Ali Ataie – Does God Exist A Muslims Response to Atheism
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AI: Transcript ©
So the,
objective tonight
is to answer the question,
does God exist?
The answer is yes.
Thank you. Good night.
Just kidding.
Okay. Here we go. So, there's 2 approaches
to the God question.
The first approach is called presuppositionalism.
Presuppositionalism.
So, this deals with revealed theology, which happens
to be my specialty, by the way, comparative
theology.
This is where we presuppose
the existence of God. So, God exists,
but we seek to know Him more personally.
We seek to have marifa,
more gnosis or episteme,
whichever word you like, of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala. And this is done through Revelation.
So like a Muslim and Christian debate. Right?
What's a Muslim and Christian going to debate
about? They're not gonna debate about does God
exist? They both presuppose the existence of God.
God does exist.
Right?
And most would say they worship the same
God. So the answer to the the topic
of that type of debate is how does
the how does this God reveal Himself? Does
He reveal Himself
through Jesus Christ, Isa Alaihi Salam, through the
bible, through the New Testament? Or does God
reveal himself through the Quran and the prophecy
given to our master, Muhammad sallallahu alaihi sallam?
Is Jesus God? This is another topic
that
will be discussed at that type of debate.
So, that's one approach to God, the presuppositionalist
approach. Another approach to God is the evidentialist
approach, the evidentialist
approach, evidentialism.
So here, we're looking for evidence
for the existence of God and we're going
to use logic, we're going to use reason,
philosophy,
and science. We're going to employ deductive or
syllogistic arguments
that are not strictly theological, but may have
strong theological
implications. So here the Muslim and the Christian
will actually join forces,
right, in order to find evidence or provide
evidence for the atheist
that God exists. So tonight, I'm gonna be
looking primarily at the latter approach, the evidentialist
approach. So, we're gonna put the polemics on
hold a little bit and give our Christian
friends a little rest InshaAllah ta'ala tonight.
Okay?
So, let's look at examples of of syllogisms.
This is a form of argument that is
attributed to Aristotle.
Aristotle said there are 3 things that affect
the strength of an argument. He called them
logos, ethos,
and pathos in Greek.
Lagos means
logic.
Right? Knowledge. The knowledge of an argument.
And then he said Ethos, the strength of
the character of the one making the argument.
Right? So someone like in in Hadith, we
have Almorija.
Looking at the acumen of people in the
sun and of a Hadith is very important
for them to have real religiosity.
Right? And then he said pathos pathos means
that,
you know how you read something, reader response?
This is listener response. Is that person making
that argument? Does he affect the audience? Does
he affect them? Is it transformative?
Right? Oftentimes, what we find with atheists
is
they don't have knowledge of the topic,
they don't have good character, because a lot
of the things that they say is ad
hominem attacks.
But they have a lot of pathos. They
have a lot of charisma. They're good speakers.
I'm thinking about someone like Christopher Hitchens.
We'll get back to him, Insha'Allah.
So I'll give you an example of a
syllogistic argument.
Very simple. Premise number 1,
all men are mortal.
All men are mortal.
Okay? Everyone following?
Premise number 2, George Washington was a man.
Therefore, our conclusion, which is inescapable
and it follows logically
is that George Washington was a mortal.
Right? So our 2 premises, all men are
mortal, George Washington was a man, is solid,
is self evident. You can call it axiomatic.
Any sincere or sane person will concede these
premises.
Right? Unless somebody says, well, George Washington was
a jinn.
Well, jinn is so mortal. He was a
vampire. He can't die. Right?
A sane or sincere person will say this
is a logical argument. No problems. Let's look
at a different type of argument. Premise number
1,
the universe is ordered.
Premise number 2,
this is either by chance or by design.
Premise number 3, this is not by chance.
Therefore,
our conclusion,
our inescapable
conclusion is that this is by design. This
is a logical
argument. However, you might say, my first premise,
the universe is ordered,
is not self evident. I haven't proven that.
So So, this is an example of what's
known as a question begging argument. Right? I
haven't established my premises.
Right? I have to do that first.
Also, you can have an argument that flows
logically,
but whose premises are axiomatically
false. They're irrational.
For example, premise number 1, all donkeys can
speak English.
Premise number 2, Gary is my pet donkey.
Therefore, my conclusion is Gary can speak English.
A logical argument.
But the argument is axiomatically
untrue. Now, if you look at the arguments
of
the 4 horsemen of the New Atheist Movement,
who are the 4 horsemen? Christopher Hitchens,
Richard Dawkins,
Sam Harris,
and Daniel Dennett. Right? Best selling books, God
is Not Great, The God Delusion, and End
of Faith.
Their arguments against God, they primarily
revolve around issues of social impact
of religion.
So religious people are bad
so God does not exist. So look at
Hitler, he was a Catholic.
Look at these * priests.
Look at suicide bombers.
Look at ISIS.
Right?
God doesn't exist. So if we put their
argument into a syllogism, it would sound something
like this. Premise number 1, theists say God
is good.
Premise number 2, God created man.
Premise number 3, man does evil,
man does non good. Therefore, God does not
exist. This argument is illogical.
Illogical.
This is an example of what's known as
a non sequitur argument.
It does not
follow. So you have people like Bill Maher
and Sam Harris. Right? They go on TV,
they're talking about ISIS,
right? And they say, well, you know, ISIS,
by the way, a few thousand people out
of a religion of 1,500,000,000,
Right? And you say you have ISIS and
they're violent. Thus, Islam is violent. I can
use the same type of argument and say,
look. 5 of the last 12,
Nobel Peace Laureates.
5 of the last 12 Nobel Peace Laureates
were Muslim.
Right? Therefore, all Muslims are peaceful. Would he
accept this argument? Would they accept this argument?
Certainly, they wouldn't. I can make another argument,
a little more brazen. Say, look, Sam Harris,
his mother is Jewish. That makes him ethnically
Jewish. An atheist, but ethnically Jewish. Bill Maher,
his mother is Jewish. That makes him ethnically
Jewish. Therefore all ethnic Jews are bigoted
and full of hate. Would they accept this
argument? Well, of course they wouldn't accept this
argument.
You see these 4 horsemen,
as I call them, they think if you
turn all of the mosques, the synagogues, and
churches
into Starbucks,
Chuck E. Cheese, and Hooters,
We can just sort of all hold hands
and sing imagine
by John Lennon. Right? And no religion
too.
Right?
Interesting. John Lennon, a satanist. Have you seen
the,
the cover of the Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Club Band? All these people look in the
upper left. Aleister Crowley,
the founder of the Church of Satan. Look
it up. Don't take my word for it.
Anyway, the classical atheists,
the original gangsters
of atheism,
Freud, Russell and Nietzsche.
Nietzsche who said God is dead.
Freud who said God is dad.
Right?
They at least were smart enough to know
that if you take religion out of the
equation,
the world would fall into this nihilistic quagmire.
You would have utter social and moral depravity.
They understood that it was primarily religion that
moralized people, and that the purpose of religion
was to make one better, more compassionate human
being. As Voltaire said, if God did not
exist, we would have to invent him. As
Dostoevsky
said, if there is no God, then everything
is permitted. In other words, if you don't
have any moral authority, then what's your moral
anchor?
Survival of the fittest?
Do what thou wilt?
Do you know what the moral anchor is?
In the Abrahamic tradition, Rabbi Akiva, a 2nd
century rabbinical sage was asked, what is the
Torah? He recited 3 verses, Deuteronomy 64,
Deuteronomy 65,
Leviticus
1918.
God is 1. Love God. Love your neighbor.
Love of God and love of humanity.
The prophet, alisa alaihis salam, was asked Mark
1229,
what is the greatest commandment? He repeated these
three commandments. Love God, God is 1,
God is ahad.
God is 1. Love the lord thy god
and love your neighbor.
This is the moral anchor. The prophet
The first hadith that children are usually taught
in a traditional madrasa
madrasa,
right,
is mercy. How many times you mentioned mercy?
The show the the
the most merciful shows mercy to those who
show mercy. Show mercy to those on earth,
and the one in heaven will show you
mercy. SubhanAllah. Our khateb today, may Allah bless
him. He quoted a beautiful hadith that I
thought I'd quote for you from the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
This was in Berkeley when he quoted this.
The hadith is here insha Allah ta'ala. May
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala reward him. None of
you will enter paradise until you truly believe.
None of you will truly believe until you
love one another. Shall I tell you of
something that will increase your love?
Spread peace amongst yourselves.
Fakhruddin Arazi,
the great exegete from our tradition.
He said, Al Islam. What is Islam?
Is to worship the creator and show mercy
towards his creation. Now without this essential understanding
of religion,
without
religion, morality becomes relative.
Human beings become little more than cattle.
Chunks of flesh and blood,
soulless,
easily slaughtered,
dispensable,
atheists, or material
reductionists.
Thus speaking of social impact,
no one has more blood on their hands
than atheists. Let's talk about the big four
as I call them. Chairman
Mao, Joseph Stalin,
Pol Pot,
Mussolini,
over 100,000,000
lives.
100,000,000.
Hitler was a Catholic. No doubt about it.
He killed 6,000,000 Jews. I've done the math.
Those men are 17 Hitlers,
17 times over. Why? No god, no day
of judgment,
no incorruptible
soul,
survival of the fittest.
That's natural selection.
In Sharia, we have rules of engagement in
Islamic sacred law. Women and children are not
targeted. This is considered to be tawatur. It
is simply wrong. Even Abdullah ibn Qamiyah, the
man who killed Musa'ab ibn Umer at Ghazwat
Uhud, He thought he was the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
When he realized this is not the prophet
and he saw the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, he charged towards the prophet with his
horse. A woman stood in front of him,
nusayba bintuqab
and he stopped dead in his tracks. A
pagan Arab has the decency not to strike
a woman on the battlefield.
But you find these secular societies in the
world, so called first world, that are dropping
2,000 pound
bombs on innocent men, women, and children. SubhanAllah.
So if your rules of engagement
are determined by what you feel benefits you
and your people
at
a particular time,
that's realpolitik.
Right? That's American foreign policy.
Atheism and secular democracy,
they lack principled morality.
It gives birth to false flag operations.
Like Nero, you know the Emperor Nero? He
set fire to his own city Rome, and
then he sat back playing on his fiddle
as a as a city was burning, and
he blamed the Christians, and then he would
dip Christians in the hot wax,
put them on stakes, and use them as
street lamps.
This is Nero. Right? USS Maine, give you
a more contemporary example,
scientifically proven that this explosion came from inside
the USS Maine itself. Scientifically proven. A total
study was done on this in 2002.
Remember the Maine to * with Spain. This
is what got us into the Spanish American
war, and this is how America took control
of the Philippines,
the false flag operation.
The Gulf of Tonkin
never happened. Lyndon Johnson goes on TV, and
he says, our boys are floating in the
water, end quote.
No. They weren't.
Total lie. That's what got us into Vietnam.
60,000 Americans killed, over 3,000,000
Vietnamese.
Lack of principled morality,
right, leads to little boy and fat man.
You know who little boy and fat man
are?
These are the names that Truman gave the
atomic bombs that killed 300,000
people on impact.
300,000
people.
That's 3 football stadiums. That's 4 football stadiums.
You know how many people died in all
of the gazawat of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam in 23 years? They've done the
math. Abu al Hassan al Nadawi. He's done
the math. How many people? Muslim and non
Muslim and all the military expeditions of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. 1018.
1018. About 700 mushrikeen,
300 Muslims. You have 300,000 people on impact.
Hey, that's good for us. Totally unnecessary. The
Japanese economy was in shambles. There was an
oil embargo placed on them by FDR years
before. There's no way they're going to win
the war, but we have human guinea pigs,
realpolitik,
lack of principled morality.
Okay. Invasions of false countries. Invasions of countries
under false pretenses.
The theft of natural resources. In 2006, I
read an article,
Washington Post, it said
650,000
civilians in Iraq have been killed in October
of 2006.
Because this country was invaded under false pretenses.
650,000.
That number is well well into the millions.
That's called the genocide. You know, interesting in
the Quran does not accept atheism.
It doesn't accept it. Everyone worship something.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, have you seen
the one?
Have you seen the one who takes his
his hawa, his caprice as his god?
People worship themselves. They're called believers.
You know the believer is. Right?
How many believers do I have out here?
Hopefully no one here is a believer. A
follower of Justin Bieber, that's what he calls
them. God complex.
One of my teachers said, everyone has in
their heart the seeds
laying dormant
ready to be watered
if need be, ready to be watered. The
claim of the firaoun, ana rabbukumu a'ala. I
am your lord, the most high, laying dormant
in the heart of every person.
People worship money, Ben Franklin.
People worship their aql. There's a good book
recommendation. Here comes the first book recommendation. It's
called God and the New Atheism
by John Haught, h a u g h
t, h a u g h t. He's
a Jesuit.
He's a Christian. He's a Catholic. Makes a
good point. He's an atheist belief everything can
be explained with one answer. He calls it
explanatory
monism.
Right? All you need is the intellect. The
intellect can answer everything.
Just use your intellect. You can figure everything
out. Very simplistic way. This is their method.
Says, look, what if your mother is, boiling
water one day and you walk into the
kitchen. Say, what are you doing? She says,
I'm boiling water.
So that's great.
But what are you doing?
I'm,
separating molecules.
Beautiful.
But what are you doing?
I'm making tea. Why?
For you. Why? Because I love you.
Right? This is what you can't get from
science. This is what you can't get from
atheism.
Why? Why the universe?
It's interesting,
William Chittick uses this in his book. He
says, look. Scientists put them in front of
the Mona Lisa. Tell them,
tell me about this painting. So scientists will,
you know, do radiocarbon 14 dating on the
canvas. He'll say that this paint is from
Florence from 15 85, whatever he's going to
do. All this information, a lot of information.
Great. But then put a child in front
of that painting, and the child is thinking,
what is the artist? What is what is
the smile mean? What is the artist trying
to tell me?
Who has more insight into the mind of
the painter, the scientist or the child? The
child, because the child is asking the more
profound question of why
doctor Lawrence Krauss,
atheist,
cosmologist, Arizona State University, says we can date
the universe to 4 decimal places, 13.7256
1000000000 years. That's great. But why?
Why the universe?
This is something you get from revelation.
This is something you get from scripture.
Read Chris Hedges.
3 more book recommendations. American Fascism,
great book. Number 2, I don't believe in
atheists.
Number 3, when atheism becomes religion
Here's a preview from Amazon. Hedges claims that
those who have placed blind faith in the
morally neutral disciplines,
morally neutral disciplines
of reason and science create idols in their
own image, a sin for either side of
the spectrum. He makes a case against religious
and secular fundamentalism,
which seeks to divide the world into those
worthy of moral and intellectual
eradicated.
He,
characterizes the new atheist as those who attack
religion to advance the worst of global capitalism,
intolerance,
and imperial
projects.
Okay. And this leads me to my first
argument
to the existence of God. This is called
the moral argument for the existence of God.
Here's the thesis. In the absence of God,
there would be no objective
moral values, no higher moral authority.
There would be sociocultural
relativism.
Right and wrong
would be determined by a dominant group. There
would be it would be totally subjective,
and that is violent.
If my society feels that our morals and
values perpetuate
our group, why should we consider
your morals and values? Let me quote to
you Richard Dawkins. Quote, there is no good
nor evil.
There is no good nor evil. We are
machines to propagate DNA.
On atheism, you cannot be immoral.
You cannot be immoral.
There is no real with a capital r,
right or wrong, just a societal construct.
Science can't prove morality.
You can't prove to me that murder is
wrong through the scientific method. You can't prove
morality. The religion of scientism, if you wanna
call it that, where the intellect is worshiped
cannot prove certain things. Here's Hakalache. Thank you
very much.
Like morality.
Science can't prove metaphysical events. Can science prove
that Washington crossed the Delaware? No. Not through
the scientific method.
Why? Because you can't reproduce that event. It's
in the past. Science can't prove love, emotions.
Science can't prove math.
It presupposes math. If you say science proves
math, then you argue in a circle.
Science doesn't know what consciousness is. What is
consciousness?
Chemicals mixing in your brain. But what is
memory? What is thought? What is what is
imagination?
There are no answer for these things. These
are metaphysical. Science can't prove everything, so we
have to move past explanatory monism.
Science cannot give us morality.
It is fundamentally
non moral. I'm not saying atheists are immoral.
Don't get the wrong idea. There are many
atheists that are very, very moral, but there's
nothing in science that compels anyone
to be moral. Let me say it again.
There is nothing in science
that compels anyone
to be moral.
You can't extract charity, and justice, and selflessness,
and compassion from a double helix,
from a chromosome, from a test tube.
Those things are extracted
from scripture. On atheism,
we're all just animals.
A slightly more evolved primate,
second cousin to the chimp.
Animals don't have moral duties, so why should
we?
Most atheists would actually concede that we have
moral duties. If you're sitting on a beach
and there's a kid drowning, it's your moral
obligation
to try to save that kid. But why?
Why put yourself in harm's way? Did we
evolve to put ourselves in harm's
way? Where does this altruism come from? Show
me the gene.
Speaking of evolution,
to go from a primeval ape to a
human being
takes trillions
of transitional forms,
trillions of mutations
and transitional forms to go from a dinosaur
to a bird, a whale to a cow.
Right? Trillions.
It's interesting. Darwin in the origin of species
in 18/63 says we're going to find them
eventually. We're gonna dig up the earth. We're
gonna find all these trillions of transitional forms
from ape to human being. What have we
found? What does the fossil record show? Trillions?
No. Billions? No. 1,000,000?
Yeah? No. 1,000? No. 100?
Come on. 100? No.
A dozen?
No.
6 or 7? Maybe.
And they're probably
extinct apes that they say, oh, these are
the missing these are the trillions of transitional
forms.
Okay. Interesting.
And here's something more interesting called Darwin's doubt.
Darwin actually said, if I believe that my
brain actually came from monkeys, why should I
even trust my brain in the 1st place?
Why should I trust my intellect?
How do I know that in a 1000
years, my ancestors aren't gonna look
back at me and say, look how stupid
those homosapiens were in 2014. Look what they
thought. Just like we look at apes today
in the zoo who are taking fleas out
of their heads and flinging their feces at
the window, that's how they're gonna be looking
at us.
Right? Why should I even trust my intellect
if it came from a monkey?
And they say, well, 98% of our DNA
is the same as a chimpanzee.
We have 98%
identical DNA. Well, there's a 2% difference. And
in that 2%, there's something called intellectus. There's
something called intellect. This is our differentia
according to Aristotle. This is what makes us
different. This is the meaning of according
to Imam Abuhamad Al Ghazali that God created
man in his own image, meaning with intellect.
This is what makes us different. Not our
necessary not necessarily our physical bodies.
An eagle can spot a fish underwater. I
can't do that. Put me in a room
with a gorilla, I'm done.
But I wanna see a chimpanzee play a
violin,
build a skyscraper,
do some trigonometry,
but it's not all about the intellect.
It's about being a moral person, an ethical
person.
I was only sent to perfect your character.
Verily, verily, you dominate
magnificent
character. This is a true human being. This
is a civilized human being.
Good and evil has no referent
if God doesn't exist
unless we redefine good and say that it's
something that makes your life more pleasurable.
That's what good is. And, of course, this
is dangerous. Your pleasure might be somebody's torture.
Right? What if you take pleasure from killing
children and bearing them in your backyard?
On atheism,
that's not immoral
because atheism,
science, does not deal with morality.
That's not immoral. That's not wrong. That's just
not socially acceptable, like breaking wind in public.
But what if it was socially acceptable? Not
breaking wind in public. Killing children and bearing
them. What if it was socially acceptable? On
what grounds
does Richard Dawkins
condemn child exploitation
or * if that society finds it acceptable
and conducive to to their perpetuation?
On what
grounds can you say this is morally wrong?
It's revelation
that gives us the 10 commandments,
the Noahidek laws, moral imperatives,
Al Ma'aruf. Al Ma'aruf means things that are
known. Whether you believe they come from revelation
directly or whether they're infused, to use Aquinas'
term, upon our very souls. We just know
them. They're on our souls, something the atheist
denies the existence of. We have objective moral
values.
Don't murder. Don't steal. Don't commit adultery. Respect
your parents.
Don't oppress.
Speak the truth.
Let's go back to ancient Athens where pederasty
was commonplace.
If you don't know what it is, look
it up. Socrates
walked into the gymnasium. You know what gymnasium
means in Greek? A place of naked boys.
And he bragged. I walked in, they were
wrestling, they were oiled up. I wasn't even
aroused,
is what he says. This is ethos for
the ancient
Athenians.
Right? This is their ethics. This is their
culture.
Simply what the majority was doing. But in
Sparta,
another Greek city state, if you do that,
they're going to kill you. That's a capital
offense.
If a Jew walked into Athens at that
time, a Jew, he could condemn it because
he has moral,
principled
objective morality, because he has a scripture. But
an atheist could say, well, that's their culture.
They * children.
That's their culture. Or he can say, no.
This is wrong. And then we press the
atheist. How is it wrong? It's just wrong.
Why?
Who told you that? It's just wrong. Why?
Show me the gene. Show me the test
tube.
Where does he get his morality from? Not
from a test tube. You say, you know,
we have the problem of evil.
Theists, believers in God, they have the problem
of evil, theodicy. Atheists have the problem of
good.
This is what William Dembski calls it, the
problem of
good. Because Dawkins says,
every single human interaction is because they want
to prolong their species
or they want reciprocal advantage.
I scratch your back, you're gonna scratch mine
because at the end of the day, we're
all apes. Direct quote from Richard Dawkins,
Planet of the
apes. Right?
So give you a simple example. Why would
I offer my seat to an old woman
on
the train?
Do I wanna prolong my species?
Do I want her to tip me or
something? Give me a give me a dollar.
Do I want something from her? Take advantage
of her? No. Why would I give blood
to people
and no one's around to see it? Just
anonymous. I I donate blood. Why would I
do that? Is this how I evolve? Am
I trying
to perpetuate my species?
Am I trying to,
get some sort of mutual advantage from somebody?
That's why mother Teresa is an atheistic moral
enigma
for the atheist, hugging lepers.
Right? A model of sacrifice, charity, and altruism.
And that's why they went after her. That's
why Hitchens has this book that he says,
she was all about money. He calls it
with apologies, the *. That's the name
of his book about mother Teresa. She was
all about money because she's an enigma, someone
who's selfless.
That goes against what we've been teaching. Why
would someone evolve to be like that?
Very strange.
So that's the moral argument. Let that one
marinate for a little bit. Let's move to
another argument. It's called the cosmological
argument.
This is an argument that's espoused by Abuhamad
Al Ghazali in Tahafat al Falasifa.
It's advocated by William Lane Craig, a modern
proponent. He wrote a book called the Kalam
Cosmological Argument. It's another book I recommend for
you. Kalam Cosmological
argument. So here's the argument. Premise number 1,
whatever begins to exist has a cause.
Premise number 2, the universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause. Now this
is not strictly theological, but has theological implications.
I'll say it again. Premise number 1, whatever
begins to exist as a cause. Premise number
2, the universe began to exist.
Premise number 3, the universe has a cause.
Right? What can cause a universe?
Now there's a rule in classical metaphysics,
ex nihilo nihil fit, which means from nothing
comes nothing.
From nothing
comes nothing. Right? Now most atheists, whether they're
cosmologists or physicists
or biologists,
like Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss,
Stephen Hawking,
Quentin Smith, Daniel Dennett, Roger Penrose,
they say that the universe, the cosmos,
came from nothing. This is true. We believe
in creation
from nothing. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala created from
nothing. God caused it, but they say it's
uncaused
that the universe
is uncaused from nothing, unprovoked.
It popped into existence
from literary nowhere.
From nowhere,
uncaused.
Quentin Smith, University of Western Michigan,
he says, he's an atheist.
The universe came from nothing,
by nothing,
for nothing.
Let's say it again. The universe came from
nothing,
by nothing,
for nothing.
That's a metaphysical claim.
That's a metaphysical claim. That's not a naturalist
claim. That's a metaphysical claim. Daniel Dennett, he
said, it's like the universe picked itself up
by its bootstraps.
Can you pick yourself up by your bootstraps?
If you did that, I would say this
it's.
This is a miracle. This is a break
of natural law. It's a miracle. It's a
metaphysical claim.
Right?
Very interesting. How can something come from nothing
uncaused?
Is that science?
Theist Frank Turek, he said I he wrote
a book called I don't have enough faith
to be an Atheist.
Believing that something can come from nothing is
worse than magic,
except pull a rabbit out of my hat.
Right? That's going from something to something.
But to take a universe
out of nothing
is a big
supernatural metaphysical
claim. Stephen Hawking says, the universe can spontaneously
create itself
out of nothing.
That's not naturalism.
That's a supra rational statement. That's a religious
statement.
What is nothing?
Nothing is what stones dream about.
This is Aristotle.
What do stones dream about?
Nothing.
That's nothing. Not simply empty space. You know,
I do this trick with my kids. I
say, is there anything in my hands?
They say, no, and then I go, oh,
there's something there. Right?
But even if I go like this,
there's nothing there. But is there really nothing
there? You know that show, let's make a
deal? Would you like door number 1 or
door number 2? Door number 1, they open
it. Oh, it's nothing.
Is that what I'm talking about when I
say nothing?
No. Nothing is the absolute absence of being.
Right?
So
Stephen Hawking says this. This is what he
used to say. He says at the subatomic
level,
the subatomic level,
in the quantum vacuum
Right? Quantum physics. Nobody really understands quantum physics.
In the quantum vacuum,
you have a proton
that comes in and out of existence,
and he says this is something from nothing.
A proton coming in and out of existence.
The light quantum, the photon.
Right? The problem with this is that the
quantum vacuum is certainly not nothing.
It is a sea of fluctuating
energy. It's highly volatile.
It's very unstable.
Now the latest from Hawking is this.
He says if you extrapolate the universe backwards,
right, because the universe is expanding
isotropically.
It's expanding evenly
isotropically.
We know this from,
recent discoveries, 1929,
the redshift of of galaxies called Hubble's law.
Right? That universes are running away from each
other. If they were coming closer, it would
be blue, but it's red on the spectrum,
right, according to the Doppler effect.
Microwave background radiation was discovered in 1965
by Penzias and Wilson, the afterglow of the
big bang. So this is called the Hartle
Hawking standard model. Sometimes it's called the Freedman
Lemontre
standard model, big bang cosmology.
Right? So Stephen Hawking is saying, if you
extrapolate the universe backwards,
backwards,
you come to a point of singularity.
Okay? No problem. Point of singularity. But then
he says, what is this point of singularity?
It is an infinitesimally
small black hole.
A small infinitesimally
small
black hole. You see, this is how he
sidesteps infinite regression.
Because in a black hole, there's no time.
There's no time. You know, infinite regression. What
came first? The chicken or the egg? The
egg. Would a chicken lay the egg? The
chicken. The chicken came out of an egg.
An egg, but the chicken laid an egg.
I don't know.
Right? How do you get out of infinite
regression?
No time in this black hole. The problem
with this is that a black hole is
the resulting state
of a solar explosion.
It's not an initial condition.
It is matter,
and matter requires motion,
and motion requires
time.
So we might ask, what is before the
black hole? The black hole is certainly not
nothing. It is something. Where did the singularity
come from?
Now,
Lawrence Krauss, he wrote a book called A
Universe Out of Nothing, Arizona State, 4 more
cosmologists, atheists.
He says, like I said, the universe is
13.725,600,000,000
years old. This nexus known as space time,
the space time continuum,
It came into being at the Big Bang.
In fact, space time and matter came into
being. Right? This is called cosmogenesis.
But how did it do it?
By itself.
It created itself.
This is a faith claim.
This is a metaphysical claim.
What if I told you I created myself?
I'm making a supernatural claim about myself. This
is what they're saying about the universe. You
see, the only way to avoid
infinite regress
is to go metaphysical,
is to go supernatural,
is to ultimately go theological.
So here's my conclusions about the cosmological argument.
Only a non contingent being. In other words,
one who is not subject to causality.
One who is not subject to infinite regress
because he is eternal.
Also, the one who is necessarily
spaceless,
timeless and immaterial because he created space, time
and matter. He's also extremely powerful and extremely
intelligent. He created a universe, can bring a
universe into being
from nothing.
But then they'll say, well, who caused God?
Who caused God? Right?
It's God's very nature to be pre eternal.
Remember the first premise? Whatever begins to exist
has a cause.
God never began to exist.
If we start asking that question, then we
question the very existence of the universe.
Why?
Let's say I'm standing in the line and
there's a brother in front of me And
I tell the brother, I really wanna give
you a hug. And the brother says, ask
the guy behind you.
So, hey, can I give him a hug?
He says, ask the guy behind me.
Hey. Can I give him a hug? He
says, ask the guy behind me.
Hey. Can I give him a hug? Ask
the guy behind me. And this goes on
ad infinitum.
Right? Ad infinitum.
Me giving the guy a hug represents the
big bang,
the universe. Will I ever give him a
hug?
No.
Because you cannot traverse
an actual infinitude.
You cannot traverse
an actual infinitude.
If you ask a question, who created God?
Then you haven't solved infinite regression.
What is an actual infinitude? In mathematics,
it's represented
by the Hebrew Aleph.
The Hebrew Aleph.
What is an actual infinitude?
A number that transcends
and contains
all natural numbers and cannot be increased to
y by 1.
An actual infinitude cannot be found in nature.
And Abu Yusuf al Kindi has a certain
analogy he uses, Zeno has 1, Zeno's paradox,
Achilles and the tortoise,
Hilbert's hotel.
Mathematicians
have different,
analogies they use to demonstrate the impossibility
of having an actual infinitude
in nature.
We have a theoretical infinitude also, which is
the lazy 8.
Right?
A theoretical infinitude
can be traversed
within finite space.
We do it all the time.
I'll say it again. A theoretical infinitude
can be traversed within finite space. My hand
is above the table. How many times can
I cut this distance in half?
In theory, an infinite number of times. Half
half half half. Will I ever get to
an actual infinitude?
No. I won't go get to an actual
infinitude because you can never get to an
actual infinitude
by adding,
successive numbers together, finite numbers together.
So to ask this question, who caused God,
another God? Who caused him, another God? Who
caused him, Another God. This doesn't get us
past infinite regression because we have a universe.
An actual infinitude cannot be traversed.
Right?
So if it's if the universe is eternal
than in the past, with gods creating gods
creating gods and then the universe, How do
we get to today?
Because we can't traverse an actual infinitude
and get to today, but we are here
today. So infinite regression
dies at the door of the eternal.
This is the only way
one can deal with infinite regression.
Is a supernatural
postulation,
metaphysical answer.
Interestingly, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, the verses in
the Quran in which Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
is described as fatiru samawati wal'ard. Fatara means
to split apart, to break something apart.
Badiursamawati
wal ard Badah
means to originate something, the primal cause of
something. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is the primal
cause. God created the universe out of nothing.
That is your lord. There is no god,
but he. He's your creator of everything,
space, time, matter, energy, all of these created
by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Okay.
Last argument.
It's called the teleological argument, and then we'll
open it up for questions and comments in
short law. So this argument has,
it was used by Aristotle and Plato, the
teleological
argument. It's the most challenging according to Hitchens
for the atheists.
There's 2 versions of it. The first version
is the traditional argument, which argues for biological
complexity.
Look at the human eye, look at the
human brain, look at the systems within the
human being.
You know, architects looked at the,
at insects when they wanted to build the
Eiffel Tower.
People looked at the wings of birds when
they wanted to build airplanes.
Anthony Flew, who was 50 years an atheist
at Cambridge University,
suddenly came to believe in God after 50
years. He debated CS Lewis, and suddenly he
said, you know, the human cell,
that's not chance and that's not evolution. That's
design. And now I believe in God. He's
a deist. He's not a Christian. He's not
a Muslim. He's not a Jew, but he
believes in God.
Interestingly, the 2 greatest scientists of all time
were Unitarian
Deists,
Sir Isaac Newton,
Albert Einstein.
These people believe in God.
Not believing in God was out of the
question.
Now there's another type of theological argument. This
is sort of the cutting edge version of
it, and this argues for cosmic design
due to
fine tuning.
So you know the watchmaker
analogy? This is first used by William Paley
in 1802.
Right? Dates back to Cicero.
Walking on the beach, you find a watch.
You pick it up. You notice it's craftsmanship.
So what can you conclude?
That this just
formed itself by chance?
Atoms came together and made this
incredible little watch. Right? Well, let's say that
you're an astronaut and you're on the dark
side of the moon, like, and you find
a transformer. They made a movie about this.
Right?
So you have 3 options.
Why is that there? Number 1, out of
necessity.
Does it have to be there? No. The
moon functions without the transformer.
Is it chance?
So these atoms, they just happen to form
this incredible piece of machinery.
There's a chance, but probably not. Right?
Or it's designed. Even if you don't know
who put it there, the best explanation
is that it was designed. You don't have
to have an explanation for the best explanation,
but you know it's designed.
Right? So look at the earth itself, the
distance from the moon and sun. If we're
a little bit closer, a little bit farther,
there's no life on planet earth. If the
days were a little bit longer, life would
cease to exist on earth. If the access
of the earth, 23.5
degrees, was slightly off, there would be no
life on earth.
If the atmosphere changed a little bit, solar
flares would swallow us up. We would burn
to a crisp. There'd be no life on
earth.
Jupiter is in a perfect place
with perfect mass. It's a it's a
solar cosmic
vacuum cleaner. All of these asteroids and comets
that come towards earth, they're pulled towards Jupiter
and it saves us.
SubhanAllah.
The solar system itself is like a watch.
You know, sir Isaac Newton,
he noticed that the planets,
they orbit around the sun in the same
direction and they're on the same plane.
And he said, this is design.
Now, the atheist will say, oh, that's what
the theist does. Whenever he doesn't understand something,
he puts God in the gap. So God
of the gaps.
Whenever a theist, a believer doesn't understand something,
he says, oh, that's God. God of the
gaps. But we understand how a watch works.
It doesn't negate its designer.
We understand how the solar system works now.
It doesn't negate it's been designed, so that
argument doesn't work.
Now almost all atheists conclude that the universe
is fine tuned for the existence of intelligent
life, and fine tuned is a neutral term.
It's not strict strictly theological.
How is it fine tuned? You see, there
are certain constants and quantities,
constants and quantities
of the 4 fundamental forces of nature that
have to fall within an incredibly narrow range.
What are the 4 fundamental forces of nature?
Gravity, electromagnetism,
weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force, all of
them in the point of singularity.
So let's look we'll come back to this
idea. Let's look at our syllogism.
Premise number 1. The fine tuning of the
universe
is due to either physical necessity,
which almost all atheists reject
because you can have a universe with different
constants and quantities, and you'll have a universe.
Or it's chance,
and that's what atheists say. Yes. It's chance.
Or it's by design.
Premise number 2, it's not due to physical
necessity
or chance.
Therefore,
it is due to design. And
by design, we mean a specified complexity,
specified, created, tailored with unimaginable
intelligence and pinpoint
exquisite
precision.
We'll let you know how that is. William
Lane Craig, he says, there are 50 such
constants and quantities
present in the big bang that must be
fine tuned in this way. And their ratios
to one another must also be fine tuned
to allow for life permitting universe. The numbers
become
incomprehensible. I'll give you some examples just to
give you an idea of the numbers. The
number of seconds in the history of the
universe
is 10 to 17th.
The number of seconds in the history of
the universe is 10 to 17th. 10 with
17 zeros after it. The number of subatomic
particles
in the universe, according to William Dembski, is
10 to the 80.
Okay? Now atomic weak force operates in the
nucleus of an atom.
An alteration
of one part out of out of 10
to the 100th.
One part out of 10 to the 100th
would render life unsustainable
in the universe.
This is the incredible precision of the universe.
So let me put that in perspective for
you. Let's say I have a dart. I
have a single dart. And in front of
me, there are a number of people, 10
to the 100th, which is impossible. Right? That's
a lot of people. Let's say they're standing
in front of me. One of them has
a target on his chest. I throw the
dart, and it hits a target.
That's just one of these fundamental forces that
have to line up.
If gravity was changed by one part out
of 10 to the 40th, there is no
life in the universe. The atheists say, this
is just chance. We got lucky. The constants
and quantities fell within this very, very, very
small life permitting range. Let me give you
another analogy. The lottery analogy.
Let's say that I have a huge cosmic
hat.
A huge cosmic hat, and I have 10
to the 40
number of white balls
that I put under this cosmic hat. I
give you one of these balls, these white
balls, and you write your initials on it.
And I say, okay. I'm gonna put this
back into the hat. Okay?
Then I'm gonna draw out a ball at
random.
If it's a white ball without your initials,
nothing happens.
Nothing happens.
But if we draw out the ball with
your initials, we kill you.
Right? You think I'm feeling
a little saucy.
Let's do it. What does 10 to the
40th? 10 with 40 zeros? Impossible.
Go ahead. Do it.
Look. What's your initial reaction?
It was rigged.
That was rigged.
You fooled me. It was designed.
Right?
Look at the cosmic landscape,
possible universes. There are 10 to the 500
possible universes
with different values of the constants
consistent with the laws of nature.
10 to the 500.
The portion of these universes,
that can permit life is infinitesimally
small.
The range is incredibly minuscule.
What is life? Life is an organism's ability
to take in food, process it, grow and
develop, and reproduce after its kind. And I'll
end with this insha Allah ta'ala.
Alvin, Platinga is a professor at Notre Dame,
gives another analogy. Just imagine you have these
large dials,
like combination lock dials. There's a million of
them,
and they all go up to a 1,000.
And he says, if you can get the
right combination,
a million that go up to a 1,000
will give you a $1,000,000,000.
Right?
That is more likely
than a life permitting universe.
That is more likely than a life permitting
universe.
So the result is Allahu mujud.
That's how I'm ending in.