Why God? Islam And The Pursuit Of Happiness
Date:
Channel: Hamza Tzortzis
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Episode Notes
Hamza Tzortzis discusses about the existence of God in this series “Why God” in this DAWAH conference – ISLAM and The Pursuit of Happiness held at Islamic Center of Irving, TX on March 14th 2014.
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of science and morality in understanding the concept of the universe and the cycle of life. They stress the need for a strong heart and being honest with one's beliefs. The speakers also discuss the use of negative experiences and the importance of reading the Quran in a language they understand. The speakers stress the need for people to read the Quran and avoid accusations of crazy behavior, and discuss a social media campaign and a return to a previous lecture.AI Generated Transcript ©
Similar to him,
in Alhamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah to proceed.
Brothers and sisters and friends, respected elders, Elena
and everybody else. I greet you with the warmest Islamic greetings of peace. Assalamu alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu.
As one brothers, a hawala system sisters, today we're gonna be talking about why God
and this is an important question, because in the 21st century,
particularly post 911, we have
a movement that has emerged.
It is a social tsunami, that is trying to engulf the hearts and minds of us religious folk,
of people who believe in the oneness and the existence of the Divine reality, Allah subhanho wa Taala.
And brothers and sisters, this movement
is the religion of no religion, also known as the kneel atheist movement.
If we look into
the statistics that are available,
from prestigious organizations, research organizations, we see that there is a growing
atheism on university campuses at high school.
And, and many other places.
Concerning academia in the Western world,
particularly in the UK, for instance, there has been a growth of around 30% of of atheists, on campus alone, at universities, and I believe in America the fastest growing movement, or ideology or worldview is actually atheism. So it's very important that we empower each other with some arguments, some thoughts, some ideas, coming from the Quran, and from the teachings of our beloved Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam in order to empower us. So we could articulate a warm, compassionate, loving case for our belief to the wider society.
And the brother mentioned in the beginning, that I engage in debates with atheist intellectuals, but I want you to understand that debates is not the our is not calling people to the oneness of Allah. debates is social engineering,
which is something that is important in order for us to give honor to our tradition and show that we have a strong intellectual case. But for the majority of people, debate is not the our is not calling people warmly and compassionately to the oneness of Allah, but rather Tao according to the oneness of Allah and his reality must be done with the Rama with compassion.
As the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told Ayesha and his wife when she hit the camel, oh, I shall be compassionate. Because when you put compassion in something, it elevates it. When you remove compassion, it degrades it. Also the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, the one who has been given compassion, or who is compassionate has been given all good.
So from this perspective, compassion is part of our tradition, being loving and warm and having empathy, being able to take off somebody's shoes, and at least walk two inches in their own shoes and feel what it is like to be the other person, the other human being and imaginatively engage with their emotions and their context and their situation. This is a Muslim.
So I wanted to add that note for you to understand it's not about winning an argument or it's not about
intellectual gymnastics.
But rather engaging with hearts and minds and planting the right seeds. So in this slide, I want to give you an introduction to some perspectives in Islam on how we do the issue. Why God?
The first point I want to make you understand is that atheism has nothing to do with philosophy, with science, and with reason. I repeat, atheism has nothing to do with philosophy with science or with reason. atheism is about psychology. atheism is about emotions. atheism is about spirituality.
We have to understand that the concept of God is a necessary concept, as we believe in our tradition, in the concept of the fitrah. We know the fitrah comes from the root that shares
the same root with words such as photron and Fatah who, that Allah has created something within us to acknowledge Him and to worship Him. So the idea of the belief in God is a natural belief, to the point that the question shouldn't be why God, but the question should be, what reasons Do you have to reject God? Because it's part of our own nature.
As we see in the Hadith in Sahih, Muslim with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Every child is born in this state in this natural state, but it is society, his parents and his upbringing that deviate him away from this natural state. And this natural straight brothers and sisters is confirmed by reality itself. For example, if we look into the works of sociologists, like the evolutionary evolutionist, sociologist, Professor Justin Barrett, he did a study on children. And he came to the conclusion that even if you have atheist children, and you put them on a desert island, they're going to believe in God.
Also, if you look into for example, keywords in psychology, you have the psychologist who studies religion. Her name is Oliver Petrovich. She has a journal and she discusses that the natural psychological state of the human being is to actually acknowledge God. And actually atheism is has to be forced on the psyche, on the soul, on the mind of a human being. So from this perspective, we have reality in line with what the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us many, many years ago that the concept of God is a natural concept. But I want to take something further which listen very carefully, brothers and sisters, and it concerns with the natural belief in God. If you reject if
you reject God's existence, it is just like rejecting
that this lectern this table is real, that brother Mujahid is real. The brother Hamza is real, you reject God is equivalent of rejecting that the real world is actually real. Now, where am I going with this? In Western thought, you have this idea called a basic belief. A basic belief is something that doesn't require any evidence for you to believe that it is necessary in order to have rational thought. I want to argue that God is just like a basic belief, he is necessary to have a rational thought.
So what is the basic belief? A basic belief, for example, is that the real world is actually real. Because if I asked any of the brothers or sisters in the audience, can you prove to me the real world is real? Can you prove to me that you are actually real and you exist?
What evidence would you give me?
You may say, Well, here, look, hello. That's not evidence.
Because How do you know?
or How can you confirm? or How can you reject the assertion that your brain is in a jar?
And there are probes in your brain? And there's an alien in Mars, making you think what you're thinking now, and making you feel what you're feeling right now? You have no way of disproving that assertion that your brain could be
Mars in a jar with metal probes in it making you think and feel what you're thinking and feeling now.
Just like the atheist Professor Bertrand Russell, he said, You can't disprove the idea that this world was created five minutes ago.
You can't disprove the idea of brothers and sisters, because maybe the world was created five minutes ago, but it's been programmed to make you think that you've been here for 20 years, or 18 years or 35 years.
So there are some self evident truths, for example, that we know to be true, for example, this world, this universe is longer than my own existence. Number two, that this real world
is actually real. But you have no evidence for that. You have to accept it as a truth. In order for other ideas to come from this truth.
The existence of God is just like a basic belief. It's necessary in order for you to have other truths about the world.
So if you reject God is like rejecting the real world is the real world.
Now, someone may argue, but wait a minute, Mr. georgeous, Mr. Hamza,
maybe the belief that there are fairies at the bottom of my garden, that might be a basic belief that this giant
Spaghetti Monster, and he has meatballs for AI, he created the universe, he is a basic belief.
But there's a problem here that is understood what a natural basic belief is. and natural belief is a belief that doesn't require information transfer, that you understand it without any other information, the spaghetti monster and fairies, ideas that require information transfer. But if I were to throw you in a desert island, you could easily conclude that that desert island is real, and that this desert item must have been created by something outside of the island,
namely supernatural causality that something created the universe outside of the universe. So really wanted to make you understand that the idea of God's existence and natural belief Does this make sense so far?
Now, let me give you some arguments to top that up, to make you
realize that yes, the belief in God is natural, and that atheism has nothing to do with reasons about psychology. But let me also give you some intellectual arguments that we can find in the court and to answer the question, why God,
argument number one,
the famous poet of the East, you may know him, his name was a cabal. Do you know what he said? He said, mankind has been asking a question.
And that question is, Does God Exist? But I want to give him a new question.
And it's a new question, particularly for the east. And not question is, does man exist?
I believe what Bob was trying to say was if you reject a lot, you reject God is like rejecting your own self.
And Miss relates to the idea of consciousness. We all agree that we're all conscious, right? With thinking and feeling things right.
And we all agree that we have a certain feeling of what it is like to be Mujahid, to drink some water, there is a sense of a subjective feeling on what it is like for Hamza to have some coffee. For example, I like strawberries.
And I have a conscious awareness, I am aware of what it is like for me to taste a sweet strawberry.
Now this reality cannot be proven by materialism, or by science. Because if we were to know everything about the brain, if we were to know everything about the brain, all of the neuro chemical happenings in the brain, it would never be able to tell us what it is like for Hamza to eat a strawberry, or it is like for Mujahid to drink some water now is a personal, private, conscious experience that exists for him. And that exists for me. Yes, science can tell you that you're thinking that you're having pain that you're retrieving memories by science and materialism can never justify or tell us what it is.
Like for Hamza to have a piece of chocolate, or what is like for Hamza to have a strawberry or to like, it is like for Hamza to feel Thai and
this is unique and personal to myself. materialism the physical world cannot ever prove this subjective feeling ever,
ever in any shape or form. This is why the best way to explain the fact that I have an awareness of my own inner subjectivity is to explain that there was an all aware being that created the universe with the ability for humans to have this sense of inner subjective experience.
Now, there have been many attempts by scientists and philosophers to try and explain that yes, we can prove the inner subjective feeling and conscious experience, but they have all failed. Let me give you an example of one failure. There's one famous atheist His name is Professor Daniel Dennett. He wrote the book consciousness explained in 1991. And he said, if we understand everything about the brain, we will understand everything about consciousness. But interestingly, he actually denies what requires explaining in the first place, which is that you Mohammed, you Mujahid uses the Ayesha sister Fatima, you have your own personal experiences on what it is like for you to have a gourmet
coffee, or what it is like for you to have some nice food. This is an internal subjective experience that belongs and is unique to you. He ignores that he says that's an illusion. It doesn't really exist. This is why professor and Kira wants to Oh, another philosopher of the mind, he makes an interesting point. He says, you know, Daniel Dennett book, consciousness explained, it should really be called consciousness explained the way because he doesn't explain that thing that requires explaining, which is that we have inner subjective experiences. So this is what you call the argument from consciousness. The very fact that we have a non material subjective awareness can't be
justified by the mob by materialism itself. Let me summarize this for you. If in the beginning of the universe, brothers and sisters, all we had was pieces of matter, and we arranged all those pieces of matter, we will never get mind we will never get consciousness. But if in the beginning of the universe, you had an order, were being that created matter and created the whole universe, then it follows within this matter, you will have human beings that can also be aware, because it started with an older way of being like Allah subhanho wa Taala.
So to really summarize this argument, how can wall pieces of matter like electrons, and molecules and you just rearrange them together? How on earth can you create something like consciousness, or inner awareness or subjective awareness of what it is like for Hamza to have a strawberry For example, this count can only be best explained by the existence of Allah. This is why Allah tells us to reflect within ourselves will fit on for sicoma fella took the rune and in themselves do they don't see, do they not reflect? So that's the first argument, the argument from consciousness. The second argument is why could the Quranic argument for the existence of God, the Quran, brothers and
sisters hardly addresses atheism? He addresses shook he addresses the fact that they believe that the rub their Lord, their rock was Allah, but they believed in intermediaries, they were polytheists they associated other things with Allah subhanho wa Taala, concerning His divinity.
So Allah addresses polytheism in a few places, there's a lot of just directly atheism, which is to show that atheism is an emotional spiritual issue, not an intellectual one.
But in one particular place in chapter 52, verse 35, to 36, Allah subhanho wa Taala addresses atheism and in these verses, Allah says, about the creation of the human being.
Did you come from nothing?
Did you create yourself?
Did you create the heavens in the
belly? Up noon? Indeed you have no firm face no firm belief. Now the
Mufasa rune, those who expect
Playing the Quran, they said that Allah has given us full logical explanations on how to explain the beginning of something.
Because these verses they address the creation of the human being, but it can be applied to the creation of anything, including the universe. Anything that is Luke that is created, that is
that came into being can be addressed with these four logical explanations, and they are as follows. Number one,
maybe it came from nothing. Number two, maybe he created itself, number three, maybe was created by somebody else created, or number four maybe was created by something I'm created. So we have these four logical possibilities. Now since we know not only did the human being begin to exist, but the entire universe began to exist. And we know this now we don't live in the 1950s anymore. We know the universe had a beginning, then we can apply the full logical explanations that the Quran gives us. So let's apply the first logical explanation. Since the universe began to exist, could it come from nothing?
No, a simple way of putting this is this, if I had some nothing, and I added a little bit more nothing. And I went to the bank and I borrowed some more nothing. And I added on to the nothingness, more nothingness. What do I have?
Nothing. Exactly. So the universe is gonna come from nothing.
Also, brothers, sisters, and friends, take it mathematically. zero, plus zero, plus zero, plus zero, plus zero, plus zero is equal to zero.
It's always zero. So we know the universe can come from nothing.
Now, some atheists say, Well, actually, you're wrong, because you have some particles in physics that come from what they call the quantum vacuum. Now, what is a quantum vacuum to explain a simple way, imagine you had a big cosmic Hoover vacuum cleaner, and you sucked away all the particles in the universe, what remains is the quantum vacuum. And they say, since you have nothing, which they call the quantum vacuum, you have some particles emerging from this nothing, therefore something can come from nothing. But they're wrong. Because the quantum vacuum is actually something. It's something physical. It's what the physicists call a sea of fluctuating energy. So it's actually
something so something doesn't come from nothing.
So that's the first point. What's the second point? logical explanation? Could the universe created itself? Was this possible? Could the universe created itself?
But this means that the universe was in existence and not in existence at the same time? Because we're something to create itself? It means it once wasn't there, in order for it to be there. But it also means it once was there, before it was there in order for it to be there.
Let me make this simple for you. Could your mother give birth to herself?
It's a messy idea, right?
Don't think about it for too long. It's impossible. Similarly, the universe couldn't create itself.
So that's the second option out of the way. What's the third option? Maybe the universe was created, ultimately, by something else that was created? But is this possible?
Let me give you some examples. Let's call this universe universe one. If universe one was as a result of universe two, and universe two, was as a result of universe three, and universe three, was as a result of universe full, and universe full, was as a result of universe five, and not went on forever. Would we have a have universe one?
No. Imagine I'm an American marine. And I want to shoot some birds. If only right.
But before I shoot the birds, I have to ask permission from the marine behind me. But if that marine has to ask permission from the marine behind him, and that goes on forever. Am I ever going to shoot the bird? No.
This is why ultimately
This universe couldn't be as a result of something else that was created. Because then what created that, and what created the universe that created the universe that created the universe. And then what created the universe that created the universe that created the universe that created the universe that created the universe that created the universe? Wait a minute, and we'll created the universe that created the universe that created the universe that created the universe that created the universe that created the universe that created the universe that created the universe, hold on a second. And what created the universe that created the universe that created the universe that
created the universe that created the universe that created the universe that created the universe.
If that goes on forever, you'll never have the universe in the first place. So we end up with the last logical explanation, which was the universe was created by something uncreated. And that's why the philosopher Abraham Varghese, he makes a beautiful point. He says, atheists, and people who believe in God, theists, they actually agree on one thing, which is that if something exists, a must, something must have always existed, either the universe or what created the universe. But since we know the universe began, then it must be what created the universe. That never began, that was always there that was uncreated.
And this makes sense of God and uncreated entity being created the whole universe. That was the second argument. So the first argument was arguing from consciousness. The second argument, the argument, which I call the Quranic argument, for God's existence, or you could call it the argument from the beginning of the universe. The third argument is one of my favorites was the argument from design the argument from design.
Now, and I'm not talking about the designing human beings or animals, that's a different argument. The argument from design I talked about is about natural laws and physics. Now, we know in order for this universe to permit our existence, brothers and sisters and friends, we had to have certain fundamental laws of physics, not only must we have certain fundamental laws of physics, but we must have in place and constants in physics. Now, what physicists tell us is that if these rules, or these constants were changed, by a hair's breadth, we would never have the universe to allow our existence. If this is true, there are three possible explanations. Number one,
this is natural, a had a always had to be that way it was necessary. Number two, it was a product of chance. Or number three, it's a product of design. So let's address these could this fine tuning of the universe? as one physicist said, it's as if someone has monkeyed with the physics or has played around with the dials in order for our universe to be just right to permit our existence?
Is this just as a result of necessity? No, because these laws of physics they could have been otherwise, there are what you call to be contingent. They're not independent. They are contingent they could have been otherwise, the natural laws of the universe could have been different. The physical constants of the universe could have been different. So that's not an argument. The second biggest argument from the atheist is, well, maybe it's a result of chance. Do you know how to address this argument? It's like a joke. And let me give you this joke. This was a to the a and I've said this to an atheist before many times, I'm like, Well, if it's a result of chance, do you know
how crazy your mind starts to roll around when you think about them in probabilities here? It's like me saying, you know, Mr. atheist, my mother is not really my mother. My mother is a pink Rhino.
And she was born on Pluto. And she flew here on a giant feather.
Now, the atheist turns around and says, Mr. Jones, is you're an idiot. And I turn around and say, but there's a chance.
But there's a chance because the color pink exists. A Rhino exists. Pluto exists and feathers exist. I'm just putting them into a sentence.
And there's a possibility.
I say to show to the atheist, if you claim charge, you could claim anything. You can claim absolutely anything. You could give me a big slap in the face and say that was
To me, that was just chance.
It shows that is countered discussion, you can't have a discussion about anything anymore If you accept this type of improbability.
So it can't be necessity. It can't be charged. Therefore it must be designed
by Richard Dawkins right. But this is a strong argument. On page 158157 of on in his book, The God Delusion, he says, but who designed the designer?
And the way to address this is very simple. Firstly,
by talking about the best explanation, if the best explanation for the physics of the universe is that there was a designer, then the best explanation doesn't require an explanation. If I went on to the moon, and you guys came with me, and we're digging away, and we found pieces of the iPhone, computer technology, poetry plates, a knife and a fork, we will conclude that the best explanation is that there was a civilization there. Now, if Richard Dawkins comes along and says, How can you say such a thing you don't know where they came from? And what their names are? Does that mean that our explanation isn't the best explanation anymore? Of course know. Also, if you follow his
thinking, it undermines the whole of science, because if the best explanation requires an explanation, then what about an explanation for the explanation that explained the best explanation? Hold on a minute. What about an explanation for the explanation for the explanation for the explanation for the explanation? That explained the best explanation? Wait a minute, what about an explanation for the explanation for the explanation for the explanation for the explanation for the explanation? For the explanation for the explanation to explain the best explanation, if you go on forever, you will never have an explanation.
But the easiest way of saying this is this.
If you always said there requires a designer for the designer, then you never have design in the first place. Because if you always say who designed the designer, the design, the designer, the design, the designer, you will never have the design. Just like when we talked about the sniper, the marine example, if I need to shoot a bird, and I asked permission from a marine behind me, but he has to ask permission also. And that goes on forever. I'm never going to shoot. So by rational necessity, there must be an undesigned Designer. So that's the third argument. So the first argument was arguing from consciousness. The second, the Quranic argument for God's existence, the beginning
of the universe, we applied the four logical possibilities. And then the third argument was the argument from design. Let me give you another argument, the final argument, which is the argument from morality.
Now brothers and sisters and friends, I have a six year old, his name is Zachary. He's my eldest.
If I were to put him here to sit down, and all of a sudden one of you came and shot him in the head.
Is that a good or bad thing?
A BB more passionate about?
Yes, bad is wrong, right. Terrible evil. Now is that action of dejectedly evil, or just relative?
its objective, right? You know, this, there is a sense of disgust, that, you know, regardless, if the whole world would come together and say it was good, it would still be wrong, right?
Hello.
You Muslim? Yeah. Good, come on, that will be objectively morally wrong.
If that is true, that there are objective morals in the world, it means God must exist. Why?
Because brothers and sisters and friends, in order to have a foundation for objective morals, you require a basis for that foundation.
The only basis to make bowls objective is Allah is God, because he is the only concept that goes above and beyond human life, human difference, human subjectivity. There is no other basis. But atheists say no, there is there is other basis.
Either social pressure, biology, or moral realism, and we'll discuss what these are. So let's receive these first essays biology. Biology explains the objective basis to make morals objective. This is wrong. This is wrong. Because if biology or evolution or natural selection was the basis for objective morals, the morals will not be objective, there'll be relative they will change. Because what is biology say? biology basically says that we are products of a lengthy evolutionary process. Our morals have evolved, like unwanted teeth, and unwanted hair.
And if our morals are based upon evolutionary changes, then the no objective because they're based on changes. This is why the atheist professor of science, Michael rose, from the University of growth, he says, When you say love thy neighbor as thyself, you think you're referring above and beyond yourself. But you know, morals and ethics are illusionary, they have no greater meaning no objective basis. That's why the famous atheist jL Mackey, in his book ethics on the first page, what does he say?
There are no objective moral values, no objective truth.
This is why Charles Darwin in the 19th century, do you know what he said? He gave an extreme example what it means for us to be just a result of biology are more inclinations to be just as a result of biology. He said, If we were to be reared like the hive bees, we would think it's okay to kill our fertile daughters.
And if we were to be reared, like the nurse shark, we would think it's okay to rate women. Because the nurse shark according to the National Geographic wrestles and forces itself on its mate, if we were reared according to the same social biological conditioning,
we would have to believe that is okay to rape women.
So, it shows that if biology becomes a basis for your morality, it has no meaning no objectivity.
Then they say, Okay, I give you that biology can't be a basis for morality.
What about
social pressure? Humans can come together and agree on what's right or wrong objectively. But again, this is wrong.
Because look at Nazi Germany, in the 1940s, there was a consensus in Nazi Germany, that it was okay to kill 6 million Jews. Yes, some people disagreed with it. But many people came together and agreed with it. If we agree that social pressure becomes a basis for objective morals, then how can you say what happened in Nazi Germany was wrong?
And we know this is absurd.
So social pressures out of the window.
The last point they say is, what about more realism? Do you want more realism means a basically means morals are objective, because they just are.
You can't have your cake and eat it.
Then I could say his farm is the truth, because it just is or the Quran is from Allah because it just is no justification whatsoever.
So we've dealt with their alternatives. And we see if you really believe killing a six year old, is morally objectively wrong. In necessitates God's existence to be the foundation for that objectivity, as by definition, Allah transcends human life, he is objective by definition.
So we've given quite a few arguments for God's existence today.
First, we talked about the fitrah. And that God's existence is based on nature, based on the fitrah that we know are like this, we don't require any evidence to reject him is that rejecting the real world is real as I discussed. Then we talked about the argument from consciousness, the very fact that we have in the conscious states, subjective experience can only be best explained by all aware being that gave us disability. Number two,
we talked about the argument from the beginning of the universe or the Quranic
argument for God's existence, that since the universe began, we could apply the Quranic logical thinking, the logical explanations, did it come from nothing? Did it create itself? was it created by something else created? Or was it created by something uncreated? Then we talked about the argument from design, that there are natural laws in the universe, and physical constants in the universe to allow our existence. If they were changed by his breath, we will never have a life permitting universe and we discussed alternatives. Could it be necessary? Not necessity? No. Because they could have been otherwise? Is it based on chance? Then we discuss Why couldn't it be based on
charts, therefore it must be based on design.
Then what was the other argument?
morality, the argument for morality that since there are objective moral truths, and necessity is God's existence, because he's the only basis for objective morality.
So you have four key arguments for why, God why Allah.
But interestingly, as we said, In the beginning, is not intellectual exercise.
The biggest problem with atheism is an emotional one is based upon the fact that
in essence, their master
they want to change their master from Allah to their own selves. As Allah says, In the Quran, have you seen the one who takes his own desire as his load.
Because generally speaking, atheism is a psychological state, where there is a false sense of self sufficiency. Um, so sufficient,
the world is self sufficient. Matter exists within itself.
And doesn't require anything outside of it to sustain it, including my own self, therefore, we don't need God. So it stems from an intellectual arrogance. And basically, we need to give them Quranic reminders to soften their heart and to break the ego.
As Allah in the Quran, he mentions, you were not for
not for 10 Min, many and you are not for your drop of fluid from semen.
This despise fluid, if you had this in your head, you'd be like, you'd wash it off.
But this is who you are, this is where you came from.
This should be on your Facebook profile picture,
on your photo album, this was you.
And now you think you can challenge Allah, and you think you're self sufficient. Also, Allah talks about the cycle of life, you're a baby, you could even feed yourself lift your neck up, you couldn't wipe your own backside. You always needed your mother.
And now you think you're self sufficient.
You're going to become one buffet couldn't do nothing, they could almost every soul is going to taste death.
And you think you're gonna live forever.
So these kind of spiritual strategies allow using the Quran to battle our ego.
Because Allah doesn't guide the arrogant.
So when we give these, ayat, these verses, and these concepts to people, we're doing it just to help them realize that at the end of the day, you're not self sufficient. And if you break this ego, inshallah, these arguments will be able to be planted as seeds in the heart, so they can grow into the fruits of eemaan.
By Remember, the arguments themselves are not the end, they're just a means. Because you have to compile that or couch it with Rama, with good deeds, with sincere care for this person, sincere love and affection, and respect and honor and tolerance and forgiveness. And to beautify your characters, you really engage with the hearts. So imagine you were this kind of personality and you gave them this argument in a nice way. For example, let me give an example. My dear brother in humanity, how much do you love your mother? Oh, I love her so much. Could you ever express what that love is? No, just like the famous poet said. If the pen writes of love, it breaks into you can never express the
love for your mother.
But you believe you have this subjective feeling of loving your mother of course it's really rude for me subjective to me.
But you know this love this feeling, this conscious experience of that internal feeling.
Do you know that
We can't explain it materially.
Are you going to say you're just a zombie your biological robot?
Or do you really have these feelings? Of course I have these feelings. Well, that means God must exist. And all they were being must have given us that ability.
Because in the beginning of your existence in the whole universe, all you had was rule matter.
And how can you Reek, compile and just rearrange, matter, and emerge with a conscious subjective feeling of you loving your own mother? So from really understanding you love your own mother, you must now know that there's an old way of being like gave you the ability to have that subjective experience.
So you could do in a simple way to people even talk about the beginning of the universe, you know, the universe began, right.
So you tell me, you give them the questions. You don't have to give them the answers plant seeds. Did the universe come from nothing? Right now? Well, I don't think so. Because from nothing, nothing comes create. So ask them the question, though, and they'll give you the answer that is based on the fitrah.
So hopefully, brothers and sisters has been food for thought.
Tomorrow, we're gonna continue the next part, which is why slumps we talked about why God and then we're gonna get more deeper into why Islam and how that links to the pursuit of happiness in sha Allah. So take these ideas and concepts.
Take them further.
develop them yourself, making them your own, adjust them to your own understanding to different levels of intellect, high school, University College, wherever the case may be. But compile it with a good soft heart, and a good character to engage lovingly with others, and inshallah, the rest is up to Allah subhanho wa Taala. Our job is to plant the seeds is Allah job, whether he decides via his wisdom and his mercy in His Majesty, to actually make that seed into the fruits of Iman, in sha Allah. So May Allah subhanho wa Taala bless you hope you hopefully you've benefited. I've tried to make it as simple as possible, because these things can be even more complex as you can imagine. But
sometimes, I do it slightly above your understanding as well. You know why it's deliberate.
So you climb the ladder.
So you're not you know, I'm going to get this book. I'm going to get the book. What's the book there, bro? Someone has gave me this book has been recommended by Shaq, Noma and ICANN
is called
God Islam and the skeptic mind, I think the second edition is coming out very soon. Everything I've said is summarized in here as well. If you go to my website, Hamza George's dot com, the articles are available. The Quranic argument for God's existence and other stuff concerning atheism is there.
You can go to
the brothers in the dalla here, you can go and speak to, for example, the shoe of the Messiah, you can go to a website called one reason.org. Some nice PDFs you can download. It's very simplified for the wider masses one reason to org
and just develop it further and make it your own inshallah. So we have 10 minutes for q&a. So let's start the q&a inshallah. Similar, yes, well, I don't know how this this is going to ask questions. But they could make a paper plane and throw it. So we did in Qatar, I was in Qatar, in
finance, in the mosque, and we got the sisters to throw paper planes, and then throw Paper Planes the questions on
his brother.
really more of an emotional and psychological.
So is it more effective than
an iPad?
Where
there was some kind of negative experience with the device into place?
So is it more effective? Not to focus on these intellectual arguments and really get to the core issue?
Yes, well, I think it's both because we have to be honest here. Oh, if someone's presented that religion is one plus one is equal to five. They're never going to believe it regardless of emotions, right. So there is a sense of that they have.
Yeah, they have
an emotional issue that has created the atheism, but can also be an intellectual one. What I like to do is use both because you can't be presumptuous, too much. You can't always assume it's always been an emotional thing. Because if that was the case, I would never address
See as an intellectual issue either, but he does somewhere. So as if I like it as a percentage 95% of the time is emotional. And by the way, for those who have an intellectual issue here, here are some ayat, do you see? So we have to see the crowd from a percentage perspective. So I would balance it. And it's horses for courses. As we say, in Britain. It depends who that person is. I, for example, I met somebody in my town. And he saw a debate, I had said, Oh, well done. But I'm an atheist. He's Muslim, but he said, I'm an atheist. I didn't even talk about atheism. Do you know what I said to him? How's your parents? His face dropped? As you know, I've got issues my parents,
from experience, you can tell, especially when it comes to DC youth. Yeah.
And then you start talking about his parents. And so he associated all negative emotions to Islam via negative experiences with his parents, because they're the ones who taught him Islam. Right. So then you just this.
So it all depends, you're right. But I would have to stick to one, I was ousted to both have all the Quranic tools available, and use them where appropriate.
And that comes with experience. So just keep on doing it. But majority of the time, I agree is emotional, psychological. And they use intellectual arguments as a smokescreen. So what you need to do you to use the intellectual argument to remove the smoke, and then get to the main issue, which is the emotions. So it's a strategy you use in Sharla. To Hope that helps.
Yes, brother.
Good question. Well, as I said, Every human being is different, right? So the atheist might be an atheist, because he doesn't know what god he's supposed to worship. You know, when an atheist says to me, I don't believe in God, you should ask him, what kind of God don't you believe in?
Because they believe that God's a man with a beard on a cloud, many of them think that and they say, I don't believe in that type of God, I say, you know what, I'm an atheist.
I'm a humble Joe, this is an atheist. I don't believe in the God that they believe that they think that people believe in which is some white guy with a beard on a cloud. I agree. I'm atheist. So you have to understand what kind of atheism they're talking about. Now, when you talk about Islam, and just give a basic explanation of sort of a class
called boo Allah, who say God is uniquely one who is self sufficient.
He beget for knows he be gotten there is nothing like on to him. They basic rational, pure arguments, right? Anyway, wow. That's the kind of guy that could believe in.
So it depends, I guess, we have to really ask questions before you give them answers. Because I want to give this advice brothers and sisters, and and really take this advice. Seriously. Words, are vehicles to meaning words are vehicles, there are the transportation for meaning. Don't think the words themselves are enough? Because we may use the same word, I might use the word God. And atheists might use the word God. But we got two different meanings. What I say to them is, what do you mean by God? If you don't ask those types of questions, brothers and sisters, you'd be talking to a brick wall. Because you think the word he's using, he's actually bringing the same meaning to
it. So someone who is sincere,
would want to engage with the way they think those words, what they what those words mean. So sometimes there's nothing wrong with saying what you mean by that.
And that's what when someone said to me, I don't believe in religion. I asked him, What do you mean by religions? If he says, oh, some dogma that you just pray, like, you know what, I don't believe in that too. I believe in a D, which is a way of life that does engage with spirituality, but gives us solutions for humanity to that deals with things like poverty, and injustice. Do you see the point here? vehicles are so where does vehicles for meaning go to the meaning not to the words? I'm telling if you do this with your wife as well, problem solved?
Honestly, problem solved. You do this with your family's problems sold in Sham.
Yes, yes.
And often the argument,
you're always defensive because you're trying to, to prove that God exists.
Leap of Faith. Rather than trying to be defensive. We often go
Well, that's what we said in the beginning of this lecture, we basically said that the belief in God is a natural belief. So the question is that the question shouldn't be Does God Exist? The question should actually be
what reasons Do you have to reject God's existence? Whatever it is, do you have to say God doesn't exist? Because exists of God is natural. It's a basic belief, meaning doesn't require evidence to reject God is like rejecting the real world is real, as we discussed in the beginning. So what evidence do you have to reject his existence? Because atheism is a knowledge claim? Saying, there is no God?
It's a knowledge claim. So What proof do you have for your knowledge claim?
That's how I start. And if they want some argumentation, I won't do on the defense, I will say, look, here are some positive reasons why God exists. And you give them the reasons
as well, most of the time, you may get some people who are emotional, emotional approach.
But other times we'll get people who are emotionally attached to intellectual approach, because a lot of times we use the miracles of report to prove that it's not correct. But a lot of times, when presentations like for example,
he talks about the world is round.
So are there any, like miracles that have
no reputations that
you have to realize there's not going to be one argument and everybody's gonna just take it in and say, Okay, great. I'm a Muslim. Now.
When it comes to these types of discussions, you're always going to have contentious issues, even Allah says that man is a contentious be, he's always gonna discuss and debate and even question the question, even question their own existence. I remember one guy, I had a lecture in Cork in Ireland. And one brother said, Brother Hamza, I want you to give me the absolute argument for the absolute existence of God. As my brother, you don't even have an absolute argument for your own existence. You don't absolutely know that you exist, that you are an absolute argument. See with these things, is about planting seeds and directing people to the right, directing people to the right.
Answer, or giving you the tools to find the answers. There's not going to be one that said this argument has won everything, because you're always going to have someone questioning something. This doesn't mean we don't we don't have counter arguments we do. But is there one argument you could say in like five minutes and everyone accepts it? No. Because Don't forget, nine is a contentious being is always going to have another question. Your job is to simply convey the message. If they have a question, answer the question to your best of ability, and just leave it as that.
And there you go. Because at the end of the day, bro, if someone has a heart issue, they could always say, Well, I don't really believe the world is wrong. I think we believe in the matrix.
Do you see? And then you can never argue with someone like that.
Impossible, you just say Tim go back to your doctor just get your pills or something. Yeah. So the thing is, you just have to understand that your job is not always to answer all the intellectual arguments is just to plant the seeds in Sharma
online, Yes, fine.
What is the effective Tao approach to sharing the Quran with non Muslims? Well, I think the most effective way of showing the crowd of non Muslims is first you become the Quran, be the walking Quran, there's a story that a non Muslim was given the Quran by a Muslim, and he read the Quran and he went back to the non Muslim, the Muslim and said, I want to read your other book. So we don't have another book we just have the Quran
is all because you haven't been following this one.
So we have to become working on be forgiving, compassionate, merciful, tolerant, ethical human beings. The second point is, don't argue for the Quran, the Quran doesn't need you will lay your miskeen compared to the Quran, as a professor of the helium says, allow the Quran to speak for itself. So, Allah says in the Quran, affiliated a balloon and Qur'an Do they not reflect upon the Quran or other locks on their hearts? So let's do to work on the ayah that asks us to do
so really, it means or implies that the motor number you do on the Quran itself, the more your heart becomes unlocked, to receive the mercy and guidance of Allah. So them do we get the non Muslims to do to borrow the Quran. You know, we say we just give them all these miracles. We don't allow them to engage with the court. We don't give them the tools
To engage with the Quran itself, for them to really engage and read the Quran, and see how it applies to their life and how it answers all the existential questions in life, such as Why am I? Who am I? Who am I? For whom am I?
And maybe sometimes on a Friday night, where am I for some of them? Yeah. So the point is allow people to read the code and so the one line you know, I can't even guarantee if I was a betting man or that we do bet that maybe 70% of you have never read the whole of the Quran in the English language.
Who's heard the horror of the cried in a language they understand Put your hand up?
That's terrible.
That's terrible guys. homework.
Homework. Well, you get tougher Yeah. As you say an older you get a slap Yeah.
Everyone read the Quran in a language they understand. He's gonna promise to do this in the next two months, put your hand up our promises read the Quran in a language you understand. In the next two months, it's very simple. It's not even a page a day behind up if you're going to do this. Come on guys. Have the Nia has the intention. Brothers and sisters read the Quran in a language you understand? If you don't know the message of Islam, the basic message of Islam connect to the Quran connect with this meaning with this message and your life will change. Your life will change you. You see some gems in the Quran, you're like wow.
I want to be like that I want to aspire to be like the characters of the prophets.
Like when you read the story of use of alayhis salaam, for instance, the Quran is a remedy for depression.
Do you know this? Because I live monologist. We're going to be in depression, we're going to be sad, sometimes it's the human state. Take Yaqoob alayhis salam, when he was so almost bordering despair,
in grief and anguish and depression, and what does he say? I complain only to Allah, Allah sufficient for me. But he was so worried and in the eye after what does he say to his sons? He says go and find out news about Yusuf and his brother Binyamin
and your Kubernetes gives them advice and says, and do not despair of the roar of the life giving Mercy of Allah. Only those who reject the truth, despair of the life giving Mercy of Allah. So do shut up on this. This is even in the English language.
It was jacoba a salon who was worried and in grief, but he relied only on Allah. But in the eye after this, what is he saying? He gives advice to his sons
since he sincere advice and he reminds them of the life giving Mercy of Allah. So what lessons do we get from this when you have depression, rely and complain to Allah and advise others sincerely and remind them of the life giving Mercy of Allah
because the poor will bounce back. This is why psychotherapists and counsellors they are all depressed. And the reason they go into counseling and psychotherapy to do with the own depression, because when you help others, you remind others of their blessings in the mercy of Allah, the ball will bounce back.
So these are some of the gems you get from the Quran just by reading it and understanding it right. And just contemplating due to the power of the Quran.
The only criteria you have to understand is your book is not tafsir tafsir is the meaning of the Quranic you need tools you the Arabic need to be a scholar, but the double anyone can do
as the Quran has been described as an infinite ocean of implications and meaning. So this will be a working Quran and allow people to connect with the Quran. seldom do we do this seldom do we apply those verses in our life and show it to people and allow them to connect our behavior with the Quran.
I've already prayed.
Okay, may Allah subhana wa Taala Bless you, brothers, sisters, you know, there's no point in this being just intellectual gymnastics. And you just, you know, listen to this and feeling eemaan for a while. I don't want this to be spiritual diabetes. You know, you have low Eman, you come to a lecture and it's like spiritual insulin and elevates you for five minutes. Enough of this. I want this to be the learning of the type of knowledge that Mr. Malik may Allah have missed and him talked about. That is not just memorization but rather is the end
internalization it becomes part of your spiritual and biological and social DNA. You be what you learn. Not you memorize what you learn, but you be what you learn. It's a state of being. So take this, apply it be do and then you become. This is the psychology of Omar Ibn Al Khattab rajala who and when he said if you don't cry in the last third of the night, pretend to cry, and the more you cry, you be it, you do it, you will become it. May Allah bless you I love you for the sake of Allah. Solomonic library habra cat
does not close her brother Hamza, we're gonna break for a show right now and inshallah we will resume with brother which I had Fletcher's lecture face challenges in Latino community.
Donald going right now.
30 minutes talk