have atheists who follow one world view and atheists who follow another whilst their claim is intrinsically true and in practice we do find atheists who do happen to claim and believe that their atheism or their rejection of a god is merely the rejection of one belief we find that a consistently minded person would indeed understand that if you reject something major the existence of god the existence of Allah there are to be several ramifications ramifications which will affect everything else that you believe and what I mean by stating such is that we don't have merely an isolated set of beliefs in life everything has a necessary consequence so for example if I believe that there is a god who will hold me accountable on the day of judgment then it would necessarily impact how I treat people when that god has issued a command and I go against that command or for example if I believe that human beings are upright in their nature and have certain rights over me and likewise animals have certain rights over me because these rights are naturally grounded within my theology then I will treat human beings and animals in a certain way which is befitting of that belief system which I hold so likewise we would say to the atheists who argues that their belief system is not really a belief system but rather just a single belief of no god existing that not believing in a god likewise have major ramifications which Insha'Allah to Allah I hope we can go into further depth into tonight there are many atheists who argue that to reject a god is simply in the same way that a believer in Islam rejects the gods of Hinduism for example or rejects the gods of other religions which do not happen to follow the same Abrahamic monotheistic model they say that in the same way that you reject those gods and it doesn't affect you in your other beliefs likewise our rejection of your god should not affect us in our beliefs either but is this really the case or is there something much more to it several atheists throughout history we began by citing some of them yesterday have led us to understand that there is a giant dilemma for the atheists when it comes to a system or theory of knowledge by which knowledge can be truly grounded and what I mean by that is that when you reject the presence of a divine creator there are certain ramifications one of those ramifications would be that you would now have to question certain key assumptions you hold which have been given to us by human society and were once premised upon the belief in a divine creator so allow me to give a few examples I as someone who is from a traditionally and predominantly historically Christian society would have been raised with certain notions about life about how to treat others about morality which are necessarily grounded within a Christian background within a Christian historical context one of those concepts would be for example the concept of human rights for me to believe that human beings are excluded amongst other things and have a set of rights as a Western belief of course I'm not saying that Islam does not have its own framework for human rights but I'm giving an example to show how one is raised with a certain belief and might not necessarily know the reason for why they hold that belief the reason that many of us believe in human rights in the West is because traditionally the West has been governed by Christianity which has held the concept known as imago dei that human beings are created and are uniquely created within the image of God and therefore that disbelief entails that human beings have certain exclusive rights and have a certain sanctity this is what has led for many Christians to believe in the concept of human rights I'm not stating that this belief is incorrect or correct here of course Islam does not believe that we are created in the image of God at least not be pure Islam and not in the sense that Christians argue at the very least but I'm just giving an example so likewise these pre-existing beliefs I have which have been shaped by society have specific roots which are grounded in bigger questions they're not merely something which I have come to the rational conclusion of now of course today that's not very politically correct because someone might turn around and say well what do you mean you don't believe in human rights of course I do believe in human rights because at the end of the day my worldview has a good metaphysical grounding for human rights but I might ask the question to the atheist why do you believe in human rights because at the end of the day if we have merely evolved in a giant genetic soup alongside the other animals in the animal kingdom then surely we're no different from those and we should really be treating ourselves and the animals in a very similar manner we should not have any more rights than them but I will elaborate more on that argument after a quick break which we're going to take now if you can bear with me I would be very grateful السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته رؤية شكرا for joining me once more before we break I was discussing how certain pre-existing conceptions that are within a society are grounded within the worldview of that society but somehow we as people who grow up in that society despite the fact that we've radically shifted from that original worldview may very well take these beliefs to be granted but not have a decent rational basis for those beliefs now there is a very arbitrary way a very ad hoc way of dealing with this set of beliefs which is to argue things along the lines of well I believe that because they exist human rights merely exist and everyone recognises human rights but that's not providing an account for human rights and we've already stated that any decent worldview needs to be able to offer some explanatory power for the existing phenomenon around us as human beings but am I merely speaking as a biased believer who happens to have an agenda against atheism of course I cannot deny that I affirm the existence of a God I certainly do I certainly do have good reason to be against atheism on that basis because at the end of the day I believe in a God who I believe has the right to be worshipped and therefore I would view atheism as a transgression against the nature of man and the rights of that deity but I'm not the only one who states these things in fact I'm not by far the only one that states these things these things have been recognised even by atheists themselves now you might argue that of course there's an average Joe blogs out there some random who is going to fall prey to a believer's argument but he's not representative of scholarly atheism he's not a very intelligent guy because by far there's so many intelligent atheists out there but it's impossible that we just dismiss their view well let's look at this man's credentials as I've said we're very interested in the science known as epistemology which is to actually study the conditions and sources of human knowledge the gent that I wish to cite tonight is known as Dr. Alex Rosenberg who is Dr. Alex Rosenberg Dr. Alex Rosenberg is the R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy at Duke University Duke University of course or as Americans would say Duke University but the correct original English pronunciation is Duke is of course a renowned and pretty well rated American University it's not one of these Bible Belt Christian colleges or independent colleges which I'm not dismissing as being bad but I'm trying to affirm that it is a place of repute and renown he is of course the professor of philosophy there and he specializes in the philosophy of science so he's hardly a small fish he's a man that's very well respected in his field he wrote a book which is entitled The Atheist's Guide to Reality and this book is a very popular work of dare I say popular science and philosophy one can find it in most western book shops and it's sold very well Dr. Rosenberg is by no means a friend of the believers in fact you'll find that he engages in academic and scholarly debates with believers in monotheism and indeed any form of theism Dr. Rosenberg states quite succinctly in his book the following and I quote verbatim Insha'Allah there is much more to atheism than its knock down arguments that there is no God there is the whole rest of the world view he even utilizes the same expression as I do a world view a very popular term in the philosophy of science coming from the original German word Welton Schoen rest of the world view that comes along with atheism it's a demanding rigorous برف taking grip on reality one that has been vindicated beyond reasonable doubt it's called science so Rosenberg's entire theory about the world view of atheism is that the correct atheist world view is what's known as science and by science of course he means scientism the belief that the only true form of knowledge which can be obtained is knowledge of the scientific realm that is to say physics biology and chemistry for Rosenberg these are the main sources of knowledge and anything else is not really knowledge rather it's speculation now this is extremely interesting Rosenberg states and again I'm going to quote it once more just in order to elaborate and vindicate the very claim I've been making now some might say this is an appeal to authority but rather I will try and elaborate on what Rosenberg's argument is as well to see that I'm not merely citing someone that agrees with my view rather he has a laid out argument and what we're trying to do is engage with this argument his argument is that if atheism is true there's much more to it if there is no God then there's much more to there being no God just an isolated belief that there is no God it's not merely an argument against religious believers on the issue of God rather he states it's a demanding rigorous breath taking grip on reality one that has been vindicated beyond reasonable doubt and he states that there is the whole rest of the world view that is to say there is a complete package of beliefs that comes with this absence of a belief in a deity well this is what is stated by Rosenberg on page 8 of a book page 8 of course being in roman numerals now in order to summarize what Rosenberg's entire world view is I'm going to quote a brief snippet of a book which he has included on many samples of his text which are available for those who do not even buy the book such as the back cover of a book for those who peruse the book in bookshops Rosenberg issues out answers to the big questions which we said dominate and dictate the very foundational pillars of any major world view what does he state allow me to quote he states question is there a god Rosenberg responds no then he asks question what is the nature of reality Rosenberg states whatever physics says it is he doesn't say whatever he says what physics says it is so for Rosenberg reality is merely our physical understanding of reality whatever the science of physics says about reality he says what is the purpose of the universe he states what there is none then he asks what is the meaning of life he says ditto again there is no meaning of life does prayer work Dr. Rosenberg of course not is there a soul is it immortal are you kidding asks Dr. Rosenberg is there free will do we have free will Dr. Rosenberg do we have any choice in anything we do not a chance says Dr. Rosenberg what happens when we die everything pretty much goes on as before except us he states what is the difference between right and wrong good and bad Dr. Rosenberg this is a question he asks himself his answer there is no moral difference between them why should I be moral he asks his answer is because it makes you feel better than being immoral so there's no real objective factor in it other than a degree of self ingested benefit you'll feel better this is the reason is abortion euthanasia suicide paying taxes foreign aid or anything else you don't like forbidden permissible or sometimes obligatory that is to say is there anything in the world which is forbidden permissible or sometimes obligatory his response anything goes what is love and how can I find it he responds love is the solution to a strategic interaction problem don't look for it it will find you when you need it it's merely a process that goes on in the human body as part of a strategic problem finding strategy now this is interesting does history have any meaning or purpose it's full of sound and fury but signifies nothing humanist history means nothing this is the philosophical world view of atheism for one of the greatest atheist professors of philosophy in the modern world dear viewers for joining me on this show I'm sorry we were not able to cover as much as I would like but inshallah to Allah in tomorrow's episode we shall attempt to go further into these statements and we shall digest them fully showing the ramifications of this and what it means for anyone who wishes to look at things rationally does this even retain its status as a rational belief thank you once more for joining me dear viewers and please pray for us wherever you are and we'll be praying for you from the Holy City of Karbala والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته