 Hey ladies and gentlemen, we are thrilled for the main event for the night. Thanks so much for being with us This is going to be a fantastic main event And so with that I'm going to hand it over to Amy who's going to run over the format as well as get the debaters started Thanks so much Amy. The floor is all yours Thank you so very much James and everyone for joining us at debate con the format is going to be 10-minute openings for both sides a 60-minute dialogue and discussion Back and forth and we'll finish up with 40 minutes of Q&A With that I am going to hand it over I'm a lean Daniel or destiny Daniel Or is all yours before the timer starts I just I want to give destiny a gift Okay. Yeah I hope you like it's just a small token of appreciation. Gotcha. Cool. And I thought I had 15 minutes to start if that's okay Is that okay with you? Yeah, I'll be the quickest 15 minutes. Okay. Go for it. I'm ready to write. Okay So now I'm doing that so that's how I'm sorry about Thank you to modern-day debates for hosting and thank you to destiny I want to start with some disambiguation in this debate I'm talking about liberalism as a moral and political philosophy that embraces two core values Individual freedom and equality This means that liberalism as discussed in academic context is broader than just left-wing politics a Person could be right-wing in an American political context But still be liberal in the sense that he believes in freedom equality democracy, etc So definitions aside, let me state my problem with liberalism as a moral and political philosophy the problem with liberalism is that it Fundamentally conflicts with human biology and with all traditional cultures and religions especially Islam Liberalism deals with this conflict through systematic oppression Let me explain existing studies of human biology and psychology show that these two liberal values of freedom and equality are actually Universal and they're endorsed in all human religious and cultural systems to some extent This includes Islam However in traditional cultures freedom and equality are not the only important values There are other values that are important in these societies people value specific types of relationships like Marriage like family like community like a relationship with God countless studies have Established that valuing these relationships is part and parcel of natural human psychology It's inbuilt the reality is there are certain things that humans naturally crave that they naturally find moral value in That they naturally need for their happiness The problem is that human biology is such that these types of relationships that are valued by human beings things like Marriage family community and religion these types of relationships include some measure of Inequality and some measure of restriction on individual freedom. One big example is marriage Humans biologically want to pair bond they want to form these stable long-term relationships with the opposite sex So they get married but marriage is something that results in restrictions on individual freedom For example, you have certain obligations towards your spouse Which means you sometimes have to sacrifice your personal wants in order to fulfill those obligations marriage also involves some measure of sexual Exclusivity which further restricts your freedom marriage also entails division of labor because women get pregnant and have to nurse There's also a type of inequality because you have different duties for male and female So this type of sex differentiated pair bonding which includes these inequalities and lack of freedom is found in all liberal societies and cultures Similarly family life and maintaining relationships with parents children grandparents, etc. This is something people naturally value But again, it requires restrictions on your freedom because you have duties to your parents to your family members You have to take care of children when they're young and you have to take care of your parents when they're old These obligations will often require you to sacrifice your personal autonomy You also demand respect from your children and they're required to obey you up to a certain age That all involves some level of inequality. So maintaining family Requires these limitations on freedom and equality similarly humans naturally crave community and naturally believe that they're a part of a people they're in the black community the Hispanic community Muslim community Irish community and humans naturally don't want their people and the traditions and cultures of their people to be destroyed But the reality is community also requires certain types of inequality and lack of freedom People in a given community have duties in order to maintain Traditional norms in terms of shared dress shared language shared rituals So that limits individual freedom and all communities require hierarchies in some form or fashion Some communities limit intermarriage. Some communities require assimilation or limit immigration into their countries All that involves the main maintenance of certain inequalities Finally humans but humans biologically have a belief in God This is established in numerous psychological studies across cultures that academics discuss Like Paul Bloom, Oliver Petrovich, Aya Naranzian and others But again belief in God leads to a lack of equality because people believe God is above them and that God requires Some form of obedience and worship. This involves restrictions on one's personal freedom People have obligations to pray to fast to do rituals these obligations detract from individual freedom So we have marriage family community and God and Maintaining these relationships and the social institutions associated with these relationships requires some measure of inequality and some measure of lack of freedom and that's a big problem for Liberalism and this is exactly why liberalism is hostile to all traditional societies and cultures But especially Islam but it gets worse because liberalism doesn't just say Freedom and equality are good things if that's all that liberalism said that wouldn't be a problem because everyone including Muslims Agrees that freedom and equality are great things to some extent But what liberalism actually says is that we need to maximize Freedom and equality above all else and if maximizing freedom and equality means the disillusion of other values and traditions So be it What is evident is that if you adopt liberalism this inevitably leads to the gradual elimination of marriage Family community and religion in society Why because all of these things involve for biological reasons certain limitations on freedom and equality So liberalism in that sense is hostile to the traditions of every single society in the world Now if European liberals had conceded or decided in the 18th and 19th century Look liberalism is our way of life We're going to keep it to ourselves and leave the rest of the world alone That would have been one thing But that's not the direction they went in from its very inception liberalism was intertwined With colonialism and the subjugation of non-european people One of the best books about this is titled liberalism a counter history by italian historian dominico lasordo Also the book liberalism an empire by u de meta What la sordo and meta and many other academics like edward syed Franz Fanon chandre mohante and so and on and on They all document in excruciating detail how european colonialists dominated non-liberal people with the stated goal Of bringing them freedom and equality This was known as the white man's burden or the civilizing mission The enlightened european man who understands the value of freedom equality democracy, etc Has the burden of civilizing the savages across the world Understanding this civilizing mission helps us to see how brutal government domination and liberalism are perfectly compatible In fact liberalism sometimes requires brutal government domination One of the foremost liberal thinkers and one of the founders of liberalism john sur mill Expresses this well in his landmark book on liberty mill says Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians Provided that the end be their improvement end quote in other words the ends justify the means mill also says quote There are conditions of society in which a vigorous Despotism is in itself the best mode of government for training the people in what is specifically wanting to render them capable of a higher civilization So you see liberalism such a merciful and loving philosophy Liberals just want everyone to be happy and live in a utopia or a higher civilization as mill puts it The only problem is the world is full of backwards people who don't understand the importance of maximizing freedom and equality Either because they're religious fanatics, misogynists, child abusers, homophobes, sadistic proponents of capital punishment Sadists who abuse animals with ritual slaughter, etc In short the world is full of people who just don't know what's good for them So it's the job of liberals to be these saviors and bring enlightenment to the world Whether the world wants it or not the problem is transforming people into liberals is not easy Turns out most people around the world don't want to abandon their way of life in order to become quote unquote civilized or developed So to overcome this resistance liberals have taken a number of approaches over the past 200 years There's the hard approach of despotism as mill puts it an outright war occupation authoritarian governments Crippling economic sanctions genocide Then there's the soft approach of bribes social engineering NGOs reshaping indigenous institutions media and so on Whether it's with the carrot or the stick liberalism imposes its vision of progress development Freedom and equality onto the rest of the world and the rest of the world better fall in line or else We can talk more deeply about these liberal strategies in the open discussion But let's focus on authoritarian governance because this is the common thread of liberal oppression of muslims from the colonial to the neocolonial period Liberals like john stewart mill and alexis to tokeville immediately recognize that spreading freedom to the world would require a type of Imperial rule a type of military dictatorship, but they believe that the ends justified the means This is why as a matter of historical practice liberalism has always been perfectly consistent with brutal military dictatorship john stewart mill referred it to to it as despotism But this is also tied to a very specific legal doctrine known as the state of exception or the state of emergency During the colonial period the laws were laid down by the european colonial powers the british french and dutch They said ordinarily we would give people certain rights freedoms and protections However, these rights don't apply when there's a threat Whenever a society faces a big threat like a pandemic natural disaster or economic collapse The state is no longer bound by ordinary liberal laws What the colonial powers quickly realized is that they're going to face muslim revolt against the political and legal order They wanted to establish so in order to respond to the threat of revolt Which is especially pronounced with respect to muslim populations. They declared a state of emergency This meant authoritarian rule. This authoritarian rule involved a few specific policies. One is no free speech You're not allowed to criticize western liberal governance or liberalism in general You can be detained without trial on the basis of any suspicion. You can be Detained indefinitely the police and military force can use deadly force against you with no accountability. There's Destiny said i could have 15 minutes There's also mass surveillance Informants infiltrate all the mosques all the madrasas all muslim institutions These colonial policies continued post independence after world world. Sorry world war two Look at tunisia. Look at egypt. Look at mali, algeria most muslim countries They either explicitly have the state of emergency rule on the books or they make an implicit reference to it One of the things that's characteristic of these colonial and neocolonial regimes is that there is specific Systematic torture and disappearances. This is particularly famous in the muslim world in the algeria occupation from 1830 to the 1960s And also indonesia and so forth in the us after 9 11 There has been a move towards the state of emergency across the world Mainly because a global state of emergency gives the us government more license for mass surveillance torture targeted assassinations Maintaining military occupations etc virtually every country in the world with a sizable muslim population Has adopted the us's countering violent extremism policies over the past 20 years Which as nyus brennan center notes exclusively targets religious muslims After world war two, there are a large number of muslim immigrants in the west So they also start getting targeted with state of emergency legislation and again We can talk about cve programs the prevent programs Which are actively used by governments today to explicitly target muslims who espouse non liberal religious beliefs So sometimes people will say that disappearances torture surveillance restrictions on sph All these things are not consistent with liberalism But that's not true if anyone wants to preserve a traditional form of life They're subject to these measures and the more they want to preserve it the more intensely these measures are Applied and so even though all peoples have suffered from this muslims have suffered the most And when muslims try to raise objections against these problems, what do they get as a response? The response is oh that doesn't count as real liberalism liberalism doesn't involve dictatorship But in fact the standard mode of liberal governance from muslims dating from the late 18th century all the way to independence and beyond has been The control from liberal elites an authoritarian rule now people will say no They're not liberal they're dictatorships because they have this authoritarian authoritarian rule, but it's not correct They are still using the same exact liberal colonial legislation to this day But muslims cannot convey this because the proponents of liberalism don't recognize certain fundamental facts about human biology They don't recognize that natural human psychology is not liberal And the only way to prevent people who have a non liberal psychology from living according to non liberal traditions and values Is through force through an authoritarian system that forces them to live according to liberal standards that contradict their natural Biologies this is why liberal colonial and post-colonial structures have been used to dominate muslims to discriminate against them And in some cases kill and displace millions of muslims whether in algeria indonesia mali or india When muslims say anything to raise objection against liberalism all we get in response is you're just a bunch of terrorists You want to oppress women your prophet is a warlord Can we have a mature discussion about what liberalism actually is and how it impacts Muslims with reference to actual historical events rather than slogans and stereotypes The reality is to conclude that liberalism affects us all It's the dominant moral and political system in the world today Muslims have been the biggest victims of this system But you all are victims too whether you recognize it or not the good news is many westerners are waking up They recognize that they didn't sign up for this world that liberalism has created the question is is it too late? And with that we're going to hand it over to destiny for his opening statement There's a lot to respond to there Um, I think I'd rather just hop into the back and forth if I do my 10 minute opening statement Can we just do 70 minutes of back and forth? Cool. Okay. Um, I think it'd be interesting to go down some of the points Some of your arguments are stronger I notice your strongest arguments aren't really targeting anything to do with liberalism But rather they're targeting us foreign policy, which I think is totally worthy of critique But some of the more like fundamental views that you espoused earlier I think are pretty easy to kind of pick on so one thing that you keep hinting at a lot That maybe we can center part of the conversation around is when you say that something conflicts with biology We have to dig into that a little bit. Do you think that how we live a society should only be in ways that are biologically aligned Do we attack modern medication? Do we attack like modern ways of Organizing society like what does that what does that mean? What is your basis by which you say something is biological? Therefore something is good Well, I think that there are certain Values and relationships that are universal They are shared by human beings throughout history We're talking about 15,000 years of human recorded history, but we're also talking about Longer than that because the Psychologists who make these claims about these certain types of relationships and the evolutionary biologists They're pointing to human beings as a species And so they will talk about You know like the biological Nature of pair bonding like there are certain hormones released in the process of pair bonding like oxytocin very specific psychological processes that are Biologically rooted and they're all associated with this practice of marriage and it doesn't matter what culture you're in What society you're in modern pre-modern prehistoric those things Are there biologically same with family? You know, this is part of reproduction as part of The human species so it's these are things that are not just found in some cultures and not others. They're universal And this is why I think that they're valuable now. You can say that they're not valuable You can say that, you know, I don't think family is valuable marriage is valuable community But I think the biological data would disagree with you and people's subjective experiences So Are you are we making an argument in favor of like a muslim society or against a liberal society? Just so I can be clear in terms of your position. Well, the topic of the debate is does liberalism oppress necessarily oppress muslims Okay, because it's interesting we have 15 000 years of human history the majority of that There's not a mention of anything related to do with islam evolutionary biologists and psychologists I don't think are going to make strong statements about the psychological disposition of people 10 000 years ago They do we can make really they absolutely don't we can make really basic statements like Certain chemicals in our body might work a certain way and there are forms of reproduction that are advantageous to humans So since our offspring requires so much investment, it's pretty common that you'll have a bonded pair This has to do with like r-series versus k-series Developmental strategy or reproductive strategies, but not really relevant to this because I don't see how any of that contradicts liberalism You can have a liberal society that still values marriage and reproduction. None of these things are at ends with one another No, I explained it in the beginning of my opening why there's a conflict these relationships Involve some measure of inequality And again, this is biologically rooted and some measure of lack of freedom And I gave a lot of examples in my opening I can repeat it Yeah, so and then and then the fact that these you mentioned that it doesn't seem to Matter like the biology of it. Um, not to liberalism, but in general I mean these these things are well attested by evolutionary biologists and psychologists evolutionary psychologists moral psychologists Psychologists of religion. So I mentioned a few Earlier we can talk about Joseph Heinrich Harvard anthropologist world expert read his secret of our success Read weirdest people in the world, which is a massive tome that talks about all of the biological data Citing experiments. So there's different ways to establish these kinds of relationships when it comes to community marriage Belief in god and family you can look at animal studies because certain animals are claimed to be similar enough to humans where we can Point to a biological basis if there's a if it's in some kind of evolutionary Antecedent of human beings then that's strong evidence that it's biological for human beings as well There's childhood studies and there's all kinds of cross-cultural surveys. There's neurological studies that establish This kind of importance of these biological relations that are universal Okay, so I agree that there are marriage type things where you have two people that are bonded and have a family But that's a far cry from the Constructing an entire civilization from there. It's all I was saying originally I want to focus on something Something you just said you keep pointing back to this elimination of all hierarchies My understanding of liberalism isn't that we're trying to destroy or eradicate every single hierarchy You rightfully point out that in every type of relationship romantic friendship business There's going to be some sort of inequality there necessarily is because one party is trying to get something from the other Generally and one party has something they can offer another generally I don't know why liberalism necessitates the destruction of every single inequality. This sounds like an extreme form of anarchism I don't understand that where that comes from So I can read a definition or different definitions of liberalism. I don't I don't need I don't want me I don't want you. I don't want definitions or paragraphs So the the whole idea within western democracy is that The only way that people can be ruled over where you have a hierarchy and rulership Is that it's with the consent of the governed? So that is implicitly With has the understanding that all people are equal We just for administrative purposes and these liberal democracies have to select certain Administrators certain governors certain rulers a president a prime minister But the prime minister or the president is not really Better than everyone else. It's just that everyone has consented to be governed There is a consent that's given by the population that makes it okay For there to be these kinds of administrative positions. Otherwise, it's intolerable for You know a monarchy or look at the tradition of liberal thinkers who have criticized british monarchy The whole idea is that the king has this kind of authority and sense of Authority from god that makes him above all other normal people that he rules and this was intolerable to the liberal the The possible liberals in a government where you have an elected leader You're saying that all people are equal under that leader so that I can understand Are you saying that because people are equal in so far as one vote counts for one person? That means they're necessarily equal in all other ways. Thus liberalism by way of a government necessitates the elimination of all hierarchies Uh, yes liberalism aims for Maximum freedom and maximum equality of all people Practical situations that will require that will require an administrator or a president But the only way that that's tolerable according to the liberal mind is if the governed has consented to that Otherwise liberalism would not tolerate any hierarchy I agree with you that that hierarchies are inevitable because it's biologically rooted in these types of relationships within marriage and family So I completely agree with you that society cannot get rid of Hierarchies, but this is different from the way that liberal thinkers from the classical to the modern from John Stuart mill to John Rawls have thought about Liberalism and equality if a parent has a daughter and a son And they say that their love for their children are equal. Does that make those two children exactly the same? Uh, it depends on what the parent means by equal like let's assume it's a normal parent that has a great amount of love for both of their children If they say that I love both my children equally, does that make both of those children exactly the same? No, of course, so I submit to you that obviously under a liberal government Just because every individual has the ability to vote that doesn't mean that every person has the ability or needs to be seen Is exactly the same just because you're equivalent in some ways So for instance having the ability to vote doesn't make you the equivalent in every single other way The idea that liberalism is pushing for that type of elimination of all hierarchies is absurd Um, when you say that liberalism is talking about maximizing the ability to be free in society Why is it that every single liberal government in the history of mankind has a system of laws and police officers That have been granted exclusive power by the state to enforce those laws Wouldn't that be contradictory to the value of every liberal society? No, again the police there are these administrative roles. The thing is that liberalism aims for complete equality And if there could be a way to prevent crime Um, or a way to administer like Administrate a government without actually having people in higher roles of authority If that could be technologically possible through ai or through robots Then that is a world that the liberal mind would prefer and that is something, you know, I could tell you like look Hey, uh destiny. Why don't we have ai right now that can actually run an entire country? We have different kinds of technologies through surveillance or microchip technologies that can prevent all crime and uh We want to plug in everyone into this system and therefore create a perfect system of equality where there are no police There are no administrators. Therefore. There's no police brutality. Therefore. There's no government corruption. Are you in favor of this? destiny Or not if you're not in favor of it that that means you're in favor of police brutality That means you're in favor of corruption of government. So I heard you say that liberalism Tries to do two things. Can you tell me if both of these are accurate? And then my next question going to be how are they not contradictory? So I've heard you say that liberalism aims to maximize freedom and to give you complete equality How how can both of those things be true? maximizing freedom means maximizing ability to pursue Personal wants in order to increase a person's happiness and this is biologically defined by the classical liberal thinkers all liberal thinkers are In this materialist tradition So it's a utilitarian tradition. You want to maximize people's happiness by increasing their autonomy their freedom of choice And you want all people to have equal access to this Opportunity to maximize their freedom. So liberalism aims to maximize this, but it's a gradual process as I mentioned It depends on different kinds of sociological and technological factors But there's no conflict. There's no contradiction in freedom and equality. It's in the definition of liberalism again I can quote so then I'm not when I'm Tanaka concise oxford dictionary They all define liberalism in this way as Political and moral philosophy to maximize freedom and equality. Are they are are they contradictory? Like they don't get their own definition problems. I think that your reading of some of these definitions is a bit reductive when you say that liberalism aims to To get maximum equality for people in society in your mind You seem to say that that equality necessitates the elimination of all hierarchies That's not what any liberal would say no liberal would say we need to eliminate all hierarchies That's an anarchist point of view and then when you say simultaneously liberalism seeks to maximize freedoms Meaning the ability to satisfy your personal desires in whatever way you choose Your journey to maximize your personal desires is necessarily going to lead to some inequalities in society Now if you want to get into a finer conversation or whether or not liberals would seek to maximize Inequality of opportunity versus inequality of outcome. That's fine But I don't think it's fair to say that from your definition liberalism wants to make people equal We can go from there to say liberals want to eliminate the family because there's a hierarchy there and all hierarchies must be eliminated Or do you believe that liberalism seeks to eliminate all hierarchies? And if that is the case, how can you say that now earlier you tried to hand away police officers as being administrative people But that's necessarily some form of hierarchy there Why is it that every single liberal government starts with a form of hierarchy in the form of elected officials And then people that have an exclusive use of state power and then citizens I don't understand how you can say there's an elimination of hierarchies there So liberals recognize that the world currently as it is has many Inequalities and there's a lot of lack of freedom that exists This can be in terms of gender. This can be in terms of sexual orientation This can be in terms of different communities with wealth inequality or racial inequality There can be many types of inequalities that exist within liberal countries But the liberal wants to constantly and gradually Reduce these inequalities in order to maximize freedom and they explicitly recognize John Stuart mill recognizes this alexis to coville recognized This is germy bentham recognizes this that technology can be used to reduce these inequalities and in order to Maximize freedom. So in the context of family you have this problem for the liberal And many feminists have commented on this for example shillamuth firestone She says that well, it's not really fair that women have to be pregnant Because when they get pregnant for nine months, they're in a weakened state And they have to rely on others. This is a state of dependence. This dependence causes inequality because then the women Woman doesn't have full true freedom to choose what she wants to do in that time So we if we could somehow find a technology like an artificial womb where the task or the labor of reproduction could be outsourced to through technology Then that would create a more equal situation between men and women because now women don't have to be saddled with the labor of Reproduction the technology now actually is starting to come into fruition and many feminists and liberals are happy about this Because this creates a society where men and women can now be more equal I mean that's an extreme example any kind of technology the washing machine the you know the washer and dryer the stove all of these technologies make The duties that women have less in terms of cooking or maintaining a household and that creates equality between the genders And more freedom. So this is something that the liberal thinkers from 200 years ago recognized In fact, this was their claim to the superiority of the white race and the european race because The european mind can actually create technology according to them But these savages these muslims these native americans blacks chinese They don't have the mental capacity for technology This is why we have to have a civilizing mission Because we want to gradually in the future when there are better technological developments We can have true complete equality between all people complete freedom for all people I feel like the air of your thinking here just comes from this really weird way of reading what inequality or equality is Uh, we can reduce certain inequalities that exist between groups of people without necessarily saying that those people are the same If you want to make the argument that women should have less of a burden during childbirth I think that's probably a good thing that every single person in society would agree with Even if you're not offloading the birthing process, we still have special medication that women take you get an epidural when you're having a pregnancy We have special care both before and after for women having children I think that easing the burden of different people during different stages of life Isn't necessarily a bad thing and it doesn't make those people the same as well I don't think there's a problem presented to liberals in a family where there's a power differential Or where different people in that family have different roles I think that what a liberal wants though is for people to have the opportunity to enter those roles willingly Rather than to have them forced upon them by an external religion So for instance if there was a family where the woman was delegated to do all of the housework And the man was delegated to go and work a job to bring home money for the family as long as both people willingly enter that relationship I don't think any liberal should have a problem with that type of relationship because both of them are doing it They're both taking advantage of their liberal freedoms to enter a relationship of their own consent and then they do that I think the problem comes from when people see an organization like that And they think that they need to have an external force there from some say a religious body saying the man has to do this And the woman has to do this. I don't think the liberal seeks to eliminate all forms of these relationships that might come from religion Instead what they seek to eliminate is the force of those religions. You can only have those types of relationships So I don't know why you say that So when I say that liberals are aiming for people to be equal It doesn't mean that they have to be the same exact in every exact way So I don't know what you mean by that Because I'm not claiming that Equality means lack of difference people can be different And still be equal according to the liberal conception just to be clear. I don't I don't think that this is a good project Obviously, I don't think artificial wombs are a good thing I don't think that this kind of constant advance of technology to maximize freedom and equality is a good thing because it ends up destroying marriage family community and belief in god and these things are all attested to by countless studies of peer-reviewed studies and books some of which I've already mentioned but Like consider this thought experiment because you think that this is a voluntary system like liberalism offers people choices And then they can just decide what they want how to live their lives This is not how muslims have experienced it because this has not been the case for muslims Whether we're talking about the us or the western world or the muslim world There has been this imposition colonialism the global war on terror All of these draconian policies that have been placed on muslims And we can talk about very specific examples of that But here's a thought experiment for you So imagine that there is this new technology where people can essentially be brains in vats And in this brain in that situation people will be in constant bliss Basically, it's just your brain. You've lost your body, but it's basically like the matrix except you're in constant bliss and the proponents of this technology say that This is great technology because now if everyone is a brain in a vat There is not going to be any more rape. There's not going to be any more Brutality, there's not going to be any more domestic abuse No more children will be abused because everyone's going to be protected from any kind of violence when they're these brains in vats And you know, this is actually mandatory. Everyone needs to be a brain in vat And that's justified. Why because we want to get rid of rape We want to get rid of torture and crime and brutality domestic abuse child abuse child molestation And would you say that this is something that you think is a good vision for the future? Like do you think that what would you say would you want to actually be a part of that program? um, this gets This gets into a really different type of area that I don't think this no, I think it's very relevant It's absolutely not relevant because it's a very deep epistemic question. Well, it's a simple question Like would you think that's a good thing? No, it's absolutely not. Can I appeal real quick for the moderators? Can we do 20 second back and forth? Can you do that? I need somebody to time me. Okay. Here's a question that I have. Okay Do you think that hierarchies can exist under liberalism? No, you answer my question first. Well, you haven't answered a single question You don't you don't want to play my game. You don't want to play your game So I want to know do you think a hierarchy can exist under liberalism I answered that question already. I said that I need to hear it in 20 seconds or less Not a referral to 15 different options in the opening statement. This is not a uh, you know, you're not interrogating me I asked you a simple question. Well, I have it's a debate. We're both interrogating each other, of course Well, I want to know why don't you entertain my it seems like you're claiming that a hierarchy cannot exist under liberalism, which I think is absolutely absurd No, I did not claim that you're strawmaning me. Okay. I might be strawmaning That's why I'm giving you an opportunity right now to clarify in 20 seconds or less Do you believe that hierarchies can exist under liberalism? What do you mean by liberalism? Do you mean actual liberalism or your fantasy liberalism in your head liberalism how it's played out in every history of society With or have been hierarchies Yeah, I acknowledge that there are hierarchies in liberal. Okay, so hierarchies Mainly between Muslims at the bottom of the hierarchy and liberals at the top. Yeah, that's a hierarchy that has existed throughout Muslim history. Who do you think can live in each other's society easier? Liberals in a majority Muslim society or Muslims in a majority liberal society? What do you mean by easier? You figure it out. You can figure it out. However, you think who's gonna be happier Who's the the people who are gonna be happier? Let's say, okay You didn't define easier for me. So I'll have to define it for myself. Okay, sure. We'll say happier Yeah, liberals living in a Muslim society. Do you think everyone living in Muslim society is going to be happier? Do you think LGBTQ people would feel the same? What do you mean by LGBTQ people? Lesbian gay bisexual transgender or queer people. Do you think they would be happier living in a Muslim society or a liberal society? Muslim society Why? Because this is as I said Muslim Islam is preserving Marriage family community belief in God. These are things that are biologically rooted LGBT, you know, we can talk about whether that's biologically rooted or not, but the basis for These four things I mentioned they're universal. They've been seen This has nothing to do with my question, right? So yes, no it does because human beings there's an objective answer to what makes human beings happier What makes them psychologically happier? So do you think it is correlated to these four relationships? So if they're in a society that preserves these four kinds of relationships and institutions, they're going to be by definition happier Do you think a Muslim society would seek to eliminate LGBTQ people? So Islamic law has Prohibited same-sex behavior and also has rules for killing gay people if they're caught by enough witnesses. Yeah Yes, absolutely. I've discussed this many times as do other religions as do all traditional Well, I'm not arguing for other religions. I'm arguing in favor of liberalism right now Because you're trying to present this case of liberalism versus Islam and I'm trying to reframe it in the proper context Liberalism versus all societies all religions and all cultures Okay, we can do that that we can do that as well But I do you think that I'm going to defend another religion that would try to kill gay people Do you think that would be an argument that would this debate is not about you defending Islam? I'm not trying to defend Islam. I'm attacking it right now You should try to defend liberalism when I pointed out that liberalism has these kinds of major You've had no real response to that. I'm absolutely you're just asking these bizarre questions and you're gonna answer my questions I asked I asked a lot of your answer to a lot of your questions. Let me ask a question Well, hold on. I haven't asked a single bizarre question. I think my questions are very fair You're interrogating me. Can you give me an example of one question that I've asked so far that's been bizarre? Asking me whether hierarchy can exist in a liberal system. Okay after I explained it 10 different times Do you think it might be fair that when you tell me that families can't did you not say that families can't really exist under liberalism? I said that liberalism Gradually erodes family over time and this is a statistical fact. Is that because it is that because of the Documented by sociologists by anthropologists read Joseph Heinrich. Is that because I'm not I'm not talking to Joseph Heinrich I'm talking. Yeah. Well, I'm citing a question that are not citing anything. You're giving me a name. I want an argument Okay, so if you read a good argument by him, then give me that argument. I don't need you to cite the other families are Families are eroded by liberalism. Yes. That answers your question So no that doesn't the question was can families exist under liberalism? Yes, they do right now We have families don't we great. That's but unfortunately They have they're whittling down from nuclear families to single parent households to people who don't want to even get married People who don't want to even have children. That's the reality the statistics If you look at pew polls if you look at the demographics people don't want to get married They don't want families. Sure. Now that didn't exist in the past. This is a Directionality to these trends in liberal societies Sure, but these trends may or may not have existed predating any modern Abrahamic religion we have or anything. No, they do because they're evolutionary according to evolutionary biologists I'm not an evolutionist, but I presume that you are I'm just saying that evolutionary biologists are confirming this historic reality You can dig up the bones and see Okay, the families in their huts Because of some kind of volcano that buried them under it and you can see the families from Thousands and thousands of years ago prior to pre-history. So We've agreed that families and hierarchies can indeed exist under liberalism. I'm good. We agree there. You don't have any disagreements Okay, that's not what liberalism aspires to Liberalism is corrosive to families And marriages and communities You know how many communities have gone exist gone extinct due to 200 years of liberal power and colonialism Okay, so we both agree that hierarchies and families can exist under liberalism My earlier question you didn't really answer satisfactorily I asked earlier Do you think a liberal can live easier in a muslim society or muslim can live easier in a liberal society? Now you seem to say that a liberal could live easier in a muslim society But when I test the borders of the more extreme liberal views It seems like these people wouldn't actually be able to live in a muslim society So one of the examples that I gave was a member of the lgbtq community Which you admitted muslims would execute given the opportunity to so how is it don't misrepresent islamic law So islamic law doesn't say that if two gay men are caught having intercourse with each other with enough witnesses that they can be executed Yeah, that's different than saying that okay, whoever is a homosexual come here so we can execute you. That's not the same thing Okay, i'll restate that a tad more charitably So it's not a guarantee that you'll get executed if you're gay It's just a decent chance if you get caught doing it, right So how can you say that an lgbtq person would have an easier time living in a muslim society Than in a liberal society Okay, so let's just for the sake of this kind of line of argument that you want to keep repeating Okay, there are these lgbtq people. Let's say that this is natural even though all the scientific research has established that None of this has to do with my question but go ahead There's no natural basis to this from nature. This was there are there are gay animals too This was recently published that it's primarily environmental factors. Yes, there's a nature article read There's a nature article that says gay animals don't appear No, no, this is about finding the genetic basis of homosexuality I will bet you $25 friendly that there is no nature article that says we've confirmed There is or is not a genetic basis for a sexual orientation. You are you are absolutely out of there's no chance Okay, someone can look it up right now in nature I don't have it right here in front of me right now, but they Establish that 30% they can find they can associate 30 possible genes that might be associated with homosexual orientation Okay, 30% what that means is that 30% who have this mix of genetics 70 only 30% of those who have this mix of genetics actually express Homosexual desire 70% who have the exact same genetics Do not express this so they determined on the basis of this 30 70 split that it's more of an environmental factor That causes homosexual behavior And this is very obvious when you look at other studies and when you look at human history, but let's I'm granting I'm conceding your entire point. I'm conceding that You're caveating a lot of the beginning with the poor understanding of biology for the sake of argument. Let's say it's biological Well, guess what marriage is also something biological the desire to pair bond is biological The desire to form families is biological. It's associated with hormones like oxytocin community is also biological Check the research tribalism is part of human nature and belief in god is also biological So these are four biological things That are associated with human beings universally and a muslim society is far more Conducive to preserving those things and protecting those things than a liberal society So a liberal would be as a matter of fact Much more happy living in a muslim society as opposed to a muslim living in a liberal society Where his religion is attacked his belief in god is attacked his family is attacked His community is attacked By through all kinds of policies again, we can look at the colonial administration We can look at different kinds of countering violent extremism initiatives that are applied in 85 countries Before we get sure, yeah, we're trying to stop the rambling. Okay, so Muslims can make communities and they can exist in a liberal society Insofar as they don't violate the laws of that liberal society But it seems that it would be much harder for a liberal to live in a more strictly run muslim society Because a lot of the laws of the muslim society are going to be far more Personal reaching in terms of dictating how you live your life To circle all the way back to the gay person that we seem very reluctant to address It seems to me that that gay person would probably have an easier time in a liberal society than in a muslim society And it also seems in general that muslims can probably live in liberal societies far easier than very liberal people can live In muslim societies. I don't think that's very controversial to say I mean all you say it's it seems this it seems that I've given you references and an argument for why that's not the case Well, if we want to give references to you, okay Well, if it seems to you, if you know more about the earth because you probably do So I'll ask you honestly if I were to go to the most extremely liberal countries in the world Like say the united states could I find thriving muslim communities there? And then if I were to go to the most extreme muslim communities in the world Would I find thriving liberal societies there? What do you think with the answer to that question? What do you define you keep defining this or using this term liberal because muslims can be liberal christians can be liberal And you don't you haven't set a standard for what actually achieves happiness. I tried to ask you a question about it You didn't answer You haven't defined what liberalism is you've just questioned my definition So you're asking these questions that I can't possibly answer I've explained why a liberal and muslim society is going to be happier than vice versa I can talk about the policies within liberal countries against muslims I've been talking about how let's like talk about a historical example Algeria, do you think muslims in Algeria were really happy when they're under this native code that the french had Placed on all algerians and africans Going all the way to senegal where you know, you had a french administrator Who had tried to be sleeping at night, but the frogs in the local pond were too loud So algerians were forced to go and like pat the the surface of the pond to quiet the frogs So they don't make noise for this french administrator who wants to Sleep and this is like french Have you heard of liberty egalité fraternité? You know that's the liberal doctrine is franca liberal country because these are the policies that they put on muslims Are muslims happy are those algerians happy enough? Okay. Yeah, so i'm gonna ask the question again because you avoided it So i'm gonna say do you think that there are more thriving muslim societies and extremely liberal countries like the united states Or we can say france or we can say england or we can say any other country you want in the west world Or do you think that there are more thriving liberal societies and more fundamentalist or extreme muslim countries? So in These liberal societies muslims are under all kinds of restrictions and the muslim community is not thriving the muslim community is being eroded away Okay, because of these kinds of secular policies in terms of muslim societies muslims have been Able to accommodate many different religion and cultures. This is why islam is the most culturally diverse ethnically diverse Religion because we can accommodate all of these different kinds of cultures and different ways of life and even belief systems And these kinds of cultures have lasted for hundreds and hundreds of years But if you look at where liberalism has spread Religions have gone extinct Actual ethnic peoples have gone extinct tribes have gone extinct languages have gone extinct This is the actual colonial history that you don't want to confront i'm bringing okay Sorry, if you want to ask a question. I mean, yeah, he's he's asking me questions So if i'm yeah, that's what you want. I think that the answer kind of speaks for itself You don't want to engage with it for obvious reasons. I understand but if you have a question, let's go for it No, I really want to answer your question, but I don't think you do because you know the answer so No, tell me The question was you think that Obviously Obviously in a in a more liberal country There are other religions that can exist within that liberal country so long as religious freedoms are afforded to people Which seems to be the case in the majority of the western world There are places in the united states where there are many different ethnic groups and many different religious groups If I go to more fundamentalist Religious countries that are islam i'm probably not going to find that diversity of groups Both christians and jewish people have been persecuted across a ton of countries in northern africa and the greater middle eastern region The idea muslims even fight amongst themselves in some of these countries Whether you're talking about a sunni or shia divide that exists in iraq historically Or whether you're talking about wars that are happening in yemen There's all sorts of religious conflict and geopolitical conflict that occurs there The idea that liberals can exist in fundamentalist muslim societies As easy as easily as muslims can exist in liberal dominant societies. I think it's pretty self-evident You can see that there are you can you can claim that muslims are under attack in liberal societies Which is probably better than in other societies where Where liberals have probably been killed in muslim societies or other religious groups that have been completely excised Because more of the fundamentalist communities are intolerant of any other types of liberal communities What you're saying is so unbelievably outrageous like I can't express how outrageous What part of it was outrageous what muslim societies in 20 seconds What muslim societies exist in the world today where can muslims actually implement islamic law today in the world And if they can't why countries in northern africa or in the middle east No in northern africa how can where where are you allowed to apply sharia islamic law Where sharia law can exist in any country. What do you mean? Yeah, it can exist theoretically. Yeah, but where does it exist in the world today in any muslim community it should exist No, this is where you're fundamentally mistaken. It's not allowed to exist because of a liberal world order What is sharia law mean to you when listen to this example? Well, no, no, no, I don't want to tell me What is sharia law? Islamic law. What does that mean islamic law? Okay, I'll get to a debate on islam without knowing what islamic law means. I will get well Maybe you'll correct me then if i'm wrong, so i'll give you my understanding of sharia law You can tell me if i'm right or wrong So a sharia law in a muslim community might mean that there are a special sect of Punishments or behaviors that are enforced among that community that exist independent of any sort of national legal system Do you agree with that? No Okay islamic law requires islamic law requires a governmental authority for all these punishments that you're talking about regarding gays regarding like I as a muslim according to the strictest interpretation of sharia law I can't go and just kill someone because they're violating islamic law So you're telling me that in islamic communities, there is absolutely no form of penance or punishment that can exist that isn't delivered by a government No, I mean No, no, careful criminal punishment. Not talking about just criminal If they're like if your child disobeys you are you are you telling me that there is Yeah, that kind of punishment exists No form of religious discipline in islam that can't be carried out without a government Oversight according to islam or the reality right now the reality in muslim communities across the world The reality in communities muslim communities across the world They are under a liberal system Whether it's a liberal government in charge like in egypt with abdul fatah sisi or saudi arabia with muhammad bin salman Liberals or any other muslim country? You cannot apply islamic law because you have these liberal dictatorships that prevent that there is look at brunai Look at the small country of brunai in southeast asia. They wanted they wanted they wanted to apply islamic law when it comes to Sexual fornication extramarital affairs and yes homosexuality. They got slammed by all liberals all over the world The u.s. Was calling for sanctions. They introduced legislation into congress to condemn Brunai by guess who ilhan omar who called the sharia in this legislation that was introduced in congress Ilhan omar says that the sharia is barbaric in order to condemn this small muslim country That got it into their heads that they could somehow practice islam Nowhere in the world is islam being practiced and sharia law being practiced because it's not allowed to happen The liberal order cracks down So I agree that there are liberal governments that protect fundamental or basic freedoms that your religion might seek to infringe upon I would consider that a positive But I do believe that there are forms of sharia or other types of religious laws like catholics that can be Enforced in countries that don't require you to kill people or execute people or do other things You can excise people from your religious institution like excommunication in the catholic church There are forms of punishment such as additional chores for children or for doing certain types of penance And religious communities that you can be forced to do as penalty for things My understanding is that much less like under christian laws There can be forms of sharia law that enforce these types of things or there might be other forms of punishment That could come down that don't require you to actually kill somebody I think I can be concerned with other forms of punishment that don't just happen to do with executions But if you're going to resist that you're going to say well No, actually sharia laws resisted all over the world in liberal societies because we don't let muslims murder gay people I guess I'll bite the bullet on that one and say okay. Well in that case I'm okay with liberalism as being authoritative over islam because I like to defend fundamental human rights among other groups of people So I mean I'm sorry to say this destiny, but you're reducing sharia and all of islam to killing gays I mean, this is really a reductive attitude and I don't know if it's because you're ignorant Of the of islamic law, but islamic law encompasses all areas of life encompasses theology encompasses like Relationships between your neighbors your family your spouse, but this is those are prohibited under liberalism Yeah, this is what I'm getting to this is what I'm getting to in these muslim countries like pakistan is an example Very traditional muslim country now because of the pressure of liberal human rights in international law they have introduced all kinds of Marriage laws that affect family law within pakistan. So things like triple divorce triple to lock Things like different inheritance laws things like things like ages of the brides for the Things like ages of right. Yeah, all of these things all of these things are now being imposed. So muslims cannot practice Marrying 12 year olds. I think that's probably okay destiny You're conceding you are conceding the debate because the whole debate is about does liberalism oppress islam and muslims and you're conceding that even right now you from this table are You know, you're an armchair oppressor of muslims. You're like, yeah, we should like get rid of all these islamic practices Yes, we should get rid of like yeah, so islamic law. So earlier you can see the debate Yeah, so earlier you so this was just my line of questioning So you said that sharia law couldn't exist in a liberal society And I've had plenty of muslims come on and talk to me and say that there are plenty of interpretations or forms of sharia law That can actually exist alongside in society. My understanding is that Islam actually dictates at times that it is moral to follow the legislation or laws of a country that you live in Similar to in christianity when jesus says render un-deceased or what is his that there is some Compatibility there with religions and the laws of the country that you live in now when I gave that example of sharia You said well, no actually there are times we want to kill gay people and we're not allowed to and I said, okay Well, hold on like yeah, maybe liberal governments prevent that but there must be something else Then you're saying oh, well why are you trying to straw man it into just talking about executing gay people? I don't want to talk about executing gay people I'm more concerned with the other parts of sharia that you started to talk about when you got upset when I used your own example You brought up that sharia law can dictate things like relationships with neighbors and communities while i'm interested What parts of that sharia law are restricted by liberal governments aside from things like child marriages Yeah, so I mentioned a lot of things other than just killing gays and child marriage You're just playing into the liberal stereotype that you're not you're not handling Yeah, I don't know. Let me tell you like just playing into that liberal stereotype that I introduced To the audience that muslim islam is just about terrorism. It's about killing gays never said any of that This is your example. So you've just reduced you've fallen into that caricature. Yeah There's no problem with me as a muslim for example praying like I can go into the hotel room I can pray and I'm following islamic law because the actions of prayer The ablutions of prayer these are all prohibited in liberal society You're straw manning me because I never said that liberal society prevents all practice of islam So what what are the good parts of sharia law? What i'm not trying to straw man you you just have a really hard time answering my questions So the only reason why I brought up executing gays is because you seem to point to that in terms of what sharia law would dictate But now i'm trying to get off of that because you brought up other things that i'm interested in So what i'm curious about and maybe you can educate me and maybe i'd be opposed to it You said that liberalism is authoritative and that it overrules other parts of sharia law And then you brought up vaguely things like relationships or community now when i've pushed you a little bit more in it You mentioned well praying is part of sharia praying is part of islam Liberals don't prevent you from praying if you're muslim in fact My understanding is in certain workplaces in the united states You can even get time off to do your five prayer prayers towards mecca there whatever you want to That religious freedoms in the united states are usually pretty well respected And i think we would agree that the united states is a pretty liberal country So i'm curious besides child marriages and killing gay people What are these parts of sharia law that you think are being prohibited by liberal governments that otherwise shouldn't be I mentioned them. I mentioned mention them again. I'm asking you clearly. Can you just mention the marriage practices? So what what type of marriage practice? Muslims cannot practice family law according to the sharia in the united states. What what type of family law? Family law like divorce law you can't get divorced in the united states. What do you mean? According to you can't get divorced according to islamic requirements You can get so in the united states they know that for catholics We're allowed to get divorced in a legal sense But there's an extra religious process called an annulment and that's something that you can practice in the united states What part of islamic marriage law can't be practiced in the united states? So for example, this is some this is a great example that's contrary to liberalism in islam The right to marriage is restricted to the man and a woman can only seek divorce But she cannot, you know, just divorce her husband unilaterally, but he can divorce her Unilaterally, this is an inequality found in islamic law that is meant to preserve marriage and create lasting stable marriages and This is something that is not allowed in the united states because a woman can divorce her husband So the divorce rates amongst muslims have increased Exponentially ever since Compared to muslims living in the muslim world where they can you know, they have this law on the books now a liberal will say That's horrible. You don't have equal rights between men and women, but that's exactly my point That's the exact kind of inequality that liberalism cannot tolerate and rather than think well Maybe there is something to this law Maybe what how you might want to put it is that see how muslims are so misogynistic how islam is so misogynistic Whereas a muslim thinks i just want to preserve my marriage I just want marriage is an important part of my life. It makes me happy. My wife is happy In general muslims are happy and all traditional societies we as christians also used to have this kind of distinction between divorce rights And we just want to preserve our marriages, but that's intolerable to liberals and we can't practice that in the united states That's just a one simple example custody laws as well custody laws what so focusing on the marriage thing it sounds to me like If a woman wanted to initiate a divorce Then she probably would but then she would just be excised from that muslim community. No No, no, no, there's nothing like that if you why wouldn't a muslim community excise a woman or kick a woman out of their community If she was the one that initiated a divorce what does excise mean kick out of no, where are you getting this? Well, you're telling me that this is a violation of sharia So why would why would any muslim community do not kick a woman out for violating that so women can seek a divorce And if the husband agrees then they can get a divorce But it would be a violation of a sharia like it's possible if a woman wants to just leave her family She can do that, but she wouldn't be entitled to any kind of custody. She wouldn't be entitled to any kind of So what i'm so you're bringing it's like fault divorce rather than an example of like something that you're not allowed to do But it seems like you could do that, but you could just kick that person out of your community No, no, but that's something that there's no Discouragement of that in the in the wider society because the laws the wider society laws make it but the In a particular muslim community you could encourage or discourage that or no No, no, but in the in the us what she can do is she can the muslim wife can go to court And she can take half or more of the guy's wealth. He can take custody That's all violations of islamic law. The law is going to The liberal law is going to assist her in actually violating islam Couldn't you enshrine this in a legal clause? Like couldn't you just get a prenuptial agreement if there's something you feel so strongly about? And then you would have the legal protection for your muslim marriage courts don't respect these prenups because they're fundamentally Contrary to family law in the us So you can't actually have these kinds of or it's very easy to get out of those kinds of prenups Because she can claim that oh he coerced me or the family like pressured me To sign this prenup and so it never holds up in court actually if you get legal representation on both sides for a prenuptial agreement It will hold up. This is how these things are negotiated commonly This is why prenuptial agreements exist if you're telling me that every prenuptial agreement could be challenged to throw Out then there would be no prenuptial agreements. I'm in the muslim community So it's different from just a prenuptial agreement in other communities in the muslim community And maybe this is also part of the liberal oppression of muslims these kinds of prenuptial agreements do not work And I am friends with many imams who counsel these types of marriages to prevent that kind of messy breakup Okay, do you think it's problematic if there are women that are in marriages only because they're not allowed to leave them? Or do you think that's an okay? I think it's okay. I think it's okay to limit certain amounts of freedom for the benefit of these kinds of institutions like marriage I think it's a disaster when more than 50 of marriages end up in divorce And usually it's women who initiate breakups, whether it's in marriage or casual relationships This is something that Is a terrible situation for people like everyone here in the audience And muslims too muslims in the audience me you can not go into a marriage and be confident that this will last And you might be you know as it's called divorce raped because of feminist laws that are on the books that make It very difficult for men to actually Want to get into that situation of marriage You don't think that it might be hinting that there's some problematic aspect of society If there are certain marriages that women are locked into because they're not allowed to leave I just answered that. I think it's fine. It's justified to limit certain kinds of autonomy What if a woman is miserable in a marriage? She just has no option. No, no, she has options So islamic law we can talk about all kinds of details. Yeah, what are the options? She can she can seek what's called a hola. She can seek a hola where Um, so this is assuming that there's no abuse. So in islamic law If the husband is abusive, he's not providing for her rights He is not providing for her maintenance. He is you know, just actually physically harming her Then she is according to islamic law the judge the islamic judge grants her the what's called a fesch So that's divorce. Okay, they're separated and he is actually in He is obligated or liable to pay her maintenance. So let's say that she just doesn't like him There's no abuse, but she just doesn't you know, is not attracted to him for some reason She can seek a divorce as well And um the qadi the islamic judge is going to mediate that and try to make it work out and like I said I have many friends who are imams and they're involved in this process around the world Wait, so it's a very good system. How is this so much more different than than a normal divorce? In a liberal society when there's no option when the option is not there Okay, that you can just on a whim say i'm tired of this i divorce you and face no consequences because it's a no fault divorce Divorce system then that almost incentivizes people to leave their marriages and you're constantly blasting images Single life being great and just explore your sexuality You have these websites that will help you cheat and they have like millions of subscribers Like this is very unattangent So it sounds like then that there are similar processes then you're telling me that if a woman really wants out of a marriage in islam Then she can leave the marriage if she's just not happy Then it does sounds like we're not really that far away then from a liberals understanding of marriage then You can complain about like societal pressures or something but it's not equal right The the woman does not have equal right to just pronounce divorce. Let's go to another example like muslims They have to put their children in many european liberal countries. They have to put their children within public schools They cannot homeschool and they there are no islamic schools. They're all outlawed So we're talking about countries like germany, for example They Muslims can't raise their own children according to islam They have to put their kids. I mean i was just talking to a muslim mother in germany She's like should i put my kid in the christian christianity elective or the atheism elective because those are the only two options in the public school What should i do like these are these are the kinds of realities that muslims are living not this kind of abstract What is it? What is it the atheism elective? What does that mean? It means going over classical liberal thinkers. It means going over Darwinism it means going over Why a secular scientific understanding of the world is The understanding of the world. Okay. I agree. I think that there are some cases in which liberalism supersedes um Some forms of islamic tradition It seems like you would still be able to practice some of this at home But obviously some of this would be inescapable But most of the inescapable parts I think are things where I think we've advanced society far long enough that we probably I would disagree with a lot of the muslim tradition here But I don't know but look look at france for example Muslims in france have to like the imams of the mosques have to sign a loyalty agreement that they Will prioritize French law above islamic law Not even in practice, but just in their loyalty. So they have to sign this loyalty oath to france They there was an imam in france. He just mentioned like he recited a verse of the quran But this was seen as an extreme verse According to the liberal authorities in france and he was deported You have all these kinds of restrictions on muslims as minorities and this is just a continuation of colonial policies that have dominated muslims I think you just you know conceded that this is Something that's happening muslims are oppressed islam does have to be attenuated within liberal societies um, okay, um Do you have questions for me or what do you want to Well, I am curious about that thought experiment because um you know Would you go for being a brain in the vat if it meant like Constant pleasure like or you can think of brave new world like soma like you take a drug and you just experience constant pleasure through the dopamine that's released through that pharmaceutical like is that something that You think people should do um The challenging part about that thought experiment is that you don't know if you're a brain in a vat right now It's hard to answer a question related to a shift of our entire perspective Because any shift of your entire perspective is something you're necessarily not going to be able to be aware of right? So when you're dreaming you might not know you're dreaming when you're awake You don't technically know if you're awake. We could be in a brain in a vat right now We not know it. There's no way to prove or disprove that This is hard to engage with questions that talk about like fundamentally altering the reality that you're perceiving So it's a I mean we can get into it if you want, but it's a much more difficult question than just a matter of theology or liberalism sure, so, um I'm not talking about like the classical philosophical question of are we brains in vats just imagine Just forget about the brain in the vat expression. Um, just imagine like there's a kind of pill that you take And you take it and then you experience just constant bliss And you're just hooked up to you know, whatever like virtual reality machine like meta machine Oculus rift or whatever and you just live in this constant state of bliss and experience no pain Um, and this is mandated. Let's say the government mandates this everyone has to be plugged into this Why because we want to reduce the killing of gays or child abuse or Domestic violence or rape and they mandate this like what would you say in In response and the government really kicks it up a notch because they're not only mandating it They are smearing all people who refuse like the anti Soma crowd They they tarnish them as being pro rape and being pro killing of gays and being pro You know marrying 12 year olds and pro Child rape, what would you say like to that government policy? Because doesn't that remind you of kind of what you're doing in this debate? Okay, so i'm gonna ramble for a second So what you're bringing up is a really well known philosophical thought experiment It's called the experience machine So the question is typically posed as if somebody could put you in a machine and then you weren't aware that you were in a machine But it gave you the perfect blissful reality Would you take it? Technically if you're logically committed to being a consistent Person that's answering questions in a reasonable way your answer should always be yes Because once you're in the machine, you're not going to be aware that you're in the machine Now people intuitively will reject that conclusion because they'll say well, hold on I know that it's not real But the reality is is that once you're in the machine you won't know that it's real or not And right now you don't know if what you're experiencing is real or not So for instance if I were to offer you a pill and I would say actually you're already trapped in a liberal society But I can give you a pill to enter a machine and what that machine is going to do is it's going to wake you up Now it's going to be a society full of misery and war and post apocalyptic robots running if we're killing everybody But it will be the real world and you have a chance to build something new Would you take that pill or not? The problem is you don't know if i'm about to insert you into another dream Or if i'm about to wake you up from the experience you're already dreaming about So there's a lot to think about in terms of this question But it gets into some very heavy like epistemic theories of truth. How do we figure out? What is real or not? How do we figure out if our conscious experience is objective and grounded or subjective or not? I understand your desire to I understand your desire to use this question to explore Liberal versus a theological foundation for the world, but it's a very deep and heavy question. It's hard to just answer Yes or no, I will say that The government has done something is the government right in smearing people who refuse to take this Option as pro rape If the option had to do with enforcing or embracing a society where we respect the civil liberties and values of people that are Different than us I would say that a government can enforce that But if you're talking about putting people to sleep in a matrix and then doing it that way I say a government probably doesn't have a right to do that. That's too much control of your life Why because it's maximizing people's freedom There's no more police brutality. There's no more racism. There's no more homophobia The government doesn't seek to maximize every individual's freedom. It seeks to protect the freedoms of other people I never said I was pro homophobia. Are you pro rape because this is a perfect solution This is a perfect solution. Just like we can dissolve families. So there's no more It doesn't parental abuse the best solution to all crime is to nuke every single country on the planet because when no humans Are left no crime is left. No, no, that's that's that's an absurd question So if you tell me if you found a way to disable every human being you can also get rid of crime Sure, but there's going to be trade-offs there that we're not willing to accept There's plenty of ways that we can ensure ourselves have 100 security But we're not willing to trade off the freedom that we get for it For instance, if I were to get strip searched every single time I entered every single building There'd probably be no shootings inside buildings But that's not part of our freedom that we're willing to sacrifice in exchange for that level of safety or comfort Much the same if there are ways to get rid of homophobia and whatnot in society We would probably embrace those ways But not to the point where we say everybody has to go to sleep in the matrix in order to prevent crime Why not I want to this is one friend why not because you said earlier that a liberal society Is one that seeks to maximize your autonomy and freedom and nothing is less autonomous and more restricting of freedom than the government Forcing you in a machine where you lack all autonomy. No, you do you you can have whatever you want You don't you're like a reality virtual reality. That's why it's a virtual We're imagining future and imagination is not the same as reality We're imagined in this thought experiment. You know what a thought experiment is, right? There is a future technology that will allow you to fully live out your fantasies And it will be a complete like blissful state that you're existing But you know before entering it that it's not real the government can't force you to do that It's the ultimate sacrifice of your autonomy sounds like you're fetishizing reality Are you not fetishizing reality? Well a muslim does care about reality That's why a muslim has a principled basis to say no This is a terrible thing to do even though it maximizes freedom. It maximizes equality. It doesn't maximize freedom Even though it maximizes freedom equality. It's still not good. Why because there's no more marriage. There's no more belief in god There's no more Family to actually experience and community to actually experience So a muslim has a principled basis for saying no a liberal doesn't otherwise saying well reality is good But that contradicts everything that you're saying before If I lock somebody in a padded cell and I tell them they can do whatever they want for the rest of their life in that padded cell I wouldn't say that I've maximized their freedom. That's not the same situation that I mentioned Maximize their freedom within the padded cell if you're talking about locking somebody up inside of a virtual reality machine And you're saying well look you've got maximum freedom you have maximum freedom insofar as you're restricted to that virtual reality machine It's not the same. So what is what is the benefit of freedom? What is the benefit of freedom in a liberal society I suppose people would say the benefit of freedom is that we have the right to determine our own destiny To make our own decisions about what we want to pursue in life And we shouldn't have external forces that are pushing us towards something that we might not otherwise choose to do on our own But what is good about that? Well, that's it gets into a deep question of what what do we consider goodness? Yeah, what is goodness? I am asking you So on a meta ethical level I think a lot of secular thinkers would say that goodness is the stuff that elevates man's experience and decreases man's suffering What does it mean to elevate because it sounds like you're using very metaphysical language Are some things that seem to appeal to our human nature. So for instance being free of disease Having good food to eat having friendships and relationships with people that these are things that tend to elevate the human experience They interact with our form in such a way. They make us feel happier Okay, so if you care about happiness and you and you care about human nature There is an objective answer to what makes people happier and what actually makes them feel good Um, and again, these are things like belief in god Hey religious people are often Shown in studies to be much happier And this is especially the case when you look at muslim societies people in marriages People who feel like they belong to a community like this is my community Whether it's an ethnic community or a religious community or whatever people who Have a loving marriage that they feel confident that they can be happy in their marriage for an extended period of time Have children be surrounded by loved ones be surrounded by an extended family These are all things that objectively make people happy. So we can ask an objective question What system of life is actually going to be more conducive to these kinds of institutions? When we look at the statistics In western liberal societies, all of these things are being eroded belief in god That's very clear with secularization. Read ronald engelhardt. Look at world value survey So everything that you've mentioned marriage community Relationships Family all of these things can and have existed in liberal societies Whether or not we're having issues related to them right now could be as much the fault of liberalism as it could be of technological advancements or of industrialization Or of our siphoning off into cities and rural communities. There are plenty of reasons why we might be experiencing issues today I don't think we can say that all of it is just because of liberalism Nothing that you've given me is fundamentally incompatible with liberalism And all of these things have existed in liberal societies since liberal societies have existed Well, again, i'm talking about directionality. What is the direction? What are the trends in liberal societies globally? We can see this globally even some even muslim societies again, they're ruled by liberal elites And they are liberalizing too, unfortunately. So you can see increasing secularization loss of marriage family community technological advancement You're saying that this could be a cause of these issues There is a lot of research that speaks against that And look at china for example china has been experiencing this kind of economic growth But they are going the opposite direction of liberal states. They're actually becoming more nationalistic They're becoming they're they're cracking down on feminists and they're trying to Strengthen marriages and making it more difficult for people to get out of their marriages They're becoming less individualistic So i don't agree that it's inevitable with economic advancement that you will find Liberalization or or you you will find the dissolution of these kinds of relationships So we talk about the direction that society is moving and i think in moving away from religion I think that some parts of that direction have been positive So for instance different types of people are able to live better in society today than they could when we were more Strict in our adherence to religious beliefs. So for instance lgbtq people I also think that women have enjoyed a great amount of the expansion of their freedoms in society today Versus when we had a more religious society You keep pointing to the fact that directionally we seem to be moving more liberal And you're pointing out that even in muslim majority areas that seems to be the case If that is the case isn't that a stronger argument that humans have a tendency for more autonomy for more freedom To live more liberal lives when you see every single country in the world that trends more and more in this direction And even islamic communities aren't able to resist that push No, it's because of a dominant liberal order as i mentioned the example of brunay as i mentioned the colonial system that has Left scars deep scars on the entire muslim world and constant economic pressure from the from the us from the e.u To maintain a liberal order and look at the foreign policy from the state department There is a major cultural engineering mandate to make sure that the entire world accepts lgbt Excepts women's rights excepts all of these liberal values. They're imposing it on the entire globe. That's why there is a trend It's not because people naturally want liberalism. It's because because it's not biologically they're not Aligned with that they have to be forced by this global order and women by the way are not happier now than they were 50 years ago You know we can look at the studies on on that too Why did the liberal order become dominant socially speaking if evolutionarily or biologically? We're all happier in some more religious order It was imposed it was imposed by force by the colonial powers but colonial powers the liberal powers the You know the superpowers like you yeah these liberal powers that rule through democratic institutions like how how Why were they all liberal? Why didn't they choose to stay happier and healthier and more biologically satisfied as religious caliphates or something? Why did they move towards a more secularized? form of society well, this gets into the reformation and modernization and the French revolution and why did john stewart mill and Alexis de tocoville and germy bentham and henry main all of these liberal thinkers their philosophy is based on materialism And a rejection of religious morality they ask why do we have? uh We reject god because look at how much suffering christianity has brought through the reformation wars and so forth So we want a better standard for determining how to live our lives We we don't look to scripture obviously we have to look to rationality and we have to look to science And when we look to science all that exists is the human body the human body experiences pleasure and experience pain So goodness means to maximize pleasure and to reduce pain they became the utilitarians Which were also the the liberals And the entire moral and political philosophy is on this utilitarian basis of maximizing human pleasure like bodily pleasure And is on the basis of that philosophy of rejecting religion and accepting this kind of utility liberal utilitarianism as a higher form of morality That is not connected to religious barbarism and religion holds you back with its traditions and its requirements It reduces your freedom and equality now We have a better system and it was on the basis of this kind of superiority complex The self-perceived superiority of the european empire that this was forced on the rest of the world So philosophers don't make laws philosophers don't construct countries Oftentimes philosophers are select in academic institutions writing papers at each other arguing over esoteric points related to Meta epistemology or other obscure philosophical topics They can write books trying to describe things or their own thoughts But the idea that the average person is reading rolls in order to figure out how they want to live their life Is just not true. So to ask my question again without talking about a philosopher Why did the societies themselves liberalized? Why did the societies themselves reject religion in favor of more secular living? Why did all of these societies in these dominant liberal or dominant western countries move towards liberalization? If religious thought and religious institutions and religious organization was better for them Yeah, so you're projecting a kind of modern notion of philosopher The liberal thinkers were actually government officials John Stuart mill was a colonial administrator of the british colonial empire in the subcontinent Alexis de tocoville was a government official and he was one of these primary liberal Thinkers same with germy bentham. He had a very high position in the british government John mill john stewart mill's father also was very high in the british government So these they were philosophers and they were government officials and the french revolution like the the whole ideals of the revolution Um are liberal and that's what got established in the new french republic Why were there not revolutions by the people of the time against this order being imposed on them though? Especially in a time period where so many people are going to war with each other and fighting each other I'm just trying to understand how if you're telling me that a religious society is so much superior in so many other ways So i'm trying to figure out if that is the case how do these liberal societies become so large And you can't just say well They were imposed by other countries because there must have been the first liberal countries So how do these countries grow so much becomes so liberal if it made all of the people so miserable Unless you're just telling me that government officials for some reason decided to impose Unhappiness and misery on their population for reasons That's a great question. Let me clarify Um, so it's not that the liberal order makes people automatically miserable Actually liberalism and that time in in that context led to economic growth and technological power So it actually brought a lot of benefits to those european societies And that allowed them to kind of dominate the rest of the world Which kind of snowballed into the situation of extreme inequality that we have today So my argument is not that liberalism increases misery in and of itself. My argument is that it erodes these important relationships that are so critical to human happiness not in a Utilitarian sense of happiness in terms of pleasure But in a higher sense of human purpose happiness and what we are as human beings in this world as creation of god or Evolved from monkeys if that's what you believe or apes So that's that's the argument that i'm making. Yeah, there's a lot of benefits But it's like offering a child candy like you can give the child candy And the child will experience a lot of pleasure eating that candy But if that's all he eats he's going to die He needs some of the things that are bitter some of the fruit some of the vegetables some of the meats And that's what you know a lot of traditions of the world offer Islam offers it in the best most complete way But that's what's going to be the best thing for humanity not this candy that liberalism offers Into the q and a so if you have a question for one or either of our interlocutors I'm going to ask you to please form a single file line Now in the center and all I ask is that a question ends with a question mark so um so So you you brought up a really great point. Um so you okay, so you basically said that um A lot of people like a lot of people in the Islam community tend to be happier than a lot of people in uh liberal communities right and um And that's not exactly what I said Okay, well, can you Muslims are suffering because of this colonial system because of the dominant liberal order and there's extreme Wealth gap between Muslims in the world today and liberal countries So liberal countries are much happier today because of higher GDP per capita But it's because of an in global structural inequality that has been created by liberalism Well, I guess I guess well, I mean I was going to ask a question to destiny anyway, but basically pretty much um so It is true that religious communities do tend to be happier than Uh more secular communities or atheistic communities and we do know that as uh countries become more liberal They also become more atheistic and so they tend to be less communal, right? How do you think liberalism can or what do you think liberalism liberalism can do to fix that because It it because it is important to have a very community communal base with people because we're very tribal Yeah, I think the tradition Well, yeah, so how can what can liberalism do to fix that I guess or like do you think there's any possible solution towards that or I think that like we have to get better at instilling Community, but there's a couple of really big things that are working against that right now And I think technology is a really big push in isolating people from each other today I don't know how you overcome that particular thing because it's so easy to turn to technological solutions for Talking to other people versus like going out and actually doing things. So we're getting a lot more. Um, I think atomized is the word But do you think that's a bad thing? Being atomized. Yes So my question is to Uh, so my question is to Daniel, um So you had knowledge that islam is a comprehensive moral doctrine at least that's the way I would I would uh interpret this Um, and doesn't would that mean as such since islam recognized that it wouldn't be fully fully apparent to Practice its own practices within different countries under different systems and had Prescripts for muslims to follow in those situations that by definition, it's not necessarily being oppressed as an idea And I'll just take it up So, um, yeah, muslims have lived as minorities In many different contexts and usually they have been oppressed Um, can muslims live as minorities under other governments? Yes, that is accommodated within islamic laws Um, but you know, the ideal is to live under islamic law with islamic authority the caliphate So that entire islamic system of life can be implemented But the distinction with the modern period is that the colonial powers in the liberal world order has actually gone out of its way to Basically snuff out islam and there are different approaches to this by different colonial powers Like some like the british had a more, you know Just annihilate everything brute force the french were maybe more diplomatic in different territories still involving a lot of killing and genocide but At least there are some muslims left alive after that but um Yeah, I mean that's that's my whole message with this debate is does liberalism oppress islam There is a clear history of that and that's objectionable And we should be able to talk about that and and recognize this conflict that exists because it's led to a lot of millions of muslims dead then if we're going to have a discussion on the oppression of liberalism within the islamic community why then Is the western community Branded as islamophobes when we wanted to discuss the islamic oppression within our own communities that have happened centuries ago And continue to today within the ramifications of those cultures that did try to maintain their faith If you look at the pontus region of anatolia That is a region that was wiped out with the pontian greeks from 1914 to 1922 Hundreds of thousands were put on a death march. They were slaughtered. They lost their monasteries. They lost their communities They lost their faith These people have been pushed around the globe australia in uh europe in america Yes pontian greeks We look at agios sofia erdogan slapped the orthodox community by changing it into a mosque again fully fledged It was no longer maintaining a balance between those two faiths with respect to one another who both find agios sofia as a religiously important basilica to both so If we're going to say that and i do think that we need to have a discussion about the oppression of the islamic community bycolonial powers At the same time you cannot negate the islamic oppression of other communities And that would be my only rebuttal to that People get branded as islamophobes for doing that and that's not right Yeah, so there has been Islam doesn't deny war Um, and it doesn't deny that Hmm Well, sorry No, I wouldn't say that islam is all about war islamic knowledge is that war is a part of human reality and all humans Throughout history have been involved in conquering and displacing The difference with islamic practices is that we there is a code of ethics of how to deal And how to treat the minorities The what Where in islam are their death marches where in the quran can you point out Can you point out in the quran where there are death marches that are prescribed or in hadith Where in the example of the prophet muhammad peace be upon him is are there death marches And no one can hear you either So if I have no problem I have no problem condemning muslims who don't act by the quran and the example of the prophet muhammad I have no problem condemning that so but there's a big difference between colonialism With european colonialism with genocided muslims In a systematic way versus what islam islamic just war theory and jihad There's a big difference and we can have a discussion. We can discussion about that We can we can have a discussion about that in another debate, but You know, all right I guess my questions for both of you because I guess to comply equally Are there any aspects or things typically associated with islam that you think it's maybe a good thing that most western Liberal societies kind of outlaw. Is there anything that comes to mind? Nothing What about you? Um, I would say uh killing apostates Killing gay people probably not good things. Um restriction of freedom of women in society probably not generally a good thing I don't know what the specific rules are on marrying very very very young women But I'd say that's also probably not a good thing But I mean like the more extreme points of view that you take is probably going to depend on the particular set of ideas you follow So I mean I can't generalize to all muslims, but My question is for daniel and it's related to the question you guys discussed about whether liberals would be better off Under sharia or muslims would be better off under liberalism um If the roles were reversed and we were like standing right now and in islamic country that is governed by sharia law Could this debate that you guys are having right now be happening? So there Is a history of debating within muslim societies because there were muslim minorities There were christian minorities. There are jewish minorities in some places. There were zoroastrian minorities some in the subcontinent There were hindu minorities under the morul empire So there were debates that happened historically if you don't have a historical understanding of islam And instead you have this caricature that you read from sam harris or richard dawkins Then you're not going to know about this history So yes, there's been a long tradition of debate and free inquiry in the in muslim history But islam set certain kinds of rules that i i'm not apologetic for certain rules when it comes to blasphemy We don't want atheists in muslim societies constantly undermining our religion Why because it's going to destroy their religion just like if you had you know Black community and you the black community was allowed to have Insert not insurgents, but uh agent provocateurs Which actually the fbi did do with co entel pro they inserted these black agent provocateurs to constantly undermine the black liberation Movement in order to destroy that community because it was contrary to the interests of the american government That is an anti community policy in line with liberalism Muslims don't want that muslims don't want our communities to be dissolved because we allow atheists to come and mock our religion To mock our profit. We care about community cohesion and that brings us a lot of happiness that liberalism wants to deny us On that talking point too, there are a lot of There are a lot of other religious groups then that muslims probably wouldn't tolerate living in their borders as well, right? Like atheists, yeah, or christians So there's no no christians within the strictest interpretation of islamic law Christians are ahl of them, which means protected people along with jews Would you not say that in they're the would you not say that it's pretty dangerous for christians and a lot of muslim majority countries in the world? No, it's not dangerous. You don't believe that's the case in Somalia and afghanistan iraq syria Sudan iran pakistan like No Okay, because look these muslim these christians have lived in these muslim countries for literally 1,200 1,300 there are places in the there are places where even owning a bible is like punishable by death No, no, where the mildeeves? I've never heard of that. Okay, because christians that's contrary to islamic law That's contrary to islamic law christians can practice their religion with under islamic law under the syria. This is called Is it true that akham ahl of them the rules and regulations of the protected people in any of these places though Were you to convert from islam to christianity? You could be killed in any of the places, correct? Okay No, no, no not today in any of the places because by the strictest interpretations. Yes. I'm not an apologist So i'm going to tell you exactly what it is. It's not liberal but But what a liberal wants to portray it as is the muslim is blood thirsty He just wants to kill people because he can't he's um, you know Has an inferiority complex But the way the reality is muslims want to protect their religious community They want to protect belief in god because these are things that bring so much benefit and happiness And fulfillment to people Yeah question for destiny. I think in the beginning i'm i'm trying to understand like do you Do you believe that um Can I say this uh liberalism liberalism is Protected from from a systematic perspective. Is it carried out systematically? Is it protected systematically? Is it implemented systematically? I think liberalism grows pretty organically because there's a lot of tenants of liberalism that just seem to work Um, so for instance even in places that heavily opposed liberalism during like the cold war It seemed that as these societies moved into kind of like the new world post 90s Places like the russia the newly formed russia Places like vietnam even places like china the more liberalized their economy's got the more successful. They became economically Well, the thing is is that like government wasn't involved. Is that correct? Sure, but there's an interesting implication We say like systematically carried out the government was involved Like are we saying that the government imposed this against the will of the people or the government was kind of organically expressing The will of the people I think as a whole how the government functions That's what i'm referring to when it comes to liberalism, right in terms of how the world views Hey, look here's liberalism working. Why is it working? It's because there is a system system in place That's um, you know, it has it has its rules and everything in place and it's working, right? So the government is doing it So the reason I asked that is because it's important in the sense of how It's affected not just the muslim world but the entire world in general Well, what I mean by that is the freedom that you have enjoyed that america has enjoyed particularly Most of these first world countries enjoyed is on the backs of the labor of native americans the extension the genocide of The native americans the african americans and currently The despotic regimes in the muslim world that give them all these resources at dirt cheap prices So we can enjoy all these benefits. I mean like Imperialism is not unique but it is intertwined because we say that but muslims ran a slave trade for 1300 years It's it's it's not fair to say that liberalism is solely the one responsible for Oh, yeah, go you can come on what i'm saying is that The the way that it's been carried out, you know, like it causes inequalities around the world and I think that's what Danny was trying to express in the muslim world how that's causing inequality Sure. Yeah, you know you live in the society you you enjoy all these benefits But there's a price to pay and that's why there's inequality But this is how you enjoy liberalism you you get to enjoy this freedom Because of the world the condition that is that it's in I mean, do you think the diamond mines in uh In tanzania, you know that these chels child slavery that they work such a cheap extensive labor for a cheap price so we can enjoy the prices or for example, chiquita banana company You know expulsion other countries absolutely this that's high too It's tied to any power that is strong enough to invade any other power We can look at any dominant religious or ethnic group in the history of the world And the first thing you do when you have a lot of power is you invade and destroy everybody next to you And you take all their shit. That's not unique to liberalism. It's not unique to christianity There are rules built into the um to every religion when it comes to conducting warfare enslaving other people and exploiting other nations Um arabic and muslim communities did it for a long time in history christian communities did it for a long time in history Islamic world exploited the resources i'm saying i'm saying everybody has when given the opportunity to do so The only difference is is that right now liberal country seem to be trying to do something to counteract that or they seem to be having This conversations, um, I mean we can continue to have those conversations But to pretend that like exploitation or colonialism is unique to liberal countries. I think mrs The entire cold war. I mean there was a reason why it was called the the um, oh my god I forget the ussr is like the the united states of the soviet union But like it was it wasn't just one country, right? Everybody is engaged in In this sort of imperialism it happens all the time in south america with left and right leaning countries Like it's throughout all of human history throughout all of european history. There's been an invading forces and everything Um, I just I don't agree that it's unique to liberal countries or liberal ideology I would disagree but Can I just just say one quick thing but my question is the exact same thing So I'd like you guys to talk about it more. I think it'd be more interesting instead of like one of the questionnaires I appreciate that. I would just say that the liberal domination I agree with you as I mentioned that these all nations have engaged in warfare And slavery and so forth But the character of liberal domination is different because it erodes these important institutions Other dominate kinds of domination that has existed Has not had that same character and liberalism in fact is going to Lead to transhumanism like if you've read you've all harari if you've read any of these transhumanist philosophers They talk about how with technology you can you know do all kinds of things to change the human body and uh genetically engineer the human body create alternative virtual realities create certain pharmaceuticals to affect human consciousness and at a certain point the liberal Mentality is going to mandate these kinds of technology. So why can't we have artificial wombs? Because this is inequality if women have to get pregnant This leads to a kind of dependence that's intolerable to liberal equality. Why don't we mandate certain kind of testosterone restriction for men? because men It's the testosterone that makes them aggressive which causes them to commit crimes or rapes or any kind of violence So let's have mandatory testosterone restriction. We can actually change the dna or or whatever This is going to lead to the extinction of the human race because human beings are going to be this transhumanist new You know reality that we are headed towards in a very fast and furious way So we have a question coming in from our modern day debate sponsor of mike Wellman he asks for daniel Women do not seek a divorce if they are happy with their marriage How would not allowing a woman to seek a divorce if her husband does not agree Lead to a happier more stable marriage if you are forcing someone to participate against their will There are many reasons that women seek divorce Sometimes it is justified and islam has islamic law has avenues where they can seek a Good situation for themselves But there are also many situations where a woman does not have just cause To ask for a divorce or there's no real reason. She just doesn't feel like being married one day And you know, there are so many examples that you can cite just from personal anecdotal experience I mean this kind of idea that women are You know only Do do things on the basis of careful reason and their own best interests at heart I think that might be a myth, but I don't know if you guys agree with me or not, but Thank you very much for coming. I understand that it's difficult in a way for you as a muslim to debate topics in the secular or christian majority country But one of the question I have is that if I You are free here in united states in a relatively liberal country To try to convert me to your religion But if I will go in one of the muslim majority country, let's say I'm going to mecca And we'll go together. Can I try to convert you to christianity in mecca? Or the government there is going to prohibit me to do that Because it seems that most of your answers to those kind of questions is You are going to be a muslim and you are going to be happy to be a muslim and you got to believe it Isn't The government forcing you to believe something that one is to my opinion. It's one of the greatest achievement of of Western civilization I came from romania, which is a communist was a communist country in the past was dominated by muslim I nobody's looking on either of those two periods would force beliefs as something that was happy Nobody was really happy over there comparing to what it's now in other states. So Is it the muslim regime regimes forcing you to believe and to be happy that you believe what you believe So there's this kind of myth that coercion doesn't exist in liberal societies, but this is completely false It is their question because you're at you're you're portraying islamic societies as coercing islam And liberal societies are coercing liberalism. You are required to live according to liberal laws. All laws are I'm forced to tolerate you. I Agree that they are very aggressive. They are very oppressive for me to tolerate you. No, so you're forced. That's not forced there I'm sorry that you use the word force. So you're coerced to abide by So, I mean, this is the kind of myth this is the kind of myth that liberals are operating under that liberal Society is just this bastion of you can do whatever you want whenever you want it But that's not true. First of all, there are laws that restrict your behavior And what are those laws based on they're based on liberal sensibilities and a liberal world view and a liberal understanding Of human nature and human interests those kinds of beliefs those kinds of beliefs Okay, I don't know what this means, but you have an imposition Of to more to more favorably phrase this question So like you would complain in this country that like it's a little bit oppressive to islam that women are allowed to Get divorced on a woman's whim But he's saying it's kind of shady that in a most of majority country if I try to convert somebody to christianity I will get executed. There seems to be a difference in in oppression there is what you're saying Yeah, you're just using one little example You can't raise your children the way that you want to raise them in these liberal countries How is that not a huge deal? I mean the united you can't preach your religion if you recite verses from your holy book You are deported wait, what do you mean? You can you can in france in france the imam I can't speak for french but probably in the united states where we are right now in in in the united states You can be designated As an extremist according to cve programs if you have certain non-liberal beliefs and you go on a no fly Okay, hold on. Wait. Wait. Wait. You go you haven't you haven't experienced this Liberal oppression. That's why it's so easy for you to say I mean in the same you have experienced it, but not in the same way muslims have experienced it So it's so easy for you to hand wave these kinds of things When you say for reciting have your bank accounts been seized because you have illiberal views because you believe certain hadith Have your bank accounts been seized have you been under surveillance has the nsa been Monitoring your leaders like they've been monitoring monitoring muslim leaders as the snowden leaks showed When you say that have you been rejected from a from a flight because you're on a no fly list and you didn't know why when you say certain illiberal beliefs that is a very weasley way of Having a whole host of things that that could mean If somebody said that i worship the prophet muhammad god bless him whatever, okay And this guy gets put on a no fly list. That's horrible If somebody's saying that society's degraded to the point to where we need a holy war to kill all the infidels in the united states And he's put in a no fly list. I'm a little warmer to that idea You have no clue what the cve requirements are. Why are you just talking out of your rear because you haven't given The actual beliefs that are listed under the see the fbi documents of what makes a muslim radical are very clear Do you live in this area? Yes, I live in houston. Are you allowed to fly in planes? I am a lot of my friends aren't well a lot of my friends Have secondary screening that they have to go through a lot of my friends have had their bank or family members have had bank account Sees and they have no they have absolutely no violent beliefs actually some of them are liberals They're like muslim liberals yet. They're being targeted by this dragnet of us countering violent extremism under that was initiated by the obama administration But that's a relic of the war on on terror, but I don't want to get Yeah, so my question is You had mentioned that In muslim countries that you need to protect your religion and protect your faith because of all of the benefits that stem from it Are there I know that that there's benefits that you talk about But are there any dangers that you see that are inherent to islam or things harm that can be caused that you're concerned about no islam is the religion that Was revealed by god as the perfect way to live your life The creator of humanity knows best how we should live our lives And on the macro scale and the micro scale. So islamic law covers everything from worship economic practices criminal law government regulation war All of these things are covered by islamic law It's guidance from the creator of humanity who sent his final messenger Muhammad peace be upon him to serve as a A guide and a model and that's why muslims Mirror his practice In their own lives and they institute these kinds of practices and institutions in their societies So just to clarify so if if a muslim does something that's harmful, that's not caused by their religion Muslims can cause harm. Yeah, but if they cause harm, it's it's not a direct result of the religion The religion isn't the source or cause of it Yes Well, wait harm or wait harm hold on I want to be completely honest and clear So there could be something that causes harm. So if i'm a father And I have a duty according to islamic law to provide for my wife and kids And if I don't do this duty, then that makes me sinful And that means I have to wake up every day at the crack of dawn and go and you know dig ditches until dusk That's going to cause a lot of harm to my body But I will do it because I love my family. I love my wife. I love god. I love being a Servant of god and making an honest living that causes me bodily harm But there's a greater value Of with marriage with family with being a servant of god having a purpose in life in that vein So yes, there's physical harm because we're not utilitarians Sometimes you have to do things that are not pleasurable, but it's always for this higher purpose So daniel i'm curious because I if you've said anything about this in the debate. I missed it as Is there a reason why you think People who are not muslims should think that it's wrong to oppress muslims in other words Is it just that they should realize that islam is true and that therefore, you know, they Therefore they shouldn't do it because of that or is there some sort of general Thing that people should be able to see even if they're not muslims that like oppression is bad Therefore no fly lists are bad and if it's the second one i'm really curious about how you get to catch that out Without endorsing some kind of pluralism that I would guess you would think out as liberalism Islam it does endorse pluralism It's just a limited form of pluralism and it's much more tolerant of diversity than Islam is more tolerant of diversity than liberalism and I Polar to diversity of the world Yes, because Don't think about power the way that liberals think about power is that a government Puts restrictions that limits your individual liberty. That's one way to think about power There's another way to think about power. Uh, it was probably best expressed by michel foucault the french philosopher He said that another way to Demonstrate power a government can reconstitute your psychology Reconstitute your subjectivity through conditioning through programming through education So that you think and believe in a way That's most conformant and most beneficial to the interests of the power This is another way that you can you can express power and so what liberals in this audience All of us are victims of this kind of reconstitution of our psychologies Where we have become these this liberal psychology and if you go back to the author that I keep mentioning Joseph Heinrich at harvard. He has this book the weirdest people in the world. He uses the word weird What does weird mean? It's not his term. It's an acronym for western educated industrialized rich and democratic and what Psychologists have realized is that the western educated industrialized rich democratic psychology is Very different than the psychologies of the majority of people around the world And so weird people liberal people think in ways that actually most people find completely befuddling Including muslims so So your question was Sorry Okay, okay, let me let me really let me really quickly rephrase the original question. Yeah uh Do you think that there's you know because you you listed off all these very plausible examples of things that Uh, western governments have done that are oppressive to muslims Some of them I even agree are bad Uh, but do you think there's a reason that as a non muslim I should think these bad. These are bad other than that. I should be a muslim I know but I try my whole argument wasn't like these things are bad because islam says so I try to ground my entire argument in things that everyone here are most people should value marriage family community And belief in god fine. Maybe some people don't believe in that Have all that without islam, right? I mean we could just we could just make everybody be a traditionalist christian We could have all those ways. So this debate wasn't a debate islam versus the world It was islam versus liberalism or you know, that was that these are the two contenders We can talk about other systems If there's a reason why oppressive muslims other than just that islam is true You mean is it wrong to subject muslims to this kind of liberal system? I mean like the no fly list the surveillance all the things that you brought up All liberal policies are wrong because of the contradiction to marriage family community and god That are biologically rooted in human nature. That's why it's bad That's the argument I made to appeal to people who are not muslim So here's a question. What is a unique thing you get from islam that you couldn't get from christianity That's what he's so you're saying that like things like family community all of that You can look at the comparative statistics when it comes to like extramarital affairs when it comes to average family size when it comes to fertility rate when it comes to actually Practicing the religious values and muslims consistently score higher than christians in the current day Because there are more muslim fundamentalist countries than christian fundamentalist countries For instance, like wouldn't a muslim in the united states be more likely to be living a Liberal lifestyle like a christian in the united states versus a muslim in a more muslim majority fundamentalist place Well, all you're saying is that the fundamentalists, they're just abiding by their religious dictates More strictly. So that's that's exactly what i'm saying. Yeah, but i'm saying like a fundamentalist christian country It seems like we would get all the good things you're professing seem to only come from islam But they don't exist. That's the thing these christians have all liberalized You know, that's that's the problem. You have some but some might say maybe that's well, okay I mean, that's that's that's there are reasons why christianity is more conducive to liberalization and and jewish communities as well They're more conducive to it for theological reasons that we can discuss Islam is more compelling and coherent of a theology for what's compelling because if you convert away from it You're executed. No, that's only a problem for liberals christians have that law on the books, too That if you christians have killed heretics, too No, no heretics are a definition like need to kill if somebody As i've never heard him catholicism that we're supposed to x i know you can excommunicate people But i don't know about execute people. Yeah, you can Byzantine empire heretics your All right, this is uh for destiny So the title of the debate does or does this does liberalism require a domination of a snap Was the title of the debate from what i understood from what you said you can clarify obviously is that Basically, if there's things like lgbtq are being persecuted in a muslim country Or i don't know what else you mentioned child marriages or something. You're basically okay in that case Yeah, so to what extent when we have like let's say afghanistan Let's do a charitable reading and say the majority of people don't want lgbtq there, right? Right now they're freezing let's say 9.5 billion in assets plunging the whole country into starvation You know we've seen this time and time again economic sanctions military intervention and whatnot So, you know to what extent are you willing to go to basically enforce? You know dominate islam with liberal values I mean it seems to be the case that religious institutions can exist within liberal societies and adapt their values accordingly I mean it's happened with christian communities in the united states It's happened with muslim communities in the united states. If you're going to talk about like country to country I think that question gets a little bit more complicated than just Military interventions to support basic human rights around the world I would be more concerned with making sure like 11 year old girls aren't getting raped than respecting the religious freedoms of certain countries Yes, or if we talk about like certain people oppressing or genociding tag groups of people over Respecting some religious tradition in a country. I think it's okay to like be on the side of those values I don't know if that necessarily is a liberal unique identity Or if there are other types of societies that would support other types of human rights Would I support military intervention for people that disagree on the value is probably not but some form of sanctions I mean I think a country has a right to determine who they want to trade with If you're I mean if your country thinks it's more important to have sex with 11 year old girls Then to get food or economic prosperity for its people. I mean that's in your country to decide. I don't think Then what bombing them is not the same as sanctioning if you want to talk about sanctions what Starving I mean if you would rather Sure, yeah, exactly. Yes, I would absolutely in favor of that if that's if that's if those are the values that you support as a country But just to respond to that that's obviously coercion Your they have I think we should have other countries to respect fundamental human rights The human rights regime is a liberal regime If if it's liberal to not want children to be forced into sex slave marriages or to not have certain people what sex slave marriages What are you what is the youngest age? Do you think it's acceptable in islam to marry a bride in islam you can marry Like you can consummate the marriage when the at puberty Okay, so I would be probably against that in a lot of countries So like an 11 or 12 on the basis of what liberalism or this is just sure we'll call it liberalism It is liberalism we'll call if you'd like to call like I think you're selling short your own religion by saying that Respecting some basic fundamental human values or or right to autonomy or right to be free of oppression or rape or whatever If you want to call that liberalism, then I guess sure No, it's like what's wrong with so this is something that is in islam But we have to make a moral argument for why this should be prohibited from a liberal basis in history Every society has practiced this kind of what liberals derogatory call child marriage christians have practiced it jews have practiced it It's in the town christians and jewish people generally no longer do practice Well, it depends on where you're talking about because some places they do practice it Where do you think is which type of place is more likely to support it? If I were to pick random christian jewish or muslim majority countries around the world Where am I more likely to find child brides? I'm not trying to deny the practice Okay, because it sounded like you just were no no i'm not trying to deny it I'm just talking to the universality of it You say universality, but with the universality of a particular reason for it Would you say that slavery should exist as it did as it flourished under muslim majority societies for so long? Do you think that we should bring that back as well? Slavery as a practice has a rational basis as a moral basis in its practice I have videos on my channel on all of these like see this is exactly what I was talking about in the introduction That all that the liberal mind can think of is these examples and Associating and them with Islam. I have explained all of these things on my channel on youtube You can watch them. Yeah, so the problem is here's what you keep doing Why do you think why do you the problem is that I'm giving you a liberal You we wanted to debate liberalism versus Islam and then when I point out Well, don't you think that like child slavery sex marriages or like the slave trade around the world? Don't you think these are bad? All you're saying is that well an example. There are other religious There are other religious entities that did this. I'm not going to defend those either I'm not going to defend historically when Jewish or oh say Isn't this more entertaining No, I have to I have to respond to what destiny just said slavery is bad just like killing people is bad, but sometimes it's required Right, that's exactly what I'm talking about right now. All right But my question is actually for the women in Islam in the past decade. We've seen the insurgents of them just leaving Islam Up Google Is there something wrong with google? I'm saying but there you know, there is I mean you see you see the Okay Fine, but the problem is is in Islam women are leaving Islam and the reason why they're leaving once they do leave They basically are shunned by their family Even the men they basically they talk about death threats In the same as if an apostate Leaves Islam you guys talk about killing that person Why do you think women are actually leaving because they are why do you think they're they're leaving Islam the way that they are Leaving Islam because they're getting divorced and they just they're tired of being in these marriages where you In Islam you hold them under your thumb They can't talk they can't think for themselves. I can't talk dress what they want You know wear what they want to wear and why do you think they're actually leaving? The domination of women in Islam or actually the the usually the converts to Islam There is more women who convert to Islam Than men actually and they convert to Islam because they see that Islam provides dignity To women that women aren't just a piece of meat to be trotted out For men to ogle at and consume They see can you stop interrupting me, please? This is why you see more women actually converting to Islam than men in western countries now Are there Muslim men and women who are leaving Islam? Yes, because of exactly what I mentioned because of secularization and liberalization A society's become more secularized and value more freedom and equality as values They tend to also devalue religion. So there are Muslims leaving but other religions are outpacing Islam More Christians are leaving Christianity than Muslims are leaving Islam Check pew. I know I know you like to check google but check pew an actual official source More Christians are leaving Christianity than Muslims are leaving Islam in the modern world I'm really sorry. It's just going so late But do want to say thank you very much folks. We do have to wrap up but want to say thanks so much We're excited. We are going to have in the VIP room next door for VIPs There will be an after party and then we look forward to hopefully seeing you tomorrow as well If you are not able to make it tomorrow, we will be live streaming tomorrow as well Many of the debates. So thanks so much and thanks especially to our guests destiny and daniel