Bilal Philips – Man, Religion & Society
AI: Summary ©
The conversation discusses the theory that religion is not relevant to human society and that humans cannot be trusted to make decisions based on what's best for them. The "oppression" of certain groups, such as black Americans and civil rights movement, is emphasized. The "monog manufacturers" concept is introduced in Islam, and the importance of men in society is emphasized. The negative impact of COVID on society, including the economy and uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, is also discussed. The potential for a vaccine to be developed in the future is also discussed.
AI: Summary ©
WA Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah Karim.
Allah Allah was hobby for many standardization, natural aroma deen
or praise due to Allah and realized Peace and blessings when his last Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and and all those who follow the path of righteousness until the last day.
This evenings topic, man, religion and society
addresses fundamentally the issue of whether religion, belief in God
is relevant to human society.
In these times,
whether it is in the 20th century or the 21st century or beyond.
Some would have us believe
that it isn't relevant.
The secular materialists
argue
that human beings
are accidents of nature.
The Darwinian theories are used to support this claim.
Our grandparents or great ancestors were monkeys.
This is their belief.
And consequently, when we observe the animal kingdom, we don't find gorillas and baboons worshipping.
So, then, this thing of worship and God must be a figment of human imagination.
And we found in the field of psychology, sociology,
those who stepped forth to give quote unquote, scientific explanations for the belief in God
Where did it come from? Why did people
invent this
figment of their imagination
and
Freud, Sigmund Freud,
in his book called interpretation of dreams, which he wrote in 1899.
He put forth the explanation which became most popular amongst psychologists and sociologists thereafter,
he said explanation was the Oedipus or Oedipus complex is the result, the belief in God is a result of this complex now, what is the Oedipus complex?
Oedipus in Greek mythology was the king of thieves, who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother.
Right? In psycho Allen analytic theory,
the Oedipus complex represents a desire for sexual involvement with the parent of the opposite *, and a concomitant sense of rivalry with the parent of the same *.
This in layman's terms,
is something which has been observed
that children between the ages of three and five, they have a tendency to want to come between the parents, you will find that the boys develop a jealousy for the mother.
If the mother and father sit together, you'll see the boy comes and sits in between them, he wants the mother for himself, okay? This is something observable, we this is and then the girls do a similar thing, right? They want the Father. So, this observation.
Freud then took this observation, relating it back to this Greek mythology, and putting things in a sexual context because for Freud, everything is explained by the sexual drive, why we build buildings, why we drive cars, why we build airplanes, you know, everything we do is because of our sexual urges. This is how Freud explains everything. So, he then went to explain how it is that we, we have this belief in God using the Oedipus complex. He said that the early family, which evolved from the apes, that first family that came out
what happened was that the boys
In the family, became jealous of the Father. Right, and wanted to keep the mother for themselves. So they killed their father, like Oedipus, they killed. Except in Oedipus case, it was not intentional with according to him, these, this early family, the young man of the family, they killed the father to keep the mother for themselves over out of a sexual desire for the mother.
Now, after they killed the father,
they felt the loss because the father was the one who used to go out and hunt, you know, fight off the animals, you know, build the home look after the family was the protector provider for the family. Now, they didn't have the protecting provider anymore. So they became afraid, they became, you know, worried this whole job now was on them to look after the family. So what they did, again, what children tend to do, is they create fictitional
playmates. So in the same way, they said, this, this young man, then they created a fictitional Father, father was still there. We killed him, but he's not dead. He's still there somewhere looking over us. This is where the idea the beginnings of the idea of God came.
This was their explanation.
And of course, they argue that God's existence cannot be scientifically proven anyway, we can put it under any microscopes.
And when we look at these religions, what do we see from religions, but wars and strife and problems in the human society? So really, what's the relevance to human
society. And also, with all these diversity of religions, we want each one of them is right anyway, if if one of them is suppose why there's there's so many different religions,
it's obvious that this is not the solution.
Human beings have to find a solution to their running of society from within themselves. They cannot depend on religion, to do it for them, because religion as as they've concluded, was manmade anyway.
So let us
human beings in our times in the 19th 20th century, address our problems ourselves and work out our own solutions, we have the capability, we have reason we have intelligence, we have knowledge of history, we can put all this together, and we can work on our own problems. And out of that, you know, thrust came, you know, that secularists movement, which sought to remove religion from all walks of life, relegating it only to a very small portion, each person has his own personal religion, you keep it in your back pocket, you pull it out when you need it, but don't show it to anybody else. It's your personal thing. Okay. Otherwise education, government, economics, everything
else should not have religion interfering in it.
This was the conclusion.
Religion has no place in modern society.
Then we have to look at what is the result of all this. One, the idea that human beings can put their minds together and democratically reasoned out what in fact, is really best for human beings. This idea, when put to the test, has been proven wrong. Time and time again.
The very concept of democracy in itself. Democracy came out of Athens, Ancient Greece.
And in ancient Greece, that democracy meant the will of the people again, people's minds coming together and making these decisions. But Greek, ancient Greek society was more than 50% slaves who had no say.
And the remaining 50% were divided between males and females and females also had no say. So in the end, democracy didn't mean the rule of the people. It meant some 20 to 25% of the population actually decided what was best for everybody.
When we look at it in a modern context, if we take the United States of America as the,
quote unquote, greatest democracy on the earth today
when we look at this great democracy, and we look at its roots
in the American
constitution, written back in the 18th century, when the best minds the most enlightened minds of American society got together and they wrote down the Constitution.
And that American Constitution
is like a religious scripture for Americans. It is kept in glass cage in Washington, people make pilgrimage to Washington to go and look at the American Constitution.
Well, in the American Constitution, and the first article, they have what was called the three fifths compromise. What is the three fifths compromise? It states there in the first article, that a black man was to be considered three fifths of a white man.
This is the American Constitution.
It's still there, you can go and see it in Washington today. I mean, of course, in time, you know, with civil war and all the other things that came after it, you know, modifications came, they made maintenance, etc, etc, etc. But because this document is so sacred for them, they have kept it as you can go and read it with your own eyes.
Now, this idea in our society today, the idea that one human being, you know, because it belongs to what appears to be one particular group of society is worth less than another human being is abhorrent. But that is what the best and most enlightened minds of that time arrive that
what is that telling us, that is telling us that human beings, when they put their minds together, they cannot be objective.
They really can't, they end up being subjective. They will make decisions based on what is in their class, caste, race, position, family, etc. Interests, they will always make decisions relative to what is best for them and those around them. This is their nature. This is human nature. And all the laws, you go and take the Magna Carta, you go and take the laws from France, all the different legal systems that came up, you know, over the last 300 years, and you look at the laws in there. And that's what you find people making laws to suit themselves, not society as a whole.
So, the human mind, cannot really be trusted to come up with what is best for human beings as a whole cannot be trusted.
Though they claim it can.
Secondly, what comes out of this approach the secularist approach
is that
morality becomes relative.
Morality becomes relative, you have no foundation for morality anymore, because we get together and we have our votes, our, you know, elections, and in the course of our elections, we will determine each year or each 10 years or whatever, what is right, and what is wrong. Right and wrong will change every so often. It's not stable.
What does that mean for the society, it means a constant upheaval. And when we look in the end,
sometimes we can see some trends towards the better. But other times, we can see some trends towards what is the worst that human beings can arrive at.
Because what happened
in America in particular,
and I don't have any particular particular thing against Americans, you know,
because I grew up in Canada, there's, you know, I
mean, I don't like Americans, it's just because America is presented as the example.
So, if we look in America,
what we find is that if we were to ask the average American 30 years ago,
what is your opinion on homosexuality?
The average American would say, remembering what it said in the Bible. This is an abomination unto the God unto the Lord. It's evil. It's bad, sick.
This is what the average American would have said 30 years ago.
And the medical profession had homosexuality in its list of illnesses. There are treatments for it shock treatment, drug treatments, all kinds of treatments to help these sick people, you know, correct themselves.
Today
20 years later, don't even get to where we are now. 20 years later, if you ask the average American, what do you think about homosexuality? What was their response?
Personal choice.
I don't maybe I don't like it myself. But you know, it's people is their businesses, freedom of choice, you know, if that's what they like, you know,
that is the attitude changed.
Not only that, but the latest edition of the psychiatrist Bible
had homosexuality removed as an illness
removed is no longer there.
In its place,
they had homophobia.
Those people who thought homosexuals are sick, need to be treated, you know, this, these are now the sick people.
They're the ones who need to be treated, they need to get psychiatric care and all this stuff, you know, in 20 years time, the whole thing turned upside down.
How?
Because there was no foundation, no foundation to determine really what is right and what is wrong in the matter.
They follow the principle, which came out of the 50s 60s a principle which was first applied to heterosexual relations.
When they started with the pill, you know, being in common people have in common access to it, which meant that, you know, relations between males and females outside of marriage was increasing, etc. And the swing of public opinion against looking at fornication as a crime anymore, you know, and then also fornication and adultery, we don't want to look at it as crimes anymore, because it's becoming so popular. So they had to figure out some kind of principle determine where do we determine what is right and what is wrong in these matters. So I said, Now, if we leave this door open, then we have the door open for pedophiles, you know, *, and this type of thing. So we have
to have some principle that we're going to judge relations between males and females by to determine what is acceptable and what is not. So the best minds of the time came together, and they came up with the new principle, this new principle was what consenting adults
consenting adults, so consenting, meaning we rule out *, right? Which means that's bad * is bad, because it's not consenting. Adults means we rule out *, because then you have an adult and a child, okay? So it's not, that's bad. So we leave that out. But as long as now, it's between consenting adults,
then it's okay. Society has no right to get into people's affairs, their business, because somebody wants to come in between consenting adults and say, No, this is not good. This is fornication, adultery, and say, Where did that come from? That's religion. That's religion, saying this is bad. Who said it's bad? Where is the harm?
So consenting adults became the principal.
In the 50s 60s,
along with this was the civil rights movement in America, where black Americans decided we've had enough
we can't take this anymore. oppression, people not getting their rights working, same jobs, getting less pay, you know, all the not having the rights to travel on the same buses as other people, because you're a different color, you know, all these different things, the oppression that exists in the size society, people decided it was enough. So they started to demand the rights in marches and it went to Burning Down cities, they'll finally America said, okay, okay, okay, we'll give you rights. Hold on. We don't want the whole country burned down. So we'll stop here and Okay, enough, we'll make some changes in our laws. And you know, make sure you get your rights. Now, in the course
of that movement, after it succeeded, which is what was thought to be success and a climax.
Then the women said, What about us? What about us, we are also working the same jobs as men, we don't get the same pain. It's not fair. You know, we're not able to get into certain jobs were denied certain jobs, certain positions, places, etc, etc. So, people looked at it and said, Yeah, that makes sense.
We should be fair, fairness, okay, let's women's rights. So we include that women's rights, give them the rights
right after them. The homosexual say what about us? What about
What about us? Why should we be denied jobs and denied these positions? And all these other things? What about us? Especially now we have a new principle for morality, the principle of consenting adults, we are consenting adults. So why Why should my sexual preference now stop me from getting a job, you know, having position and you know, these type of things in society?
And of course, people said, well, that's that's kind of true, isn't it?
consenting adults, people's rights, human rights. So
along came homosexuals.
The point is that once that door was opened, it didn't stop there. They didn't just stop with saying our rights, they came with a full wave to try to promote their way on the rest of the society.
So today, in America, you find children be reading books in primary school,
primary school, textbooks that they're learning about when they're learning, Family Studies, and, and
home studies, these type of things, subjects,
books, entitled, my two dads.
My two dads,
the children are being taught. I know in Canada, they're being taught because it's affected Canada also, you know, teachers are going away from talking about mother and father and just talking about parents. So they've been taught, yes, your parents can be two men.
Or it could be two women. Or it could be a man and a woman.
And this is being promoted on a greater and greater scale.
Okay, of course, those who would say from their side, secularists who say, Well, what's wrong with that? What's the harm? Well, what is the harm?
AIDS is the harm.
That's the harm.
AIDS, where did aids come from,
which is killing people. Not only homosexuals, and it began with them, but it's killing also heterosexuals, and who amongst them, but the adulterers and the fornicators. So we can see these are the categories homosexuals, adulterers, and fornicators these are the ones
spreading AIDS and of course, their some of their blood gets into the blood supply. So people who are not involved in these corruptions also get ill. But the vast majority that are being harmed by AIDS dying from this illness are who fornicators adulterous, and homosexuals that start.
Furthermore,
before aids back in the 70s, I remember reading that the medical body announced that herpes and other sexually transmitted degrees disease herpes had reached epidemic proportions in America in the 70s.
Herpes has no cure.
They don't even talk about it anymore.
Why? I mean, except I saw statistics last year where it said that one in every five Americans has herpes one in every five Brits has herpes.
And where is this coming from?
But from
we *
back to the way of the animals right survival of the fittest.
The evolutionary theory, you want to live that life?
So the reality is that
the secularist approach, which rejects religion encourages and works towards sexual abandon in a society.
So in America, commonly speaking,
the average school
when the boys go and play gym, or play football or whatever, when they finish, they come back to take a shower.
They all shower in one big room. There's just one big room with shower heads around the room. So you have to go in there and shower naked.
Everybody.
When I went to school in Canada in Toronto, we had we had swimming class, we all had to swim naked.
Or you couldn't get out of it unless you had a special letter from a doctor. You know, from the doctor, not in your parents from the doctor saying you have some kind of deformity. It's embarrassing for you, whatever. So you're excused.
You had to go swimming naked.
This is an attack. This is an attack where the society is feeling that even senses of shyness, the natural shyness that people have, they feel it's it's some kind of sickness, some kind of psychological illness that we have that we need to overcome. We shouldn't feel shy about our bodies when a result of that is what the nudist beaches and nudist camps, you know, all that came out with it.
So, that way of thinking, invites to sexual abandon. And the end results we are seeing visually in this century, with the cases of herpes aids, and there is no end
it is not going to get better, it's only going to get worse.
Another consequence in the
secular society
is that though they have denied the existence of God,
human beings in their normal lives have a sense that there is something beyond them.
Right? There's something controlling their lives which they really can't quite put their finger on.
If you asked two people or ask a person listen, you are living very nicely you got a nice house a nice car, you had good education, etc, etc. Now look at so and so. He was born the same time as you same society, etc. But look, he's living very difficult, you know, his doesn't have a home, you know, he's on the street. He doesn't have a you know, any kind of success in his life. Why is that?
What is the answer The secondary is how does he explain this?
He says, my good luck.
His bad luck.
I'm lucky.
And what you find is that when you start to track the secularists down from the time he wakes up into the morning until the time he goes to bed at night, why this why that why the other way. Good luck, bad luck. Good luck, bad luck. Good luck, bad luck, you see, so you'll find that good luck. Bad luck now is the controlling forces in his life. So what is done really, because the term the term used for for
luck also is fortune. There's a my good fortune. The other term use, you know, fortune comes from the Latin for tuna, who was the goddess of luck, right? So they have just replaced the true God with the false gods of ancient pagan society. This is what governs our life and you will see people being very superstitious, very superstitious, you will find
either they're wearing little chains with you know, Rabbit's feet and horseshoes and all these kind of things. They'll stick it here, stick it there in the car all over the place. You know, this is for good luck. Don't walk under any ladders and you know, don't break any mirrors and all of this to avoid bad luck.
And you know so much so for example that you find
in America, this one of the big guy, builders and rich personalities, Donald Trump, whenever he builds a new plaza, Donald Trump, you know, he has to build builds these huge hypermarket type structures. Whenever he's going to build one. What does he do? He flies over a was it what do you call this a Feng Shui or feng shui something that's experts from China to come and sit down with architects to determine how to build this building?
Why to ensure success for himself, and every year people are coming up with new sources of good luck. Five people very very superstitious.
In fact, there was you know, that famous movie, Apollo 13, right. It's about a actual circumstance, when the Americans had sent this spacecraft to land on the moon. And it didn't work out. They had some problems there. It looked like they were going to miss the moon and go off into the sun or whatever. And for Americans, this was a big tragedy for the Russians. They had been experimenting sending people up in space you know, flying off and they would hear them you know, * pal Bell Bell American Russia, people are expendable. You know? It was no problem you know, they could send up where in America one single American life is just you know, so precious. This is why when it was
decided here in Singapore that they're gonna can that American boy, remember, the whole country is up in arms. You're gonna kill one of my little boys.
Now of course, the boy when he went back to America, you know, he got arrested, you know, for, for some crimes. So innocent little boy, he went back there and committed more crimes. Okay. Anyway, so the issue of that one little boy, that's the way that's America, one of our citizens. So the idea that their Apollo spacecraft was going to go off into space and you know, a group of them were going to die. This was something tragic, tragic for them. Anyway, eventually, they were able to do this and that and they got the spacecraft to come back.
splashdown to the Atlantic, they picked them up, brought them into Cape Canaveral when they came off the plane, you know, the reporters rushed up to them to ask, you know, to snap in pictures and and they addressed the commander and they asked him, How do you feel?
His response was, I should have known this was gonna happen. I said, Yeah. What happened? Did you Was there a fuel leak? Was there some glitches in the computers or none of them, none of these things. Then how he said it was Apollo 13.
Apollo 13,
which took off at 1300 hours, one o'clock, right? Very denatured hours, on Friday the 13th.
I should have known this was going to happen. This is a man with a PhD in astrophysics. And you know,
this was his response, he should have moved. So in America, you can't find any 13th floor in any buildings. I don't know how it is here in
Singapore, maybe it's different 13 doesn't have the same significance. But in America, you can't find the 13th floor. Whether you're in a hotel or an apartment building, they all go on the elevator 1011 1214
No, 13 you can't find a house named number 13 on any street, you go walking down the street to go 1011 1212 and a half 14.
This is this is the end result of the secularist approach, you have to put something out there something else to give you a sense of security and explanation, you know, for why things are happening to you in your life.
And as a result of this, also the latest, you know, wave of the UFO
phenomena, right, which began you notice it really began around the 50s the UFO thing, and this is when secularism was taking root in American society.
The UFO how does the UFO fulfilled secularists needs? Well
when you have now
removed God and meaning from life and existence, why we are here now, we become very insignificant when you look at us within the whole cosmos is huge cosmos that is there. It's just us alone. And this whole thing. Well, if it's by chance, according to them, chance should mean that there should have appeared some other people like us somewhere else in the galaxy, this is what chance tells us that it should happen. You know, as they say, if you put 10 monkeys in a cage and you give them 10 typewriters, and you give them an infinite amount of time. One of them is going to bang with his nose, his fingers and his toes and he's going to type out the Quran for you
sometime along the is going to do it you know, because anything is possible given enough time. That's their way of thinking. So there has to be some other planets on one of these other stars out there that is like us
you know, they've been looking looking looking looking for how long now? How much money they've spent on radio telescopes, everything else trying to listen in to hear that message coming from outer space but all they're getting is static nothing right? till finally they had to make a movie contact right this was movies about finally they heard it too Right. Like you were alive it wouldn't happen that was crowds again you know, there was dedicated to cops again. It was his movie, he was one of the biggest atheist there in in America seculars.
So the UFO what is UFO tell these people UFO gives meaning to life again for them. Because you think think of it this way? If we weren't important,
then why is it that beings would come from all the way across the galaxy all the way to the earth? You know, to take pictures of us take us up in their space planes do little experiments and us we must be important. You know, this is why they're coming all this way. So this again gives them a sense of meaning importance.
On the other hand
the religious answer
to men and society
is first and foremost.
that human beings are not an accident of nature.
They believe in God is logical. It's not illogical, as they would have us think.
No, it is logical.
Why is it logical? Because it confirms it conforms with our own experience.
The basic argument presented, for example, in the scriptures in the Quran, is that design indicates a designer. Basically,
when you're walking on the beach, and you see a footprint in the sand, do you stop to think and say to yourself, how amazing it is that the waves would come in and sink into the sand and make a footprint? No, no, you say somebody walked here.
That's what it indicates to you.
Where there is design? I mean, you take cans of paint. If you think about it, if you took cans of blue, yellow, and
red paint, and just close your eyes and throw it against the wall. Do you think there would come a time if you did this enough times that you would come up with the Mona Lisa?
I think those colors dispassion together one day is going to get you a Mona Lisa.
When you see Mona Lisa, the paint the Mona Lisa, you think of the artist who painted it.
This is our experience.
So Isaac Newton, on one occasion, has recorded that he had built this machine,
which was demonstrating the movement of the planets around the sun.
made out of brass, you cranked it up. And as you crank it up, you see the planets would move around the sun.
But one of his friends and atheist had come by and saw the machine and said, that's wonderful. You know, where do you get this machine from? Said it just happened?
It just appeared one day. He said,
ridiculous, you who made the thing? How did you make it? You know, what did you? He said, Is this any more ridiculous than your idea that this whole world came here by accident? This was his response.
This is how ludicrous the idea that our existence is a product of accident.
And of course, we can find in the Quran itself. God challenging is not too many verses really challenging the disbelievers those who deny God's existence, because of the fact that those who denied God's existence were not not many. Throughout history, there have been few. It's only in recent times that it became the state religion of Russia, of China, Albania and other countries. But prior to that, it's always it was always a small element of the society that had this kind of belief. So in the Quran, you can find in the 52nd, chapter two, verses 35 and 36. Allah they're saying, I'm Holly Coleman, rady Shea in armhole. Holla goon, I'm holla. Kusama wa T, will ARB Bala
up noon?
Where they created from nothing or by nothing? Or were them themselves the creators? Or did they create the heavens in the earth? No, they really don't have any certain knowledge.
Allah puts before them God puts before them there.
Will you create it from nothing?
I mean, appearing for something to appear out of nothing violates reason.
So, no.
The next question, what did you create yourself?
That is self contradictory. Because for you to create yourself, you had to first not exist.
And if you didn't exist, then how could you make yourself exist? So so the only conclusion you can come to is that what is here was created by a Creator.
Now
in spite of the attitude that I mentioned, of the psych psychologists over the years,
with regards to believe in God that this was something invented by human beings.
The anthropologists, the more and more they studied human societies. They found that everywhere that they went, people believed in God.
everywhere they went.
This explanation of Freud's they knew it was you know,
questionable, because doctors
had his own explanation. Others had their own explanations, they just all guesses, you know, things thrown out there. How do we explain that belief in God everywhere?
Some anthropologist started British anthropologist started to propose the idea that perhaps it is genetic.
And all the others, of course, scoffed at the idea of genetic. What is this?
Well, this year,
an article appeared in the Sunday Times.
is in England, Sunday Times. second of November, actually, sorry, it's last year, second of November 97.
The title of the article is God's spot is found in the brain.
They found the god spot, what is that God spot found in the brain?
The experiments that they have been doing with people who have different problems, you know, neurological problems, etc. Where they put probes into different parts of the brain, you know, trying to find out where's the part that's gone wrong, whatever, they found a common spot, that whenever they put the little probe in there, the person would report that they had these overwhelming religious experiences. When they came out of it, everybody they found with the same spot in their brain.
So they ended up making this conclusion. This is I mean, of course, is ongoing research on it. But they said, as they put it, it said the scientist said that although this research is, and its conclusions are preliminary, initial results suggest that the phenomenon of religious belief is hardwired into the brain.
That's your conclusion. Well, guess what? That's what religion says. That belief in God is genetic. It is the part of human nature.
Furthermore, okay, if we accept that belief in God is basic.
The issue now is, did God create human beings, and then just left them in the world to carry on on their own?
without sending any profits? So messages or
you have a group of people who have made this conclusion? They're the deists, right? They believe there's a God but no religion is religion thing is man made too many religions around. So I can't conclude which one is which, so better to say human beings made a mum.
In the end, of course, they end up in the same status as a secondary it's because how do we then determine the laws for our society and functioning within society, we have to make up the laws ourselves. Because God didn't give us any instructions, it's human beings who made them up.
The other group
is the group that hold that yes, God created man.
And he provided instructions for human beings,
how to live their lives.
Now,
one group
holds that
God created man from himself.
Because for them,
looking at what we do, when we create, we make things from things that are already there, this podium was once a tree, we got it down, we got
cut it into a shape, we melted a few stones took some metal out, we made screws and nails and we banged in all together now we have a podium.
So, whatever we create, whatever we make, we make it from something that was already there. So they for them, they said well, okay, if in the beginning was God
and God created, he must have created for himself. So, he took a piece of his head, and he made some people, he took a piece of his arms, he made another set of people, he said his legs he made and other people, feet made people. So people are in different castes. At
the top caste was the Brahmins and the bottom Cass was the Shudras. Okay. This was their explanation, of course, is kind of problematic because it has with it, you know, deep prejudices, which society has been fighting against the idea of locking people into into segments and saying they're inferior to other people, because for the chakras, you know, if their shadow falls on the Brahmin, he has to go and wash himself take a bath
This is this kind of view is a very, very negative view of human society.
Furthermore, and that system
God and man are one.
Humans soul is divine.
So what happens that life is about knowing that
you are in fact divine. God comes to the earth walks around every now and then they're called avatars. God, men walk around a couple right now in India.
War Gods among men, and people worship him.
I see. So that reduces human beings to a state where they're worshiping other human beings.
In the case of other religions, we find
Christianity said, it only happened one time, God became a man, only one time. I'd like you all think every every now and then No, just one time. But the end result is still the same. God becoming a man is a contradiction in terms. God is God. Man is Man.
If God became man, he became a creative being, then he was in need of a creator.
That's a contradiction in terms. Well, they will say, Well, no, but God can do all things. Kathy
said, Yeah, God can do all things. But all things that don't make him not God. Because if we say, Can God die?
Can God become a mosquito, and you can catch in there?
This is nonsense. This is ludicrous.
Because what you're doing is you're making God less than himself that this is not possible. God is God all he's able to do all things consistent with him being God, not becoming less than God. Those are the ludicrous things, these are excluded from God being able to do all things.
So
the only thing
that's left
the only religion
that provides the view
of one God,
one true God.
And one true race of human beings
necessitating one religion, because if there is one God, and there is only one race, the human race, then there should only be one religion. Why should God provide many different religions? For one people with one set of needs? So the one religion
is Islam.
This is the only religion which encompasses all of these concepts necessary of the One God?
One Race, One Race, why because this whole issue of race is actually false. I know, you hear those Chinese raised, there's my layer, race and
Caucasoid race, meaning the white people's Negroid waist, meaning black people's African.
But really, there's only the human race. Because if a Chinese person is sick, and he needs a blood transfusion, he is type A blood.
All of his Chinese friends are B, oh, but there is a Malay with a Thai blood than the blood of that Malay can save his life and nobody else can. So who is closer to him? Or her? Is it the one just simply because there are similarities in the way they look?
No, that blood God left this in human beings to let them know that they are one race.
Because one whose blood can save your life has got to be closer to you than others whose blood cannot? Because that's that's the end nothing. What else is is more critical than your life, your existence. This is among the Signs of God within human beings, that we are all one race.
And Islam
provides that religion that religion, which is not the religion started 1400 years ago. What according to Islamic teachings, it was the religion of the first man on this earth Adam
and his wife, Eve, and was the religion of all of the prophets till the last
of the prophets, Muhammad, may God's peace of blessing be on all of them?
That religion is a comprehensive religion. Islam governs all aspects of life. It does not leave on to Caesars what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's. There is no separation between church and state. No, it is all one. Whether its economic, its political, its social. It's all inter linked. There are instructions from God, to deal with all aspects of human life. Now, the question arises,
how it is, how it can it be that a religion from 1400 years ago be relevant today, the beginning the 21st century? How, when we look at all the other laws, you know, we talked about the American Constitution, the Magna Carta, and the others, these become ludicrous based on our understanding today, how can it be that this law really revealed 1400 years ago, be relevant to today's time?
It is relevant, because it is from God. That is how, because it is truly from God.
It is not a product of human
preparation and creation.
It is purely from God. And as such, when God created human beings,
God knew how their societies would function, what their individual needs were, therefore he gave the laws, the primary and critical laws to govern human society, because those laws deal with issues about human beings, which do not change
their issues which don't change.
So
when we look at some of the issues, and I'll just mention a few of them,
to round off the presentation, where people may say, Okay, you say that this Islam is relevant to today.
What about polygamy?
Enlightened Society is recognized that polygamy is nonsense, you can't have this stuff, you know, monogamy is what we should be doing. Look at this polygamy thing.
Islam says,
polygamy
is from the law of God. Why?
Because it is a part of human nature and human society.
I know some of the women don't want to hear this, right.
Yeah, we're Muslim women. But you know, this polygamy thing. We kind of side with these, you know, these other people about monogamy, right?
Western researchers, there's an article I have here. For those afterwards, I'd like to read it
from Time magazine.
15th of August 1994.
This is an article quite a long article
where a number of scientists, evolutionary scientists
have arguing now that polygamy is genetic.
Now, of course, people might say, Well, look, you know, they're arguing also that homosexuality is genetic, too, you know, because you have the homosexual, you know, defense.
You know, and they found this one a few years back, there was
one British Canadian scientist, who did some experiments with identical twins. And his conclusion was, yes, homosexuality was genetic. He published his results, it affected certain cases that were in Texas, then the court cases dealing with homosexual etc. You know, people were astounded.
However,
within a year and a half after that, other universities in Canada tried to reproduce his results.
And they couldn't get the same results.
And in the United States, they also tried the same experiments, and he couldn't get the same results. So a big question mark was put on this study.
And it came out that he was a homosexual.
So doctoring results, you know, we can't put it in the same category.
Now,
this research, these are the evolutionary scientists and of course,
as we said, they always like to look at the animal again.
them, and then compare human beings with animals.
So they looked at the animal kingdom, they said, Okay, The Lion King,
why does the Lion King have all the women?
Because he was the strongest, he had the loudest roar, you know, he would beat up all the other male lions and take the majority of the women for himself. So they said, hey, there is an evolutionary advantage in this, what is it? Because their principle is that soon as society progresses and improves, why, because of the principle of what survival of the fittest. So when the Lion King has all the lionesses to himself, and he's the strongest, it means the next generation of baby lions are going to be carrying his genes, which are the stronger genes. So here was the evolutionary advantage for polygamy.
That's their argument. Anyway, the point is that if we look at human society,
as much as we said, women don't really like to hear this. You cannot find a society as far back as you go in history. No matter what corner of the world you go in how primitive how advanced, whatever, except that they're practicing polygamy.
Because you can't find them.
99.999% of all civilizations we've ever discovered on this earth, I've practiced polygamy. Hey, this is saying something. It's saying that it is a part and parcel of human society, Islam didn't invent polygamy. Now, people who are not monogamous in Islam came along and said, polygamy.
It was already there. It was already there everywhere in the world. In fact, our so called monogamous societies.
When they did surveys of the average American male married male, they found that over 70% of married males in the United States admitted to having extramarital affairs.
Where is your monogamy? That's polygamy right there. But it's polygamy without consequence. Right? extramarital relations are there they're practicing polygamy. The most monogamous of societies have prostitutes, you know, girlfriends, everything else. So polygamy is ongoing, but there is no responsibility.
What Islam says is that, yes, this is part of human society, human nature, then it should be within guidelines.
There should be bounds that protect.
And in fact, the system of polygamy in Islam protects the interests of women and children.
Because where people say monogamy, but then they have relations outside of marriage, the woman suffers, the children that come out of those relationships suffer. Whereas with polygamy, then the woman is treated as another wife, she has honor. her children, her carry the name of the Father, they have honor, there is a protection for the female and the children by
one polygamy according to the Islamic system, where rules and regulations are there to protect the interests of all.
So polygamy
is not something unique to Islam, but it is something which is there permitted in Islam, not obliged, you know, people are not obliged to be polygamous. And this is again, a misunderstanding. You know, many non Muslims I've met, they think, you know, every Muslim has got male Muslim has more than one wife, right? In fact, I even met one brother in England, British brother, who he told me, you know, he had wanted to accept Islam for over a year. But he had stopped himself from accepting Islam, because he was under the impression that if he got accepted Islam, he had to take another wife. And he was satisfied with his wife that he had, he just felt he didn't want to take another
way for it. To finally you know, somebody found out what was his hang up and expand on Oh, no, no, Islam doesn't insist. Not every male must have another wife. No, these are it's a permission given. And conditional one has to have the means the ability, etc, etc. Right? And this is based on human need. Human societies have an abundance of females in it by God's will.
women live longer than men.
They live longer than men.
When there is violence in the society, who is killed? Men killing men, mostly. I mean, you have men killing some women and some women killing men, but mostly it's men killing men. Wars, what are the wars, men killing men, and then with the rise of homosexuality, even less men available?
So,
the need
the need for polygamy is something which God ordained, it is part of human society, it will be there and it is valid, we can see the benefits from it. It is far more logical than the other point of view where they say, It's okay. You can have a girlfriend, as many girlfriends, as you want. Minister says, as many as you want, but don't marry one of them, you know, quite illogical. Really.
The other issue? Is that availing The other thing Oh, look at you, you cover up your women, you oppress them, make them wear all these things covering themselves up, you know,
freedom was personal freedom here.
Well, this covering of women,
is for the benefit of women, as Allah said, describing them when he said you would need to lay him Angelababy hinder you or have no value, then they should put their outer garments over themselves, so that they be known and not be harmed. Or they'd be known known how, because some people think that wearing this veil means that you become anonymous mean that you're not known. So, they will say Well, when I wear this veil, especially if I go to the west or something like this, everybody looks at me. But the point is, that it is not about not being looked at, but it is how you are looked at because when a nun who wears the traditional dress, because of course modern nuns, you have
modernists not know who wear miniskirts and you know little things on their head. But the the traditional nuns were they habit the whole thing, when they walk down the street to people look. And when
a woman walks in a bikini on the beach people look, but is the looking of the bikini the same as the looking as the habit? No, no, it's not the same. So the issue is not about the look, the issue is how they look.
So that they be known, known in the same way that when you see a a nun, you know that she's not about tanky panky, you know, no, this is a woman who does not have relations with men period that her case in Islam is she's only with her husband, so you don't approach her.
This is the statement, it's a statement of chastity
and that she not be harmed should not be harmed. What is the consequence of the modern styles of nakedness for women? What is the consequence? The consequence is abuse,
that they are abused and molested. In the societies where * is free. You can buy it, no problem, girlfriends, all the other things yet, you have over a million cases of * yearly in America.
One in five, every five American woman has been raped this latest statistics.
So is it really to their advantage to expose themselves know, the cook, the covering of the woman is to protect her from the sexual glance, which
leads to harm her harm, because all those million rapes are reported. It's not too many women * men. Right? You know, it's, it's the other way around. This is the reality, it's women who suffer. So the granting of the woman is for her protection.
It is not something imposed on her in the sense that, you know, we're there trying to push her into the background. So she has no role in society, she shouldn't be seen as it is for her protection.
In the case of prohibition of alcohol,
this is a part of Islamic law. If you look at the submissions, of course, the harm of alcohol, who has to argue it, America in the 20s decided it was so harmful, they decided to ban it, they had the period of prohibition, but because the society was not mentally geared, they had not accepted
this law from God. But just this was human beings deciding then they rebelled. So eventually, even though they knew it was not good for them, they eventually rebelled against it until they had to repeal it.
But the harm of alcohol is known. And of course, you have this doctor who comes up and says, Well, you know, if you drink half a glass of wine with your meal that helps in digestion, your chances of heart attack may be less wonderful, but when you consider how many lights
lives are destroyed with alcohol in America 40% of violent crimes are people in the state of intoxication. We'll look at the the process of car accidents in a week. You know when the the traffic police when they monitor it. You see they have graphs, right? You'll see the car accidents like this. You know from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, then back down again, every weekend. It just dropped jumps up Christmas, way off the Richter scale. You know why? Because these are the times they get intoxicated, and they're just killing themselves on the roads.
The harm that comes from alcohol is obvious. Islams prohibition is reasonable is logical. And it's practical.
People usually don't argue that one too hard, but they'll come back. What about this cutting off of the hands? You know, you like to cut off people's hands when they steal? Isn't that barbaric? You know, how can we do that today? 21st century cutting off hands?
Well, we say look,
you know,
the concept of
Pino, the penal system in the West, changed from
punishment to rehabilitation. So the idea people said, no, no, let's not punish these people anymore. It's not about punishing them, because it's not really their fault. You know, this society that something in the society went wrong, somewhere somewhere along the line, you know, this is what's caused them to be like that. So why should we punish them? No, we should rehabilitate them?
Well, guess what, they still haven't found a way to rehabilitate. All these years, since they came up with that idea back in the 50s. Now, we're now in the 90s. And they have not succeeded in rehabilitating, people go into the prisons, and they come out if they were stealing small time before they come out as big time thieves afterwards, they get training, they get practice, they have their plans, when they come out there, I'm not gonna get caught this next time, you know, I'm ready. I know what to do. Now. The prisons become training grounds for crime.
So it's failed, it has failed. And this is why the death penalty, which was revoked in most of the states in America, they're bringing it back state after state after state.
Because they realize that the punishment factor has to be there to deter,
deter people to discourage them from crime. Because if you don't think there's any consequence for your crime, then you're going to do it, you're encouraged to do it, once you remove the principle of deterrence, or punishment, you know, if I do it, I'm gonna get punished. And okay, I'm going to think twice about doing it. But if you know there's no punishment, or just in jail for a year, you know, in in England, the average life sentence
comes down to 12 years, when you get life, you get 12 years. So right now in England is a big to do about these pedophiles is a couple of group of pedophiles that have gotten little boys, you know, raped them, killed them, murder them, you know, bury them, and they were put in jail for life, and they're coming back out again.
They're coming back out. After 12 years, they're coming back out. And psychologists have sat with them, and asked them, you know, what their ideas were has it changed also, and they admit to the psychiatrist that they're likely to do it again. And they have to let them out. Because the time is up.
You know, the society they don't want to do, because their values, the way of the whole system of criminal punishment in the Justice has become so distorted, they can't deal now with crime in society.
So, Islam says when a person steals, you cut off his hand, but is it every person for any little thing you cut off the handle? There are particular cases, it has to be for an amount whose value is you know, more than say 100 plus dollars, and it has to have some value. Secondly, it could not have been something which was left out of its place. You know, you take off your Rolex watch, leave it on the table, somebody snatches it, no, they're not gonna cut his hand off and that was temptation. Right?
It will not be if you steal from your boss when he owed you money, right? He didn't pay you your wages or you stole from them not cut your hand off. No. In fact, they'll punish your boss
because he should have paid you in Islam is supposed to pay the worker before his sweat dries on his brow.
If it's in a time of famine, people are starving, you know, trying to get something to survive, you get something to eat, they're not gonna cut your hand. So the hand is cut for the deliberate thief. The pick pockets, you know, you don't pick pocket by accident. You got to train yourself, how to bounce into somebody stepped on their foot or whatever they they're thinking of that and you got your hand in there.
packet, this is something, we have to train yourself. So these are professional criminals, these are the ones who lose their hands when we catch them.
And when they lose a hand,
it is a statement because it will be taken off publicly.
It is a statement in the society.
That man is going to think 100 times before he steals again. And everyone who watched it to heard about it is going to think themselves before they steal.
And this is why in the newspapers, it was reported that it says in Sudan when they applied Islamic law there back in 1983, that within three years,
and this is after they let out all of the prisoners that were in jail, there's numerous tiny little over 13,000 prisoners who had been tried but not according to Islamic law. So they let them out. They said we're going to institute Islamic law from here on in.
After three years, they found that crimes, particularly burglary and theft, had dropped by over 40%
by over 40%.
So the effects
are clear. Where Islamic law is applied, though it might seem harsh, etc. It is applied not just arbitrarily, it's applied in specific circumstances.
To protect the rest of the society, why should the society suffer? A man steals you put him in jail for, you know, one year or six months or two years, who's suffering here, you have given him free room and board. He's like a hotel. He has a television, he has fried three meals a day, and he is the one who stole and the society has to pay for him for the next year. Now, as I'm sitting still take his hand off, he is the one who should pay.
He's the one who should pay. So
though, they may perceive or others some may prefer is perceived this as being very barbaric. The reality is that it works. It works
in the area. The last point I'd like to mention is that in terms of Muslim beliefs,
whether regards to Destiny, because this is an area that oftentimes people say, Well, you know, Muslims are fatalistic. You know, this belief and destiny that everything is written means, you know, people are fatalistic, it's not health, healthy for society that doesn't give them the desire to strive, etc, etc. Well.
Belief in Destiny does not contradict striving, making one's best effort. Islam encourages us to make our best effort because Prophet Muhammad said, in Allah who made it cool honeycomb in Milan, Milan, and Allah loves from each and every one of you, if you do something, you do it to the best of your ability.
San means doing the best. Islam encourages doing our best. So we live in the Destiny does not affect that at all. What belief in Destiny does is it gives the believer a sense of place, and serenity in this world system. He or she feels themselves
living within the laws of God that what is happening to them is by God's decree. So if they are patient with it, they benefit from it, God rewards them, you know, so they strive to be patient to handle the trials and tribulations that comes in each and every person's life. It gives them that sense of balance,
how to deal with difficulty in life. So their lives are
calm, they're able to survive the able to handle their situations. Matter of fact, I was reading this article.
It was concerning the war in Somalia, this article newspaper, and it had a picture of some Americans sitting in this chair behind them was a little mosque. And they were being interviewed.
The interviewer was asking them what had happened there as they became Muslims. So the interview was quite amazing. You know, how it is that you all could become Muslims. When Somalia people are killing themselves and starvation and all that is going on there. You know, why would you want to become a part of that? Become a Muslim?
So they were saying this one white American he was saying, Well, you know, in spite of all the
riles, that these people are facing the hunger, the starvation, etc, etc. He said, The people could still smile. I could still see joy in people's face with life. I mean, for myself,
you know, back in America, life is a painful thing. All you have to do is to sit in the subway in New York City and look at people's faces as they go to work in the morning. Everybody's
in pain faces are twisted.
So they're living very comfortable, wonderful lives that sense. But there's pain there personal pain, everything is tragic. So what happens in America
anytime anything goes wrong.
Article here, Miami, Florida. An investor who suffered heavy stock market loss is shot and killed a brokerage manager, wounded his personal broker, and then turned his gun on himself.
The man
had lost $8 million dollars in investments in the stock markets. He still had a few millions left. I mean, this didn't mean he went broke. He still had a few millions left but the fact that he lost 8 million. I just sent him berserk. He went and killed his you know, as a stockbroker, and then killed himself.
And how many cases you have in America, you know, a guy loses his job is fired from his job. First thing he does, he goes to the gun shop, he buys and sell for crashing copies back in his office mowing everybody down.
Even recently, they had a case of a little boy, young boy in school, his girlfriend dumped him, what did he do? He gathered up all these little guns, he came into the schoolyard start shooting down everybody.
This is a sense. This is the secular product, where a person has no sense of God and of destiny. So life becomes so tragic, you know, it's things are just unbearable. So you have to have all what they called stress management, you have to have psychologist, psychiatrist, to come in with the workers and help them to deal with their stresses and
Islam, the principle of destiny, that it is all written,
nothing will happen to you which was not written for you.
Nothing will not happen to you, which was not written for you.
This gives the believer in this life a sense of serenity, that those who don't believe will not have. So I think when we look at
the principles, and I've just brought a few common ones, and there are many others people will raise also, when you look at them, we can see a relevance in all of the principles of Islamic teaching, whether it has to do with the social teachings like dress and marriage and things like this, or it has to do with criminal law for submissions of alcohol, criminal law, execution of murderers, rapists, etc. Or whether it has to do with the belief system. All of them are relevant today. And they will remain relevant until the last person is on this earth.
Human society
in the century to come.
Nice needs religion. It has to come back to religion.
Its salvation, its success lies in coming back to religion otherwise it will destroy itself.
No matter how well people have organized societies and you know line things up this way and that way etc. There is a time bomb ticking there that is going to explode. And only religion is the answer.
And the correct answer is the true religion. Islam so