Adnan Rashid – Atheism & The Response Of Islam #1
AI: Summary ©
The transcript discusses various historical and cultural moments and their significance in the early 20th century, including the decline of the Roman Empire during the early 20th century, the rise of modern day events, and the origin of Islam in the western world. It provides context for further reading and provides links to additional resources. The transcript also touches on the theory that humans have a higher likelihood of aut admitsencing due to genetic defects, and discusses the concept of "monarch" and its significance in modern day society.
AI: Summary ©
They have expressed their views on
the divine being or the divine nature of divine beings.
Socrates is very often mistakenly thought to be an atheist, someone who denied the existence of God, but it is not true.
He was even killed
for some of his views. So he's
often thought to be an atheist. Aristotle, on the other hand, believed or came up with the theory of on movable,
unmovable, mover,
unmovable mover, he called God or the supreme deity, the Supreme idea, unmovable mover, someone who is unmovable someone who started who doesn't move, who started the process of creation. So, that being is an unmovable mover that Plato also talked about in a complicated way.
divine
nature.
One thing that was common between Greek philosophers that was the spirit of skepticism and doubt,
skepticism,
and doubt,
sorry, divine nature mean, they're not clear about the divine being.
There is something out there that has divine nature, right. But they're not clear about who that person that being is. So they discussed the reality of the Divine without giving too many details or too much clarity. So the Greek philosophers talked about it. But amazingly,
what they came up with was very interesting.
Pretty much, because Greeks at the time, they believed in different a number of different mythology, right? So they had a number of different gods, they had Apollo, they have Jupiter, they had Minerva, they had, you know, so many different gods, they wish they had come up with themselves. And some gods were adopted from other cultures such as Egypt, some of the Egyptian gods were adopted as well. So when I say God, this is a small G. A lot of these gods, the Greeks believed in had human qualities and divine qualities. This is what they attribute it to them. Okay, so these gods
would come on Earth, makes it people, and in some cases have relationships. Right? Have you seen these movies called I mean, immortals, and there are some movies they recently made, right? So some of the stories some of the mythology has been even put in movies nowadays, right? So then you these are myths, most Greek thinkers, most Greek thinkers, they did believe in these mythologies, but they were not certain about them. They were skeptical about them, they were in doubt about them. But these three in particular, came up with very interesting ideas, they were, it can be easily argued monotheists they believed that there is one supreme entity, that that is behind all of it. And
Plato even argued that this supreme being
made minor deities minor gods who would do certain job.
People we can refer to as angels, let's say angels, Allah has created angels and angels have been allocated jobs. One is bringing revelation one is doing this one is doing that. So there are millions of angels in Las pantallas created and Allah gets them to do the job. So Plato had come up with this idea but but he called these minor Gods demiurge. And they would do minor jobs for the supreme deity. So they can be argued to have been
monotheist these philosophers, but they came up with these ideas of skepticism and doubt that you have to be skeptical towards these mythologies.
And this is where it all begins doubt skepticism.
Now, atheism
atheism
is a Western phenomenon and its modern form. What we know today as
you can sit down progress, if you want inshallah
atheism is a Western phenomenon, it is something
that came to rise
in the West.
What happened during the Enlightenment period
in the Enlightenment period, mainly the 18th century
mainly the 18th century 1700 to 1800. This century is called
the Enlightenment century, this is when most atheistic thinkers in Europe were born
and who were
the topmost
there was Hume
then there was a French philosopher called Voltaire.
Okay.
And some others.
Also, later on, came up with atheistic ideas. One of them was Kant, Emmanuel Kant. Right. Another one who was born in the 19th century was
Nietzsche.
I think this is how you spell his name. Yeah.
Fried rich nature, who was German.
So, some of these philosophers, they challenged
the religious establishment at the time. Now, why atheism became
a popular idea in Western Europe at this point, is a very interesting
topic. It is a lecture in itself, the rise of atheism during the Enlightenment period. why that happened is a very, very interesting topic in itself.
To put it in simple terms,
it was
the conflict with the church, the church.
All very impressive.
And church, in some cases, had a conflict direct conflict with scientists with independent thinkers. So church was suppressing free thinking.
Catholic Church, clergy,
were actually actively hunting down people who were somehow in some way challenging the established doctrine of the Church. One example is Galileo.
Galileo.
Galileo was born in the 17th century. And he came up with the theory that the universe is heliocentric
The sun is in the middle.
Right? And the rest of the planets are going around the sun, okay. And they want orbits, right? This is what we call the heliocentric theory of the solar system, which Galileo borrowed from Copernicus,
who was a Polish scientist, right? So when Galileo wrote
his works, the church
came out came out heavy on him, and they said, Okay, this theory goes against the Bible.
So, you have to stop preaching it is that it is not about the Bible, it is what I observe, it is what I see. So this theory
that religion
is
its antithesis, science.
It started to take root at that time, which continues to this day, so
atheistic thinkers, even to this day, believe that religion is anti science. And we will show why that is wrong. That theory is inaccurate. Because when we look at the history of Islamic civilization, we've come to realize that we didn't have this problem in the Muslim world.
So this is one example so that you understand what I mean, Galileo had this issue with the church.
So
he was put on trial threatened, are you told to be quiet. Others were actually burnt at stake. Some people have burnt alive by the church. So there are examples of hundreds of 1000s of people who were during the early modern period, let's say, from 1415
to 1750,
people were being burned alive at stake in the hundreds of 1000s. Who were most of these people?
Which is
okay.
heretics.
Right.
And in some cases, ages.
So these people were being burnt alive by the church. So what I'm doing right now is giving you a background and introductory background to what happened in Europe, why atheism rose, what happened in the 18th century, suddenly, that European thinkers started to break away from religion break break away from the church, and atheism was not the only result. There was a lot more that happened. Okay.
So
have you come across this information before a
little bit? Right? I am i right to assume the majority of you haven't actually come across this information. This is why it is best to keep things simple. And if I go into too many details, each one of these topics, which is if I can do a full day, workshop, where where why, how when, who? These questions are very important, right, heretics, we can talk about, you know, we take one person, for example, Miguel servito, microservices, okay. micro
services.
micro services was burned at stake in 1553. In Geneva, out of all places, he was
he was a scientist, as well as a theologian. Okay. Now, most theologian, in this period we are talking about, we're also scientists.
Okay. A lot of them were also scientists, just like in the Muslim world. Back in the day, during the Muslim Golden Age, what we call the Muslim Golden Age, the Islamic Renaissance, right? When a lot of science was being practiced in the Muslim world. In Africa, for example, in Spain, okay, Muslims reached the peak of civilization, you know, they became the epitome of civilization. This was the most civilized, most sophisticated, most educated piece of the world. Cordoba was the largest city on the planet in the 10th century, with the with a population of 1 million people, 1 million people with 60,000 homes and
many, many palaces, okay. And water was running through the streets as they were this was a, this was an ornament of the world as one of the German nuns in the 10th century, when she visited the city of Cordoba. She saw the city of Cordoba, and its sophistication, you know, she called it the ornament of the world, like some of us today, we go to like, you know, Dubai. Yeah. Yeah. And we see, forget the minus the corruption, minus the corruption minus the wine and promiscuity you see in Dubai. Yeah, Dubai is very sophisticated, right? They've got some of the best facilities in the world. People think he cago or San Francisco or, you know, Florida. Where's that Miami Beach? You
know, Miami, for example. These are beautiful, great cities. But I think Dubai, in many ways,
beats them all, in many ways, right? So when you go to the bar, you see the wires. Wow. And I met so many people from the west. They go to Dubai to work and they just remain this day. There's a lot of life there. Right? q&a afterwards.
Okay. So likewise, in the ninth century, this German nun, she came to Cordova. She saw what she saw. She said, this is the ornament of the world. This is just absolutely amazing. The Picasa
realization Muslims had reached unfortunately with that came love of dunya right from bodoni Allah Corrado mode as the progresses on important, and then they lost it because of that they lost the will and the dry to defend that civilization. You see, the more fragile
our system is the easy, the easier it is to break it right. So when you create a piece of art, like for example, this right, the more fragile the more beautiful it is, the more fragile it is right? And it is easier to break it. This is what happened with the Muslims, Muslims created a very sophisticated fragile society in Spain, and they lost it easily unfortunately. So.
So these people are scientists as well as
theologians like people like our costume of Dharavi people, like even the Russians, who is
who is a very important example.
Even Russia,
even Russia, also known as Abbey roads, and Europe,
everywhere else, okay. Yeah, I'm pretty sure on that size about everyone rushed. Everywhere else was the man who introduced the Europeans to Aristotle. Aristotle was an unknown to Western Europe. It was even rushed through his commentaries on the work of Aristotle in the Arabic language. And these commentaries were then translated into Latin. And then the European study, including Thomas Aquinas, one of the most prominent and most
popular medieval philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, Catholic philosopher, will read directly the works of Eros approach, Edmund rosewater, theology theologian. He was the Guardian, Cordova, Cordova. And he is the author of the work by dialogue, which I am very sure that you have the work in your library. Do you have it as a musician? Yes. Is there a natural muster is that the beginning of
the book is the beginning. It's one of the best works on comparative jurisprudence, comparative IQ. It talks about the opinions of four schools, and it gives them in in comparative terms. So even Ruth was a jurist par excellence.
And only that he was a philosopher who wrote commentaries on Aristotle, or Aristotle. So this guy, microservices have burnt at stake by the church, as an example. And he was one of the people who
wrote or rewrote the theory of Urban Affairs, even the fees, who was one of the Muslim scientists who came up with a theory of lesser circulation of the blood. And Michael servetus, was also one of those people who pioneered it, and wrote works on it. And he also wrote,
to the detriment of his life, a book against the doctrine of the Trinity. And for that reason, he was burdened stay, he was Unitarian, he believed that Jesus was not God.
Now that reformation is taking place, Martin Luther is doing what he's doing, Calvin is doing what he's doing. So now that we are breaking away from the Catholic Church, it is time for us to acknowledge that the Trinity is a corruption of our faith, we should abandon it.
The hood and the Muslims, he referred to the people of monotheism, these are the people, the Jews, and the Muslims laugh at us, not even then even the beast in the field laugh at us. This is what he wrote in his book. And as a result, he was caught. Long story short, he was burned at stake. So there are many examples which is heretic, atheist people who disagreed with the church. And who decides that they have written something, antithesis to the to the teaching of the Church, the clergy,
and there was an institution called Inquisition,
Inquisition.
Inquisition
was the institution that would go out. This was the Mahabharat. In
this of the Mahabharat in western Western Europe for a very, very long time. Very dangerous people. Just like you know, nowadays, you know, you have Mossad, right? Or ISI in Pakistan, right. Or CIA. What else? Do you have one in Ireland as well? We have one in Britain. Mm
hmm.
Oh, KGB, KGB? Well, you know, all these names, right? Inquisition. Inquisition was doing exactly the church, the church throughout the Middle Ages throughout the Middle Ages. Since the time of the crusades, the Crusades spent on the church very much established churches.
authority in Europe. So 11th century onwards, the church became increasingly powerful. It started to own immense chunks of land in Europe, the church, the clergy, became the richest people in the world in some cases, they still are. The Catholic Church is one of the actually is not the richest. It is one of the richest religious establishments in the world today.
The Catholic Church. This is why some of the bishops, you know, they live, they live the life.
They live. I was watching a documentary on Uganda recently. Yeah, there's a there was a pastor in UK, there is a pastor, he's still there, in Uganda. And he basically runs the biggest church in Kampala in the capital. And the funds are coming from America, the US missionaries are funding activity in Africa. And he is the richest man the third richest man in the country.
What What did he do?
Is he a businessman, no, he's only a pastor who preaches in the church. And to strengthen him. The church has given him so much money that he has become the third richest man in the country. So the church became very powerful. It became the most powerful political entity in Western Europe. And this is why the struggle between the church and princes or states or countries or kings started to emerge. That's why what happened in England, Henry the Eighth, he broke away from the Catholic church because the pope would not grant him divorce for his wife, Catherine, Catherine of Aragon, and he broke away from the church, right for the church exercise a lot of power. And this was their
intelligence agency Inquisition.
So if you disagree with the church, did not listen to the pope or to the bishop. Simply we would be labeled as a terrorist. extremist, radical, pick him up. That's it. That's enough. Just like that, which is, you know, if anyone wanted to kill a woman in Western Europe at the time, they were simply accused a woman, a neighbor, for example. You don't like her you don't want maybe she's trying on you're trying it on your husband or something, right? Or your husband maybe like likes or something like anything like crazy like that. The woman would simply go to the Inquisitors. This woman is a witch colosse she's finished. She's finished. She gets picked up. And then she's tortured. And then
she confesses on the torture that yes, I'm a witch. You know, like in Pakistan, they say that even a deer can become an elephant.
You know, there was a there's a joke.
There's a joke that a man he lost a rich man. He lost one of his deals, because he had a tear. He had a private room in his house. So he lost one of his gears. So he told the police find material, or you're in trouble. So the police, you know, they came back some time later. And there's an elephant, they're beating an elephant. The policemen are beating an elephant and the elephant is saying I am the beer. I am the deer.
So the elephant has confessed that he is the deer.
So, so under torture, 1000s and 1000s of these whales. They were they confessed. So Inquisition became very, very strong. And it was eventually abolished in 1808.
This is how long Inquisition was was running through the systems of political systems of European landscape. Okay. 1808 was the year when Inquisition was finally abolished by who? Who wants to help me? Who Who abolished in condition?
Who did it?
Sorry.
Yes, yes. Everyone, Muslims, Jews and Christians and women. anyone's Inquisition dealt with all
cases of abnormal behavior. And who, who determined as to what is abnormal, dated the clergy? They just have to put someone has to point a finger at you. Like today. So Pamela, you know, in the Western world, it's easy, very easy to get a Muslim into trouble. Yes. People are getting off the planes, right. Oh, he spoke Arabic. He said something in Arabic If you're getting off the plane, right. If your neighbor is burning fire barbecue is making something in the in the garden.
Yeah, he's trying to light the coal so that he can have barbecue. Oh, look.
They call the police. What law is this? This is not a joke. This is happening. This is happening in Britain. This happening in France in Germany all over Europe is happening.
So people have become paranoid. And there was a lot of paranoia because of that. an inquisition killed hundreds of 1000s of people. Hundreds of 1000s of people people were burned at stake every street corner throughout this period.
into
these three centuries, people who've been burnt alive all over Europe. And in America afterwards, when America was discovered,
even there, this Inquisition move there as well. And Christopher Columbus, I recommend very strongly this history written by Howard.
Howard.
Howard Zinn,
Howard Zinn has written A People's History of America. What is it called? A People's History of America, you have to read it. You will know exactly what happened in America.
A People's History a matter of America, just remember
A People's History of America, it is actually available in chapters. I went there yesterday, they have a copy. Okay. And if you want a second and copy is there, there's only one.
Okay. So and they have the chapters as two section right. two sections. One is second. And do you know which chapters is you're looking at me like?
It's a bookshop is one of the biggest is the what is the I think it's the biggest bookshop in Ireland. Is there. In city. I don't know when exactly it has chapter Street, I think even the street is called chapter Street. Sorry.
chapel Street. Okay. So, Inquisition was doing all this. This is what's happening there. So what happened? The result was people became increasingly
increasingly critical of the religious establishment in Europe. One of the reasons why reformation took place when the Protestants broke away from the Catholic Church, mainly in Germany,
was this very reason that the Catholic Church became very, very oppressive, and people could not express their views without being hunted, or being killed. Right. And some people were even that period during the you know, microservices world. But at that time, during the reformation,
the other one who translated the English New Testament was named William Tyndale. William Tyndale, who translated, the New Testament into the English language was also birthed by the Inquisition, by the Catholic establishment. He was an English man, and he translated
his crime was simply translating the Bible, the New Testament, in particular into the English language so that people can understand it, he was burned for that. He was burned at stake for that. So no freedom. The outcome was an explosion. You know, the volcano when it is building, then there is an eruption. Then there is an eruption, and the eruption happened in the 18th century,
by the way, was Napoleon Bonaparte, who abolished Inquisition, Napoleon Bonaparte, when he took Spain 1808 it was Bonaparte, who abolished Inquisition, and it was 1807. These two years are very important. 1807 when slavery, slave trade was abolished in British colonies, British Empire slave trade was abolished in British Empire in 1807. And it took the Americans another 650 years to do it. When, in 1863, the Americans,
Abraham Lincoln came up with the Emancipation Proclamation, when the black people in the south were eventually
freed. They were emancipated. The slavery continued for another 6070 years. Because they conditions the life didn't change much, even though they were freed officially, on paper, the condition their life did not change much. And even to this day, some of the policies, there is a documentary I recommend for all of you are there's a lot of extras you're getting in this course. Right? Yeah. So, so take them, Take as much as you can. There's a lot of extra information coming in as well. There's a documentary called the 13th. The 13th. I'm sure you can find it online. You have to watch it. It is an absolutely amazing documentary on what happened to the black people, Afro Americans after
slavery after the 19th century and what is happening today the black life, Black Black Lives Matter movement, it has a background, you know, there is a reason why it is happening today. Why it has erupted to this level. So coming back to the enlightenment.
So it was the 18th century
18th century
When the volcano erupted,
it has started to come up. In the 17th century, there were some philosophers who started to express atheistic ideas in the 17th century, but it was the 18th century, when open atheism, when some of the philosophers thinkers, they started to challenge the religion altogether, because they hated Christianity, or how it had
behaved itself. Throughout history. They study the history of Christianity.
And there were a number of reasons. First of all, the history of the church, it was very unpleasant, right? It was oppressive, suppressive. On top of that, the doctrine of the Trinity. Trinity didn't make sense to a lot of them. So not only that atheism came as a result, there was unitarianism.
So those who could not be atheist, they became Unitarians. They rejected the doctrine, the Trinity, and then came deism.
deism was another idea, people who could not reject, because one of the biggest reasons why people were rejecting God
was because of
a particular view of God, which is the Christian view of God. So how the Christian God had behaved as far as they were concerned, throughout centuries, was absolutely
disgusting to them. You know, how people were treated throughout the past centuries, let's say, it was absolutely disgusting. So they took the anger on God is a God, it is God. If this is if this is God, we don't want this God. Right. We don't believe in such God, first God doesn't exist. On the one hand, you're telling us God is merciful. God is compassionate. And on the other hand, this is what the church is doing. The people of God, and they were even called dogs of God. You know, inquisitors, inquisitors, or Inquisition was called dogs of God. Okay, so these were seen as the agents of God, this is what God does, we don't want it. But some intellectually,
could not reject the notion of God because
they came up with this idea that it was happening because the church was corrupted. The teachings of Christianity, original teachings were corrupted. That's why this is what happened. And they became Unitarians, okay. And there were many, many big intellectuals in the history of European intellectual movement. During the 18th century, in particular, many big names. They were actually
they were actually Unitarians, people who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity. So these are three main outcomes. It was either atheism outright rejection of God, or unitarianism. Or deism this history is very important for you to understand why this happened in Europe. And where did this idea come from the idea of atheism or rejection, rejecting rejecting God, or rejecting the existence of any Gods for that matter? Okay, so three outcomes Unitarian, the people like Joseph Priestley,
Joseph Priestley, who died in exile in 1804, in Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. He was a British scientist, and a theologian. Parks along Okay, have you heard of his name before? Joseph Priestley? No. Okay. priestly was the loudest voice of unitarianism. In your Are you getting bored?
Yeah. Is this information interesting? Okay. I'll continue in that case.
Otherwise, I can go and chill in my hotel.
Okay. Priestley was the loudest voice of unitarianism. And by the latter part of the 18th century, it was in 1770s, when he started to write books openly against the doctrine of the Trinity. And he had amazingly debate with atheistic philosophers, right. He was debating writing like you, he wrote letters to Hume arguing with him that there is no room for you to intellectually actually reject God. Fine, you have a problem with the Christian doctrine, Christian church Christianity, you may have a problem with that, but you cannot possibly reject the existence of God for whatever reasons, and he gives his reasons. And there was a correspondence between
Priestley and
and Hume and it is called letters
To a philosophical unbeliever, disbeliever, sorry, letters to a philosophical disbeliever you will find Priestley's work. You can actually if you Google it, if you Google it, you will find the entire document original scans free of charge available on Google Books. You can find these books there. Okay. So recently wrote a book titled The corruptions of Christianity, the corruptions of Christianity. So he wrote a book, in 1786, he published this book, to argue that Christianity had been corrupted. And for that reason, we have to reject the doctrine of the Trinity is the biggest corruption of our religion, we have to reject it. So he became a unitary and he believed Jesus was a
supreme agent of Allah. He was a messenger, he was a prophet of God, not God Himself. So priestly very staunchly wrote against the doctrine of the Trinity. And then he got involved in politics as well. And because of that, his house was burned down in Birmingham, and he had to leave the country. He had to leave Britain, for America way to refuge, Pennsylvania. So yeah.
Yeah, it's more convenient for me. You can I'm sure you can hear me.
Yeah, of course we can. Okay, yeah.
Yeah. So he died in America in exile, okay, because his house was burned down, but burned down. He got involved in the French Revolution. Things are very hot in this country at the time. So he became the public enemy number one, because of his views on Christianity. That was one reason. So the clergy around the Damascus against him. And then came his involvement in the French Revolution, he was seen as a traitor. He was taking the side of the French he wanted to spark a revolution in Britain of the same kind. So he had to leave the country. Priestley was one, that Who else? There are big names, big, big names. JOHN Locke.
JOHN Locke, the founder of modern
democratic principles. Unitarian,
was a Unitarian. By the way, priestly is the one who discovered oxygen. Did you know that? Oh, you didn't obviously know you didn't know the name. He discovered oxygen. priestly is the man who discovered oxygen. Joseph Priestley was a chemist.
He was a physicist, chemist, also,
a theologian, john Locke was a philosopher, as well as a theologian, and very much inspired by Muslim civilization. One of his teachers was called Edward pokok, in the University of Oxford, who was lecturing on Islamic Studies, and Locke would attend his lectures. So some of the theories of Locke on government actually are directly inspired by or from the concept of khilafah. In Islam, you know, he studied the Islamic concept of governance. And Locke was directly inspired by that, and he, that theory actually came out in his writings. And in fact, some people believe that Locke is the one who inspired the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson,
again, another Unitarian
Thomas Jefferson, and other Unitarian
William Whiston, who was one of the best mathematicians in Europe alive at the time, also in the late 18th century, was the man who translated the works of Josephus, the most read book after the Bible itself. William wisdom was a Unitarian, so they were big names, who did not become atheists, they became Unitarians, instead, they broke away from the standard normal church. deism was another position where people, they started to
believe that there is a supreme being there.
And he is not necessarily the Christian God, but he is out there, something is out there who has made us and having made us he has left us to run by ourselves. Basically, he made the universe he made the solar system, he put life on planet earth, and he left us to live by ourselves, basically, do what you want, fight, kill, drink, sleep, wake, eat, do what you want. He has nothing to do with our affairs. So this is what the deistic view was, because they could not possibly intellectually reject the existence of a lot existence of God. For that's why this so these three reactions came up in the 18th century, the most prominent out of all of them was atheism. Because it was the loudest
and the easiest way out, okay? It was just to reject God. collapse. Game over, right. So
and the loudest voices one of the loudest, loudest voices were
Hume, okay, Hume was an empiricist.
Hume was an empiricist and a materialist. Okay.
empiricist is someone who need need empirical evidence for every single claim? If I claim this is a cup, then I have to show it to you, you have to see it. This is what we call empiricism. Okay? That you have to see, in order for you to believe, if something you cannot see, you cannot claim its existence, right. So Hume was a staunch empiricist. And he forwarded this theory.
In fact, we rejected God isn't there is no evidence for God, sorry, we can't see God isn't evidence these are all claims, right? So he was an empiricist, and a materialist.
And he came up with very, very interesting ideas. And he is the main guy people refer to even today, he rejected miracles. For example, why did you reject miracles? no empirical evidence, sorry. Okay. Moses did that Jesus did that. Solomon did that. I'm sorry, I don't believe it because there are no
miracles. They don't exist. So he rejected miracles. Whew. Okay. So this is when it started.
atheism, in its current form, is not an ancient phenomenon. It is not something digital. In order to understand an idea, you must understand its history. Once you know the history, you can better educate others, and protect yourselves against that particular threat and your children. So when this problem starts to arise, you need to start first thing you do is study history. Where did you know when you go to when you go to the doctor, the doctor, first of all, first question, he asks you, what's wrong with you? symptoms? Right? And then he starts to ask you about your history. What happened? 20 years ago, 10 years ago, have you had this problem for long? What did you use? What did
you feel what happened to you for all the doctor bills? Your history says a proper doctor, right? Yeah. It was one of those.
One of the doctors then Good luck to you. Yeah. Okay. So,
because
we had a doctor who would just give the same medicine to everyone.
Cancer, headache, kidney, heart, whatever the statement is, and they go, you'll be fine. tenkeyless tenkeyless.
So, he, you have to study the history in order to deal with a problem. So now this is where it all starts. That 18th century is the century of atheism in Europe, in Western Europe, this is this is very important. This is a Western European phenomenon. Okay. This happened in Western Europe as a reaction. atheism is a reactionary movement. It is not a natural outcome of human thinking. Do you all understand?
By thinking as humans, you will not become atheists? You will become atheist. If you do Allah forbid, God forbid.
Because he had something happened to you around you your circumstances, it will be a reaction. It is a reactionary movement. So these people, they had had enough of religion. They didn't want any part of it. It was confusing. So their reaction was breaking the chains. Okay, break free. And then came the biggest problem, okay?
the morality of the church is out of the window. Now. How do we live our life now? Okay, fine. God doesn't exist to people like you. Miracles don't exist. They are all lies. We need empirical evidence for everything fine. Okay. Now, how do we live our lives? So these philosophers, they faced a big problem, a huge problem. And that was the problem of
morality.
What is right What is wrong?
What do we do now? You have divorced God, God is out of the window is gone. So you don't follow God anymore? Right? Whether is the God of the church or the God of the Moscow who whichever God, conception of God, what do we do now? So the outcome is now the humans, philosophers like Hume, Kant,
moral philosophers, right? People like even later on nature, you know, German philosopher. They started to write on morality they started to write. In fact, nature
came up with
concern that we have killed god, this is I'm quoting him, literally nature wrote, we have killed God, we have killed God, God is dead. Sorry, God is dead and we have killed him. He doesn't mean that we have actually physically killed God. He meant that looking at the European society, right? In the late 19th century, in Germany where Nietzsche lived in Germany, he looked at the society how people ignored religion. 18th centuries gone, philosophers have written the 19th century is the most educated century as far as the European masses are concerned. And they are all reading extensively. What are they reading? In some cases, they're reading religious books and other cases, they're
reading Hume, Voltaire, Kant, very, very popular thing, because then we have Karl Marx. In the mid 19th century, Marx comes up, okay, we have Bismarck, we have angles and people are writing on science. Darwin comes up, okay. So things have accumulated now, Darwin's theory actually made it very easy for people to now reject God. Oh, there you go. Your story of creation is false. Adam was not actually real. It is a primate, we actually come from
a specie. Who is the common ancestor of humans and apes both? Okay. This is a misconception, by the way, when Muslims or a lot of the times I see Muslims say that we the theory of evolution claims that we have descended from monkeys, this is this. This is a very crude and very
ill informed way of putting things No, that's not what the theory of evolution claims, the theory of evolution Darwinian theory of evolution claims that there is a common ancestor. And that ancestor is not, not an eighth district is being an ape is a branch apes, you know, is a branch, you know, because then two branches came from that communism, maybe possibly more, you know, eventually it's one ancestor. That's what Darwin proposed, right? Whether the theory of evolution is true or not, how factual it is scientifically or non scientifically.
The creation of atom is a metaphysical question, that the theory of evolution is a physical question or natural question. These are very, very interesting issues, and inshallah we can briefly touch upon them very quickly. So the issue morality arose. So they started to come up with their own theories. Another man was Thomas payment.
Thomas Paine was writing the late 19th century and early 20th century,
early 19th century, late 18th century, Thomas Paine, then we had people who were writing on economics like Adam Smith. Okay.
Adam Smith.
Then we had people historians like Edward Gibbon.
Gibbon wrote a history titled the decline of the fall of the Roman Empire. And, of course, it was written during the Enlightenment period, he started in 1776. And he finished it in 1788. It took him 12 years to write his history. And the outcome was apostasy from Christianity, he apostatized became an atheist, as well, he did rejected the Christian version of God, so many thinkers for that reason, in the 18th century, having studied Christian history, carefully, Christian doctrine, and how it was developed, therefore, that how much corruption had come into Christian doctrine, how the doctrine of the Trinity was imposed on people. So when you see the doctrine of the Trinity was so prominent, it
was so much in your face at the time, that if the doctrine of the Trinity is like someone who came to you and told you, oh, hey, this false I'm sorry. You know, God is not one actually, you would be devastated, right? You'd be sure. This is what we've been taught all our lives, we have believed in this tawheed is not accurate.
The first thing that would come to your mind Okay, if this is not accurate, then what is and then you would simply So, this is what happened during the 18th century. So the rise of atheism actually, what we know today, as atheism can be easily attributed to the 18th century what happened in the 18th century in Western Europe, in particular, Germany, France, and Britain. These were the men, Kant was German. Okay, Voltaire, who was a man staunchly anti religion. In fact, he is accused of
being behind directly behind
the French Revolution. It was the teachings of Voltaire
and there was one thing common about these individuals
and it has been the case since then, even in the
19th century, even in the 20th century, one thing common about these thinkers was that they were
extremely disturbed characters in many ways. The lives are very disturbing. They lived very promiscuous lives. They were serial adulterous, a lot of them. Serial killers, you know the word serial killers, right? Some of them, you know, Bernard was not berners Lee.
Bertrand Russell, have you heard of him? Anyone? You don't know Bertrand Russell?
Yes. English philosopher who died in the 1970s. Right. And he is bird.
When Russell.
He was
the pioneer of atheism in the 20th century, a century in,
in the West, in the Western world, Bertrand Russell, okay. And you can see him on YouTube. Some of his interviews are very interesting. He had a debate in the 1940s against a man called Copeland, who was a Catholic priest. And there was a very, very interesting interaction. It's very complicated, very, very sophisticated, right? But if you know your stuff, if you have read philosophy a little bit, you will be able to get it inshallah to Allah. In my opinion, he did very bad. Bertrand Russell, in that debate, simply could not answer some very, very important questions about the existence of God necessarily being what we call
you know, verbal judo. And even in, in the Arabic philosophy, some of the Muslim philosophers refer to Allah subhanaw taala as watchable Would you say that he is the necessary being a Lost Planet, Allah is necessary, he is have to be there even for us to think, start thinking about him. So, Bertrand Russell, was the pioneer of atheism in the 20th century. And all of these characters, even
nature, very, very popular, you know, thinker from Germany, how he died was absolutely, you know, it's just, and Foucault, there is another French philosopher who has died in the 20th century. You know, about him his his life story, you know, he was again, sorry.
I don't know why, but he was a philosopher, philosopher. I don't know about his other expertise.
Even him, when you look at the lives how these people lived, Subhan Allah, right. I don't want to mention the words right. But upon a lot disturbing lives. They were mostly very depressed people.
Chain smokers, chain drinkers chain, it alters the life story.
A database? Yeah. Okay. Thank you for that. Thank you for adding the information. Right. So a lot of these philosophers, even Picasso, painter, let's say, patron, if you want to go into paint the castle, who will also not a believer, okay. Very famous. Right. You know, the castle of the patrons, right? Yeah. Not only mad, forget it. I mean, he was, again, if you look at his life, you'll be shocked. So this is one thing that because these people, they freed themselves from any limits. So the question of morality, how do we live our lives? Okay, God is out. Now. What? What do we do?
What is right? What is wrong? What is human rights? Who has the right to do this? Who has the right to do that? Take the question of homosexuality, right. homosexuality was 1950s 1940s it was a crime. It was not allowed. It was illegal. Okay. But individualism, liberalism, which is an offshoot of In my opinion, atheism, okay. When people say I'm liberal, some Muslims You know, when you go to places like Pakistan or Bangladesh or Egypt, they say I'm liberal, but they don't know what it means. They're owning you know these some of these so called liberals or intellectuals in the Muslim world because a lot of them they actually think they are philosophers but they have no idea they have no
idea about what the you know even the background they don't even know a name of these people. Yet is this fashion is this fashion quit to question religion and most of these people what's happening in the Muslim world that's the next point I mean, I've gone on for an hour on this very issue. I'll be finishing the history very soon inshallah Allah so that we can go on, right. So
these people, they're inspired, the western way of life, Western way of thinking, their teachings manifested themselves socially in the West. Okay. This is why in the
20th century, there was a sharp stock break from traditional way of life in the West, the Christian way of life, which was pretty much moral in the sense that Christian morality, what is adultery is not good. You don't use and toxic. I mean, alcohol, of course, is another issue altogether. But there were standard basic moral values in the West, right? pre 20th century in the 19th century, as late as the 19th century, people, even you, if you go look at the dress code, in the 40s, in the 30s, you will see people how they were dressed even as late as the Victorian period. Right, Queen Victoria died in 19. Oh, well, 1901. When you look at the the people how they're dressed, right, how
women are dressed, how they behave, the demeanor, right? was completely different, right. But in the 1950s, with the invention of television, right? A lot of these ideas were systematically pumped out through the media, right? So a lot of people started to drift away slowly from religion, even now, the masses have started to be unaffected, because most people didn't know how to read and write. In the past, right? People, those who did read and write, they only received a limited amount of literature. And when you receive a limited amount of literature, your knowledge is confined to that literature. You You can't think beyond it. Right? This is why a lot of the philosophers I believe
they knew the Islamic option. If they knew the Islamic option in an undistorted form, they would have been Muslims. I'll give you an example. Gibbon, for example, who became an atheist, having written his history, the decline in the fall of the Roman Empire, he praised Islam.
He praised Islam. To an extent that he did, he did a comparison Look how Muslims behaved and look how our Christian world behaved throughout the the Middle Ages in the early modern period, he praised Islam, but then he had taken his information, this is very important. You see, you need to know the background. His information on Islam and Muslims came from man called Simon ockley.
These are too many names, I apologize.
But this is very important information. Okay. Simon Oakley had written a history of the Muslims.
He called it the history of the Saracens Saracens
basically meant Muslims. Okay.
So, he also wrote the conquest of Syria, where he talked about the Islamic expansion, you know, the photo
production, basically, you know, he wrote the history of production, basically the conquest of Syria. But his main history was the history of Saracens and this he wrote the, the seed of the Prophet sallallahu sallam. He talked about a worker Omar of man and Holly and Gibbon in 1776, because oxleas work was published in 1708. Okay, 1776 Gibbon started writing. So what has he available? What is available for him to write? Where does he take his knowledge of Islam from from Muslims? He doesn't know Arabic, sorry, it doesn't matter. But someone who knew Arabic ockley had written something, okay, let's pick cochlea. He picked up ockley and he started to write and then
his quotes of the Quran came from sale jawed sale, sales translation, which was published in 1734 1730. For Sale, George self published the translation of the Quran in two volumes, right. And then he wrote before the Quran, a preliminary discourse, preliminary discourse to the Quran
and in this discord basically his writing is all a lie what you're about to read the translation of the Quran, it's all a lie, okay? It's all because Muhammad was an imposter. He was a false prophet, Allah, da, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And he wrote about two 300 pages on Prophet Muhammad Yunus. And I'm criticizing him condemning him all of that. So before you even read the translation of the Quran, you read the pre phase or the introduction, you already brainwashed, you completely lost, right? So what you will read is you're reading it as a lie, you're not reading it independently, impartially, you're already partial. So he took his information from sale on the Quran and history
to confirm it obviously. But even then, even then, he found positiveness positivity in the history of Muslim civilization. And later history. Of course, he took from different sources, other sources
of the Muslim civilization and Ottomans and all of that he wrote about the Ottomans as well.
But likewise, Adam Smith,
Adam Smith,
the man who is on the Euro, 20 pound No,
no. Okay.
20 pounds,
Not yours.
Thank you Well keep it.
This is Adam Smith. This is the current 20 pound note. Right. And he was born in 1723 and died in 1790. He is the author of
modern economic principles. He is the author of capitalism. Okay. And he wrote two major works. One of them is the Wealth of Nations, which is still thought who studied economics and university here. Did you study Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations? Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote this work in the 19th century, 17th 18th century, and his work is still studied in universities. This is all good work. You know what he said about Islam and Muslims?
In the 18th century, you'd be shocked. You'd be shocked to hear how he praised Islamic civilization. And he stated one of his in one of his
articles on the history of astronomy, the history of astronomy, he wrote that the Muslim Empire, the Muslim rulers were thought tolerant and generous, that they allowed the other the scientific community and philosophers to think freely. And that gave us the Renaissance. This is what Adam Smith is writing in the 18th century. Right? So these thinkers, a lot of these thinkers had a picture of Islam, but it was pretty much very distorted, unfortunately, by previous authors, previous writers, so they could not see Islam as an option. So the only way out for them was atheism. And then it escalated in the 19th century. In the 19th century, thankfully, some scholars
actually came forward and studied Islam, objectively, thoroughly, okay, independently of previous authors, because they had realized that previous authors have distorted the picture of Islam. So they started to write works like there was a guy called Thomas Carlyle, there was George Bernard Shaw. And there was a guy called john Devonport, who wrote a book titled an apology for Mohammed an apology for Mohammed salatu salam, but putting the record straight that how the Europeans have have distorted the history of Prophet Muhammad for so many centuries. So, he started to put the record straight, right. So, then by the 20th century, Alhamdulillah, things changed, but in Europe, in the
West, atheism had already taken deep roots, okay. And these atheistic thinkers and philosophers lead the way of the future. The education system was very atheistic, it happened in the 19th century with the rise of Darwinism, science, religious views had to be put aside. So, science was no longer religiously driven as it was in the Muslim case, in the Muslim case, Muslim science, you know, for example, I saw a very interesting
translation of algebra one more Karbala, algebra one mcnabola Omar I am sorry, alcohol,
alcohol is me, who had written this book on algebra, okay. And why did you write it? So, so, it is easier for us to calculate inheritance, you know, we refer to Islam is one of the most difficult topics, rather, is one of the most difficult topics in fake. So, he came up with algebra one mokaba algebra as a science to calculate accurately the Virata of people who inherit, so it the prefacing in the introduction, all Kumar is me, by the way algorithm, which is absolutely necessary for computers, it is alcoholism is named after alcohol is me, algorithm, okay, so it's named after him. So, in the previous, he starts the book with in the hamdulillah motto, and
he science is religiously driven, not that it depends on religion. What he discovered, is independent of religion. He is simply studying the nature as he has been commanded in the Quran to do so. Right. But it is not.
How can I say,
you know, some of the scientists in the West how science is done is that there is a presumption, there is a presumption Before you begin, you have the conclusion, the conclusion is that whatever happens there is no God. God is out of the question, whatever happens, so science is godless. In, in the western sense, how, let me explain how, because this is how philosophy of science has been written in the West. So the philosophy of science
because every single thing has scope, every single subject when you study law, it has a philosophy of law behind it.
When you study these, these has a philosophy behind it. When you study for example, sociology, it has a philosophy behind it. Likewise, when you study science, it has a scope and limits behind it philosophy of science what we call so philosophers have determined the limits of science, how far can science go? What can science do? What is the purpose of science? Why are we even studying it? Right? These are some of the philosophical questions, philosophers of science, not scientists, philosophers of science have determined beforehand. So Islamic philosophy of science is simply controvert Muslim scientists, whatever they were doing, they were doing it to serve Allah subhanaw
taala they saw it as a form of worship, but here after the 18th century, and then increasingly in the 19th century, since the rise of Darwinism and other ideas that came to prominence, science had become completely godless, it is a naturalistic question, the science became
empiricist Hume
Humes theories were upheld science became completely empirical or empiricist science is only concerned with what can be seen, science is only concerned with the physical, not with the metaphysical science has nothing to do with God. You understand, science has nothing to do with God. So science in the Western world as it is taught in the western institutions, and now even in the Muslim world, this is another question now, when we talk about the causes of the rise of atheism in the Muslim the trends of atheism, atheistic trend in the Muslim youth, we will discuss it in due course for what time is after
three o'clock
24 three is that
a comma? So three o'clock is the other
okay. So, I will inshallah, shall I continue for another 15 minutes and then take the break or break in next five minutes.
This is the first portion and inshallah
Yes, inshallah. inshallah. Okay, so,
science, basically, after what Hume had written, and he was a great inspiration for what science became, or the philosophy of science became in the 19th century and onwards and even in the 20th century. And then Bertrand Russell came afterwards. And he also, by the way, Russell was also a master of logic and mathematics, mathematics. So,
science had become empiricist. So the question of God is not even a question of science. So when people come to you, talking about God, and try to use science, tell them, God is not a question of science. And they'll be shocked to hear that they'll be shocked to hear that science can lead to certain conclusions, no doubt, but science has a limit science can neither prove nor disprove God. Science is not concerned with that, because science is only concerned with the physical world science explains what it sees, okay? And it presents theories that this may be the case, that may be the case. So when scientists for that reason, because they because they're empiricists purely
embraces, they, when they look at humans, when they look because they don't have God in their mind, they don't have religion in their mind. So here in the Western world, when they look at humans, they want to see how the humans might have come about God is out of the question, right? So they have to they have to come up with a theory, okay, the cards that you created, creationism is not science, I agree with them, you know, when
some scientists claim that nowadays, as science stands today, according to their own philosophy, creationism is not science, they are quite consistent with the philosophy of science. So, there was a case recently in even in the US, when some creationists or some people of religion Christians, predominantly they came to court to argue that design intelligent design should be taught as an option to Darwinian evolution, okay, Darwinian evolution
claims
that
the production of humans or human species or for example, the origin of species is driven by four factors mainly, okay, what are these four factors
sorry,
What are these four factors?
Natural Selection?
Yeah.
Okay. Then common descent?
Common descent
random mutation.
Sorry,
what is the fourth?
survival of the fittest?
Okay, this is Darwinian theory correct? Put in a, in a very simple form. Okay. So
God has nothing to do with them, as far as Darwin is concerned, because the philosophy of science he's following, right? does not allow God to be there, right. So all of these processes are blind. They are random and random mutation. random mutation means it is not controlled. It is not planned, it is random. It is random mutation, right? So for that reason, although
a lot of these points are problematic, even some rich recent scientists who are evolutionist have come to question these terms. Now, the thing these these are highly problematic points, and they are being questioned increasingly, even by the scientists today, right? But because of the philosophy they followed, they put simply would not bring God into the picture. So naturally, strictly, they have to explain the origin of species without God's contribution, so naturalistically, what is the natural
way of looking at it? So that's why Darwin when he looked at similarities between species, you know, we have donkeys, we have horses, we have zebras, same family, right? We have Fox dog wolves. Right, then we have cat, Cheetah, Lion. You know, this is a crude way of putting it. I mean, I'm not saying that this is our Darwin's book, but it's a crude way, a simple way of putting, as I understand it, right. Okay. So all of these, so all of these are families, and they appear to have come from common ancestors. Likewise, humans, when you look at humans, you look at gorillas and chimps and, and other forms of monkeys and apes. So his theory was that there is a common ancestor common descent, one of
the points is common, and so there is up there on the chain, there, there is a common ancestor. And these branches, humans are one branch, others are apes, and some of the, you know, two different branches came from the common ancestor. So this is a naturalistic, godless way of looking at human species, okay, for human origins, or looking at species. So that's why he came up with this theory. Right? And that's why a lot of scientists today, or a lot of extremists, I must say, no serious scientist, is remarkably, no serious scientist, even if he or she is an atheist. We'll use this theory against the people of religion. Why? Because, first of all, it is highly contentious for a
number of reasons, even if we were to speak scientifically, right. And there is a very interesting discussion online on this very topic is evolution effect.
There is a debate online, titled is evolution effect and push the Buddha
subu Ahmed, is a brother from IRA who debated one of the American Atheists.
I call him extremist. He's just, you know, an extremist, because they use these terms against us, we can use these terms against them. You know, they call us extremist Muslim.
Muslim radicals, Muslim extremists, because we preach Islam, we call people Islam, we have become radicals. So we tell them these are also radicals. They are also extremely straight people like Dawkins, I believe Dawkins is an extremist. Sam Harris, people like him are extremely you know what Sam Harris said one of in one of his books, he said, we should we should preemptively nuke the Muslims.
We should preemptively nuke the Muslims. And he was questioned about this, on this very topic, and he kind of denied it that I didn't mean that I did, but he wrote it. He wrote it, right. So these are actually these people are extremists. And if a Muslim wrote that, what is a Muslim would be
Yeah, Guantanamo, one of the secret dungeon somewhere here being tortured or something. Right? If a Muslim wrote that, if I wrote that in one of my books, that we should preemptively nuke x y, Zed, Allahu Akbar. Yeah, gone within five minutes. And these guys are they're going around lecturing the world.
They are delivering lectures on philosophy on sociology on people to the
issues to do with morality. So it is a big problem. Okay. So
Darwinian evolution is a very interesting discussion. I cannot go into the details here. You should watch this debate between support Ahmed and Aaron raw. Okay? There's a guy called Aaron raw, his name is satanic as well. Yeah. Okay.
And they had a very interesting discussion and in this discussion, you will see how
simple things are not
how simple things are not how simple the philosophy of science is not, as people throw evolution that you can take it. Yeah. And now look, God doesn't exist. It doesn't work like that. Go and watch the debate and you see exactly what I'm talking about. When you study the philosophy of science, and shall we come back? When we study the philosophy of science, it becomes clearer that things are not as simple as some of these extremists like Dawkins, and Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, who's died now. Well, I'll deal with him as he wants and others, okay. And this is why even some of the atheistic thinkers, atheistic
scientists were atheists. By the way, majority of the scientists on the world are still
people of some religion in the Christians or Muslims. Okay, majority are still people of religions there are theistic although atheists claim that most scientists on the planet are atheist. That's not true. That's simply not true. Okay. Most scientists on the planet with PhD doctorate professors teaching in different universities are still people of religion, Christians or Muslims. Okay. So, for this reason, I think I will stop here. I wanted to discuss the issue of morality. Maybe we can do that after the break after also inshallah, so we have a break like for 20 minutes. After salata, acid, please come back straightaway. A lot more interesting stuff has come