Dan Barker, USA’s leading Atheist and founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, debates Hamza Andreas Tzortzis on which is more rational, Islam or Atheism.
Hamza Tzortzis – Debate Is Atheism or Islam More Rational?
AI: Summary ©
The conversation covers various topics on the universe and its potential existence outside of the material world, including the naturality of the universe, the history and logic of the Bible, and the acceptance of slavery and the use of humanism as a strategy to defend against evil. The speakers also discuss the creation of the universe and its potential existence, including its importance in objectivity and shia-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA-IA
AI: Summary ©
We have good reasons to believe that God exists based on the creation of the universe. We have good reasons to believe that God exists based on the fine tuning of the universe to permit our existence. And the best explanation is designed, and will have good reasons that God is a truth and a fairy tale. Because the Quran can only be best explained by God, because the statements it makes with regards to history, and the statements it makes with regard to embryology
cannot be explained naturalistically. So their indication to the divine the supernatural.
science can explain the world better without God, than with God. The belief in God is the belief in a concept that doesn't hold water, it is inconsistent. Furthermore, the belief in such an inconsistent concept leads to evil things
and should be avoided. Thank you very much.
Islam net, in collaboration with the big debates, are pleased to announce to you that we have, for the first time in the history of Norway, arranged a debate between
a Muslim perspective and a non Muslim perspective on the position of Does God Exist.
I will start by giving a brief presentation of our organization that is hosting the event, Islam net.
Islam net is a voluntary organization, focusing on promoting dialogue,
clearing up misconceptions about Islam and building bridges between the religious diversity.
Our organization was established in 2008 2008. And since then, with the help of the loss of Anna Taylor, we have achieved great success Alhamdulillah
we have various activities.
Every week, we have a dour course, a course for Muslims, where they can learn about the religion, become more practicing and get engaged in dour and get engaged in society.
We have a weekly information store about Islam, on Callaghan's gotta the main street of Oslo auger or Grantland, and this weekend we had it on June Stargate, outside the world humanist Congress where we give out free literature and DVDs, books, audio CDs, and whatever people want and engages in dialogue and discussions with people who are interested in learning about Islam. Or just want to talk about Islam or just see how Muslims are.
We have a course for new Muslims, where they get proper education about Islam.
Islam net has four branches, wanting also wanting aka shoes in Buddha and throne sir, and inshallah soon we will be launching in drama as well.
The aim of our organization is that
information about Islam should be available for everybody in this country.
We do not want to convert people to Islam, what do you want to present the message of Islam, and if they like it, they are welcome to embrace it.
The purpose of this debate
a great number of human beings throughout history have believed in a higher power.
But in the modern Western world,
you would think
that the belief in God has almost died out.
So we think it is appropriate to have an open debate and certainly important question, Does God Exist God, fairytale or truth?
Because if God do exist,
then that will change your life.
You will have a source where you will
deduce the moral values in your life. You would know the purpose of your life and if God do not exist,
then you do not have this source. And you will
make your decisions
of right and wrong.
According to subjective opinions among human beings, that is why we think it is very important to have a such to have a debate about this great topic.
The format for the debate, first Hamza, under our sources will be presenting
his arguments for the existence of God in 35 minutes. Then Dr. lash Goulet will be presenting his arguments for the existence of God in 35 minutes.
Then Hamza will have 10 minutes to refute, lost uterus useless arguments, and then Josh Mueller will have 10 minutes to refute Hamza's arguments.
And after that, we will have 45 minutes of questions and answers. When you ask the questions.
One question at a time we'll go to Hamza and another question. The next question would go to lunch, and they will have a maximum of five minutes to answer that specific question.
After that, last Mueller will have 10 minutes for the final rebuttal. And Hamza 10 minutes for his final rebuttal. Without any further ado, I would request brother Zhi Shan to come to the stage. to introduce Dr. Lars Gula. And Hamza Andrea sources.
Salam alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu.
I will start by introducing Dr. Loss doula.
Last year was born in the year of 1955. And he's a Norwegian famous philosopher.
He's regarded as a scholar of the Middle East, and he took his doctor's degree at the University of Bergen back in 2003. On the thesis social development and political progress in two societies from the year of 2006. He has been employed at the Oslo University College, currently as a postdoctoral research fellow.
And he has also been the Secretary General for the Norwegian Humanist Association from the years of 2000 to 2005.
last few days, particularly interested in the topics concerning multicultural society, Islam, human rights as the Middle East,
Dr. Mueller has participated in many debates even on the internet and through media channels, and also in live debates with other people such as Christians.
He is particularly critical of what he thinks is well of what he regards as totalitarian ideologies, and religions.
He has also appeared in several media stations, both national and international, such as the BBC and the CNN.
I will now introduce Hamza Andreas sources.
Hamza sources was born in UK, London in the year of 1980.
He is a Greek origin his parents migrated to the country of Britain. And that's the place where he grew up, and he himself accepted Islam in the year of 2002. He's currently a public speaker, I international public speaker on Islam, and also a writer as well, with articles, essays, and commentaries on political philosophy, the philosophy of religion and society.
Hamza is also a researcher with a recent publication on non Muslim personal perspectives on Islam and Muslims.
Hamza has participated in many debates and Sims and symposiums with leading intellectuals, public speakers, debaters, and academics on the topics regarding Islamic and Western philosophy, politics, and current events. For example, He participated in a debate with the president of the American Atheists, Dr. Ed Buckner on the topic, Islam or atheism. He also engaged in a debate
with the editor of the philosophy now magazine, Rick Lewis on the topic Gods delusion or truth.
Hamza regularly appears in the media to explain and demystify Islam, and provide and provide unique perspectives on turn affairs. Hamza has appeared on the BBC Press TV, Asian network, nihil TV Islam channel, oma TV acurately
TV and many other international media stations in the world. Without any further ado, please welcome Hamza and real sources to begin the debate.
In Alhamdulillah, WA Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah and my bad brothers, sisters and friends, I greet you, the woman, Islamic greetings of peace. Assalamu alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
Which basically means made a Peace and blessings of Almighty God, Almighty Allah be upon you all.
Today's debate is a very important debate by the citizens, I'm friends, because I would argue in the absence of God, there is no ultimate meaning in our lives. There may be meaning in our lives, but there is no ultimate meaning. If I enter just the same and we pass out of existence, what meaning does I really give, if we're going to end in the grave as one meets when buffet? doesn't even matter that we existed? This is why the philosopher Western philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, he said, I don't want the universe to exist. I didn't want it to exist because he had this existential anxiety, this internal anxiety that the people of Norway, unfortunately, are suffering 20 to 40% of people of
Norway are taking antidepressant tablets, it's a fake type of happiness, money has not worked. Also, in absence of God, there is no ultimate value. If I lived my life as a devil, and Dr. Gula lived his life as an angel, what difference does it make, we're still going to be just, there's no ultimate value. Also, without God, there are no objective morals. We can't say this is 100%. Right. And this is 100% wrong, because there is no foundation for morality. It's just social pressure, which makes it subjective, and relative.
This is why it's a very important debate. And in order to argue that God is a truth and not a fairy tale, I will use the following arguments. One, the creation of the cosmos, the creation of the universe. Number two, the design of the universe. And number three, the miracle of the Quran, the miracle of the book of the Muslims, and let's go to the first argument, argument number one, the argument from the creation of the universe. Now, brothers isms friends, we have all asked the same questions. Where did the universe come from? Why does something exists rather than nothing. Now, since the universe had a beginning in time, for instance, according to modern cosmologists, the
universe had a beginning at the Big Bang, also known as the standard model. As john baslow, the author of Stephen Hawking's universe states, the biggest misunderstanding about the Big Bang is that it began as a lump of matter, somewhere in the void of space. It was not just matter that was created during the Big Bang, it was space and time were created. So in the sense that time had a beginning, space also has a beginning. So in this life, there are only three possible explanations for the existence of the universe. Number one, the universe came out of nothing. Number two, the universe created itself. Number three, or the universe has a creator or cause. Now let's take the
first one into consideration brothers, sisters and friends. We know the universe couldn't have come out of nothing, because out of nothing, nothing comes. This is why PJ's woods, in his publication about time states, if there is anything we can find inconceivable, is that it is something could arise from nothing. Also, when you we know that the universe couldn't have created itself, because that would imply a paradox. Can your mother give birth to herself?
Can this whole auditorium create itself? Can I exist and not exist at the same time? Can the doctor exist and not exist at the same time? This is a paradox a logical impossibility. things cannot exist and not exist at the same time. This is why you cannot have self creation. Therefore the best explanation brothers, sisters and friends is that the universe has
A creator, or has a cause. But all we know from this argument is that there's a cause, or there's a creator, we can't claim is a law we can't claim is Buddha. We can't claim in Jesus, we can't claim any of the terms we have used approximately 3800 names for God since 6000 bc scenario, we've different about God. God knows.
That was supposed to be a joke, please love.
That's good. The Joke's on me then. So, but if we use our reasoning, as the Quran says, The Book of the Muslims to use our minds affiliate alone, to use your mind, will come to the conclusion that this course is in line with the Islamic narrative of God. For instance, since this cause created the universe, which includes time and space, it must be one, because if you're claiming to every claim, it's three, if we claim is 300. If we claim is 3000, it creates far more questions than it answers. So the simplest explanation is the best explanation. This is the principle in philosophy called Occam's razor, which really means do not multiply entities beyond necessity, because you have a huge
task of trying to answer more questions than you've answered. Also, it must be uncaused because there is an absurdity of an infinite regress big words, I know, what does this really mean? Say for example, I wanted to give Dr. Large Bueller a kiss on the cheek.
That's another joke.
So imagine I want to give a kiss on the cheek, but I had to ask his wife for permission. And she says, You know what, I can't give you permission, because the person behind me has to give me permission. And the person behind that person has to give that person permission. If that went on forever, would I ever give him a case? Unfortunately, not. So this is the same case with the universe, the creator must be uncreated, the cause for the universe must be uncaused. Also, this created this cause must be immaterial, which basically means outside of the universe, outside of the material world, as the Quran says, leaves the committee he shade, there is nothing like onto him.
And the reason for this is because since this creator created space and time, and within space, and time is the sum of all material, then it must be outside of space and time, which means is outside of everything that's material.
Most significantly, brothers, sisters, and friends, and this is very important. This creator this course, must have a will say must be able to have a personal relationship with conscious beings in the universe. There's many reasons for this, I'm going to articulate during the rebuttal or during the question and answers, but let me give you some points to consider. The reason this creator cause must be personal, because if it's eternal, and uncaused, and he brought into existence and effect that began, it must have chosen the universe to come into existence. And choice indicates a will and a will indicate it can interact with conscious beings. This is very profound, because if you claim
this causes mechanical, then all mechanical causes exist to the effect. But if this caused the channel, and brought into being the universe at some point, therefore it chose for the universe to come into existence. Another argument is
for your right hand up.
That's proof that an immaterial cause can bring something into existence, our minds are immaterial.
So this is in line with the Quran says in the 112 chapter, the Quran says good who Allahu I had a love of Senate. Let me read when you let William yaku for went ahead. As the Quran says, say he is God, the one the unique, the absolute God, eternal, he begins not know what's even gotten, and there is nothing like him. So we have good reasons to believe that God exists. Let me give you the second argument, which is God to make sense of the fine tuning the design of the universe. Now, brother, sister friends, how do we explain the order of the universe? How do you explain the apparent fine tuning in the cosmos to permit our existence? Now to claim that they exist without any purpose is
very absurd. For instance, Professor Roger Penrose, he states, there is a certain sense in which I would say the universe has a purpose is not there just somehow by chance, and you know, what brothers is a friend, I think I would agree with a professor many of you would agree with the professor. It's more intuitive. It's more in line with our needs.
As the Muslims called fitrah, meaning the thing that God created within us to acknowledge his existence. Now, the reason I say this is because the existence of our life in this universe depends on a conspiracy, yes, a conspiracy of initial conditions and constants, that must have been fine tuned to a degree that is incomprehensible, incomprehensible Your mind is reading. Let me give you some of these examples. Example number one, the expansion rate of the universe, according to cosmologies, the universe is expanding and substantiate this claim. Now, if the expansionary of the universe differed by more than 10 to the power of minus 18 seconds, the universe would have
collapsed upon its side. This is why Stephen Hawking in his brief history of time, he agrees with this and says the following words, if the rate of expansion, one second after the Big Bang had been smaller, by even one part in 100,000 million million, the universe would have reached collapse before it reaches present size. Let's take another example. It's about low entropy. Professor Roger Penrose of Oxford University in England, he states, in order to produce a universe resembling the one that which we live, the creator would have to aim for very small volume of the face space of possible universes. I'm lost. I'm not a academic scientists. So I don't know what he's talking
about. But I'm going to ask the question, how small is this volume, and this volume is one over 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 123
is a huge number. There's more zeros in this number, then there is protons, electrons and atoms in the whole universe.
Also, let me give you a practical example. This number is equivalent. If I was a document, I was holding a dots. And I had to hit the center of the smallest things, say a proton, say the center of an atom Elan.
And the dartboard was the entire universe. So I have to be very, very, very, very, very far away to even try and hit the door or hit the target.
And they would have to expect me to hit the center of a proton. If the whole dartboard was the entire universe. This is an absurdity. This is an impossibility. The other example is the ratio of the electromagnetic force to the force of gravity. Now, this measure measures the strength of the electric forces that hold atoms together, divided by the force of gravity between them. Now, if these were slightly smaller than its observed value, then only a short lived miniature universe could exist, no creatures could grow larger than an insect. And that is the reality of this type of fine tuning. So in light of this, there are three possible explanations is just there. This fine
tuning this design of the universe is just there is physical necessity. The other explanation is chance. And this is the atheist mantra.
They hold this claim religiously, there was another joke, get it the atheists hold this claim religiously. Anyway.
The final point is it could be designed so let's work through these together. Well, first and foremost, it couldn't be physical necessity, because these values, these constants, this fine tuning is not dependent on the laws of nature. It's not dependent on the laws of nature, also would have us to believe that a universe that couldn't allow life could never exist. But we know that's not the case. As scientists Paul Davies, he says, it seems then that the physical universe does not have to be the way it is, it could have been otherwise. So we know physical necessity is not an option as an explanation. What about chance? Well, the chances for the initial conditions for the universe to
allow our existence as so unlikely, they will be impossible to use this argument as a rational justification for the existence of the universe that has fine tuning. But wait one second, Mr. atheist to say, but there's still a chance. Well, would we say such a thing, if we found an aeroplane in your front garden overnight? Or for instance, you saw an elephant in your driveway in the morning? What do you say is just chance? What if for example, I say that my mother is not really my mother. Because charts you can claim anything right? This is why charts you can't have a discussion is counter discussion.
Africa, my mother's not my mother, that she's really a green crocodile that was born on Pluto and flew here on a pint of milk.
You might think I'm crazy. Why am I say to you by this dinner?
This is the absurdity of the chance hypothesis. But also, it's not just about chance, because if you think about it, somebody could specified probability, you have a probability, but it has to conform to an independent pattern. Let me give an example. Say I'm a monkey, okay.
Or gorilla. More gorilla than a monkey. I know. See, I was a gorilla typing away in a typewriter for 24 hours. And then you find in the morning, I'm asleep with some bananas. Okay. And then in the morning, you find Shakespearean plain old Romeo, Romeo. Wherefore Romeo denied a father and deny name or if you want to make it more Islamic. Oh, Abdullah, Abdullah.
denied, denied my mother denied my tribe. Yeah. So the point is, you would have expected small words like house dog tree, but since it conforms to the independent pattern of English grammar, and it conforms to the independent play of Shakespeare, you're going to be scratching your head, especially if you hear the next statement I'm going to make, according to British mathematicians, a monkey to type To be or not to be from Hamlet playing Shakespeare. Do you know how long it would take someone give me some numbers, days? years? months?
How many? Three years?
No.
10 years? No. Let me give you the answer. According to these mathematicians, it would take 28 billion years,
the universe is only 1400 years old. So to accept the child's hypothesis is almost rejecting our very existence. So brothers and sisters, we have sufficient reasons to believe that the universe was designed. Let me summarize this argument for you. Number one, the fine tuning of the universe is due to physical necessity, chance or design. Number two, it is not due to physical necessity or charts. Three, therefore, is due to design. And the core and the book of the Muslims eloquently summarizes the design argument it says in the creation of the universe, and the alternation of the knights and de and the ships, which sail the seas to people's benefit, and the water which God sends down from
the sky. But what she brings to life when he was dead, and sketches about in it creatures of every kind, and the varying directions of the winds, and the clouds subservient between heaven and earth. These are Signs for people who use the intellect. The Quran is a book that engages with the human mind. Now, before I get to the miracle of the Quran, let me talk about one main contention main argument against this argument. And you can find it in Richard Dawkins book, The God Delusion on page 1572158. And he says, it's very interesting his design argument, I really like it, but there's a problem. And the problem is, who designed the designer. But this is highly problematic, because in
the philosophy of science, the best explanation doesn't require an explanation. For example, say we all went on the moon had the yellow, let's go. Yeah, we went to the moon and we're digging away. And you found some iPhone, some Blackberry, some poetry, some arrowheads, some trainers, some sophisticated equipment, doctors glasses, his watch his beautiful t shirt. Yeah. Who would you conclude that there must have been a civilization there? But wait one minute, say Richard Dawkins comes along, and he says, You can't claim such a thing. You don't know where they came from? You don't know their name. You don't know that color. You don't know anything about them? And then we
would say, he doesn't mean our explanation is not the best explanation anymore. Because the best explanation doesn't require an explanation. Also, if you say the best explanation always requires an explanation, then we could say what about the explanation for the explanation that explains the best explanation? But what about the explanation that explains the explanation that explains the explanation that explains the explanation for the best explanation, one minute explanation of the explanation, explanation bla bla bla bla bla, if we do this forever, we will never have any explanations which undermine science itself. So this is not a very strong contention. Now let me go
straight to the miracle of the Quran. Now, first and foremost, a miracle is not defined as a virus.
of natural law. This is the old Western view. And he said incorrect philosophical view and miracles, the Islamic philosophy or the Islamic thinking, sees a miracle as an act of impossibility, which is more coherent, and makes more sense. Because if you exhaust all possible explanations in the natural world, then it means you have to start looking for supernatural explanations, and it makes sense of God's existence. Now, I'm going to discuss the Quran in two ways, historical statements that make it a miracle, and scientific statements that make it a miracle. And let's go to the first one that historical statements. Now the Quran mentions history and it does it in a way for us to reflect, to
think, to ponder about our universe, about our own existence, about anthropology, about civilization to really understand our reality, civilizations have come and gone. Let's not have this civilization, arrogance, this liberal hegemony, thinking that we have the best ideas, and we want to spread them across the world. But the crisis be weary, other civilizations have come and gone, your time is coming, and our time is coming. So think about our very existence. But also the Quran mentions history in a very specific, very specific way, in a way that I would argue, defies nature. And let me tell you why.
The Quran mentions a title for the leader of the Egyptians in two ways. In the story of Joseph or use of alehissalaam. The Quran mentions Malik King, which means ruder King, or Sultan. But in the story of Moses musala, he said, the Quran mentions the pharaoh or in Arabic, Shalom,
and why does the crown do this? Why does the crown make this differentiation at two points in time, because at the time of use of it was the old Middle Kingdom at the time of Moses, it was the new kingdom in the 14th century BC. And we know according to the historians, if you could read the reference that Encyclopedia Britannica, but why is this difference there? Especially since the Bible, which was existing at that time, never mentioned King always mentioned Pharaoh? The Torah never mentioned King always mentioned Pharaoh, the historians of the time, never mentioned King always mentioned Pharaoh. The historical knowledge at the time, always mentioned King always
mentioned Pharaoh never mentioned King. So think about this at that time. They never mentioned King only mentioned Pharaoh is the crown wrong here.
And just to make this a bit more elaborate, the Rosetta Stone, which was decoded in the 19th century, the Rosetta Stone that allowed us to read and understand the hieroglyphs the Egyptian language was only decoded many, many centuries after. So why did the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam get this knowledge from? It didn't exist in the natural world at the time. And you can't claim it's a guess. Because it's a very minute detail. It's irrelevant to the message of Islam is irrelevant to the existence of God. It's irrelevant to anything that talks about, but it makes this very specific minute point.
And it's accurate, because now we have the Rosetta Stone. We know at the old Middle Kingdom they called the pharaoh medic, the leader of the Egyptians, Malik and at the new kingdom, they called the leader of the Egyptians Pharaoh, how, why, and when did the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu wasallam get such historical knowledge? If there's no naturalistic explanation, it shows that the supernatural is the best explanation. Now let me give you one of my favorite arguments now something that the Islamic education and research Academy has studied for a while. And this is the embryology in the Quran. In Surah mithoon chapter 23 verses 12 to 14. There are approximately eight beautiful points
eloquent points describing the development of the human embryo in a very unique and eloquent way. I'm not going to go through all of them because it takes a lot of time, but we could discuss this in the q&a. But let me give you some realities and examples of the lexical items the words in the Quran and relate them to modern science. First and foremost, the Quran mentions not far. Now according to classical dictionaries, like the Arab and academic dictionaries like lns lexicon this word can mean a single entity which is part of a bigger group of its kind, a single sperm from a collection of millions of sperms and it can also refer
To one female egg from a group of many other eggs in the ovaries, and according to the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in Muslim, explains he explained the nutiva as a combination from the male and the female. And the Quran elsewhere in the previous chapter says the nut farm is a mingled substance. Now look at what the scientists have to say. No Professor Keith Moore, which we've been using since the 80s, the scientists today 2010, embryologist, Beverly Kramer and john Allen they say the human individual arises from the conjugation the mixing the mingling of two menu structures called cells, one from the mother and one from the Father. These are called
gametes, together these gametes from a single cell, the zygote, from which the entire embryo including its surrounding membranes, grows 100% in line with the Quranic narrative from the main and from a female and it's mingled and it's a single substance that's mingled. Also the Quran mentions karate in McKean, which basically means in a safe place, so the Natasha has been put in a safe place. Again, the classical dictionaries in academic dictionaries they state that the word Koran means to make sedentary to establish, to assign to schedule to determine to stipulate to regulate to decide, and it carries the meaning to confirm and to affirm. The word McKeen has meanings that
includes a place to put down to sit firmly and to put in position and relate this to the following modern science. 2010 2011 embryologist, john Allen and Beverly Kramer explain the process of implantation. In a safe place. Listen to this in plantation begins. About the sixth to the seventh day after fertilization, the part of the blastocyst and the blastocyst was formed from the zygote the mixpre projecting into the uterine cavity remains relatively thin. The Center for blast contains a proteolytic enzyme, which causes the destruction of the endometrial cells so that the blastocyst sinks deeper and deeper into the uterus and makossa. The final deficiency in the endometrium is
sealed off by a fibrin blood clot overlying the blastocyst This cover is called the operculum. Now think about this implantation it goes deeper and deeper and covered in a safe place and gives the indication is in line with the Quranic narrative. Also the Quran uses the word Allah, Allah. This word according to the classical dictionaries and academic dictionaries means to have to be suspended to dangle to stick to clean, to clean, to clean, and to adhere. It can also mean to catch to get caught effects and subjoined and it can also mean a leech like substance that takes us nutrients from blood. Now the many meanings of this word alaqua correspond to modern embryology. This is
particularly true for the various stages in the development of the human embryo. For instance, modern embryology clearly states that from day 15, the embryo is clinging or adhering to the connecting Stoke, the connecting Stoke, and obtain this nutrients via contact with the maternal blood vessels and listen to what embryologist Barry Mitchell and Robin Sharma have to say. They said due to the rapid growth of the embryo during the second week, there is a need for more efficient means of nutritional and gaseous exchange. This is achieved when the embryonic blood vessels of the Korean come into contact with the maternal blood vessels of the decidua. So this aloka stage can
refer to something that's clinging on to the connection store and you can see this I have a book with you publishing 2010 to indicate this. And also the blood vessels taking nutrients via the blood of the mother just like a leech does, but also is even more profound. The leech
like substance actually could be seen not as metaphorical, but actually as real at day 21 to day 24. A very special thing happens to the embryo is called the folding of the embryo. And if you go to the academic medical pictures which are online, go to typing day 21 or 24. You see the folding of the embryo It looks just like a medicinal leech, just like a medicinal leech, to confirm this embryologist Barry Mitchell and Ron Sharma. They say longitudinal folding occurs between days 21 and 24. The end of them forms like a cheap like structure, which looks like a leech. Also, unless mentioned one of the penultimate stages the Quran mentions focus
Sona either FACA Sona II them LACMA. Now the word persona means to close dress garb and attire. This sentence means and with clothes, the bones with flesh with muscle. So this word persona means to close dress attire. It also carries the meaning to hand to drape to face and to case. Also the word flesh is land and it means flesh or small piece of meat and a fleshy type of thing. Now john Allen and Beverly Kramer, the embryologist they confirm how limb muscles are formed and listen to this very carefully. Soon, after the cartilaginous models of the bones have been established. The myogenic cells which have now become myoblast, aggregate to full muscle masses on the ventral and
dorsal aspects of the limbs. Think about this, they aggregate for casona. to encase to cover to wrap to veil, a process that cannot be seen with the naked eye and to reconfirm this very Mitchell and ROM Sharma they explain what happens. They see the Myo gloss, then migrate distally they move and migrate distally fucka Sona to hang to vote to close to encase
over the muscle over the bones to create muscle masses surrounding the developing skeleton. This is 100% in line with modern embryology. So, let's put this in context. There's a lot of science. But let's put this in context. How can we explain this in light of the fact that this is relatively new science? How can we explain when the possible technology didn't exist at the time? What does it tell you about the author, especially since the only embryology they knew was Aristotelian, and accounts from Galen, the two physicians of philosophy at the time.
And then descriptions of the developing embryo was based on the naked eye on dissections, and they were inaccurate. Listen to this, for example, Galen, attribute to the * which what we now attribute to the fertilize over and over. The Quran doesn't mention this. Aristotle said the only the * has the power of the faculties and it makes with menstrual blood. The Crown doesn't mention this image.
Also, Aristotle indicated that you can have a male and a female depending where the embryo is in the womb, something totally inaccurate, and are so many things I inaccurate with the embryology of Aristotle and Galen, which was predominant at the time. So to claim the Prophet copy this would be to claim a massive conspiracy, because say he did copy it. What did he do? He knew what was bad. And he left it. He took what was similar, made it better, and actually mentioned stages that are in line with modern embryology, but wasn't mentioned at that time. She claims such a thing will be equivalent of saying that your mom's not your mom. Because you have to answer so many questions. How
do you know what was correct? How do we add all the other new stages? It's a conspiracy. And this is why many atheists on the web and so called academics are trying to refute these claims upon our studies, we've seen that they're very shallow claims. So in absence of knowledge at the time, we can't find natural reasons why the Quran would have brought about statements are totally in line with modern embryology. What does it say about the author? It says it's not from nature is from the supernatural meaning from the design. So brothers This is a phrase let me
summarize today's debate. We have good reasons to believe that God exists based on the creation of the universe. We have good reasons to believe that God exists based on the fine tuning of the universe to permit our existence. And the best explanation is designed and will have good reasons that God is a truth or not a fairy tale, because the Quran can only be best explained by God, because the statements it makes with regards to history, and the statements it makes with regards to embryology
cannot be explained naturalistically. So there are indication to the divine, the supernatural. So behind a column or behind a shadow Allah Allah Allah illallah wa staphylococci Blake Solomonic Rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh.
Now we will have Dr. Laura Gula to present his view.
Thank you.
Thank you for the invitation.
I will try to say something
about God from a humanist perspective
and the first question
To ask them is what is God?
God is a human creation.
And it's a special kind of human creation. Philosophically, we call this
a hippopotamus hippos does station, which means that we have something created.
And in this case, and it's an abstraction, a concept, an idea
that returns and appears as the creator
of the one who created the concept.
So
this is why God is a projection
with human brains.
And she leaves.
And this is what we have seen throughout history, that God has been presented as a variety of math has made he made strong, small, good, looking bad looking, ugly,
evil, benign. All of these characteristics we have seen in the various gods, that man has created throughout history.
The more sophisticated forms of God, the,
the monotheistic God, or gods, perhaps we should say, because one could always argue that the Jewish Christian and Muslim
God is not really the same God. And there are good arguments to say that we are talking about different, at least different concepts of love. And at the same time, we have a history
of saying it's the same God is that Abrahamic God, that all these three religions share.
Still, if you look at the history of this concept of God, it is a very human
image.
It's a human image of God.
In Jewish scriptures, it's a human image in Christian scriptures, and it's a very human image in the Quran, and other Muslim Islamic scriptures.
Why have we created God?
The creation of God is a result of our need to understand and find meaning in the world.
As human beings, we are looking for purpose we are looking for meaning we are trying to see patterns, because this is part of our biological psychological makeup. And this, this has survival value.
Our ability to reason to recognize and to search for meaning behind action, and particularly behind the actions of other human beings, gives us survival value. Because if you don't understand that a smile
is a sign of friendship, and peace. But maybe it's a false smile. Maybe this is something that we have to look out for, can I really trust this person?
For that reason, we are looking at
what is happening around us, and we are trying to understand what is going on around us. And experience learns, teaches us very quickly, that there are something behind appearances. Oh, yes, I heard yesterday, they talked about me. They said something about me. Could it be that that's mine? is an ironic smile. That is a smirk because he heard something about me yesterday. This way of attempting to find meaning in the world is an obvious psychological mechanism in the creation of gods, spirits, angels.
Isn't there something particular isn't there a personality to that tree? Why did that rock suddenly appear in the road? That rock must have had an evil intention since I hurt my foot on it.
But that's a naive idea. The belief in God is no more sophisticated
than the belief in spirits in rocks and trees.
It is exactly the site the same type of search for meaning.
Well, as our knowledge expands, we have to make
Then idea of God more abstract, because the God as the ruler of thunder, Sue's, or the Nordic Gods Odin
to
driving his chariot drawn by goats across the skies and creating Thunder with his hammer. It's a bit outdated today. So if you are going to maintain an idea of a purpose behind everything, well, then you need a more abstract God.
So you can also look at the evolution or development of the concept of God throughout history. And the Muslim concept of God has developed
the idea of Hamsa
the idea that he thinks he's taken straight out of the Quran is the result of many hundreds of years of Islamic philosophy, theology, Kalam, thinking about God, you cannot find that image in the Quran, it needs to be interpreted out of the Quran.
Perhaps is this also
our beliefs, belief in Gods perhaps it is also a result of what we could call hyper rationality, we have the ability to reason that has survival value that is useful for us as human beings. But it could have a side effect, that we become too rational that we are looking for too much meaning and purpose in the world. conspiracy theories are one example of how we see more meaning than there actually is in the world. And the search for God could be I'm not saying it is, but could be. It's a hypotheses worth investigating, could be another effect of our ability to reason. But an ability that runs amok so to speak,
but
the ideas of God
the religious ideas of God with the characteristics imputed into god or gods are also reproduced as a result of alienation, social frustration, oppression, and injustice. In short, it's reproduced based on our need for comfort.
Our need to see that well, there will be some justice at the end of it all.
Unfortunately, the world isn't like that. The world is full of injustice, and we do not have any guarantee for any rectification of the injustice in this life, nor in the Hereafter, simply because there is no here after.
So why
is there no God in my opinion?
First of all, simply there are no proofs for the existence of God.
We do not have any
scientifically interesting or valid evidence for the existence of a god
Hamsa has presented
two classical arguments, and I will rebut them more thoroughly later. And that's the argument from creation
and the argument from design cosmogony and cosmology.
But
there is no need for a god in order to explain the world.
science can explain the world without God, and it explains the world better, without the hypotheses or theory of a God as the cause of everything.
Furthermore,
the concept of God as we find it in the monotheistic religions,
is contradictory.
It is inconsistent. And if you have a concept that is inconsistent, it means that
attaching any value to it or believing it as something that could exist is senseless.
If you can show that something is meaningless, absurd contradictory. Then you have used what philosophy philosophers called a reductio ad absurdum you have shown you have shown that something is absurd. And for that reason, you have also disproved the relevance and extreme
sense of what the concept tries to
tries to give you a grasp of.
Now, why is
the concept of God, contradictory?
Because the claim is,
the claim goes much further than we have heard so far. The claim is that God is all love,
omnipotent
and all knowing.
Still, there is evil in the world.
This is a logical contradiction.
And this contradiction is amplified within
Islam,
because the insistence of God as the creator of everything, and the immediate creator of everything. And this is a very important consequence of Islamic philosophy, philosophical theology. Because there are various ways of interpreting the God of the Quran.
There is an opening for a God that accepts free will, there is an opening for a God that determines everything in detail. The philosophical discussion came out in favor of those who says, There is no free will, and God is the cause of everything immediately.
Now, she can then be the pen.
And this is an example from our Valley, the great demand himself. He says, I did not choose to pick up the pen, voluntarily. And I am not the one who is causing the pen to write my name on the paper. No, no, that act is created by God as I write. And at the same time, God has created the idea in my head that I chose to pick up the pen and write my name.
In such a world, God is responsible for everything,
necessarily, also everything that is evil in the world.
And then to say that God is merciful and compassionate,
that he wants the best for man and mankind becomes ridiculous. It becomes meaningless, comes in short, absurd.
If God is the cause of everything,
we have a meaningless situation. We have an immoral action, we have an evil god,
a God that would say, those go to *, I don't care those go to heaven. I don't care. Howdy.
That's a cynical, and in my view, evil god. I don't want to believe in an evil god. So even if there was any reason,
like creation, like to design for the existence of God, I wouldn't want to believe in an evil god.
Furthermore, we have strange, if not absurd, and the morphisms. In the Quran,
the Islamic God can see, he can hear
and he sits on the throne on his throne, and he has hands to
read the Quran.
But at the same time, he cannot have hands, he cannot have eyes, he cannot have ears, and he definitely not can cannot have a backside. Because then he would look like a human. And if there is something that is wrong in Islam, it is to say that God looks like a human being.
Still, it's there. The image of man is projected into God, how to solve this. You can't solve it.
Well, they tried anyway.
So what did they say?
below okay.
We don't know how we don't got ears, but we don't know how he hears. We don't know what he hears when he's seen but we don't know what he's seen with. And we should not ask.
We should not ask you should not inquire into these things. Why not? Why not?
confuse your mind. You could start to doubt the existence of God. Ah, dangerous thing. Even though the same Quran says
seek knowledge, even until until China.
So the Quran can predict.
Now if God is unknowable, why should we believe, then you have to rely on authority, you should not enquire, you should accept the words of those who know who knows, scholars the learned, well, then you have to submit to their very human authority, not the authority of God, but human authority, because there is always humans who are interpreting the Quran and telling you that you should not inquire further
besides
the Jewish, but not to the same extent, as the Christian. But to the largest extent the Muslim God is also evil because he wants to torture men and women for all eternity.
Muhammad's first message was repent,
recognize God, or you will go to the fire.
Your Medina, Dean had two games. One was Hellfire, the other was paradise, and I believe I'm supposed to about paradise yesterday. So those of you who would like to go there, have a nice image. My point is that the other outcome of life is eternal damnation, which is cruel and inhuman.
Even to say that, unless they're in private, should burn in * for eternity
is such because eternity what is eternity?
Do we know what Eternity is, is in itself a dangerous and difficult concept. But if it should have any meaning at all, it means
a torture that we cannot imagine.
And a God who says that someone for some reason
should be tortured, forever, is an evil god.
We also know that God is a terrorist.
Because he holds the whole of humanity as a hostage
for the evil doings of some people,
Muslims except the flood, which meant that God destroyed all of mankind, because of the wickedness of some men. And if you say, No, no, no, it was all mankind who had become corrupt. It is not true, because God with the flood killed the unborn babies in mother's womb.
They were innocent, and they were destroyed by this tyrant.
Another reason why you should not believe in this idea of God.
Finally,
one should not believe in God.
And this is also a reason why we can assume have good reasons to assume that there is no God is the evil that is caused by the belief in God.
Not what God is alleged to have said and done and required.
But we have seen torture, we have seen war, we have seen oppression, we have seen extermination, all committed in the name of God. And if you now say, well, that's the abuse of the Word of God, that's the abuse, this is not how it was meant, well, then it means that you sit there with knowledge of the will of God,
that the Prophet
did not have because he went to war,
that the Caleb's did not have because they went to war, that they did not have because they went to war.
If you are said that these are the false words, the false representation of the will of God, you are saying that we know better. And of course, you are not oppressing your wife, sisters, and other women. Why are they sitting there? And the men here
a clear example of the differentiation that ends in discrimination between men and women. And that has been seen throughout the history of Islam as well as in all other religions.
You have the subjugation and discrimination of women. You have the subjugation and oppression of non believers and we have seen it in all
religions, and we have seen it in Islam, no difference. Now, nice people from Islam that have been standing outside the world humanist Congress in Oslo, and we have had peaceful arguments. And I'm here invited by you for a peaceful argument or perhaps a heated argument, but nevertheless, non violent argument.
We have humanist colleagues from Muslim countries that live in fear of their lives, because they do not follow the beliefs of the Quran. Why should they? Why should
humanists live in fear of their lives?
Why should Ahmadiyya Muslims
in Pakistan live in fear of their lives?
Because they disagree with the majority? And if you say, Well, sorry, We are very sorry, the majority of the Muslims in Pakistan have misunderstood, yes. If they have misunderstood, where is your protest?
Where are your protest against the oppression of those who believe otherwise?
being oppressed in the name of Islam?
You want to build mosques in Oslo? And I support your right to do so.
Where is your argument? for the right to build the church in Mecca?
There has been acceptance of slavery
in Islam, the Quran accepts slavery
is wrong?
Why has it been abolished? Is it abolished? Why do we actually see slavery still existing in some Muslim countries?
Again, misrepresentation of Islam,
perhaps.
But where is the Muslim protest?
Where
do I hear your protest?
The belief in God has resulted in the rejection of human rights consistently in practically all religions.
Then we Norwegian state church accepted human rights roughly after the Second World War. Before that they were not that important. Many Muslims say human rights, no way, all the human rights that God has given to humans, we find in Islam, and Sharia.
So therefore, we don't need to concern ourselves with it. And that's why you are quiet when people are oppressed when their freedom of religion is oppressed.
The belief in God, the supreme authority, has led to the relay to the rejection of democracy
and a standard attitude amongst theologians. The learner at once in Islam is better with 40 years of tyranny than one day of anarchy.
In that way, Islam has consistently been used to defend
every dictatorial regime since
the key lives that were suspect in the Mayan dynasty
in the seventh century.
This is perhaps the most serious reason why the belief in God is a dangerous belief, and why it should be rejected.
It leads to, in most cases,
consequences that that that are worse than non belief.
To try to sum up,
science can explain the world better without God than with God. The belief in God is the belief in a concept that doesn't hold water it is inconsistent. Furthermore, the belief in such an inconsistent concept leads to evil things
and should be avoided. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for your presentation. Now, we will have Hamza giving his rebuttal to Dr. La
good arguments for God's existence. Thank you.
smilla Rahmanir Rahim. Okay, first and foremost, I think I mentioned the universe was 1400 years old. I meant to say 14 billion years. Okay? We're not like the young earth creationists like the Christian so apologies for that. Okay, first of all was a quick statement. I think most of what doctor has said has been emotional, political arguments that do not negate the God's existence. Talking about politics, Pakistan, Afghanistan, oppression, violence, tyranny. I don't want.
This doesn't negate This doesn't negate God's existence. Huge opinions. There's nothing that we heard today that is an undercutting defeater to any of the arguments we constructed. And he has constructed an argument for humanism, rather than just throwing small stones at a big wall. also like to say that, he's saying that the concept of God is actually a human concept. Does this sound to be human to you, a ternal. And immaterial is that human cannot be a product and have evolved mind thinking of something that's eternal and immaterial. polytheism is maybe in line with evolution, because all you see is the material world. So there's many gods, but a transcendent, immaterial,
God, that's a channel that can never be the product of an overload evolved mind. Secondly,
the doctor mentioned about it's a psychological mechanism. This is a strategy used by the atheists and humanists because we have a problem the Muslims in the religious people, because we're so sad. We need a big father figure out there to make us feel happy. That's the reality people is and I think it's unacademic. It's non philosophical. It's absurd. Because I converted to Islam. I came from a secular humanist background, my dad was like a philosopher, and I came to the religion based on rational arguments based on the Quran afolayan Luna EBD k for polygons, Have you not seen the camo and how we created it? I will admit the fact to see him do they don't reflect to them
themselves.
And just to explain our signs and evidence in detail for those
who reflect not those who ponder monster psychological weakness, but those who reflect
to you know, use your mind for an
outdated, atheist humanist cliche.
Also, the doctors are the cause of the One God has evolved. This is not true. If you go to the historical works, we see that monotheism was at least mentioned 4000 BC, at least somewhat involving concept, monotheism was mentioned at least 4000 BC, at least just before the Bronze Age, or the beginning of the Bronze Age. Also.
The doctor said that the cosmic God is incoherent, or does not
relate to reality because there's too much evil in the world. This is another outdated humanists cliche. Now, I want to ask everybody a question. When we say evil, do we mean evil is real and objective? because surely to make value judgments, I mean, doctors made a lot of value judgments, oppression, tyranny, subjugation, evil, nasty, all these words, these words carry weight, there must be objective. Now, if there are objective, God must exist. Why am I saying this? Because moral objective values can only exist if God exists, because God is the only foundation for objective morality, because the concept of God transcends goes above and beyond human difference. And I spoke
about this with Doctor yesterday and he agreed, I don't believe more as objective. He believes in relativism or social relativism, that people come together to make the ideas amongst themselves hence, Nazi Germany, killing 6 million Jews is not objectively morally wrong according to his philosophy, but according to ours, it is because we have a conceptual grounding for morality, which is God's existence. And you may think, one minute
must admit.
Now you may think, Okay, well, evolution is a grounding for morality. social pressure is a grounding for morality, but it's not. Evolution was evolution. Evolution says that we're an accidental byproduct of a lengthy evolutionary process. Our morals have evolved like our ears or our teeth, or your unwanted nose hair. That's the reality they have no meaning
evolutionary biological changes are ever changing. And if the ever changing moral norms will change, okay, let's give up on that one social pressure, where human beings come together and decide something, how does that make your objective, there's an organization called the North American men, and young boys love Association number. And they are trying to use human rights legislation to allow old men to sleep with smaller boys. God knows in 50 years time, if the social consensus is there, it will be a morally good thing to do. So the point I'm trying to say is the problem of evil is a problem for the atheist, because if the thing evil is real, and objective in necessitates God's
existence in the first place. Also, I'd like to add that God is not just good. There's a straw man argument is a straw man of God, a fake argument of God, because God is not just good. He's also the wise, and we believe behind everything is the wisdom of God. Now, you may argue, I can't see the wisdom. But you can argue from ignorance, which is a logical fallacy called argumentum ad exoneration, but it doesn't mean that God is good is not wise. So that defeats the problem of evil. Also, the doctor said about that there's a little anthropomorphism in the crowd. This is a very shallow reading of the Quran. The Quran is full of tawheed, the oneness of God, when we look at
God's attributes, and his means, we know that we relate it to the statement, Lisa can be cliche, there is nothing like God. So we affirm what God has said, but we don't know the modality, we don't understand the modality. And this is not incoherent, because we know the universe expands. But do we know how? Just because you don't know, how does it mean, the universe doesn't expand anymore?
Do you see my point? Also, the philosophy of language that the Arabs adopt is a different philosophy from maybe the German school of philosophy of language. For instance, think of the word wing. What is the wing mean?
You may think bird, but we also have a wing of the hospital, and we know the plane. So there's an innate cluesive, that doesn't have a translation into the physical world. And this is what we say we've got two attributes of God. They're unique and one and we reject anthropomorphism.
Also,
he was saying God's a terrorist. That's an emotional argument. We believe God is the most loving dude, dude means excessively loving. There is a prophetic teaching of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, God is more loving than a mother to her child. And there is no greater mercy than the mother to her child. Imagine the transcendent love that God has given to the human beings, and God wants to send you to *, that's not the reality. A good reading the Quran tells us that we made ourselves go there. God says, Don't blame me blame your own hand, the spiritual cause effect cause and effect of reality. And I think these are the most These are some of the counter arguments
to the some of the some of the things that he said, but the rest of the stuff like gender issues, etc, we could address in the q&a, because they don't really negate God's existence. But just On a final note, the creation of the universe, no counter argument, the design of the universe, no counter argument, the miracle of no counter argument. I want a counter argument now, because we can't just be rhetorical and airy fairy and have a nice time and have a pint of milk or beer in your case. The point is, we need to be just we have an epistemic duty, we have a duty to knowledge to argue these claims. So I'm looking forward to your rebuttals, and I'm looking forward to rebutting
your rebuttals.
Thank you very much.
Now, I indeed, of course, not rebutted Holmes's argument in my introduction, because I was invited here to answer this question.
And that's what I tried to do. I tried to answer why I see
the idea of God as a fairy tale, not proof. And I also pointed out some of the bad consequences of beliefs in this fairy tale.
Now,
I will try to, to point out some of the problems in a presentation. But I do object to his presentation of our discussion the other day, which was video filmed and you can look at it.
There is a difference between objective values and absolute values. I do believe in Objective values. Objective values, springs from human existence from human emotions from human experience.
Pain
is a really experience.
And on that basis, we know that we should avoid to inflict pain. And that's fairly objective for me. It's not absolute. In certain circumstances, it is right
to give a small child an experience of pain, not because you want to harm it, on the contrary, because you want to give it an inoculation, and save it from disease in the future.
The point here is that it is absolutely possible to talk about objective values without making these values are absolute in the religious sense. We'll come back to that.
It is true for humanists there is no ultimate meaning in the sense that there is an absolute meaning, life is here now,
does it matter that we exist? Well, if you require an ultimate meaning,
and you says, There is no such ultimate meaning, then our existence is meaningless in that perspective.
But each and every one of you, for most of the time feel that, yes, life is worth living. It has value. And that's the point of life. From a humanist perspective, we give it value, we give it meaning, we give meaning to our lives, we do not rely on some imaginary divine being to give purpose and meaning to our lives, we have the responsibility to create that for our selves.
Now, science can be difficult, nothing came out of nothing.
We this the answer to that is simply that we do not know.
It is a philosophical or theological proposition that nothing comes out of nothing. But how do we know
is a allegedly logical argument.
But a lot of so called logical arguments have been corrected by science, some things that we thought was impossible turn out to be quite possible anyway.
The universe could very well have created itself, there is no bigger mystery in the universe, creating itself than that God was uncreated, more created him herself. What's the difference? It's only a difference if you want to make a big difference. The biggest difference is that if you say God was there from eternity till eternity, there is nothing more to ask about, there is nothing more to inquire into, if you say the universe could have created itself, or it could have recreated itself from previous universes, who had an amazing amount of questions to ask, and to inquire into. And this is what science is doing. Did the universe created itself? Did it spring from forming
universes and material immaterial? Don't make my position out to be a simple material materialist position, because then you don't then you are really
revealing that you don't know anything about modern science. How many dimensions do a modern cosmologists need to explain the universe?
Quiet
912 1921 Take your pick. Of course, these dimensions are not material.
But they are not divine. They are not inscrutable. They can be researched, they can be calculated, they can be made theories about and then they can be tested.
This is modern science. Much more amazing than any belief in religion. If you have God, then you have all the answers period. If you believe in inverted commas in science, then you have really a lot of work ahead of fascinating work.
Now,
the discussion about causes relates to this. Science is concerned with causes natural causes. If you have the ultimate cause as God, you could say yes, well,
we are not opposed to science. Our Islamic beliefs are not opposed to science. We accept science, but before the big bang, there's God and then he set the whole thing in motion as the first mover. Fine. Then we will agree about a lot
and disagree about certain cosmological and cosmological positions.
If you're saying no God is the actual creator of everything every second,
then you have ruined science and then we go to another Muslim. And I leave the word the floor to him.
Sally wrote about the incoherence of the philosophers. And everyone rushed 100 years later rebutted al ghazali. And wrote about the incoherence of the incoherence of LFSR. Because even though she was a defender of reason, he was a Muslim defender of reason.
So there is a limit to how much
abstraction you can put into the God. final point in this round.
The fine tuning. This is not only a Muslim argument, this is a religious argument that we hear from many, it's the so called anthropocentric argument. Since we are here. There must have been some fine tuning there at the beginning. So that we would appear.
The whole point of modern evolutionary understanding of cosmology is that no, it's the had been a different variable present. At the beginning, we wouldn't have been here. But the fact is that we are here.
And that's the outcome of 13 14 billion years of physical, chemical, biological evolution. If you take time into consideration, then you will see this hamster makes a big deal out of what the Quran says about conception. The fetus
as common people didn't know a lot more than Aristotle and govern about what went on in the womb of a mammal. Arabs bred horses, they knew a lot about what male and female meant, they knew a lot about what would come out if there was a miscarriage. And if you look at the fetus of an animal, and a human being
in the first 21 days, they are almost indistinguishable,
almost indistinguishable. So Muhammad could very well has picked up a lot of information from his surroundings and put it into the Quran. And what does the Quran says about, say about astronomy?
Now, if this book is supposed to be divinely inspired, or actually the Word of God, everything has to be correct.
Check what it says about astronomy. There are people thorough well versed in the Quran says that the earth is flat, that the Earth moves around
that that the sun moves around the Earth. If you don't believe me, this is on the curriculum still in madrasahs in Saudi Arabia today?
Where do they get it from?
unreasonable reading? Oh, no, no, that's a metaphor. Of course, that's a metaphor. But biology is not a metaphor.
You can't pick and choose.
So there is no miracle in the in the Quran at all.
Science is about causes. It's also about probabilities. It's also fascinating how you can try to calculate probabilities. And of course, you can calculate the probability of almost everything. If you take time into consideration. Yes, 28 billion years, and a monkey would have written Shakespeare.
We haven't experienced that yet. And why should we try to test it? The fact is, and that's an actual scientific fact that after 13 billion years
of a big bang,
we appeared
thank you very much Dr. lush Gulen.
Now we we have the question and answer session. This is your session. And this is your opportunity to challenge our speakers
on what they have said today, on the topic, God fairytale or truth.
We would like you to make two queues.
One over here for
And one on the balcony for ladies.
And if you have questions,
we will ask our speakers to answer those questions. One question for tokoloshe guler. And one question for Hamza
underdiagnosis.
So if you have any questions, please come to the microphones on the right side. And for the sisters, please come to the microphone on the balcony up there.
We have some basic rules. We would like you all to follow during the q&a session. The question number one must be related to the topic.
Number two, this is question and answer session, not lecturing time. So please put forward your question within 40 seconds only.
We would request every questionnaire to kindly state his name, profession and belief before he puts forward his question.
Do we have any brothers or sisters who would like to ask any questions? Then they could come over to the mics right now. The first question
will be to Hamza.
Do we have any questions for Hamza?
Okay.
Okay, wait, we have one sister up there first. So we're going to give her preference and after that we will give you a preference. Question for Hamza. You have five minutes to answer that, and He will give you the time. Okay. Fantastic.
One second, we got to put the microphone.
Do we have sound?
Yes. Am I have some questions about the objectivity of morality, as we talked about? And I have some clips had one question for that. And one question about the objectivity of the Quran.
Because you said that the Quran is that you can find all these
and knowledge, scientific knowledge in the Quran. And then I wonder, why
doesn't the Quran specify how you do Ramadan in Norway? Why is it so hard in summer? And so you see in winter, and why is it not possible in Thompson? So that's one question about objectivity. And then
just one question at a time, one question at a time. Thank you very much. Hi, I would request you to come up to the stage.
And I will start your time
when you start talking.
Okay, thank you very much for your question. It's a very valid question. Thank you for that, first and foremost with regards to the Quran. And why has it mentioned about Ramadan? And why is it so hard in the summer so easy in the winter, when the client has mentioned values and principles to deal with many affairs across time, for instance, the prime mentions that Ramadan is not supposed to be very hard for you, it's supposed to be easy for you. It's an act of worship to come closer to God, the love from Takapuna in order for you to gain God consciousness. So the Quran says, If you are unable, if you are unable to fast, because of extreme extreme time, for instance, and is
unbearable, physically, you just pay charity every day. So the crime which is a solution, so there's no problem the crime doesn't do that. I think what advice, advice to you is that we should read the Quran with an open mind with an open heart and with critical reading, if you don't understand anything, ask the brothers and the sisters and I'm sure they will elaborate carefully and nicely with compassion on our thoughts, processes, and the jurisprudence as a result from the Quran, the prophetic teachings and also you mentioned about the scientific statements in the Quran. Well see, the Quran doesn't make the scientific statements and what you hear from Dr. Last June he said,
basically, people our time could have had that information, but I think he wasn't attentive when I mentioned Aristotle and Galen, how they did mistakes because of dissections. dissections doesn't tell you everything about the human embryo because you only have the naked eye and we did not have technology to understand how the myoblast cells migrate distally and full muscle mass muscle masses over the bones. What Dr. Maas has done.
Is cleverly just ignored that he's ignored the aspects of the concept. Well, you know, they had information that time they could go to a horse and find how a horse is embroiled in any stage is the same as human, they could do dissections, so it's fine. But this is an inaccurate perspective of what happened. The Quran mentions things that you can't see with the naked eye, the newspaper, from the male and the female coming together mingled to form the zygote. Aristotle got it wrong. He said it's the * with the menstrual blood. GALEN got it wrong. He said, all the faculties belong to the *. So if the Prophet did copy the knowledge of that time, how do you fix it? How did he make
you more accurate? How did you make him more in line with scientific knowledge? This is why dr allows us to be more attentive to the argument with the Quran because our argument of the Quran mentioned stages of embryology that can't be seen the naked eye. And I'll give you another example. Again, the cells that cannot be seen the naked eye they migrate distally over the bones unheard of in an Aristotle unheard of in Galen unheard of all the time and impossible to see with the physical eye in dissections. This is where we have to be attentive to the argument to be honest with what we're saying rather than just quickly putting things to side assuming he copied it from somewhere.
If he did, you have to explain how he fixed it. He knew what was wrong and ignored. It is awkward.
Now the next question will be from the gen side and the question would be to Dr. Large Gouda.
Thank you. My name is Adnan Rashid, I'm from IRA. Dr. Gould, thank you so much for your fascinating case. Although I didn't convince me. My question is with regards to your emotional arguments, although they're not directly related to the topic, but you did raise them. And again, they relate to the miracle of the Quran as Hamza mentioned, miracle of the Quran as one of his evidences for the existence of God. Quran asserts in chapter 21, verse number 107, that Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam was sent as a mercy for the world. And then we see this mercy manifested historically in Islam, contrary to what you said, for example, Professor Thomas Arnold from the School of Oriental and African
Studies at the University of London, he wrote a book on Islam, the preaching of Islam, and he argued that Islam was the best thing which ever happened to mankind. That's what he said, I'm not saying this. That's what he said. Also, we have Jewish scholars who argue that the best time in the history of Judaism was when they were living under Islamic government, for example, Zion zohore. He wrote in his book that when the Muslim landed in Spain, the Jews opened the doors for them as liberators. Then we have another scholar in Israeli historian. His name is Amnon Cohen. I'm going to finish my question very soon. Amnon Cohen, he wrote that during the Ottoman era
1000 Jews from the year 1530, to 1600, within the 17th 1000, Jews came to the Islamic court for justice rather than going to the rabbi. So I can give you many more examples. An example on top of an example. And it's very, very clear, historically, that Western academics have argued that Islam was very merciful to the other to the Jews and the Christians. And the reason some of the minor Christian sects and the Jewish religion survived was due to the protection of Islam. Do you concede to this point? And do you accept the conclusions of those historians? And if you do, then do you take back your assertions against Islam? Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
For next time, everyone, please try to state your question within 40 seconds. And I realized that if you're going to do switch from the women sign and an agenda side, only woman would we ask the question to Hamza and all the brothers would be asking to Dr. Lodge. So we're going to take two questions from the other side and two questions from the system side and switch like this. Okay.
There is a great difference between saying that the Quran, by extension Islam is the best that has happened to mankind. And to say that
Islamic rule or the rule of Muslims, has benefited Jews and Christians in many instances.
The last is what scholars are saying. If someone says that it's the best that have ever happened to mankind, that is definitely an unscientific statement. It might be the statement of a Muslim or a sympathizer with Islam, but it is definitely not a historical correct statement.
Because
I have no problems. And I have actually, on very, very many occasions, explained to those critical of Islam, those fearful of Islam and Islamophobia,
that Islam, in many instances, has represented an improvement, and a better situation for non believers for Jews and Christians than, for example, Christian role represented for Jews in Europe.
But then, this was the situation.
In some countries under some Muslim rulers, some of the time does not mean that other rulers did not oppress Christians, and Jews, and others with a different faith. That happened also. So if you are going to have a correct picture of the consequences of a certain religion, you have to look at the whole picture.
You cannot pick and choose.
Because then you're saying that well, I picked those things and those rulers, that part of history represents the Islam I want to defend.
But then you are saying that all other Muslims are wrong? And you might say so but then say it out loud.
Say that, that, well, they are simply wrong, and they were wrong in the past, I no better say it out loud. This is the only decent position if you try to pretend that well, they were Muslim, so I don't want to criticize them, and there must have been something better, at least better than the Jews and the Christians,
then you are a hypocrite.
Then you're among the feet.
And you shouldn't be
you should actually face up to historical reality. And look at the whole picture, not pick and choose. So my answer to the question is, yes, in certain circumstances, Islam represented an improvement.
For those who came under Muslim rules. In other instances, it regret it meant that life became worse. Often, it also became worse for Muslims themselves.
Thank you very much.
Now we will have two questions from the system side, the first question to handle
please come forward to the microphone.
I have a question about the objectivity on morality.
You said that we don't i don't have? Or if you don't believe in the lie, you don't have the objectivity. I say if the objectivity is more happiness for more and less suffering from us people, and then you can argue, what does make that happiness? But it is.
This is the goal and you negotiate.
Then, I have been in a discussion on Facebook today and they were discussed about I don't know mucho, that's a word is that one our marriage,
which is which some scholars, some Muslim scholars said was legal. For me, this is something that makes suffering and the same
in the same area, the way they practice this, which makes us suffering, they also stone women for for adultery, which I regard as not objective and inconsistent. But in the from the Quran. Thank you.
Thank you very much for
coming.
Here's a very good question. The lady raised some very important points. First and foremost, she said about objective morality. And she said, Can you have a better marriage if you don't believe in Allah? See, that's not the argument. Before attentive to what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, if objective morals exist in necessitates the existence of God, believing in God or no makes no difference, you can be good and you know, believe in the divine, you can display good behavior not being a divine. One thing is, if you take the position that morals are objective, it necessitates God's existence as God is the only sound
objective morality. If you can find another one for me, then this talk about it. But evolution is makes it subjective and relative social pressure makes us subject to the relative. This is why Dr. Lau is good. He said, The difference between absolute and objective, again, we're playing linguistic games. He said it's objective for me.
The statement for me has made it subjective. So it's objective subjective. Because it's objective. For me, it's objective for you, which means it's objective for your personal space, which makes it subjective anyway. Now, with regards to the one our marriage, the majority of the Muslims reject this, and it's not in line with the Islamic tradition. That's all I have to say about that. It comes from the Shia tradition. And the majority of the scholars and even the non Muslim scholars have argued that the
Shia methodology, the Shia theology is not in line with the basics of the Quran, because of aspects of polytheism as attribute to personalities like Ali and the 12 imams. That's a different discussion. It's a theological discussion, but it's outside of the theological framework of Sunni Islam. The other aspect, he talked about the severe punishments, the suitably harsh punishments now, I'm not here to, to justify them to you because I don't think Islam requires any justification, just like many of the liberals don't think that liberal interventionism when you go to Iraq and Afghanistan requires any justification. However, I want to be very clear. And in Islam, the suitably
harsh punishments are there as a deterrent effect. Muslims don't want everyone's hand to be cut off. Muslims don't want everyone to be stoned. That's not the reality of the Muslim, the Muslims here to show mercy and compassion. What happens is the city the harsh punishments, they are there to act as a deterrent. And the conditions for those punishments are so hard, are so difficult, that it's almost impossible for any of these partners to come into practice. For example, for someone to get stoned to death, you need full pious witnesses that saw the act as a scholar say, the pen goes in the ink. Okay, and you have to see them in public. You don't even see that in
the worst place in Soho in London, you don't even see the in the red light district. And even he saved over I saw them in the house, you know, pious witness anymore. Because for you to spy on someone means, you know, pious. So the point is, is our tradition is not everyone to go crazy, because let's be very frank here. The Islamic tradition is very powerful, because we need these things. In the Western world. There's 167 rapes. Every day in London in England 90,000 requests a year, According to Amnesty International, in every four women, one woman is battered and beaten, in England, in America, every 13 seconds, a woman is beaten every six seconds she's raped. This is the
reality of Western liberal countries, because they don't have an advocation of morality. They have a principle distance, distance to morality, as in the words of Professor will clinica, who's a liberal philosopher, and this is why we have these moral problems. But if you have the Islamic tradition, it prevents these things from happening. Just On a final note, we have to go away from this from the BBC, the media, CNN and Fox News narrative on punishments is a very cartoon of the Sharia, a very detailed law. Just imagine, outside a shop, you have a guy with a huge beard. Then you have a woman covering her hands and face with a sword by her side. And there's a small Norwegian guy who's
hungry, he goes to the shop and stills cooking. The guy trips him up with his beard, he falls on the floor, the niqab, he takes the niqab off gets the sword cut.
This is this is the cartoon. This is the cartoon of Sharia law. And I think that Dr. Large, he should educate his humanists because the humanists never come up with things that was an outdated cliche. I think from now on Muslims should only talk to the wider society about Sharia if they bothered to pick up a read a book about Sharia, because everything they go to is the news. We don't go to the news to judge people we go to the literature. So my point is stop the cartoons and let's connect with each other as human beings to find out what you mean by this.
Thank you very much for your great answer. Next question would still breed from the brother side, but that would be for
for
forgetting.
Sister side right. Is it
for the philosophy the two questions
Because
this is a question that is directed to law school and on behalf of a sister named ion, she says that and why do you define this assembly of men and woman, both Muslims and non Muslims? As
for the woman side as oppression? Have you ever spoke to any of the sisters? Why do you say that just because it contradicts with your point of view and your culture and your belief.
There were slaves who accepted slavery. The fact that many women says that it says so in the Quran, and therefore it's right. does not make it right.
And there are hundreds and 1000s and millions of Muslim women who are struggling against the segregation that you are practicing here today.
That is the basis on which I condemn this kind of segregation. Because this is used to legitimize the next step, go home, make children don't get an education be silent.
And if you think this is just Hahaha, then I will object also to have
quite incredible distortion.
When he says that there are abuses of women, battering of women in the West, yes. And we are trying to face that problem. We are increasing the penalties for men who vector women, we are trying to create and run shelters in the Muslim world to even talk about it is to ruin the family. If you cannot beat your woman, you are no longer a man. And you think this is Haha, as if there is a beating of women, how many of you have been beaten?
Either you are ignorant or you are in life, it is as simple as that.
Either you are ignorant, or you are lying, because then you have no idea who the women are filling up the Norwegian women's shelters today. The majority of the women in Norwegian shelters here in Oslo are Muslim women, and in Muslim countries where you allegedly should be following Islam out of fear of the punishment of the death, battering of women is worse than in our part of the world.
And if you don't believe me, then you really need to look carefully at your own countries and your own culture. Because this is what is happening.
And this is no laughing matter. This is actually very serious, how many honor killings? And if you are when the queen in Jordan try to change an institute punishment for the honor killings. What did the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan say?
It's against our tradition, and our religion.
You cannot accept you cannot expect a man to accept that women wives and daughters are behaving immorally without the man reacting and he kills them. We have to understand and excusive
this is an example of the battering the violence against women, that is a consequence of this segregation, because you think you are liberated free, you have chosen and many of you have chosen to wear the job to be practicing believing Muslim women and you have every right to do so, of course you have and we should all defend that right. But if you forget the history of the segregation, you are practicing here and the consequences of that segregation in other countries, then you are either ignorant, or you are lying, deceiving yourself.
Thank you very much for your answer. Do we have
one question for Hamza
Salam aleikum. wa rahmatullah. My name is Jim shed. I'm with euro and I am a Muslim. I came to Islam through rational means. So my question is actually for Hamza
In the last presentation, he mentioned that we shouldn't actually be surprised that we're here, because we're here.
And I'm curious that if that doesn't undermine your entire argument about the the creation design, that the universe exists, you know, the whole universe exists by design. So doesn't that falsify that whole thing?
Thank you very much.
That's a very good question. You I was gonna leave that to my rebuttals at the end, but he's given me the opportunity to undermine the whole of Dr. LA's argument against the argument for design. Now, Dr. La said that we shouldn't be surprised that we have fine tuning for our existence, because we're here to see that we're existing because of the fine tuning. This is called the anthropic principle. And I think his Miss plays the argument, because the anthropic principle does say we shouldn't be surprised that we're here, because we're here. Of course not. We shouldn't be surprised that we're here, because we're here, but you cannot interfere. You cannot make the inference, you cannot make
the conclusion that we shouldn't be surprised because that there is fine tuning for the universe. Let me give you an example. Say all of you were trained marksman, you are trained to fire a gun from 200 meters away. And you have lasers pointing to my head, every single one of you. And after 313.
I'm not dead.
But the thing is, I shouldn't be surprised that I'm not dead. Because I'm not dead. Right? Because I'm alive. But I should be surprised that the reason I'm not dead is because you will miss GC the point it's in such a way to undermine the argument. He didn't understand the argument. The unsurprised principle doesn't deny the fine tuning. We're saying yes, we're here. We're not surprised. But we should be surprised. Because the reason we're here is because of fine tuning. Just like the example with the marksman just after the hair salon When
can we have the next question from the brother side to Dr. lash.
Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.
at
large Beulah,
cod
allemands Fishman live dnmt so for Adamo a lot in the six coma familiar demonstration, we will clone a dog at the top silo. True or no? We're not really allowed to open our solutions, 2 million.
2 million. They're mostly made of
money
in English briefly, because we have viewers watching online as well. And maybe not everybody understands English.
The brothers question was briefly that do you doctor last unit believe that all the human beings from the beginning of time that have believed in God, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, whatever religion are wrong, and basically what do you base that on? If I understood you correctly? Was that correct?
Okay, fantastic.
I believe that they were and are wrong, of course. I mean, that's what I have stated here. So that goes without, I mean, I have given the explanation for that. The interesting question is
how all those people throughout the ages really believed in God. What do we know about that? Actually, we do know a little bit.
atheists have been around for a long time.
They have been there since time immemorial. They, as soon as people started believing in the gods, there were people there to reject the gods. So atheists, non believers have been around all along. And you have had people with strong faith. You had fundamentalists around also for a long time, and you ever had weak believers. And you have had those who said, Well, maybe, I don't know. agnostics, we would call them today. You have had all sorts. The important thing here is that
Those who have had a strong develop faith, they have been that politically dominant within society. And that's why they have like, left such great marks. I can't resist, but
to return to surprise or not surprised at humankind being here, existing at all. Now, this so called anthropocentric principle, the fact that well, if it had been a little bit different at the Big Bang, we wouldn't have been here. That's fine. We are here. So then we know that the conditions at Big Bang, were correct for us to appear 13 billion years later, it's as simple as that. When you start to use language, like fine tuning, then you imply a fine tuner, then you are saying, somewhat men have to be there. But that's what we have no reason to believe. That's just an assumption. And that's why you project backward and fine tuner. And then you talk about the anthropocentric
principle, the principle as such doesn't mean anything that, then that the conditions were right at the given time, in a causal sequence. That's what it means. And out of it came when it's when you are starting to use this principle and legend principle to say that well, then someone must have adjusted these variables and constants to exactly the right levels and sizes.
And then you are smuggling in God through the backdoor, and Aha, a fine tuning, fine tuner equals God, which is really spurious way of arguing.
Thank you very much. I've heard that there is no question on the system side. So we will continue in the roadside.
Please.
This question, next question is for Hamza right. Yes, fantastic.
My question is about the cause and the Quran.
When you retro actively lead us through the deduction of where?
What causes the world and the cause of the cause? And the cause? You said, we have to choose that is the first cause? Because the infinity of it, as it makes us assume that we take the easiest one? How can not take the easiest one, which is there is no cost? How come? Do I stop there and say, well, let's take the first course as the easiest one out of the number of infinity.
And this relates to the third argument, I could not see how you made the jump,
logical jump in deduction, from the coals being God being Allah, because I can use that cause to be Buddha, or any other
created. So how come the Quran and if you allow me just, I can take the next question in the Google back in the queue and technique because you already asked two questions in there. So the next question in the next time?
Yeah, sure. But the next question you have to take in an excellent, thank you very much for your question.
I like to thank the lady I didn't catch her name. But I know it's Dr. Lyons his wife and I pulled that she's here today it's very good that she's come
to support husband as is a British thing that says Behind every successful man, there is a successful woman
maybe maybe that's not in line with his liberal humanist values because when men women are not supposed to be behind the men but that's a different story. Anyway, very good question about the cause of the universe so we're saying that if the universe began at a point he either must be self created it created itself he was created by something else or created from nothing all these the some of these options offset For example, He can't create itself because how can you exist not exist at the same time? Also, if it came from nothing, that's an absurdity and Dr. Loss good for? Well, we don't have any proof that things can can come from nothing or can't come from nothing. I think
that's again, that's a slight philosophical play. This term can suddenly come can can it come from nothing. This statement is not only innate, which in philosophy is
We need the concept of causality to understand our reality, but also it's empirical, because I want to challenge everybody. Have you ever seen something come from nothing is empirical because all the empirical evidence says that when you hear a noise, you know, it came from somewhere. So the point is for him to claim, well, we don't really know is, again, the humanists and the atheist clutching at straws trying to get out of the big hole they've made for themselves. And frankly, it's also an empirical point. Now, coming back to your question, what is more plausible, the professor Anthony flew in his book, there is a God, he made an amazing point he said, Look, either the cause of the
universe is uncaused, or the universe is uncaused. Shall we take up it? Let's take up a few years any evidence to believe the universe is caused, of course, because it began to exist, because it came in a point in time, cosmology, the Big Bang, even philosophically, if the cause was if the universe was uncaused, it means is eternal, it means that history of past events of the universe are infinite, and the infinite can be brought into the real material world, it leads to absurdities. So we have so much good evidence to believe that we can never claim the universe is uncaused because all the evidence, philosophical, mathematical, and cosmological indicates that the universe began.
So we have more evidence to believe that the universe is the thing that's caused, based upon that approach. The other thing you asked was about the logical jump from the cause to Allah. I think, maybe you weren't attentive during the argument. When I talked about the first two arguments, the first argument, the argument from creation, I said, we know there's a cause a creator, we can never say a lot. I even said my own words. We can't claim it's Jesus. We can't claim it's Buddha. We can't claim is Allah. We can't claim any of the 3800 names for God since sixth. Okay, the pennies dropped. You got it? Right, good. So the point I'm trying to say is upon conceptual analysis upon using a
reason and the answer's no, use your brain when we use our brain, our mind our reasoning upon the essential attributes of this creative cause. We do conceptual analysis, and we come to the conclusion as I said, in my presentation, it must be one must be uncaused must be eternal, must be personal, and I gave all evidence for that. Unfortunately, you probably missed out but you've been nodding your head so hopefully you remember that I said
thank you. I remember what you said. But logical deduction alone does not lead me to God Allah because if it's one uncle's, it still can be named Anything else? Why Allah is
what we did. Let me tell you what we did you remember that I took all the attributes one it's an uncaused and linked it to the basic definition as mentioned in the Quran itself. Who Allahu Akbar uniquely one on love summit attended lemmya lead will help you lead he didn't begin
with me. When I had easy material transcendence. We took what reason gave us the crisis at exactly the same.
Okay, now you've given me the inference you've jumped into the third point, the Quran, you're using the Quran as a justification for your deduction that was not really leading to that.
See a summer the sooner that you just recited Yes, one God, but you've used the Quran I want to reach to the Allah before I reach the cookie. This is precisely the point.
What you have to understand is that we didn't reach to the plan. Remember, we did the conceptual analysis, we found out what the essential attributes are. And then because we're justifying the existence of God, and the Islamic tradition is Allah. Does our reason correlate correspond to what the Quran says? I never started with the Quran then ended with reason I started with reason then ended with the Quran. Joseph.
Thank you very much for your very good questions. And thank you very much for your answers. The next question is for Dr. Lars Gula. But first I will ask is there any question from time to dock last year on the topic God favorite no truth.
Okay, then the question comes through.
My question is to Dr. lush bullet. He said the universe created itself.
Let's say for the moment it created itself.
And we might try and exist
on the universe, because if there was no creator, me, I know that you're a father and a mother and my father, a mother and a father the way they
tend to be on the universe.
Well, this question also relates to, to
what Hamza has said that nothing comes from nothing.
So there needs to be a creator.
But what about God?
Oh, God comes from nothing, or God is eternal.
God, then you have used wordplay,
then you have simply used word play to make a definition of God that says that it is the uncaused cause.
As a philosopher, as a scientist with a scientific approach to reality, there is nothing wrong insane, with equal logical force that the universe caused itself created itself.
There is absolutely no way that you can say that it is wrong.
Science is presenting answers to how that could be done.
That is what modern cosmology is all about.
Do they have an answer?
Yeah, they have some, are they satisfactory? To some? And to other scientists? They're not satisfactory? Are they difficult to understand? Oh, yes, indeed, much more difficult to understand than the concept of God and the Creator God.
But the point here is that we are still investigating. these are
these are questions that can be researched, they can be investigated, they can eventually be formulated in ways that will make it possible for us to test them, then we can conduct experiments. And then we will say, Well, no, there's something wrong here. Okay, we have a new generation of scientists, and they will look for new answers. This is science. Science never ends, science continues to look for even better answers. When you say it's called, you have found the final answer. There is nothing more to talk about. read the Quran, and you know, everything. Sorry, it doesn't work like that. And if it was,
that the Quran revealed the inner workings of the cells of the *, and the female egg, and contraception,
why didn't Muslims understand this so much better than everybody knows? And actually,
advanced science in this regard? Why is it that you always say, oh, now we can see how far advanced the Quran was? Why didn't they understand that 100 years ago?
Why didn't they see that here? Look, scientists in Europe at the universities, look here and here.
Put your microscope here and do what the Quran says. That wasn't the Muslim scientists who said that you have hundreds of prophets who have made the most strange and interesting and ludicrous and wonderful prophecies. And then afterwards Oh, see how right he was? And then another 100 years, see how, see how totally wrong he was. These kinds of arguments, you look back, you put it into an already established frame of interpretation. This is apologetics has nothing to do with scientific or logical proofs for God. On the contrary, you are showing how few times the exercise of proving the existence of God is by using the Quran. The way Hamza has done here today.
As I've understood, thank you very much. As I understood we have assisted the question, but is that the Hamza production?
Okay, no question.
Do we have a question for Hamza or a topic? God fairytale or truth
Before I ask the question, I need some support from sisters to provide evidence to validate my question.
If the camera can turn to other sisters, please, sisters, I'll ask you three questions to clarify the picture, some points raised by a doctor.
And I want an answer collectively from you.
Are you oppressed to be Muslims?
Did anyone force you to?
Would you give up Islam for anything? No.
Okay, this is the miracle of Islam.
Last 10 seconds my question to Hamza Hamza, can you substantiate my point about the rights of woman being a miracle for Islam and assignment for the existence of God? Thank you.
Thank you very much for your beautiful question. But as the Chairman, I must say that, please make it within 40 seconds.
Okay, that's a very good question. And thank you sisters deserve to be here. And basically, first of all, I'd like to make a point about apologetics. I think the one who sounds like a man full of faith, like a man who's a religious fanatic, today, because he says, The cosmologists are giving us answers. We just have to pray and wait for them.
The answers I don't know what they are, but I believe in them does not sound like a religious fanatic to you.
I am totally shocked and bedazzled. I'm flabbergasted. I am shocked at the level of approach you've taken to the debate you offended women, nothing to do with God, you offended. God, you repeat.
You repeat the argument which I refuted even the beginning of my presentation about God. And you say things like, oh, then how did God come to me with your statement is fallacious? We even said God never came to be so the question doesn't apply. And also by rational, it must be uncaused. Because I give the example of giving you a kiss, kiss or something.
So the point I'm trying to say is yes, thank you very much. To the women, women, pre Islamic Arabia, there used to be a flag on a woman's tent, when any man could go inside and sleep with her something that's very similar to liberal Western society with prostitution. There's 80,000 Portuguese in England, the government are doing nothing about it. Islam honors the woman who says whenever stop this, and we have to honor the woman and that's the reality of Islam.
The Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said,
this of you in faith are the ones who are best to their wives. Do we hear this from David Cameron, and Obama?
What about what about economic rights women don't even have to work because we honor the woman we elevate her She doesn't even have to. She doesn't even have to pay for her house we have to provide if the man can provide the government provide, she doesn't have to pay for an education. The husband or uncle the one who's in charge of her says has to and is obligated to pay for education. She doesn't have to pay for her own makeup. That's the reality.
And I ask you the question, in which liberal society in which liberal society Do we have is David Cameron giving money to the homeless women 80,050 to 80,000 homeless people in England? Where is the money? The bankers get away with everything, but we can't take the money from the bankers who even stole on taxes to provide an honor the women and families This is the reality of individualism, which is the basis of your society, which is liberalism. I would challenge anybody today. I would even make sure that we are in the morning, I'll debate on liberalism, and show how individualism is the most disgusting thing that came in this society because excessive greed what's happening is
Somalia. There's 10 million people starving, starving because of food. And but we have 10 million people dying because of obesity, fat chips, KFC chicken pizzas, in America, the dying of too much food by smiles I have no food has nothing to do with too many needs and not enough resources. That's an outdated geopolitical myth. The reality is the distribution of resources who solved the problem that can occur.
point I'm trying to make is now
We disagree with this, we want to elevate people, we want to change the society. So Western societies making more harsh punishments. That's not true. In the UK, there was a huge debate because the guys, the politicians, the corrupt people, they wanted to lower the crime rate. They want to lower the crime rate in UK just early this year. And he might say, well, shamanism has a solutions, it doesn't you know why? Because it's based on social consensus. And what does that do? The ones with the most money and power will make the most influence that we see in capitalist societies. This is why children in England have UK riots, because they have no purpose in life. What defines them is
the bling bling, the trainers and the mobile phone, they don't have it. They don't have a definition, they don't have identity, therefore they have to steal it. He might say, well, human isn't going to solve the problem. He won't, because you're calling for the solution, which is the thing that caused the problem in the first place, which is individualism. suppiler.
Thank you very much for your great answer. Now, the next question is for Dr. last topic, guard, pharyngeal, which is
filarmonica alaikum.
My name is Margaret, I'm a student. You in the speech in the first you told that in the Quran, it's mentioned that the Earth was flat, and you're probably read the Quran. So can you tell me where you found that statement?
was probably an exaggeration. So I should make an apology for having said that.
But I won't,
because it seems to be correct. So
the general point here is that there is a lot said in the Quran, that is proved by modern science, you cannot pick and choose and say that the Quran proves the science on the one hand, and then ignore all the other examples that does not fit with modern science. And those of you who read the Quran, can look for yourself. I do not spend much time on looking at the Quran.
Some examples?
Yes, now I've been challenged. So I will go and find those things that I can post them on, you know, but you are a reader of the Quran. You know, it's very interesting. There is some parts of the Bible study. And it's very interesting to hear Christians say this, and this and this is in the Bible. Yes, because I've read it. And I say, well, this and this is also in the Bible
and say, No, I never read that. Well go and look, and it's there. And what I'm saying is also there
that
I am, I am not happy. I have never memorized the Quran. We have other people here.
Know,
what kind of medical, in view of women's rights do the Quran represent?
An increase of women rights, according to certain practices in the Arab peninsula at the time of Muhammad, probably, but not necessarily.
quite that simple.
And the question remains, and this is, and I'm also amazed at the level of rhetoric if I am accused of being a religious fanatic here, what then is Hamza with his with his level of rhetoric, who has consistently avoided the challenge of explaining why Islam is not practiced by Muslims.
Why is women oppressed you are saying that you are free, and there are million millions of Muslim women who are saying they are oppressed.
They are in Pakistan, they're in Bangladesh, they're in Saudi Arabia. They are in Syria. They are in Palestine. They are in Jordan. They are in Morocco. They are in Algeria. They're in the Sudan. You find them all over the Muslim world. millions of women who when asked will tell you that they are oppressed, not allowed to do this and that and then he comes with all we exalt the woman.
To be exalted means that you respect people's inherent dignity.
And they're right there right to choose for themselves.
And this is what is lacking in so many Muslim countries. Finally, and trying to get back to the question of God, fairytale or truth. Now, is the question.
Who created or what created God a meaningful question?
Is it the question that Well, yes, we can reflect on that question? Is it a question that has an answer? Yes, Hamza has answered it. And he says, it's a question that has the answer, that God deep was not created, because because God exists from eternity to eternity.
Fine, it's an answer. It's not an answer I like or accept. But the point is that you can give the same answer about the universe that it created itself or existed from eternity? Well, it necessarily did. Because modern cosmology in some varieties, says there was nothing before the universe came into being that it was nothing, not even God.
So to say that, by definition, God is exempt from being scrutinized, as what caused God is a cop out. That is, no better actually fight worse than because it's wordplay, then saying that we have a universe that came into existence from nothing.
Thank you very much for your answer.
The next question is more hands on. And it may be that maybe the last question will say
My question is the doctor. The doctor mentioned that his universe created itself. And in another occasion, he mentioned other possible universes, does this have any scientific or rational basis? Okay, thank you very much.
First and foremost, I want to clarify this issue about the earth being flat and never says the earth being flat. If we do a very careful linguistic analysis, there's a concept in linguistics called code text is a western and eastern phenomenon where you see a word in context of the surrounding word, you understand the beauty of the language. For example, the Quran mentions Earth in various places in various ways, and also says the earth has been spread. With regards to a lot of places that have flat possible to walk on, or specific, all of the wealth is round. The Quran says in chapter 39, verse five, he created the universe, the heavens and the earth for truth, he wraps the
night in the day and wraps the day in the night. The word here in Arabic to run is to quit.
addiction, you see, the wrapping of a turban, does not indicate the roundness of the earth to you, or the flatness of the earth.
Anyway, the point about the quickness.
Again, you're making a big hole for yourself. The point is, is I do use a question I gave an answer and the answers were, God never began to exist. The answers were by rationalists, there must be an uncaused cause because the absurdity of infinite regress, you'd have to answer the question because we got so much philosophical, mathematical, cosmological, scientific, physical evidence to show that the universe began to exist. You were trying to say to the audience, even talking about magic and conspiracy, everybody, when things begin to exist, they never have.
Can we believe such a thing? Let's have a show of hands. I know you don't want to play by authority, but just for the taste of the day, you believe if something begins to exist, has a cause.
Your wife has to back you up again.
Now just to make just to make this much better, just to be on the side of the atheist, because I don't think he's doing a very good job for the atheist, by the way.
Because, let me let me try and be an atheist. I'm gonna call my atheist hat on if I was an atheist, I would have said, You know what, in quantum mechanics, there are subatomic events that come into the vacuum without any corresponding causes. So things can come into being without any causes. That is a valid argument in physics, or we can refute it as well, because the vacuum is not nothing. It's a sea of fluctuating energy. Many physicists are adopting a deterministic approach saying these, these events actually do have causes. So I could even see him argue with myself because he's not doing a very good job.
With regards to it could have been multiple
Universities we could have had, we could have came from another set of universities. Well, the question is, we have to explain those universities if they're multi universe, an infinite set of universes, first and foremost, you can't have an infinite regress. That doesn't make sense. The multiverse in the words of the philosopher of science, john polkinghorne. He said, the multiverse theory is a religious theory. It has no physical evidence, it says metaphysics is this philosophical mumbo jumbo, it is something that the some of the scientists have adopted to move out of the question, let's push it away for a bit. Let's push them away for a bit. So in the multiverse theory
also doesn't make sense. Because for multiverses to come into being requires fine tuning, think about it. multiverse is to come into being require design and fine tuning. So the multiverse approach, the who created God approach is all fallacious. I hope I've explained it, let's not go running circles, let's move the debate to something more useful, like
talking about
politics. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
According to our schedule, the time is really up. So what we're going to do, we're going to end the question answer session right now. And then Dr. Schuler will have 10 minutes to give his final rebuttal. And then Hamza will have 10 minutes to give his final rebuttal. And then we will conclude with some formal conclusion.
Your final 10 minutes.
I think this is
an important debate, philosophically speaking, it is a debate about the basis on our
convictions, our worldviews, and therefore they have great bearing, as I've also tried to say, in my introduction, bearing on our moral values, how we argue and how we represents these values. Therefore, what is seemingly a strange philosophical question without much practical use turns out to be of great importance when it comes to understanding how we the next time around, and I expect that might be the next debate, I mean, write it for still argue about the basis of values?
Well,
a lot has been said, and more could be said about modern cosmology. I will reiterate that, yes, we do have religious cosmologists, people who are searching for God, in their cosmological theories, they are not searching for a personal, Christian, Jewish or Islamic God. They are searching for principles, abstractions, behind the reasons why we are here, in the sense, not why someone intended it, because they will have to explain how we came to be here. someone thinks that an explanation of how something came into being at the same time is an is an answer to the question why we are here. And there is a confusion of those two questions. Those who insist that we need to know why we are
here. That's simply not understood what science is all about. Because Science is not about answering the question why? Science is about explaining how we came to be.
Now there is probably some important differences between logical infinite regress, and allegedly, physical regresses, we don't know if
a universe that was caused by the Big Bang, had another cause before the big bang that cause another something. Modern cosmology opens for that possibility. And we are searching for a series of universes. And homsar said, we don't know why the universe is expanding. Well, we do know something about it. What we don't know is is if this expansion is going to go on forever, or if we will see contraction that depends on questions. We have asked.
To be able to answer with concerns the mass of the universe, if the universe has a certain mass, it will expand forever. If it has an other mass, it will start to contract which might lead to
a big black hole and perhaps the creation of a new year universe. And perhaps our universe is the result of such a process. The point here is that the classical argument from creation,
or the need for a first polls and the argument from design are not arguments that will stand up to close scrutiny. They have been tested in Muslim versions in Christian versions, and they have been refuted by much better philosophers and scientists than me. So I might do a poor job here today in defending the the
my answer to this to this question, it doesn't mean that better answers does not exist, although you might not have heard the best arguments here tonight.
Now,
we could probably go on and argue about this.
I think the fact that he had the argument, and that this was the first in Norwegian history, that the humanist atheist was invited to, to be very conservative. Some would say, fundamentalists, I would probably say Salafi
Muslim congregation
is in itself valuable.
And the fact that we are able to meet, even in harsh debate about these questions, and you think it's so important that you are live streaming it, and we will post it on your websites and YouTube, and I don't know where it will not end up eventually.
There, I travel back to the Middle East, who
I think this is a valuable contribution
to two things.
Number one, the understanding between different life stances in Norway, this is extremely important. You have seen that an atheist can come and argue without biting your heads off, I have seen and through
the light transmission here, and the publicity that this meeting has received and will receive. You have seen or other Norwegians have seen that it is absolutely possible to sit down and argue even on the most basic and for some most important questions, the existence of God or not, that in itself is valuable.
I don't think we can say that we have come to a final conclusion
on the question, but the fact that we had the debate is something that I applaud. And thank you for Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Dr. Noonan.
And we will have the last minutes by hanza.
Brothers and sisters, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to thank you all for your time and your patience has been a very interesting debate. I think we learned anything from today's debate is that people can come together. Because what happened, the disaster and the tragedy will happen in Oslo just a while ago was something that doesn't belong to secularism, that something doesn't belong to religion, it belongs to insanity. And we have shown as human beings, we can connect with each other, even if it's a bit loud, even if it's a bit rhetorical, and even if it's a bit outdated, but the point is, we can come together and connect in this way, which is one of the good things about
Norwegian societies for that. Please give yourselves a round of applause.
This is why it's very important for us to do these things as the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam said, the cure to ignorance is to ask and learn. This is why it was good. You were asking and we were giving trying to give some answers. And we also have questions ourselves that we want to develop further maybe in a future debate in London.
Yeah, nice holiday. Insha Allah he says. First and foremost, I like to really add that the first argument from the argument from creation was not refuted in any shape or form when we spoke
About the best explanation is a must have been created with a creator with certain features that his one eternal, unique, immaterial. This wasn't counted at all. The only counter argument we heard was when maybe the universe created itself. And we show that this is a logical absurdity because something can exist and not exist at the same time, even claim such a thing will be claiming an absurdity. Secondly, the counter argument was well who created God and just earlier we dealt with this, God never began to exist, the absurdity of infinite regress of causes, etc, etc. We show this very clearly. Also, we talked about the design of the universe, that the fine tuning of the universe
is best explained no by physical necessity, not by chance by design. Dr. lasco was claiming physical necessity, he never proved it. He never shown how physical necessity actually is the best explanation for fine tuning. He just claimed it. And I went slowly with all the points. It can't be physical necessity, because these values are not contingent or dependent on the laws of nature. It can't be physical necessity, because he would have us to believe that another universe that could never allow life could never exist, which is not true according to physics.
He shouldn't
amongst his fellow religious, sorry, atheists, that was another joke.
So and he couldn't deal with that, because this is a ridiculous hypothesis. So the best inference, which is the best conclusion reasoning to the best conclusion is that it was designed, there was no counter argument in any shape or form for that. Then we talked about the Quran, we spoke about the historical miracle, no mention, surprisingly, about the historical miracle. How could the Quran mentioned Malik and Farah own of the two different titles of the need of the Egyptians are two different kinds, which is accurate historically, but was never mentioned or even applied and implemented, in that at that time, 1400 years ago, where did he get this knowledge from? embryology,
he came with the horse and the embryo on that. And the dissections again, we mentioned things in the Quran that cannot be seen with the naked eye. The neutral information in a female is designed according to modern embryologist. Also, we spoke about focus on
LACMA, and we close the bone to flesh the Maya class, they migrate distally and for masses to form muscle over the various models of the bones, something that cannot be seen the naked eye. And also he claimed that there was no age at the time given going wrong. Aristotle going wrong gaining said the * this man has the faculties and the woman has nothing Aristotle said is the messenger of God with the * that creates the baby something absurd. Also, Aristotle came about where the embryo is going to be in the womb, then you know, it's going to be a male or a female. The Living mentioned the process of closing the bone never mentioned the process of the secure place the
implication of the sixth or seventh day in the development of the human embryo all which can't be seen with the naked eye. This is why he should have been a bit more honest and said Hamza, I don't know.
And that would have been the best more honest position rather than saying go to the internet, read it yourself. So none of these arguments has been refuted. Also we have more arguments for the Quran. The Quran says in chapter 25, verse 61, Blessed is He Allah who placed the heaven, the big stars, and has placed them in a great lamp and a moon giving lights, we know that the lamp here means the sun is a guiding light in the moon. And the moon is a borrowed light, because we know the light from the moon is actually reflected from the sun that I mentioned this 1400 years ago, the Quran mentions that we made from every living thing water who they don't believe and every living thing is made of
water. Every chemical biological process needs water in an aqueous type of solution. Also, we have other other evidence for the Quran. When the Quran mentioned about mountains, the Quran says have you know made the earth as a bed in the mountains as its pigs. The geologists actually mention the roots of the mountains, they actually mentioned these rules and the roots. And the Arabic word here in this verse is altered the plural of what hard which means to drive around firmly to fix and facing and secure. And these pits of stakes are driven into the ground similar and anchored in the deep foundations of the geological folds. And also the Quran says lift the shift with you and made
rivers and rules that you may be guided which shows that these things are to create stability, which is the concept of ISO status, which something that I the Islamic education, which is Academy is actually going to develop further and refute some of the online claims by the atheists. But I want to end brothers and sisters by saying this. The Quran has the final say in a very eloquent way.
The Quran says in chapter 78 out although Billahi min ash shaytani r rajim Bismillahi Rahmani Raheem, Amelia, Tessa and moon and Inaba Hill now the lady whom v mu telephone can say a moon can say Allah moon Quran says concerning about what they're disputing concerning the great news about that which they cannot agree. Verily they will come to know very early in indeed them they will come to know the Quran has the final say because the Quran is the American is discourse that hasn't been challenged for 1400 years. The Quran is a miracle of miracles. It transcends even the scientific miracle as the Quran says in Surah Baqarah verse 23, we're in contemporary ravey min min is at Nana,
in fact to be suited to middling he was coming to Nina he saw the pain, the Mufasa rondos explain the crisis the linguistic miracle of the Quran. And the Quran indeed is a linguistic miracle. It produces an expression of an Arabic language that is a unique literary form. It's not about subjective, or like you know, I don't it's about the mechanics of the language. It's a unique literary form. As AJ Aubrey said, the famous orientalist the Quran is neither prose or poetry but a unique fusion of both Professor Bruce Lawrence from Duke University in his book The Quran a biography on page eight says the Quranic verses as tangible signs, expressing inexhaustible truth
they signify meaning laid within meaning lights upon lights, miracle after miracle. Reverend apostle Smith, in his book, Mohammed Mohammed Al Islam says, The Quran is a miracle spiritual stall, it is a wisdom of truth. It's just one miracle claimed by Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and a miracle Indeed it is. Dr. Martin Zander from the Netherlands. He said the Quran is the most eminent written manifestation of the Arabic language. What else do you need to know? This is the reality of Arab who knew he was unlettered, he was unlettered.
Stop blazing with a unique language. How can we explain the civilization of Islam? one man, one book 23 years and you have a civilization, unheard of anthropologically, unheard of historically. And it's because of this, that the orientalist came with bizarre claims, saying that the Prophet was a super genius or he was a Superman. I rather believe in God than believing a Superman, Superman was read underpants over his trousers.
And finally, and finally, we have to realize,
I think we dealt with very nicely, we know that Islamic civilization is here to to make good humanity.
For the people, not from the people, Muslims shouldn't be a mercy. He claimed that in Pakistan, women are oppressed. You know why when I pressed not because of Islam, because when absence of Islam because the colonial period, in the colonial period, when the British came along, one minute, one minute, when the British when the British came and colonized these lines, they remove this norm as a reference point and put a mixed match of colonial penal code. And that was the reference point because women are 100 years ago, had no soul they couldn't vote and they couldn't own the own property by an Islamic either, right from the very beginning. 1400 years ago, the problem was
Western *, no Islamic * when Islam came in, when a woman was interrupted in her she cried, helped me she cried, helped me in other lines, I think in the Byzantines lives, the man, the Sultan, the Kayla's, he knew the responsibility to the state was to protect women and honor them. And for one woman, he wrote a letter to the dog of Rome, and he said, you can have a honey that ends with me and starts with you because you've troubled a woman. That's the one that we have for women, and brothers and sisters, brothers,
brothers and sisters, and just, just don't be arrogant with your tradition. Giving people that mention of Islam doesn't mean that we're better than them. It means we just have something better for you. It never means we're better than them. The human the Muslim is humble and he should have any arrogance On a final note, huge apologies. On a final note,
the Quran inshallah implemented in the Muslim lands will have justice what is the Class A but justice? Yeah, you have the Nina punakha woman and the lady Shahada. Christie will remain no question and accommodate
all you who believe be steadfast witnesses in God for justice to not let the hatred of others makes you swim away from justice. Be just plus closer to duty to God. Allahu Akbar.
Brother Hamza for your final
rebuttal. Before we end, I just have two more minutes. I want you to stay for only two more minutes. Okay, everyone needs to stay for two more minutes. That's it.
I will use this two minutes to ask all our volunteers
to come up there for the sisters and all the brothers that has been working with us struggling and striving to make this event a reality to come down, because we have some diplomas for you because we want to show support. We want to show the people that we care about the people as well. So all our volunteers, please come down.
Come on, come on, come on.
I can see all around.
Please come down and stand in front of the stage.
All of you who have been working at please come down.
It has been a great pleasure to have Dr. Loss Cuellar here with us for this fantastic debate.
And we would definitely like to engage the doctor last year again, on more debates, on more topics.
And it has also been a great pleasure to have hands on.
Come here to participate.
And we will also like to have Hamza again. And we will also like to thank brother anonymous he for his beautiful lecture yesterday.
And lastly, I would like to thank the audience who have made this event for what it is if you were not here, then it would be quite boring for all of us. So give a round of applause for yourself.
And those of you who are really inspired and would like to work with us, please just visit our website when you go home ww dot Islam ninja and oh, and click on the button that says Joba medalla and inshallah get engaged with us. Thank you all for having us here.