 Hey everybody, today we're obeying whether or not there is good evidence for God and we are starting right now. With Abdullah's opening statement, thanks so much Abdullah for being with us. The floor is all yours. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, Alhamdulillah ar-Rahim. I'm Salat As-Salamu Alaykum. I'm Mohamed Wa-Alaykum. I'd like to thank both of the debates that the host and Matt de la Honte for facilitating this discussion. I hope it proves an enlightening one to all concerned. So let's get right into it. So is there good evidence for God? Well, before we proceed, this requires us to define evidence, good evidence, and of course, God. Evidence is simply that effect which indicates a cause behind itself. We see a tree with a carving and message and we view that as evidence for something producing the carving. But what makes a good evidence? Well, this can only be understood when we consider that many effects have multiple causes for them. A good evidence for something, I should think, is evidence which points to one particular cause as the most likely or only possibility. In that case, then it will reach the level of absolute proof. OK, but then what do we mean by God? Well, let's go with a very minimal definition. By God, we mean something that is a necessary or first existence behind reality, which basically means that it has always existed, something that is independent in existence. It doesn't depend on anything else more external or more fundamental than itself to exist. It can create and exert power to bring new existence to reality and sustain it. And lastly, it chooses to do so and because it chooses, it has intention and will. So that would be the definition of God I'm going to be going off today. So good evidence for God would need to look like such observations of reality that indicate the existence of something that possesses those attributes, namely requiring a cause and positing God as the most likely cause or as the only possible cause. So let's get started with the observation of two of the most fundamental observations of existence, extension and change or space and time. So let's start with space and time. I want to want to make a mention that in order to go through the various options, we have to negate contradictions and use the law of the excluded middle in logic. So P and not P can't be true, but P or not P obviously can be valid. So let's start with space or spatial extension. We believe there is existence ascertained by observation or observing something. So that's clearly existence exists. Existence can be of obviously two kinds, dependent or independent. Reality cannot consist of only dependent existences, things that depend on something else in reality to provide them with existence. This is because it imagines, what you imagine is, if you have a poor person who needs one pound to buy a sandwich but has no money and then they ask not a poor person who also has no money and so on and so forth. Even if they were to ask an infinite number of poor people who are all dependent, who all have no money, no money would be produced or passed between them. The problem with infinite regress is it never completes and so is never sufficient. Therefore, a reality based upon infinite regress will always be insufficient. Therefore, there must exist an independent existence somewhere. Any part, anything that is composed of parts depends on those parts to exist. So this is like how if you look at a sand castle, it's simply a form that depends on the existence of sand to emerge as a form from. Basically, form is an arrangement of things. Forms are incidental and dependent. So forms don't really exist by themselves without their parts or substances. And so we can say forms are dependent by definition. Anything that is extended in space likewise depends on a composite of spatial divisions to exist. As Zeno's paradox has noted, anything with size, shape, length or basically extension also depends on divisions to exist. Of course, the problem with this is anything extended in space is always divisible and therefore dependent and so must be dependent and cannot be independent. Therefore, independent existence cannot be divisible and doesn't depend on extension in space to exist. Extended existence can't be produced by a composite of adding together independent existences of no extension. For example, if something is indivisible, we can't have extension. So 0 length plus 0 length plus 0 length forever never gets to any length at all. 0 plus 0 plus 0 always equals 0 even if you have infinite zeros. So the independent existence is therefore separate from extended existence. Extended existence being dependent must therefore rely on independent existence to extend it into existence from nothing, a.k.a. created. If independent existence is indivisible, it cannot be separated or divided into multiples and therefore there can only be one independent existence. Or extended things in reality depend on one independent existence to exist, therefore. If independent existence is indivisible, then there is nothing more fundamental than it. But if there's nothing more fundamental than it, then it produces extended existence without compulsion from another more fundamental or external source like an automatic gears inside itself or what have you, which it doesn't have. And so the only possibility left is that it chooses to create. Intention is defined as unnecessary choice, non-compelled by prior or more fundamental causes concerning a choice or decision. So that's intention as we previously defined is something which is unnecessary choice. If it is uncaused, independent existence and creates with intention, this meets the definition of God previously iterated. Let's go into time. If I have the time now, there is existence. Of course, we start the same thing from from nothing, nothing comes. And so there must always have been existence. You could either call it necessary existence or first existence. However, there is change. We can ascertain that by existence. Change is defined as an arrangement or form or extension of things that depends on a prior extension or arrangement of things. Or it could be a new arrangement or form or extension of things created by something prior that has no arrangement or extension, i.e. arrangement extension pops out of nothing. Arrangement for arrangement depends on its unfortunately like in space. Arrangement depends on its constituent members to move and therefore arrangement is static by itself and still dependent on its constituent members. Because if you look at that there has to be a first existence, you can't have an existence, you can't have infinite regress of dependent things. So there must be a first existence. And either this first existence is an arrangement or extension itself or it's something that doesn't depend on arrangement extension itself. But if it has arrangement, as we mentioned before, or extension or size, it's divisible and it's still dependent on smaller members. The first existence cannot depend on arrangement form or extension because if it is the first existence, it must precede arrangement and extension. Because as we've mentioned, first existence can't have arrangement or extension. So because it doesn't depend on it, it must precede it. The first change that was created, therefore the definition of the first change was that it was the creating of new extension from nothing, from where there was no extension, there is now extension. The first existence being the first cause therefore precludes any prior external or internal causes to it. But if that's the case, if there was nothing prior to the first cause, cause and creation, it can only create without compulsion, without necessity and this is only can be explained by choice. Again, intention is defined as unnecessary choice, non-compelled prior to any, it doesn't have any compulsion of anything prior to it. And if it is uncaused and it creates with intention, this meets the definition of God. So in conclusion, I've demonstrated that the evidence of space and time itself ineluctably and unavoidably necessarily indicates the existence of God as the only possible cause for them without falling into contradictions. This is because observable reality is insufficient to be all that exists and still explain itself. It fundamentally depends on God with the attributes I described as we just saw necessitated by the effect God causes. God creates time and change and actively sustains space and time. The argument I presented, the form of it is my own, I took from the Quran's own arguments, urging mankind to reflect upon the cause of and behind all things. God says in the Quran, surely in the creations of the heavens and the earth, space and time also, so space and extension and the alternation of night and day, change in time, these are signs for people who reason. And also in the Quran, God says with power we did construct the heaven and barely we are able to extend the vastness of space thereof. Once again, I thank you to the host for giving me the space and time on your platform of which I depended upon to present this argument. So thanks again. Thank you very much for that opening statement, Abdullah. And with that, we are going to kick it over to Matt for his opening statement as well. In the meantime, want to say thanks so much for being with us, folks. If it's your first time here at Modern Aid Debate, we are a neutral channel hosting debates on science, religion and politics. We hope you feel welcome no matter what walk of life you are from and also want to let you know, don't forget to hit that subscribe button as we have many more juicy debates coming up. You don't want to miss it. And so with that, thanks so much for being with us. Matt, the floor is all yours for your opening as well. Awesome. Thanks so much. Happy to be here. Appreciate you, James and Abdullah for doing this. Is there good evidence for God? This is a topic that we've debated many, many times. And in my notes right off the bat, I was, I had done, well, which God are we talking about? What are the correct characteristics? And most importantly, how do you know that those are, in fact, the characteristics of God? Because what we'll often see is here's a question and we'll infer a bunch of things about it and then we'll just say, oh, that's consistent with the nature of God or how we've defined God. But you haven't demonstrated usually that the thing you're pointing to is something that does exist, can exist, is possible to exist, etc. It's just an inference at best. And the question that we're trying to address is is there good evidence? And for me, when we talk about whether or not there's good evidence, it's whether or not the evidence is sufficient to warrant reaching a particular conclusion. Obviously, you know, I'm not going to be compelled to buy testimony or stories and even philosophical arguments that don't strongly tie to physical evidence aren't necessarily going to be compelling about things that we don't have the ability to investigate. Certainly not good enough evidence to dedicate one's life to something or say that you have in fact reached a conclusion about what must necessarily be or probably be the cause of everything. Now, testimony is, of course, fine for mundane and unremarkable things, but not for supernatural claims and physical arguments about the nature of the universe are great for talking about the nature of the universe but they don't tell us very much at all, if anything at all, about things that are outside the universe or whether outside the universe is even a cogent concept. Now, I'm tempted most of the time that I engage on these subjects to say, oh, there's no evidence for the existence of God. But when I do that, of course, somebody comes along and says, well, there's testimonial evidence. It's anecdotal. And there's these other things that are consistent with a particular God proposition. And so, you know, it's it's wrong of you to say there's no evidence. And that's correct. But the evidence isn't worth that much. And so, when we argue about good evidence, there are other similar questions where we would just say there isn't evidence for this. Like I would say there isn't evidence for Bigfoot. All right, fine. There isn't good evidence for Bigfoot because there's a film clip and a footprint and some testimonials in the film clip, you know, while it was faked was still stronger than what we actually have for God. UFO footage is even the Coddingley-Ferry pictures is still at least something we're pointing to where it's like, oh, here is evidence that's consistent with this. Not just evidence that's consistent with the proposition, but that strongly points to one specific conclusion over another. That is where we're talking about good evidence. Basically, when the evidence is this evidence was caused by the fact that the proposition is true. Not just that it's consistent with it, but that we can draw a strong connection to it. What people believe or that people believe neither of them are good evidence. What would the world be like if there was good evidence for God? Well, we wouldn't have multiple religions with such huge followings I would suspect. Journals would be affirming the one true God that's demonstrated with evidence and there would still be disagreement. Of course, just like there's disagreement about the shape or age of the earth, despite the fact that the best evidence which is great evidence trivially confirms that the earth is round and billions of years old. The fact that there can be a debate doesn't mean that there's actually a reasonable debate. If there were good evidence for God it would be a part of science. It would be a part of the findings about reality. We could debate a flat earth. We could debate the germ theory disease evolution. We could debate who won the election. The fact that there's a debate doesn't mean that we don't know what the truth is. Not individually, perhaps, but collectively. And what qualifies when we're gonna go and teach something in, let's say, a public school science class or a public school history class. We don't teach the Bible or the Quran as science or history because they don't qualify. They're historic-ish with a side of magic. There's no Nobel Prize for religion. It just, the subject itself has not risen to the level where there's sufficient good evidence to put it into those categories. It becomes a matter of personal commencement. And it's not just that we can argue for the best evidence currently available, citing our limitations of exploration because once upon a time the best evidence currently available suggested that the sun orbited the earth. That was a perfectly reasonable conclusion given direct observations. And yet we know that the exact opposite is true and that wasn't something that we could reasonably infer given that smaller limited set a pool of information. That evidence, which was once good is now known to be insufficient. In short, we just can't go by how it looks. So you gather available facts for the thing that you're trying to explain and you look for the explanation that best fits all of the available facts and doesn't permit multiple explanations of similar but competing explanations. Put together a jigsaw puzzle and sometimes there's two pieces that might look like they fit but don't. It fits on one edge versus four. It's just a little bit off with a little gap and you made a reasonable inference based on the limited information you had but when the whole puzzles put together with the exception of that one piece things are more clear. What do we mean by evidence? Now, obviously we're talking about the collection of facts associated with the situation or proposition or question which must then be evaluated or accounted for in determining whether or not an explanation is true. You make a list then of all the things that Abdullah and I believe there are things that hopefully I think we both believe and maybe we have good evidence for those things but list the things that we don't both accept and that's where we can really begin to compare how we're going to go about evaluating the available evidence to support our proposed explanations for the universe or whatever it is we disagree on and good evidence is not merely an opinion. You can think flipping a coin is good evidence but I'd argue you'd be wrong and I'd hope that we agree on that yet people think there's good evidence. They think there's good evidence for astrology. They think there's good evidence for psychics. They think there's good evidence for demons and lucky socks and coin tosses. How people feel about it is a vote for the best way is that a vote for the best way to figure out the truth because we're not all going to sit out and vote on whether the earth is flat. That's not how we go about getting to the truth. Good evidence is able to be replicated. It's distinct. It leads to one explanation and not multiples with similar support and then better evidence is when you have investigated this more thoroughly and you have physical evidence that's independently verified, etc. But the evidence that we have for God a good chunk of it is anecdotal in a testimonial sense or unverifiable or speculative or in conflict with other beliefs that better attest to the facts of the universe. It's not good evidence. If it were good the world would look very, very different. If we're going to make inferences we can't just say ah well we all know that something can't come from nothing. Do we? What does that even mean? And what is there a proposition in fact that something has in fact come from nothing? Oh, there can't be an infinite regress. Can't there be? What does that even mean? It's only a regress at all because of our position trying to look back at it. That doesn't tell us anything at all about what actually happened. And so when you have philosophical speculation even as much as of a fan of philosophy as I am that is an attempt to explain the things that we don't yet have enough information for. What happened prior to the Big Bang? Well, I don't know. I don't know have any way of knowing and I'm not even convinced that we can know beyond you know to a strong degree of confidence that the Big Bang cosmology is correct. It's the current best explanation of the available facts. It fits the data and we're continuing to explore. This is a realm for science to investigate and we may be forever blocked and this is the curious thing for me is that once upon a time when you asked people for good evidence for the existence of God you would get testimony and then you'd get various arguments some of which are fallacious some of which aren't or at least the form is valid. So there's not a structural problem with it. But when you get down to the point where you say ah let me make this pronouncement about one of the biggest questions ever. Let's make a pronouncement about what is the explanation for why there's something rather than nothing and you start rattling off the characteristics of the thing that you think is responsible for something rather than nothing. You've got a whole lot of work to do to explain there not just go around and say see here's something about reality and that's explained by this and here's something about reality and that's explained by this because we don't explain things in terms of unknown so we don't explain things in terms of unproven things. We tend to explain things in terms of what we know because those things have explanatory power so to say there is a magical being who exists outside of space time who isn't bound to the laws of physics and has always existed without any sort of philosophical problem and that is the explanation of the universe. I need evidence that that thing could possibly exist or that it does exist. There's a sound. Thank you very much for that opening Matt and want to as mentioned remind you folks upcoming debate very excited about this one at the bottom right of your screen Muslim versus ex-Muslim apostate prophet and reformed Salafi debate this coming Wednesday you don't want to miss it hit that subscribe button and we're going to kick it over to Abdullah for his four-minute rebuttal Thanks. Dula the floor is all yours. Okay. So unfortunately my apologies. That's my phone making noise. I thought that was James telling me my time was up. I'm very sorry about that. It's off now. No worries. So anyway, I think you might have muted yourself Abdullah. Okay. Sorry. So I want to thank Matt for his response. Unfortunately, I think he hasn't addressed anything seriously what I said and maybe appears flustered by my slides bombarding of slides but in essence the issue I've argued and I think he misrepresented what I was even saying or the very point of my argumentation I came with a definition of God because one of the contentions would be that if you don't know what if you do not to not define God then you you can put him anywhere. Right. So I came with a very specific definition which basically includes intentionality which is something that physicalist or materialist which would clearly not accept as part of existence or they'd say we don't have any evidence for that. However, here's the issue was that what I argued was that the universe or extended reality itself so anything that has spatial extension or depends on spatial extension is insufficient to explain itself you can't have a universe of only forms and no substance because they could be infinitely anything with spatial extension could be infinitely divided forever and then then infinite regress of further and further divisions and there are no substance I'm ultimately speaking something that Zeno the Greek philosopher the of the the the the the school picked up and made that that point that he thought that actually reality observable reality didn't make sense and therefore he believed it was an illusion the infinite regress problem is is it's it's not something that is just us a problem to us because we're in the chain and we we don't understand it and it's it's a contradiction in terms if I was to say that this debate won't be able to finish until an infinite amount of time has passed or Matt won't be able to speak until I've given an infinitely long speech Matt will never be able to speak and this event will never be able to end so clearly infinite regress with things that begin and end so it's basically a contradiction because what infinite regress is saying is it's saying that there is an uncompletable amount of things that contradiction in terms which is why it's a problem which he has to address which is ultimately speaking what is the beginning of of everything and what calls that beginning now I discussed the possibilities using the law of the excluded middle which is is it in independent or not dependent is it extended or not extended by using that very precise argumentation I could negate all possibilities that could be there other than the ones that don't possess possess whereby the only thing that doesn't possess contradiction is something that is independent it's necessary it has always existed and it initiated change it's not it's not part of an infinite regress but it initiates change by choice because there's nothing if there's something behind God that is pushing God to make change and that was then God be part of an infinite regress to be something behind him something behind him something behind him so there has to be this initiation of change it's initiation of creation and it doesn't have to that's the definition of choice and of course choice denotes intentionality and and so on so forth there's no way around that as much we'd like to as much of some material this would like to there's no way around that and also again you you you might argue that we that you know why does the universe or which isn't something inside which we were inside the universe why do we need to pause anything what do we need to pause it go to how do you know what's outside the universe well you mean by the universe you're saying there's an outside because technically the universe is everything that exists so by pure definition I suppose God would be part of existence and therefore be part of quote unquote universe but I'm simply putting that you can divide the universe into two parts what so to speak the extended part and non-extended part everything that's extended depends on it's it's constituent components to exist and you can't have a universe of only forms there has to be substance but you pick anywhere anytime you pick a substance and this substance is extended in is extended it can be divided further so the only way out of that that bind is to deposit that everything that has substance is being sustained by something that doesn't depend on extension to exist you see so there's things that the pen and extension and things that those those are the things you sure those are the things that you actually have to address in my argument these deficiencies with observable reality if you could sit to be closed off from anything outside we're going to kick it over to Matt for his rebuttal as well same amount of time for a minute thanks so much Matt the floor is all yours so I find it interesting that Abdullah used his rebuttal to reiterate what he said and make accusations against me saying that I haven't addressed what he said and I've misrepresented what he said well I'm sorry sir but that was my opening remarks it was written before I knew what you were going to say it wasn't my rebuttal it is bad it is ridiculous to criticize my opening remarks for not being a rebuttal this is the rebuttal time and this is the point where I actually address what we said now while science is in fact about inferences and we make inferences regularly science has a limitation in that we don't get to infer supernatural causation we don't get to infer about things that are beyond our ability to investigate and inferences to the most likely or most probable explanation would actually be closer to abductive reasoning and while that's fine it's fine within the context of things that we know within the universe you don't get to infer to things that you have no way of investigating or exploring when Abdullah defined God he didn't specifically claim it was a personal agent although you may be able to infer that from the notion that it has will and chooses to act those may in fact be characteristics that are limited to agents but he defined God as a necessary non-contingent or independent thing that can exert power well cool but I don't see any demonstration that a that thing exists or that it possibly exists and that we're talking about temporal connections temporal actions outside of time because the current big bang cosmology which is the best explanation we currently have and I'm open to others if somebody wants to demonstrate that in physics time began with our universe you can't our local presentation of time if you want to talk about metatime or time in a multiverse context or time in a God context whatever you have to actually demonstrate how those things work or what the understanding of it is but A follows B follows C follow or A leads to B leads to C leads to D that sort of temporal causation is required for any action it's impossible for something to exist for zero time because existence is temporal and it's impossible something to act to cause something in the absence of time and Abdullah seemed to object to me in my opening putting a boundary on the universe but that's exactly what he did when he talked about the observable universe he put that boundary in place in his opening remarks in order to make claims about something that isn't observable or bound to the universe and so if you're if you're going to object to this distinction of let's talk about the universal the observable universe I'm happy to talk about the observable universe I just not going to posit a cause and claim that my cause is something that isn't observed or bound by the universe and yet I still have sufficient reason to warrant it so the fact that you're convinced or somebody is convinced that there can't be an infinite progress in and of itself doesn't mean that's the case but when we're talking about this we are confusing the time the space time and causality within the local presentation the universe and inflating that to say we can make inferences about something that is outside of the local space time the universe I find that to be flawed I don't know what justification you can use to say that because of facts within the universe you can infer what it's like outside the universe because I'm not even convinced that outside the universe is a cogent concept and so if there's a a God that someone is arguing exists outside of space and time and is the cause and sustainer or however they're going to do it for space and time you can't just do that by saying hey there's got to be some explanation we can't just have contingent things there must be something that isn't contingent and it must be something that chose to act because how did you rule out a multiverse how did you rule out the notion that the physical laws governing our universe which may have existed forever aren't such that the local presentation of our universe is in fact a direct unchosen result of those facts that you don't have the ability to investigate I'm not at all staying you're wrong about what you've concluded is the best cause of explanation I'm just saying I don't see how you can get there from this it seems to be a lot of hey we got to have an explanation and it must be like this therefore that's kind of like ago all right thank you very much we're going to kick it into open discussion folks and thanks so much for your questions we're putting them in the list for the Q&A you've got 60 minutes the floor is all yours Matt and Abdullah okay so just to make a response so because you said that I was I rambled off some characteristics about God and then try to insert him into an explanation of the universe in your opening statement I was led to believe that that was your actual you were responding to me and hence I had evidence to believe that's that you actually were responding to me so that's fine but so firstly just a few corrections I I never said contingent at all I'm not used to that kind of wording I used the word dependent and I never divided the universe into and by saying universe there's an observable part to it doesn't mean that I've divided it like I see an iceberg I don't say that I've cut the iceberg in two by talking about the observable part of the iceberg on the unobservable part the iceberg I'm simply saying that we have to start with what we can observe first to make which is the whole point of of any kind of abduction or inference about anything I I agree with that are you saying that dependent dependent as you're using it and contingent aren't synonymous because it seems to me that you presented versions of arguments that are typically referred to as contingent and that you just use the language of dependent isn't that what contingent means well because contingent I use a word that was much more precise which is simply dependent so something existence depends on something else where or something's existence doesn't depend on something else so that there's only two possibilities isn't the law of excluded middle would necessitate that there's only those possibilities okay I would I would argue that's exactly the same as contingent and it's all true for contingent something's either contingent or it's not contingent and what we mean when we talk about arguments from contingency is this thing is is dependent upon something else being true if you thought there was some significant difference between dependent and contingent I'm happy to address it I just don't see it just clarity I try to be clear and precise in the wordings to prevent and begin I agree then I agree then that we should start with the observable so feel free to continue I just want to make sure we didn't you didn't get 12 points and before I objected no problem so the thing is this now everything that we observe we can't actually know for certain the at the specific origin of specific things so for example how do we know we're not brain the that in the matrix being being we're in a coma we imagine things with dreaming things or the aliens are controlling us and so on and so forth so I took two aspects of reality which are undeniable because the experience that we're receiving is in two basic aspects one is extension or space as you might call it and change time so these two aspects of of observable reality are undeniable and then I asked okay then what what is producing space and time if anything is producing space and time thus space and time need to be produced in the first place these are the questions that I asked in my presentation and I used binaries you know you could say or bivalent proposals so either something is independent or dependent so clearly we can't we can't say that the all existence suddenly appeared out of nothing so there was some existence around that created any other things that came about whether you want to consider to be a multiverse or not is irrelevant but we obviously existence there must be some existence somewhere so we call it necessary existence we have to there has to be a necessary existence somewhere now the question is what is the nature of this necessary existence and we just simply ask certain further questions about what necessary existence might entail so clearly we see that change the universe was constantly changing forever in the past we to get to this point in the present we'd have to wait for the completion of infinite regress which by definition means infinity means incomplete so we're waiting for the completion of an incomplete set to be to be exhausted to reach this part of the present so we can conclude without having to take a time machine that there has to be some beginning somewhere I don't know how how long that is in the past but there has to be a beginning so change is not necessary a part of reality so all I've done is just ask these bivalent proposals and negated the one that produces contradiction and then and left the one that doesn't produce contradiction and when you talked about the multiverse how do you know that multiverse didn't create the universe what I really covered that which is if the you let's say for the sake of argument the multiverse is the first cause behind all things but it has no intentionality which is what I suppose you're probably going to be leaning towards or you might you might be like you'd consider to be a valid possibility so I simply put that if something is not compelled to do things so the multiverse will be the first cause there's nothing prior to it then what causes the multiverse if there is no cause but prior to it or that's making it do things to make universes in the first place so there's a contradiction in terms of saying that well it just makes things for no reason because then that means that it is it is it does things for no reason at all so there is no cause I don't want to be too short and because I know that these are complex ideas so I want to give you guys enough time but just to keep conversation conversation going I want to switch it back over to Matt pretty quicker sure so first of all I'm not arguing on behalf of a multiverse I'm pointing out that I haven't seen anybody rule out a multiverse and when we talk about the multiverse you're correct that I don't think the multiverse proposals I won't raise them to the level of models they're not scientific models that demonstrate the truth of something the multiverse is a speculation and it probably will always be a speculation because we don't have the ability to investigate beyond the beginnings of spacetime and so when you ask questions like let's look at the multiverse and say why isn't this a sufficient explanation for the universe you you had asked the question essentially why does it do well what it does how does it you know the multiverse can't have intentionality if it's not a mind if it's not a thinking agent if it's just a some sort of physical process so how and why does the multiverse do what it does well if we just define multiverse right now is a speculative proposition that there's a meta level some some space like thing it's not how or local presentation space that is producing universes then to ask the question why does it do what it does is a great I cannot answer because you have no ability to investigate that they how do you physics doesn't necessarily have to work remotely the same there this thing could have been a multiverse of multiverse yes I understand that when you look at things from our perspective and start going backwards you could use you know as paradox to say ah well if we don't have a t a clear t zero then intermediate steps although I would argue that that's true and and a problem even for any proposed God because God could potentially do the same thing until at least there's a logical contradiction although now I'm talking about a God in a context that doesn't actually fit what Abdullah has defined as God so I'll back off that if we're going to take a look at what are potential causes for the universe and we'll set aside anything about sustaining but potential causes for the universe how do we begin to make a list of what is actually a likely cause and then from that list determine which are possible and which are probable because on that list I would have to include a speculative multiverse and on that list I would have to include some sort of being creating and I have no way of telling which of those is in fact more probable and even if I were to come up with a a justification to say oh I think this one is slightly more probable that doesn't mean that we suddenly have good evidence that warrants accepting that this conclusion is true or likely true just talking of the propositions that we've made this one may or may not seem more likely but I don't where's the data that shows here here are the list of candidate explanations and here's why this one is probably correct because I don't see that so let's perhaps agree maybe some some basics about we say good evidence would you agree that something is really good evidence if we can exclude all the possibilities except one sure excellent so then let's look at then the possibilities and see if they if they those which are self contradictory and those if Steve there's any left after we negate all the ones which are have contradiction so let's actually go back to the multiverse and just ask forget about it being a speculation. I'm always I'm open to looking at any or the any possibilities out there and seeing what we can deduce about them from from that from their claimed natures so so the something that is making making the universe or making universes there's only three possibilities that it has one is that it's undergoing change so it's moving let's just say so it's it's making universes as part of the of a of a continual internal mechanism that it has but the problem with that is that if it was being propelled to make universes then there's something prior to it that is compelling it whether it's an internal mechanism or external and and therefore it would be an infinite regress which is a contradiction and therefore that can't be the answer the second possibility is it's static it's just absolutely it's just completely static but if it is static then it won't do anything it can't do anything if it's completely static so then the only the only answer that's left is that this multiverse can initiate a change can initiate from from doing nothing to doing doing something and if it is necessary existence so it's this multiverse let's just call it the multiverse is a necessary thing so as in it's meant to exist and and there's there's no way it can't exist but it doesn't have to create then creation is because nothing's compelling it to then creation is a choice and you might say well how do you know this how do you know why it does what it does well again let's break down the possibilities because I really want to go down the possibilities with you so one is that it has no intention by what it does okay and all the thing is it does have intention behind what it does there's only those two possibilities either there is intention or no intention there's no there's no third possibility is not half intention or whatever you so if that's the case if it has no intention or no choice so between between it's default which is to do nothing and then it doing something which is something that it doesn't have to do the only if it doesn't have intention or IE choice then it would then it would be a contradiction because no intention means doing things by nothing for no by no cause whereas intention is doing things because you're caused by by by something now it's not prior cause and the only thing that's left is by choice by by the choice of the thing itself so then this multiverse couldn't be a multiverse if you had intention and would then be falling to the definition of what we'd call God by the the presence of intention because if it didn't have intention there's there's no explanation behind the existence of preference so it prefers to create when it doesn't have to create where does the preference come from no intention says that this preference comes from nothing which again it was a contradiction from nothing nothing comes whereas intention explains that preference comes from intention so it comes from something which is intention that's why the multiverse I don't need to observe it I don't need to experience it to know that if it is the cause of all things or the first cause it has to have intention and therefore it's not the multiverse it's actually let's just use an old fangled word God if you'd like or you can call him Allah if you'd like a mix of to use something pretty sure if I did that I really irritate some people but so first of all I pretty sure I understand what you're saying and yet I still have a bunch of problems with it and that is this notion that well first of all you set up there's three possibilities either it's undergoing change or it's static or it's necessary initiates or initiates so it can initiate actions so either it's moving something so when are you saying that something undergoing change can't initiate action no I mean the reason for its initiating of action is because it's undergoing change itself so it's part of a causal process is what I'm saying so yeah initiates change of course because of its internal mechanisms which are constantly moving so I'm wondering if you're familiar with Conway's game of life go ahead it's a it's a computer program that has very simple rules that generates things that seem to be living even though we know they're not this is a computer thing but one of the things that that it can eventually spontaneously generate is a generator and so with nothing but incredibly simplistic rules about whether bits are turned on or off it can the simple algorithm with no choice no decision can create things that create other things and some that create other things forever and so with with an understanding of that sort of thing and without going into whether or not this leads to other issues about a mind there's clearly no intention in the game of life and yet here's something that for the from the standpoint of any of the individuals that it creates if we were to make those things sentient they could look back and say look I came from a generator which generated me and where did the generator come from well it could be generated by this generator what did that come from clearly there can't be an infinite regress but I don't see that that's actually true and well even if there couldn't be an infinite regress it could be that here's the multiverse which serves as a generator for universes and then the process by which a multiverse comes into being if if we need to make that assumption could be something else entirely that we won't know and can't know until we investigate it it seems to me that all of these inferences are based on here are the facts of the reality that we investigate let's expand those facts out to a realm which we can even demonstrate as a realm which may not follow those same rules okay I actually like that example you bring is actually very good example I'm actually confused why you bring it up because it actually would support my argument and my my whole entire position so you have a program what's the program running on the program is running on a computer but that's not relevant to the analogy but it's extremely relevant because no it's not no it's not and I can demonstrate this really easily we've gotten confused the question here is do we have do we have good reason I may if I may I know I'm what is a program what is a program it doesn't matter it does because you brought it doesn't if you're letting me know I could stop this waste of time from happening well no question here is not whether or not there is a God it's whether or not we have good reason to conclude that there's a God and from the from the viewpoint of the things that are generated in the game of life they do not and could not have good reason to conclude that there is a creator their perspective is that they were generated and they don't have an explanation for how that generator because the generator that generated them could also be the result of an algorithm that they cannot investigate so yes this analogy is going to break down like everything else does because yes it runs on a computer and it's a program and the program was originally written by a person but that's not anything that the individuals that are created in the game of life can reasonably conclude that okay so if I if I may be allowed to speak and respond right so that them so if you look at the these let's say in the program itself okay even if the issue was that let's forget about the process and forget about it was a written program what what you could conclude if you were let's say somehow in that program was that the company the program had a start point because each point in each moment in time or in that program was preceded by a previous moment in time and they can't be an infinite regress so there was a beginning to the program and then the question is what initiates the program itself what initiates the algorithms where the algorithms come from it would always be there would be one let's say a fierce sprite inside the program that would say the program's always been around and there would be let's say not so a fierce sprite out so you know what maybe this program I actually think the only possible explanation is this program was initiated by by something and let's call it the programmer and everything that we see arising in this program as amazing as it might be had a start point by something that initiated wrote a program and put it on on some run it on a processor but it didn't have to and hence choice and hence we it wouldn't be a a blind robot that just makes programs I've been if an item going back in the past but it would be the the origin of a programmer could be inferred by a sprite a rational feast sprite within within the program to take the energy forward so that's why I was really confused with the analogy because the analogy is a perfect example of the point I'm saying is that two sprites stuck in a program could still make very sound conclusions about Ultima Orange they couldn't tell whether the programmer had red hair or blonde hair or something they couldn't even tell the program was a human but what they could tell is that the programmer had intention or something had intention that started that started everything started the process of moving so when I talked about multiverses just just to go back to multi versus yeah I said that multi versus either they are continually moving and then they are themselves stuck in an infinite regress of causes which which can't be the case if we because it has to have to start somewhere otherwise an infinite regress is a self contradiction a beginning with no beginning and end with no end or either it's static but if it's static it won't do anything because static doesn't move or doesn't do so the only thing the only conclusion left the only possibility left after we've eliminated the contradictions is that this first cause initiates without prior and prior cause to itself or prior cause that compels it to create the first extension space the first whatever you want to call it and if it initiates it and it doesn't have to then this is the definition of choice it is making an uncompelled preference to something that it doesn't have to do it's not compelled to do so what all the way possibly around that I'd like to hear from you please tell me what all the possibility is there if we avoid all contradictions I'm really open open is to you I really want to want to know from you that what is all the possibilities could there be so first of all the same objection that you launch every single time is this leads to an infinite regress an infinite regress isn't possible which isn't something that I accept and by the way is contentious it's not like it's not a hot button issue to discuss whether or not an infinite regress is possible or to what extent but the reason I use Conway's game of life is because it follows incredibly simple rigid rules that it had no decision in making there's no decision-making process there's no choice and yet it creates things that from their perspective would have to look back and say hey what's the explanation for why I'm here well there's a generator well your your position here is that oh they can infer that there must have been a generator before that but from their perspective from their their standpoint from what they can and can't investigate they cannot do that it is only you from the privilege standpoint of viewing the entire system from the outside and understanding that it's a program can even infer that there was a program there because what the purpose of this program is supposed to do is show that simplistic rules things like physical rules about which chemicals can combine and in what ways can lead to complex machines without an intent to create that that that we are all as far as we can tell following the physical laws of the universe we are chemicals we are patterns of chemicals their patterns of physical objects that are following the rules that are in place that can lead to us to suggest that hey I've taken a look at what could possibly be an explanation for the universe and I'm just going to say that well you can call it God you can call it multiverse you can call it whatever you want but it must be this this this this this I get that we can make some speculative assessments of what may or may not qualify but this isn't something that we can actually investigate and produce evidence for it is nothing more than we're going to sit around and think about this given the limited information we have and in the past we would have come up with different and did come up with different explanations and maybe in the future with better understanding of things we might come up with other explanations but to say that this is why in my opening I talked about we can't just go with well this is the conclusion I've reached given the current best evidence because the current best evidence once upon a time directed directly supported and almost undeniably so that the sun was going around the earth when that's absolutely not the case and so the time for me to be convinced that there's sufficient evidence that there's good evidence to conclude that there's a God is after that's the case and not just because well I can't imagine that there could be an infinite regress and I don't know how a multiverse could work and if you're willing to say that the multiverse is God accepted it lacks intention the purpose of Conway's game of life is to show that there is no intention there despite what it for lack of a better word creates. Okay, I think maybe perhaps you're misunderstanding what I'm saying or not not seeing it. I didn't mention anything about simple rules becoming complex. I didn't talk about that at all whatsoever. I actually personally be that simple rules do become complex. This has got nothing to do with my point at all. I'm talking about where do the simple rules themselves come from the simple rules? Where do they come from? Because if you have a first cause a first determiner should we say and the first cause is nothing prior to it. So if it if it builds an object makes an object like say a certain size just say 10 meters of space time it creates it could have made it 15 meters of space time it could have made it 20 meters of space time. So if it makes if it sell out infinite possibilities it selects one particular possibility has a preference for one particular possibility even though it could have made infinite possibilities and it's not compelled to make any particular one or make any of them at all whatsoever then this is the only can only be explained by choice because choice is the explanation of why there exists preference when something unintentional can't generate preference. If I might finish you said that how I'm arguing is that based on the current best evidence. No I'm not I'm arguing on the fundamental observation of reality itself. I'm not arguing about any particular type of quark. I'm not arguing about particular type of Hilbert space. I'm not arguing about any particular thing except the very existence of extension itself and change. These are the most fundamental observations of reality and I argued from that that those two observations if you want to avoid infinite regress is that you have to conclude with a beginner and a sustainer. Now you said I can't imagine infinite regress. That's not my contention against infinite regress. My contention against infinite regress is merely deposit the infinite regress is a self contradiction. Infinity is not exhaustible yet to get from the past an infinite past to now. You'd have to exhaust an infinite amount of time moments to get to this point. So the inexhaustible becomes exhausted. That's a contradiction. That's why infinite regress is impossible because of contradiction unless we throw the laws of logic out of the out of the window and so unless you're willing to do that is are you willing to do that. So actually the rules of logic have nothing at all to say about infinite regress. You have to construct an actual argument to get there. But the thing I'm pointing out with Conway's game of life because you're concerned about where did those rules come from. Well the purpose of this analogy. The rules were simple any life so with fewer than two living neighbors dies and that's to represent overpopulation. It's not a rule that needed to be created that over our sorry underpopulation that underpopulation leads to death. This is what the physical facts of the universe dictate. Okay so it to suggest that the physical facts of the universe had to be a certain way or or could have been created in a certain way or need an explanation rather than that they just are true is something that you would actually have to demonstrate. And when you say that choice is the only explanation. There's no choice involved in this. Just like there's no reason to think there's any choice involved in the notion that without enough oxygen I die that if you remove my head I die that if everybody around me dies my chances of dying increase dramatically because of the physical rules of the universe to say well where did those rules come from is something you have to demonstrate that there was in fact some other alternative that was possible. And if you just get to the choice of the only explanation when you say by the way in your in your side that you're not arguing about quarks. I would say that in my first re rebuttal remarks I mentioned or had notes about quarks because when you say that everything that extends into space cannot be divided. Well how do you know that because isn't there going to be some smallest particle that can't be divided. Oh well you mean divided by what right so divided by us then probably know but if it can be considerably divided because it has extension it's a form it's a form of something right like if I make it's a form of something but you can't say it's a form of nothing. It's a form of something but then if that's a form of something and I can then cut it in half to two parts then the question is does that part depend on the other part. If they both depend on each other that's circular that means that nothing would exist. It's like saying that a poor person depends on money for another poor person and the poor person depends on money on his mate and they don't they don't have money whereas ultimately speaking there has to be something behind substance you could say that isn't extended in space that sustained substance because if not then what is everything made out of you can't have a universe of just forms that could be divided infinitely into more and more forms and there's no substance. There I say your worldview lacks substance unfortunately. My worldview is predicated entirely on substance and yours is predicated entirely on a suspected extra substance, super substance, foundation substance. When I talk about you say that everything that extends into space. You don't believe in the foundation substance? When I say that when you say everything that extends into space can't be divided or can be divided and I ask whether or not a court can. I don't know whether or not a court can but whether or not there's a smallest product particle for you to suggest that if you can conceivably divide it like you could talk about, hey, here's a quarter of a quirk, an eighth of a quirk, a sixteenth of a quirk that if you can conceivably divide it then that qualifies. Well, I could think of there's half a God, a quarter of a God as long as we're just engaging in this speculative thing. But if in fact, but if in fact there are things in the universe that can't be divided then your assertion at the beginning that there aren't anything in the universe that can't be divided is wrong. That was the only point I made. Okay, so you said you can conceive of a quarter of a God, but if God doesn't depend on spatial extension, how can you divide something into a half that doesn't have extent or size, doesn't depend on size or extension in the first place? Well, you can't divide a court just depends on space and has a limit to how much it can and can't be divided physically in space. And all you're going to do is say that you can conceivably divide it. You could say that for anything. To argue that you couldn't actually do it with God is not to say that you couldn't conceive of doing it. It's to say that you couldn't actually doing it. And I'm saying you don't know that you can actually do it with a quirk. Well, let's rewind it. What makes something divisible in the first place? What makes mathematical speaking? Mathematically speaking, I'm not concerned about mathematically speaking because that's conceptual. I'm talking about the physical world. Yeah. But but the point is this that if it can be divided up into into a left part and the right part is the left part of the court different quark different from the right part of the quark. If it has it has extension. Yeah. And if they are if they're different from each other, then the court can be divided. But if they're then the same, then the court doesn't have a left and a right side that then it's it's not really in extension. But if it's not in extension, it doesn't have extension. How does it exist in space because space is extension. So something that doesn't have extension doesn't occupy any space in space to even be part of the space itself in the first place outside of space. And that's my point is that God doesn't occupy space doesn't depend on space and doesn't occupy space in his universe. And therefore, by definition is not well, I suppose you can cause for the Pauli exclusion principle that illustrates this to some extent, but then it's outside of space time and is the only conclusion to the fact that we it's not it's indivisible. Right. So if something is conceptually divisible and occupy space, then the problem is it can always be infinitely divisible. And the question is at what point in its infant divisions is there something actually there? It's not not just a form of something else forms don't exist by themselves. Forms are made of material or substance to forms actually don't even exist in a way if you want to be a myriological nihilist. Yeah. Right. Right. So then what's at the bottom of of like like the problem and his my argument is just to restate it. If the universe is made up of non extended pieces, pieces that have no extension, if you add them all together, you don't produce extension because zero plus zero plus zero size doesn't equal any type of size. But the problem is that the universe has extension. And so where does that come from? So the only conclusion because anything that has extension can be further divided up. So the only conclusion, the only possibility left is that the universe of extension of extended space is being sustained by the part of the universe quote unquote, as in the part of existence that doesn't have extension and extends it by sustaining meaning it extends reality into existence. That was the only possibility left because either you say that the universe is just made of infinite, infinitely divisible smaller, smaller forms and no substance because that's what that's what you'd be saying. If you say there are no, it is infinitely divisible or both theoretically would have you or it's made up of points, point particles or whatever you want to call it like things that have no extension. But if you add them all together space, if space is made up of just infinite infinitesimal points, you can't produce extension in the first place. And that's the problem. That's the fundamental problem that Zeno of the Aliatic School noticed and his solution was to say that in a way the observable reality is an illusion and deny his senses because they couldn't explain it whereas I can simply say there is an explanation that is that is the only possible one that's left which is that extensions only possible because the part of existence that is not extending space and indivisible sustains the part of the existence that is extendable and so on so forth. And so court of God doesn't make any wouldn't make any sense. By the way, I had a question I did want to ask you which is how do you define supernatural use that word? How do you define it? Supernatural is the label that I tend to use and other people tend to use for the proposed things that are not contained and constrained by the natural world. What's the natural world? Please define natural world. The observable physical universe governed by well physics. So is what you is the non observable part of the universe the unnatural world or supernatural? What unobservable part of the universe? Well, are you saying that what all we observe the universe is all there is? No, I'm saying we can so like there's a planet somewhere that we haven't observed that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Is that what you're getting to? Yeah, or just you know, there could be multiple bubble universes, which will be part of the whole universe. That's not part. So so when we talk to this is the problem is that we we misappropriately named universe as one verse. And this is why like Sagan and others refer to cosmos as everything there ever is and was and then universe is our name for our local presentation of the universe, which is high because it doesn't really make sense to say there's a multiverse if you have a universe because universe suggests that there's one. But for me, when going back to what you were saying about Zeno's paradox, the strength of Zeno's paradox is to show that the fact that we can conceive of something doesn't mean that it's actually possible in reality that in order for the arrow to get from here to the target, it must cross half that distance and before it can cross half that distance it must cross half of that with half of that and half of that and half of that and to show that you can infinitely divide the distance to suggest that the arrow can never get started. When we already know conclusively that the arrow can get started and the arrow can reach its target is to kind of show that just because you can conceive of something or inversely because you can't conceive of something doesn't tell you whether or not it's actually real. And so, you know, Zeno is trying to do when you talk about God being outside of space God then you're saying doesn't extend into spacetime, correct? So when I talk about to repeat that last bit again, sorry. So God then doesn't extend into spacetime. Well, we'd say that God God must exude something that's basically extends extends spacetime itself, create something by so we can call it exertion of power. Yeah, that's not the question I asked. I didn't say do you believe that God is a foundation that creates and sustains and extends spacetime? I asked whether or not God exists within spacetime. Well, God doesn't occupy space and time in our universe. And so by this, yeah, because because because God would have to be doesn't depend on extension, nor does depend on change. So if we made a set of all the things that are not existing within our local presentation of spacetime, God would be on that list. That is outside the observable observable universe than yes, which that links back to supernatural though, because you know, the quantum world wasn't known by scientists prior to the 19th century. So would the quantum world be supernatural until humans discovered it? Let's say because it was at one point outside of the observable universe. So is is quantum is the quantum world supernatural before humans in experimentally detected it? No, but it would the notion of the thing the things that that we've found with within the quantum world. Wow. Okay. I'm going to have to rephrase this because knowing that Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Manus is coming and and there's a different Marvel Cinematic Universe quantum world. I don't want to confuse anybody. So when we talk about this has come up many times. Let me see if I can address this real quick. Let's say there's something that is proposed to exist and it doesn't seem to be part of the natural world. And so we write it off as supernatural or we consider it supernatural. If we later find out what it is and that it is in fact part of the natural world then it was always part of the natural world. It's just that we didn't know that it was part of the natural world. So for me when when you talk about something supernatural when you talk about something that by definition would be supernatural something that exists and is not bound by space time and laws of physics. That doesn't just apply to like a multiverse or a different universe like the you know here's here's our universe in a separate universe. The separate universe isn't necessarily supernatural. Supernatural includes this notion of existing in some way within our universe in some detectable way. Like we use that for like ghosts because people will claim they've seen ghosts and it goes beyond what we understand of the natural laws of the universe. I have no reason to think anybody's ever actually seen a ghost. I'm happy to believe that they think they've seen something but them seeing something isn't enough. The fine universe. Sorry. The fine universe use the word universe so to find I did that a little bit ago where the cosmos is everything that exists and the universe is our local presentation of the universe. But then as I said if if God exists although be outside of space and time it would by that definition would be in the universe will be part of the universe. What if it no as outside of our local space and time it's by definition not a part of our universe. Our universe is our local presentation of the universe. Our universe is is local presentation universe space time. If you say that something is outside of that then it's not a part of this universe. The universe is our local presentation of the universe that so does not contradict you're saying that the universe is oh my God. I can explain this like four times if we're just going to nitpick cosmos is the word that I'm using about a loop by via Carl Sagan or everything that's ever existed etc. Universe is the word that we tend to use for our local presentation of a universe the one that we are in. Okay, so then if that's the case then supernatural is defined as what then going back to that. So how would you then you'd say that anything that's outside of our local universe is supernatural? No, no. So supernatural applies to something that violates the laws of our universe something that is detectable in our universe but is not contained within it. I would say so like somebody wants to say that there's a God that can manifest in a detectable way in the universe but isn't bound by our universe and they want to say that ghosts aren't bound by our the physical laws here but is that making sense to you now? But if you can detect something in the universe then by definition wouldn't it be in some way existing in the universe? No, no, no. Ghost would have to interact with space and time. The fact that something can interact with space and time doesn't mean it's it exists within space and time and is constrained by space and time. That's the whole thing behind most of the God concepts is that God isn't in any way bound to our space and time but God can do things within space and time that people then detect. That's the claim. It's just like it's it's it's just it's just as if I created a Sims simulation. I don't exist within the simulation. I'm not in any way bound by the simulation but as the author of it and the creator of it I can change things within it and I can do so in a way that the individuals in there to whatever extent there would be individuals could potentially detect me. As a matter of fact I would say that most of the God believers are running around claiming to be God detectors. Okay, no, that's good because I think it's very important we get our definitions started before mentioning certain terms. But just to go back to what you said about Zeno. So you said that Zeno demonstrated that just because we can see of something doesn't mean that these things exist. That's true but I don't think you you don't maybe realize the lesson that Zeno was conveying to us which is Zeno assumed the universe was continuous so that universe was infinitely divisible it could be infinitely divided rather what it shows is that the other possibility is now because we have movement we have change we have extension is that the universe that she discrete has pixels could you say and you have things moving from one pixel and stop ceasing to exist in one pixel and appearing in another pixel which is in essence movement that's the only way to explain the paradox but that's a further great example to show the universe is insufficient the let's say the material universe or the observable universe is insufficient because what can cause something to cease to exist at one pixel and reappear it at another pixel unless it is something that is sustaining the universe like a processor is the one that does it with with actual computer programs it it removes a dot from one pixel and it puts in a different pixel so without God movement itself is not possible because because either things exist continuously and then therefore Zeno's paradox would apply that you have to cross an infinite amount of points to get to any point which is not possible or the universe is discreet but how do you explain some something ceasing to exist at one point and reappearing to exist at another point without some some external agent moving things around I might have missed it what's the example of something that ceased to exist at one point and begins to exist at another new point the pixels on your very computer so that the in order in order to move on my computer don't cease to exist or should we say the the color or the light that's that's switched on on the particular pixels pixels itself the pixel itself is changing state from lid or not lid it's not ceasing to exist there's nothing that cease to exist it just changed changed state what's what's an example of something that cease to exist at one point and began to exist at another well I'm actually using the example of I'm actually using that as an example to look at reality itself so obviously we know that things don't at least in in a knock on the computer screen they don't things don't cease to exist to those or stop existing and then beginning to exist but rather what we we do have is that a state is changed on the computer screen by the processor or graphics card and then it it changes it elsewhere on a on a separate disconnected part of the and that's what we call movement and so what's you know in essence inadvertently demonstrate is that the universe actually in order to have movement it must be divided into discrete parts and to have anything moving within these discrete parts from one part of it to another part of it must involve at some point something ceasing to exist to exist or at one part or and reappearing at another part or the the state change of one particular part of the universe and then a different state change a different part of it something is connecting these parts together to enable the movement of things in this universe and that itself is not an argument not an evidence you could say that the universe requires something outside itself a processor a program to to move things in this universe otherwise what is actually how do you explain movement in the first place that's that's not I wasn't really coming with that particular argument today that's an additional argument but it's just something that I found was I found was quite interesting so ask me how can I explain something ceasing to exist and beginning to exist again and then we when we run through it all it turns out you're not talking about anything that ceases to exist and began to exist you haven't given example of something that ceases to be this and began to exist so all you're suggesting is that there must be a sustainer otherwise how can you explain movement at all and to whatever extent that there must be some explanation for permissible movement as a God but when you explain something movement how do you explain movement you you ask me to explain how something ceases to exist and begins to exist again and I have no example of that and you can't provide one okay actually what I'm really asking you is how do you explain movement itself I don't I don't know enough to explain movement but the fact that I don't have an explanation for movement other than it seems to happen all the time and that changes the one constant doesn't tell us anything at all about whether or not there's a God I'm not a physicist well well I'm not an expert in temporal mechanics I'm not an expert in causation or movement but I can tell you that you know your notion that the only explanation is that there must be a sustainer and that this sustainer carries these particular characteristics I just don't see that you've made the case that the thing that the thing that is the best explanation for why there can be movement is a necessary external independent powerful agent who through their will chooses to allow movement or make movement possible the notion that the Zeno's paradox with the arrow is defeated because the arrow has length the the notion that you you'd have to walk half the distance half the distance half the distance half the distance ignores the fact that my first step covers way more than half of you know the distance especially on on an infinite regress that way and so when we see this I think that when you're sitting here saying what is the explanation for why is their movement I have I don't even know that we've defined the term well enough to say that we could have an explanation but I don't know how you conclude that the only or best explanation is that there's a being for whom we don't have any direct evidence for who exists outside of space time our local presentation is space time would you like to hear the how it's how it is necessary necessitated necessitated sorry would you like to hear how it's necessitated because we've got about movement is what just to let you guys know that's fine so the movement is basically displacement from position so there are two ways except that except that we're not necessarily talking about discrete positions. Oh, I didn't say that I was actually about to go into the two possibilities either between any two points there is an infinite number of continuous points between any two points or there's a finite number of extended blocks or let's say lengths which are discrete so let's go with the first option see where that takes us the first option is that between any two points there's an infinite amount of points and then Zeno's paradox would apply which is to get from A to B you'd have to cross an infinite number of points which infinity doesn't exhaust doesn't end and so therefore you have to cross an unending amount of points you have to end an unending amount of points to get to your your destination which is the problem which Zeno's paradox highlighted that then leaves the only other possibility which is that between any two points there's a finite amount of extended extensions in space which are basically of pixels if you'd like to to use that term and then the question is of course okay but then how does something get from one pixel to the not to the other pixel because it can't just walk over to the next pixel because there's an infinite amount of points between any two pixels and so it would have to be well you have to cease cease existing on this pixel and and start appearing in the other pixel is the only explanation but then where does it go right so if it maybe maybe you could say each pixel together between these two pixels and say that's great but then how does it move in in the tube as the tube have an infinite number of points to get it from one from one part of the tube to the other part of the tube and then and the problem just goes on on forever whereas there is there is an explanation that's left after you the scout all these contradictions the only explanation is that well something that exists that one point in universe and then suddenly exists in the next instant of time in plank time in the next instant is because it was it was removed from one position and replaced in a different position by the very thing that sustains the entire universe which would be external to the universe because the universe itself is not is not sufficient by this demonstration it's just simply shows universe is not sufficient to to produce movement is my argument because if you say it does it produces contradictions unavoidable contradictions it doesn't actually have anything that is a space point what size is a space pixel maybe plank length who knows it was all smaller well I mean you've come up with plank time as a potential thing but how small is small how do you know that there is a point at all because it seems to me that we talk about something moving from one point to another yes at t zero we can say that it is here although our assessment of its location is at best of an approximation and at t one it is in some other position but to whatever degree we're able to narrow that down for our investigation it exists at every single one of those points and at every single one of those times there's to be with a one to one match so this notion that you can come up with an analogy that there's space pixels and that therefore that means something disappeared from this pixel and moved to this one is it just means you've come up with a bad analogy well no because your argument would only be valid if all these pixels were and disconnected and and in their own separate universes but there is actually movement between these pictures there's there's connection between them and if there is so then the issue is how are they connected if they could be if there are by extension infinite number of points between any two points in extension so first so when you say my argument would only be valid I think you mean sound but if if pixels were independent and disconnected but that's what they're two two different things one goes to structure one goes to content you know if if you're saying valid and sound you just all you need to do is say valid so you know I'll leave it to somebody else to come up to show how the structure of the response that I made was invalid and fallacious rather than merely unsound but when you'd say that the pixels aren't connected together or aren't to just you know that that is the knowledge that is the analogy that you made that there are discreet points that it's moving to and I don't accept that that is an actual accurate description of space time we've got to move well you know you're shortly here yeah you're you're free to you're free to accept that but that even though that's currently the best theory of physics physicists are not really going to argue just on the basis of physicists the way because you're saying the best current model of physicists is that there are space points discreet pictures well yeah plank length plank lengths and plank time that's the current smallest that we can assess that doesn't mean that the the space is made up of pixels produced produced by by the the equations of quantum mechanics on and the constants but that's not even my argument I don't I'm not my argument is not that the physicists believe it my my simple point is that it's the only possibility that can resolve prevent contradictions but the the real argument I've been making all along actually is again the past can't be infinite we can't have infinite infinity in the past and if even if you were to say even if you to say that the universe is divisible up to a certain point and no longer divisible any further because we can't divide it the issue is this anything that is divisible anything sorry that has length or let's say size of any kind is always a form of something it's a size of something like the a square doesn't exist it's really just produced by the thing inside the square ending at those sides and making it into a square but the square the boundaries of the square don't actually exist so if you're saying that the smallest thing in the universe has a shape great no problem but here's a problem shape of what form of what a universe that only has forms has no substance and as long as we we you argue that the all that exists could only be things that only have size or shape or extension then you have then you there's a you have an inability to explain substance where the substance come into it where the substance come from there has to be a first subsister that sustains the first unit of fundamental substance and then upon which extension depends otherwise you can't you there is no other possibility to explain it other than con produce contradictions I can give you about about a minute or so Matt if you would like to have the last word before we go into the Q and A we've got a little bit left but then we have to go into the Q and A pretty quick it seems the criticism is that I'm unable to offer an explanation for substance and he thinks he can so cool let's go on we'll jump right into the Q and A one remind you folks our guests are linked in the description so if you'd like to hear more from our guests you certainly can by clicking on their links below and that includes at the podcast as we upload every debate to the podcast within 24 hours of the debate happening with the guest links in the description there as well so thanks so much for your questions this first one coming in from do appreciate it apostate prophet says Abdullah if God punishes me for not believing in him doesn't that mean he punishes me for being flawed i.e. stupid which ultimately must be his doing given that he created me also will you debate me on Islam thank you okay so to answer the first part of the question humans are not fully rational creatures we have many reasons why we do and choose things ideally I wish we were that we only made decisions and had appropriate calls to do so so you have people who are flat of us and as we know they'll deny the most clearest evidences that the earth isn't flat for reasons best known to them my it's not my job to make people sincere and it's not it's not to God's job to make people sincere if they are insincere to the truth because it doesn't accord to their personal tastes and preferences it's not a matter of being intelligent or not it's simply about being sincere and we don't believe from the Islamic perspective anyway if someone is truly is sincere but they remain they don't have the full access to the the truth and they're not going to be judged for things that they were unaware of or they were ignorant of sincerely despite their best efforts to attain that truth so that really doesn't apply to our particular worldview and yeah that's it really and I like if you I don't respond the rest basically the only substantial point he's made so that's my but also just to kind of put in there another one other point which is some I suppose there's an indication directly to the question I have to push us yeah yeah yeah so there's there's also an implication there which is that there's that those are people are punished who don't worship or believe in the specific God of Islam and not other Gods and this was obviously something that mentioned by Matt earlier on basically anyone who believes in an independent and on which all the of the the entire quote unquote universe depends upon and has will believes the same God we do that's there's only one God there's only despite the fact that people might have different ideas about what God might say but just as the same point that people used to believe that the sun used to be a disk others believed it was a sphere some believed it was an up turn bowl of fire others believed it was a hole in space and behind that there was a bigger sphere around in space different theories about the sun didn't negate the existence of the sun right it just means that we didn't that those diff dispute as to what it's nature was what have you but there can only be from our perspective one God and anyone that believes in one God worships the same God that we do there were also different theories there were also different theories about phrenology and phrenology's bullshit there's one coming in from why so religious says I heard Abdullah's argument which has been around for centuries can you explain how this is evidence in particular so I'm not sure I feel on the side so you're saying that what the the argument been around for centuries houses evidence in particular well the issue is this you can compare a human being to to accept immediate evidence right in their face as in if a train's coming to hit them they're for the most human beings would and they they're on the track and they see the train coming and they have their faculties and they have their sanity with them and then of course they're they're not going to fuel will dispute the the train coming to hit them but that the train came from a different destination maybe it came from New York or it came from London well we know it comes from somewhere but that's of that subject to dispute because there are multiple possibilities of causes within the universe but we're not talking about stuff that's within the universe we're talking about what ultimately does the universe depend on and on that there isn't multiple possibilities that are devoid of contradiction all the other possibilities that universe is eternal in the past and it's just infinite regress the universe made itself and so on so forth these things of the universe was made by nothing from nothing and by nothing these things have contradictions and so the only thing that's left is that there is a creator that made everything that's that's that's the point I can't force you I can't compel you to believe that but all I can do is I can say I challenge you to give me an alternative explanation even to show me how an alternative explanation after I've negated it by the logic of the excluded middle principles move forward this one from stupid whore energy says in phase transitions physical quantities can become infinite at the critical point given that infinity can be predicted and it describes real things doesn't it mean that infinity is real I think that's okay so I would assume so so I think physicists would give you the best answer is which is whenever infinity is predicted in their equations this means that the equations are not precise enough to to map reality they call it a singularity and they have to deal with it by renormalization which is basically fudging it to fit a more more finite predictable results did you know that a prediction of infinity is how we discovered quantum the quantum model in the first place when it showed us that energy isn't continuous but discrete and if you use continuous energy as a as an assumption it produces in a particular experiment infinite amounts of ultraviolet radiation which clearly doesn't didn't occur in that experiment but a finite amount of radiation came out and they realized that their equations were wrong so see me when when we'll see speak to a physicist about equations that predict infinity I'm sure they'd explain it better than you than I could this one coming in from Gemwool 79 for you Matt said Matt mentioned testimony as bad evidence isn't standpoint epistemology just testimony evidence is standpoint epistemology a good base for an ideology that's for me I think so they just well the comment that I made about testimony really doesn't come into it because that was made in my opening remark and Abdullah didn't argue from testimony and I don't know enough about standpoint epistemology to address the rest of it so I'll have to punt and maybe hit me up in an email when I can look into it some more you've got it and Lellers thanks for your questions at Abdullah how does your hypothesis hold up against the Gnostic idea of Yahweh as a I don't know if I'm saying this word right Demiurge could the creator God not also have been created by an even higher being how can we tell which is the case okay so when I said that there's a first cause I didn't say how far back this first cause created universe I didn't say how well the universe was all those of the universe was I don't need to explain the the distance I can only can simply put a Pacific show that we've arrived at this point in time and so there was a beginning point I don't know how long will go that beginning point was but for it to be a beginning or and a first to have a first cause in the first place to prevent infinite regress it must be that the first cause there is nothing prior to the first cause and so I'm not saying what that was so if you want to say that maybe the first cause made something which itself was a Demiurge Demiurge made the universe as some Greeks philosophers did believe then that Demiurge wouldn't be God it would be the first cause would be God that Demiurge would just be an angel of some kind or an intermediary if that would be the case of course we'd say the first cause can create things from nothing so doesn't need an intermediary but so I don't really think it applies because the first cause by definition is first otherwise we get an infinite regress which is contradictory and as I said before the first cause or the necessary being that sustains all things all matter is the only possibility that is devoid of contradiction and therefore is the only possibility if you want to hold on to the rules of logic and the not addiction this one coming in from Brandon Hansen says James you should hold donation streams or fundraisers to get John Lennox to debate on the channel he's in my opinion one of the best debaters of the existence of the Christian God I gladly donate this and more to see this happen thanks for letting us know that Brandon and it would be awesome to have Dr. Lennox on Lennors or Lellors says also you're awesome for starting this channel take your thank you for your support they said I've learned so much about so many sides cheers me thanks for that Lellors and Issam Ulaad Ali says for Abdullah first and then Matt please respond said do you believe slavery under Islamic ruling to be moral and would you be my slave under Islamic rules Abdullah and if no why not I don't think it's relevant to this to the topic of conversation so I'm happy to have a debate on that topic itself a different juncture but I'm going to restrict only to the topics that are relevant got you Ozzie and says Matt is a theory of everything possible to investigate doesn't it have to just work and explain all observations I don't think any theory of everything is possible to prove whether it be natural or not I don't I don't have an answer I don't even know how the questioner has an answer I'm the notion of a theory of everything is and and an interesting proposition that may be possible I I don't know that there's been a demonstration of possibility so I can't decide either way and it's more interesting to me that the the questioner did you got it and Cesar Roxy thanks for your questions is we can't have an infinite regress both because we can't create an infinite through successive addition and we can't traverse an actual infinite I think that Matt if you want to respond I think they're trying to I think the thing that the thing to remember is that infinity isn't a quantity it's a concept there is no infinity you couldn't talk to infinite people that's a bit of hyperbole and misunderstanding about infinity that be human beings it's an incredibly difficult concept to even begin to grasp and most of us are but when we talk about oh I did this infinite you know you could do this infinite times no you couldn't by definition you could not do something infinite times because that was that implies there's a quantity there what it really means is without end without beginning and it is a concept not an actuality you got it I'm all I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm to agree. What Matt said which is why I want to ask you maybe another point and why infinite Regress can be a valid possibility other than the first course if he does believe that that could be the case surely then you'd agree with me that you can't have infinite regress in the past or an infinite regress of smaller smaller things that has to be a foundation to both the past and the an extension itself and space rooted in something that is outside both time and space surely would then you would agree with me if that's your position on infinity and infinite regress. So the problem is, is that every time we're talking about time, we're talking about time within our local presentation of the universe. And I don't have a way to explore metatime. OK, so coming in from, do you appreciate your question? Gamal 79 says, do arguments count as evidence? I would say they have to if and only if all possibilities can be exhaustively presented by byvalent points, like it's something infinite or finite, it's something dependent or infinite or the independent. And if you can negate all the possibilities by the principle of contradiction, so you remove the ones which produce self-contradiction and you're left with only one answer, then that's when argument becomes definitive evidence. In fact, I would say that the argument that demonstrates God is the only possible explanation behind the universe and everything that exists is actually one of the few arguments we can make with absolute certainty. All the all the arguments inside the universe are always going to be subject to uncertainty. Yeah, I'm simply saying that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just saying that. I think that makes the assumption that just because inside of extended space and time, there are multiple processes that act as immediate causes. He feels that that means that outside the universe must be the same. Whereas I'm saying no, outside the universe or ultimately speaking, there has to be only one. There only has to be one. It's not super obvious how that has to do with the question. Just because we have so many questions. So on the question itself, no arguments aren't evidence. They're assessments of evidence. They're constructions that take evidence and get to conclusions. So they're not evidence, but they're the only way evidence winds up having value. This one coming in from a ghost. Thanks for your question. It says, can we just stop and appreciate the wondrous nature of a toad? Thanks for that. I appreciate it. Tremendous animals. Seroxy says, does Abdullah accept that the column is a successful argument because Matt said the column is dead? I'd say that the column looks at one particular aspect of reality. And so by itself is insufficient to demonstrate the existence of God, needs all the parts, added all the observations of the universe and all the further investigations using bivariate principles, looking at whether something is this or this. So it needs further stuff, added to it, in order to be a complete argument. You got it, Anne. This one coming in from, do appreciate your question as well. Ozzy and Tox says, Abdullah, if we live in a simulation, then our beliefs are based upon that simulator and we don't have access to knowledge beyond what the simulator allows. Or in your case, Allah. So you can't prove Allah exists. I don't really understand the logic behind that argument. So by definition, even if we were inside a simulator, the question wouldn't be whether what we're seeing inside a simulation is true or not because all things must come from somewhere. So even the simulation comes from somewhere. But would be sufficient to actually know that there is a created. Like the example the program that Matt brought up, if you were inside that program somehow, you could conclude the existence of a programmer and a processor, both providing the beginning of the program and running it and continuing to run it and sustain it. So inside a simulation or not, you'd still be able to prove there was an ultimate simulator if you'd like behind all things. Just without trying to score a cheap point, would you like to correct the statement where you said all things must come from somewhere? OK, so I say all finite and limited things come from somewhere, yes. This one coming in from Amy Newman says, I'll be running an open mic after show. Fantastic stream. Thanks so much, everybody. Said Matt, I appreciate what you and the entire ACA does. And then said question for Abdullah, what would change your mind that there is good evidence for God? Maybe like if there's a defeater or something. Oh yes, yes, there's a falsification possible. So or Matt or anyone else would have to do is simply show that there is another possibility other than God to explain the universe space and time that doesn't suffer from contradictions. If you can do that, then that would be sufficient to destroy my arguments because then there'd be more than one possibility. Yeah, the problem is that we don't have enough information and we don't have the ability to investigate to come up with a properly falsifiable proposition. And so what we're left doing is what I've done, which is to say I don't accept that you've ruled out the other possibilities or that we've even made an instantiated list of all the potential possibilities. The facts about what could explain why there's something rather than nothing, which could also just be nothing is impossible, aren't the sort of thing that we can investigate. And so to say that the one thing will change your mind is something that can't be produced. It reminds me of a time I was debating the resurrection and somebody said that they'd be convinced that Jesus wasn't as resurrected just as soon as we produced a body, which presumes all kinds of things right down to this person existed and that you could identify the body of somebody. Sorry, I shouldn't be even remotely fattling Abdul with that, but it's similar to say the thing that will change your mind is something that currently is impossible. This one coming in from Brandon Hanson says, Matt, the program may not have an intent to create anything within the program, but the person who created the program set up the rules and set in emotion the program itself, does that make sense? Sure, in the sense that, yes, there was someone who created that program as an analogy for life, but the rules that they came up with were just about the physical rules of the universe. They were an analogy as to what makes something likely to procreate and continue its existence and pass on its genes, although this doesn't pass on genes and what makes something likely to die. It's an incredibly simplistic thing that mirrors what can and apparently does happen within the universe without any authority or decision. Nobody had to pick what the gravitational constant was or we are the species that evolved to fit the area that permits our existence. It would be remarkable. It would be evidence for God if we were sitting here floating out in space, living our life in an area that's hostile and antithetical to our lives. One second, sorry, if I might chime in, sorry. So the issue with being in a program and seeing it has particular rules and that might have come from previous simpler rules and simpler rules is the rules were determined by something else and that was determined by something else and something else and something else. And so the reason why I thought that program and analogy was a great argument for my position was simply that you can't have an infinite chain of determinism. So certain rules are determined by all the rules, by all the rules, by all the rules, by all the rules, going back forever till now, then we never get to now. There has to be an ultimate determiner, an ultimate programmer to start the simple rules that end up in the more complex rules down the line. So that's why I thought that example is a great point as an analogy to use for my own side, my own position. Except that applies to prescriptive rules, not descriptive rules. The speed of light isn't something that you're gonna get a ticket for. It describes how life works and to propose that how light works has an author is a claim that is extraordinary and needs actual evidence and support. This one coming in from all two, I wanna get the last word on that one just because it was a question for him. All two eyes and soul says, why given that the universe needs a cause, why doesn't God need a cause, Abdullah? Okay, well, there's two simple points for that. One is if the God was a being that depended on extension or depended on a prime infinite number of moments of time or have you in the past, then the issue would be that the creator would be insufficient to explain itself would require prior cause to himself. But because the creator doesn't exist, it's not finite or limited, it doesn't depend on the substance for its extension because it's not extended, it doesn't depend on extension in the first place. It simply doesn't have the deficiencies that the two fundamental forces or fundamental observations in the universe does. And of course, the second reason why the creator doesn't have a creator of itself is because I'm calling the creator the first cause. There has to be a first cause to prevent an infinite regress. And I'm gonna say that wherever that first cause is and after I've demonstrated it has intentionality because it can't just initiate things for no reason at all. If it is the first cause, and nothing's making it do things, then it does by choice, this I will call God. It's simply the answer to the alternative to the infinite regress. So hence by necessity has to be the first cause. So I got, let me jump in with this real quick because this will serve as like a closing remark anyway because we'll have a few minutes. It's really interesting. And I don't think we spend enough, I don't think we spend any real time discussing this at all, but we talk about do we have good reasons to believe a particular proposition? You could easily convince me that there must be some sort of first cause or that infinite regress actually is so problematic that there must be something. I just am not necessarily convinced of the details of it. And I certainly don't think that there's a justification to call it God. As a matter of fact, no offense to Abdullah cause I don't think he's doing that. I think he's being reasonable and thoughtful. But I find that many believers are very happy to believe very specific things about a God and that God's character and devote their life to it and follow the proposed rules of this God. And then when arguing for it, argue, well, there must been a first cause and I'm just gonna call it God. It's kind of like, here's a proposed explanation that isn't bound by space-time yet can affect it has existed eternally with no contradiction about infinite regress can act without time and chooses without any antecedent positions. Its will, by the way, in choice is just so and not contingent or dependent upon anything. Which means that this thing, if it is in fact an agent is a non-rational agent, there can be no choice that it makes that is the result of rational consideration of effects because those things precede choice. It must be purely mechanical. And it seems that this proposed good reason is that without reaching this kind of conclusion, we might be stuck acknowledging that we currently don't have an explanation. But I don't find that a good reason. I'd rather keep looking for a better explanation. You got it. This one coming in from, do appreciate your question. Barry Barry says, seems possible to me that reality exists and movement is simply an innate property of reality. I see no reason to accept a quote default state of reality in which there was no movement. This eliminates the necessity of a first cause or prime mover. Okay, so I'll kind of make this my also semi-final comment because there's not much time left. So in essence, if what created this universe was mechanical by mechanical means automatic, then it has something moving its internal components to make, to do things. And then what's making its internal components move? You make even smaller components and even smaller or prior components and prior component, prior component, it'll be an infinite regress and there's a problem. Likewise, if you say that, why does something static, which I did that something static then creates movement. So how about there was always movement in the past as this question I was trying to intimate? Again, infinite regress. Any where, any time we try to pick any other possibility other than something that is necessary or independent and initiates by choice and will, we end up inevitably with more contradictions. And it's not about, I say this because we lack information or it's got all the gaps. I'm simply saying that if we just use the laws of logic, we can eliminate every feasible possibility and even demonstrate that we've exhausted all the possibilities almost as a mathematical proof by exhaustion, leaving only one. And that was the whole point of my argument was that I come to the attributes of God being necessary, independent and possessing will as the only solutions left that avoid contradiction to explain movement, change, spatial extension and so on and so forth. You got it. With that, there are only questions left for you, Abdullah and so one thing I just wanna pitch by you guys is Matt, I know that you've gotta go and we started a little bit later than expected. So I do wanna let you go so you can get to your dinner plans. Also, Abdullah, if you're willing to field these last questions, these are more directed at you. So that way, they're not like addressing what Matt said and that way, you know, it's you're using with the speak, the questioners. But I know it's all great. It's Matt going now, was that? That's correct. As I was asking, if you were willing to stay and field the final questions though that were for you. Sure. Then before he goes, I just wanna say to Matt, thank you very much for attending. It's been a pleasure talking to you. Yeah, you too. Hopefully we can, maybe after getting some definitions down we might be able to do this again in a slightly different way or whatever else. A huge thank you to James and everybody who showed up to participate in this and make it enjoyable. Unfortunately, because we delayed it a week and then pushed it another week and a half, I actually have dinner plans. And so I had a hard set time, which we've just passed. So thanks everybody for all of the questions that Abdul is gonna address while I'm gone. I'd say if they're about religion, we almost certainly disagree. And if they're not about religion, who the hell knows whether we disagree or not? But you got it. Thanks Matt for being with us. I hope you have a good night. And then Abdullah, we don't have too many more questions. So I'm gonna fix the screen folks. Give me a second as I tweak the pictures within OBS and thanks to Abdullah for staying with us, Extra. There are many questions for you. And so I just wanna entertain them. And stupid horror energy, regarding your point that you had just brought up in the last question, you talked about an infinite regress. She said, you won't be able to get from a starting point T zero to now, but there is no T zero or T equals zero in infinity. There's no starting point, thus traversing a timeline from say 1960 to now is possible even in an infinity. Okay. Well, actually, I think that further demonstrates the contradiction of infinite regress. So if you're saying that not only will we not, in an infinite regress, there has to be, let's say movement from one point to another, let's just say, or in a chain, any chain. So if she's saying that, well, forget about whether we'd arrive now after an infinite regress of movement, but there'd actually been no beginning to it. And I say, well, exactly. Infinite regress is both, is a contradiction in that there are beginnings as in the present begins, but there's no beginning to the entire chain. And at the same time, also saying that there's an ending, we reach this end, this is the present after traversing infinity, but infinity can't be ended. So both ways you look at it, no beginning, no end, and yet we have beginnings and endings in time is further illustrates the fact that infinite regress is contradictory and therefore is not a description of reality. You got it. Before jumping into the next question, I do want to say it has been, we've been thankful to have both Matt and Abdullah on, they're linked in the description folks, in case you forgot, that includes at the podcast, we put our guest links there. If you want to hear more or read more from either of our guests, you can by clicking on those links. And this next question coming in from Corey Gorski says, Abdullah, if at some point, science further explains the origin of the universe and it's still a naturalistic explanation, would that lower your confidence in God existing? Okay, so really, I mean, I used an analogy before like science is basically investigating something within our bubble of reality, but it can't penetrate beyond the bubble of reality that is defined by things of extension and things of change. So no matter whatever we investigate to try to find, we can only rewind the clock back on our models of how things work, the regularities between change or regularities of change will recall the physical laws, only as far back as the first moment, right? And science will just simply say it was arbitrary, the rules are arbitrary, it doesn't go beyond that because science can only tell you how things transverse from one moment to the next under what kinds of regularities. We need to go beyond looking at physics to see, well, actually where did the physics itself come from? Where did the actual substance and where did even time itself come from? Science or physics will never be able to tell us that. It can't go outside the goldfish bowl of reality that we are in, the goldfish bowl of movement and change and the goldfish bowl of things extended in space. We can't go beyond into non extension and into no change. You got it. This one coming in from more of a theological question. This one is Mr. Monster saying double return debut for Matt and James and also first time appearance for Abdullah, really fun one, said glad to have you here and said very insightful debate. And then they also, they raised this theological objection. They said, God cannot be all loving if God punishes skepticism with eternal hellfire though, Abdullah. Okay, so that's a few assumptions in there. One who says that God is all loving, all loving implies that he can only love. Whereas that's not, we describe God as the loving in the Quran, God is described as the loving or describes himself as the loving. So he can also be the punishing for those people who are insincere, who act with criminal intent, who put their own desires above the creator of the universe and are ultimately insincere. And it's not skepticism because skepticism can be for multiple reasons. It could be legitimate and it could also be illegitimate and humans are irrational. So there's gonna be a lot of illegitimate reasons why people engage in skepticism. And those are the people that should repraise their attitude to life and the truth itself. Otherwise they can always be, there will be consequences of being insincere and ungrateful to the sustainer of your very existence. You got it. Thank you very much. Ozzie in talk says, how did God talk to humans or angels without there being time? How could men go on journeys to heaven without time existing and is heaven outside of time or is it eternal? Is an, it's like, so we'll let you have a chance at those three questions before I go to the fourth one. Okay. So, well, heaven would undergo change. There would be, there would be change moving forward. But people think that just because something might persist, it's somehow as infinite in forward time when even at any one moment, if you would stop the proverbial clock in heaven, only a finite amount of time has ever passed in any moment you want to think about it in heaven itself. Or let's say in paradises would be more specific term we'd use in the Quran. So that doesn't, but that there's no contradiction there because at any point in time, it's an ever increasing finite amount of time in hereafter. And so there's no problem, there's no inherent problem with that at all. You got it. And thank you very much. They also said, is time within or I should say, is heaven outside of time or is it eternal? I think I already answered that, which is it's not outside of time, but it can still be eternal going forward because going forward, it's just ever increasing amounts of finite time. It's not infinite in one moment. They said, is an infinite future possible? Okay, I already answered that. So I think the best way to put it is a persisting future and eternally persisting future, but it's not that you have complete infinity to get to the future at all. So that you just have an eternally increasing finite amount of, let's say, future of moments. That's all that, that's what we time in hereafter. You got it. According to mainstream. Yeah, a mainstream Islamic perspective anyway. You bet. And Sarah says, the solution to Zeno's paradox is series, one half plus one quarter plus one eighth plus one sixteenth that converge into one. Well, converge, but never reach. The issue, what makes infinite regress the problem is not that you can imagine an infinite number of things in a set, right? That we can imagine infinite number of things in a set. It's that there is a transversing between one point in the set. There's a connection between all the members of the set where you exhaust infinity to get from one member of the set to the other member of the set to add infinitum. That's the problem of infinite regress. It's not that, I can imagine an infinite number of, let's say, disconnected bubble universes. They all exist simultaneously. No problem of that, conceptually speaking. But to say that I, if someone was to be able to travel from one jump from one universe to the next, and they would tell you that, I've just completed an infinite amount of jumps, that would be a problem because you can't exhaust infinity. You can't complete infinity. Sorry, I think I heard, so I'm hearing some. Sorry about that. I'm actually traveling, so I'm actually at the public library. I will mute it next time they come on. They caught me off guard. Mr. T. Public library. Shh. That's right. Mr. T said, Matt says, let's say, oh, okay, that's more, given that Matt's not here, I don't want to ask it because he's not able to answer it. This one from Ozzie in talk says, pixels don't move on the screen. They turn off a pixel and turn on a pixel one at a time within the hardware and how the hardware is arranged by software. You see it as moving. It's only an illusion though. My point exactly, that was the point is that the pixels require something else in order to generate movement, which is a graphics card or the processor basically, that will switch off one pixel, one turn on another pixel and make you think there's movement. So in a way, you could say that every new time segment that begins to exist, and here's the point, it begins to exist, must have a cause. And so you could say that and the only is there a first cause but there is an ongoing cause to every new time segment, each new arrangement of the universe is being created from a prior point in fourth dimensional space, if you'd like to put it like this. Like in film, each film has to be different from the film behind it. And so the question is, who's turning the wheel to produce new slices of time and give us the perception of movement and change? It has to be something beyond time to do that, which is my point, will be the creator of the universe. You got it, Apostate Prophet said, there is no concrete example of, it's just as STH that begins to exist. All results from rearrangements can Abdullah clearly demonstrate, STH that quote began to exist from nothing unquote, like God's mythical creation. Sorry, is it STH you mean something? Yeah, I don't know what it means though. It's not a capitalize either. I may come back to that Apostate Prophet. This one from Jesse White says, Abdullah, do you have a Defeater for Hitchens Razor? If you're familiar with Hitchens Razor, if not, I can share what it was. Sure, illustrate for all of us. If I remember right, I think it was that if God is the foundation for ethics, then is there something that only, for example, a Muslim, if Allah is the foundation for ethics, what ethical behavior is it that only a Muslim could do and that others could not do, which I think Hitchens assumed that in order for God to be the foundation for ethics, that would have to be the case, that there would be something that only Muslims could do that atheists, for example, could not do in terms of as a moral behavior. Oh, I think I remember it was more, wasn't it more like, if something is posted without evidence, it can be dismissed without evidence. Is that not the case? Maybe that's what they mean. It's been some time since I encountered Hitchens work, so. Let's go with that one. That sounds like it's at least close to, it's closer to Occam's Razor. Let's go with that. Sure, okay. Well, I would agree, is that if something is posted without evidence, it can be dismissed without evidence, but if space and time in this particular case, I'm advancing that they are definitive evidence using the rules of logic that point to only one possible explanation that is necessitated by their existence, which is space requires a sustainer and time requires a initiator, but you can also say it needs an advance as well, when that advances each moment at a time. So I've pointed out, I haven't cited anywhere testimony, I only mentioned the chronic verses at the very end, just to highlight that, the argument I kind of get from the Quran, but the Quran is using an argument telling us to observe and come to our conclusions ourselves, not just take the Quran's word for it. So we're using evidence now. And now the question is, how is this evidence gonna be engaged by those who might wish to maintain a naturalistic worldview in spite of the insufficiency of their worldview to explain the observable? Gotcha. And I'll give you a chance to try to humor this person. The old two eyes themselves said, I'm still lost on how infinite space time or cosmos is so absurd while an infinite God is not. That they asked that same question earlier. So I'm not sure how you wanna address it. Okay, so I think maybe the guy's not responding to me per se or maybe he misheard. So I didn't mention that space time is infinite because we can't, we haven't seen infinite space time, even if there was an infinite amount of space time, each segment of space time is divisible. You could take a piece out and just, and it could be infinitely divided up into smaller and smaller pieces. Not reaching any bottom, so to speak, or any substance to it. Whereas the creator, we don't, when you say, we don't say the creator is infinite in extension, we simply say that the creator is indivisible and is the first cause. That's why I don't, if you wanna say infinite in power, well, now I can justify that, right? Because if the creator can make something from nothing without prior cause or what have you, then the creator can add to existence, add to reality at will. And I use an analogy, imagine there's somebody that can make gold coins appear in their hand, any amount they want just by will. It doesn't cost them anything, doesn't cost them any resources, they can just make any amount of gold coins appear in their hand. How rich are they? Well, you'd say potentially they're infinitely rich because they can do it as much as they want. Well, then God is, has inexhaustible power. He can, if he can make one thing from nothing, he can make billions of things from nothing. And so he is inexhaustible in power. And another way of saying that is infinite in power. But he's not infinite in extent, he doesn't depend on infinite extension because he doesn't depend on extension to exist. Gotcha. Next up, thank you very much for your question. This one, Apostate Prophets said, their question was meant to mean S-T-H is something. So there is no concrete example of something that begins to exist and then said, all results from rearrangements can of Dula clearly demonstrate that something that quote began to exist from nothing like God's mythical creation. Okay, so that's exactly what I actually addressed in my opening presentation. I said that the first thing that exists can't be arrangement because arrangement, so let's say, what was the first cause? Is the first cause arrangement? You can't have an infinite regress of course is going back. So there has to be a first cause. Is the first cause arrangement or is the first cause something indivisible that initiates extension in the first place? So I said, well, let's humor if the first cause is itself arrangement. Arrangement of what? It would be whatever it was made out of is causing the first movement or the first, but if whatever is made out of is made out of more arrangements then those things again will be made out of more arrangements and more arrangements and more arrangements or extensions, so to speak. And therefore they can't be the first cause of anything in a way you could say a form doesn't move but the things inside the form is the one that's doing the moving. So then the first mover or the first cause has to be something that precedes arrangement or extension because anything that has extension doesn't move by itself. So the only thing that can begin the movement you could say or begin to change is something that doesn't have extension. But then where would it move if it's not in extension? Where would it move? So the first thing that has to be done to make change is that extension must be created by an indivisible thing that itself is not an arrangement. So arrangement must be created by non-arrangement is the first thing that happens. And therefore that means that the first cause itself is not an arrangement but is itself the cause of arrangements. It is the arranger and not an arrangement itself. So that was my argument I presented in my presentation and I think that addresses the question. You got it and last one, thanks for your patience. You've been a good sport saying for us for these extra questions. Why is a religious says Surah 2106 of the Quran says if it was not from your Lord you would find it much contradiction then says if I bring one, you say that's not many. I bring 100 you say not many. They say this is moving the goalpost fallacy. We'll give you a chance to respond to that if you'd like. So one of the many beautiful things about the Quran is that it gives us a falsification test which it says that if the Quran itself does not come from the Creator it would have contradictions in it. Because anything other than the truth is gonna have contradictions which is also the basis of my entire argument today which is anything other than God as an explanation has contradictions behind regarding explaining the space and time. So regardless of one the hundred what have you if you simply bring one contradiction in a legitimate contradiction again has to be legitimate contradiction in the Quran then that would invalidate it. That would be a falsification test. It would meet the falsification test of the Quran. So I don't need a hundred. You just bring me one legitimate contradiction and that would be sufficient to meet the falsification test. You got it. Thank you very much Abdullah and want to say seriously thanks so much for staying with us for extra time to answer those questions. We really do appreciate you spending your time with us. Folks you can find both Abdullah and Matt's links in the description as mentioned and one last thank you to you Abdullah. I'll be back in just a moment folks where I will give updates on upcoming debates but one last thank you Abdullah for real that's been a true pleasure to have you on. Thank you very much for inviting me James. Really appreciate it. My pleasure. So I am going to just break the chat here and I'll be back in just a moment folks and so thanks so much everybody. Be back in just a moment. My dear friends thrilled to have you here. I've actually got to run in just a minute because I'm at the public library and they were closing in nine minutes. So I want to say though thank you guys for your support and I want to say again a huge thank you to both Matt and Abdullah. 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We are pushing ourselves to get better in new ways all the time and we are just thankful for all of your guys' support. Thank you to the debaters again. Thank you guys. Like I said, I wish I could hang out with you in chat like we normally do as I get to say hello to you in the old live chat as well and I do want to say hello to you but like I said, I do have to go because I do hate keeping the library here later than they need to be as they want to go home on Saturday too. So thank you guys. I hope you have a great rest of your night. We are excited. As we mentioned, there is this debate coming up on Wednesday night. You don't want to miss it or I should say Wednesday morning actually. Eastern time is it's going to be between Apostate Prophet and Reform Salafi and whether or not Muhammad was a true prophet. You don't want to miss that. Hit that subscribe button if you haven't already as it's going to be a funnel. It's closing at 5 p.m. It is now 4.00. Okay, I've got to go. 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