Mohammed Hijab – Reacting to Dawkins & Joe Rogan Interview

			Assalamu alaikum Today we're going to be responding to Joe Rogan and Richard Dawkins talking about
how Islam and religion is dying and atheism is taking over the world. Is there any evidence that
that is reaching the Muslim world as well? And that people are? Well, as I was saying,
		

			the the downloads of my books have been encouraging. We have this thing called CFR has a thing
called the translation project. So in this clip, Dawkins says, religions dying as a general point,
would you agree with that? Well, first of all, we'd have to be very clear about how we define
religion. Okay, in terms of atheism, actually becoming more popular, or the kind of atheism which
Richard Dawkins himself espouses, as I mentioned in my book, which is free to download. The book is
called the scientific deception of the new atheists. It's a very subtle plugin. Yes, yes, you can
put it you can see in the description box, but I've referenced in that book, it's very small, very,
		

			very small booklet, really, that you can download free of charge.
		

			All of the demographic data indicates that most people in the West according to Pew Research, 90% of
people still believe in a higher power. According to Lynda Woodhead, only 5.5% of people believe in
the strident atheism that Richard Dawkins believes in, which is actually quite interestingly, from a
British perspective, the same number of people, amount of people that are Muslim in this country. So
there's about the same amount of Muslims in this country as they are atheists. Atheists. Yeah, try
them atheists have Richard Dawkins kind. So here, Dawkins, he's basically saying, Look, guys, I can
tell you atheism is rising in the Muslim world. And Islam is dying, because people are downloading
		

			my book. So really rigorous scientific argument, isn't it? Well, it's methodologically. flawed, but
from a demographic and sociological perspective, not least because the religious switching cannot
and has not been sociologically identified by downloads of the atheistic of atheists, say after 911
millions of people say they downloaded the Quran, because they like okay, what's this about? Yeah,
does that mean they automatically became Muslim? Yeah, exactly. I mean, first of all, 13 million
people might have downloaded the book, but it doesn't mean all of them. Number one, read it. And
number two agreed with it. Or it could be actually it could be a vaccination, right? Because the
		

			book has such weak arguments. like Michael ruse says, I'm embarrassed to be an atheist because of
this book, right? This book makes me embarrassed. And, you know, he makes the conflation between
between metaphysical naturalism and methodological naturalism. This fallacy is pointed out by Elliot
soba by Massimo pigliucci. Yes, by Michael ruse by all these people, right? So it could be the
Muslim picks up the book. And it's like, Okay, this is a atheism is about actually is quite poor.
And then they're like, I never noticed atheism again. Maybe he's spreading Islamism in the Muslim
world. Absolutely. Because a lot of the time when people want to increase their cultural capital by
		

			learning about new ideas of the West, which is obviously the demographic heartland of the new
atheist movement, it doesn't it that sometimes actually acts as a counter current. Now, people think
of this, if this is what it's about, then we have nothing to do with it. Absolutely. But in terms of
recent history, I mean, we should look at is the fact that in the 60s and 70s, in countries like the
countries that he mentioned, Iran and Egypt, the countries that he mentioned, in countries like
those, you'll find that there's been a movement from pan Arab Islam or nationalism, and secularism
towards Yeah, towards Islam religiosity practicing observance of the religion. Yeah. And that's
		

			visible. I mean, for anyone who just sees pictures. Okay, I'm not saying that's the only game in
Afghanistan. Yeah, these areas, they were secular and communist in terms of even dress code. I mean,
the dress code has shifted completely look at pictures of Egypt in the 1670s look at pictures of
Iranian women were probably wearing miniskirts and these kind of things. Now, there's a big chunk of
the population in Egypt where it's not compulsory, I mean, no one's gonna get attacked, if they do
that, that observe the hijab, that Masjid mosques have increased.
		

			I mean, even from a, from a from an internet data point perspective, we look at Google Trends, we
look at the diet, or those individuals who call to Islam, and their sermons and their preaching has
become extremely popular, especially in the after 2000. So all the data points that we can look at
and tangibly see indicate there's been a trajectory move towards religiosity rather than the
opposite. So he says he's very hopeful, right? He's very hopeful of atheism, basically taking over
but I have this question. And I don't know if you've thought about this, but
		

			atheists in general, they don't really have many kids. Muslims have a lot of kids. And Dawkins
entire worldview is based on
		

			Upon Darwinism, and the ultimate rationale, according to him in The Selfish Gene is the preservation
of our genes reproduction and survival. So could it be that natural selection Darwinism actually
causes Islamism? Because Muslims actually have the most amount of children, as you know. And Islam
is growing faster than actual the world population is the fastest growing demographic. So is it
possible that that's why Islam is growing. And that's why his hope that atheism is gonna actually
prevail is going to fail because of the theory that he purports to believe. And I'll leave that to
you, because I think you're that you're the expert on issues to do with Darwinism, but what I think
		

			is that Richard Dawkins has delusions of grandeur. Yeah. In his one of his interviews with son, he
was asked, Do you think you're winning or something of that fact? And he said, Yes, we're winning
nothing of the information that we have from Pew Research on apostasy, which, by the way, is
methodologically flawed, because they, they, they interview like 30%, or
		

			Iranians, who don't speak English as a first language and don't represent the bulk of Muslims in
America. But even if we look at that, and we look at other data points, like the the European study
on dow, and so on, we'll find that really Darwinian arguments, which is really the thrust of his of
his book, right? as being Darwinian, the Darwinian mechanism replaces the gods thesis, which is what
he's trying to argue, is not one of the reasons why
		

			people are leaving religion, if it is a reason, if there is a reason, I think in your research you
were trying to, in your book, you're basically talking about moral issues. Yes. Yeah. That being the
cause, not not not anything. Exactly. In terms of if there's an intellectual reason, which is not
always the case. We were leaving Islam, for example, or even Christianity. In the case of Islam,
it's usually morality. Yeah. Which is not the exclusive property of the new atheist argument. Well,
actually, they don't have a justification for morality. And Firstly, exactly right. And that's,
that's something else, that they make these arguments against religion, but so do other people, many
		

			different people who are not new atheists, Christians can make arguments against Islamic morality.
liberal secularists can make arguments and so they wouldn't be able to pinpoint whether their
arguments for Islam using morality is the exact or the reason for the switching, if you see what I
mean. Yeah, there is that. And you can also sort of argue that, you know, he's talking about atheism
taking off in the Muslim world, but hasn't even really taken off in the Western world. Because the
Soviet Union, you know, they had this massive atheism project for decades. And when it collapsed,
people went back to religion. We're finding new age paganism. We're finding the spiritual movements
		

			are rising all across Europe, rising all across North America. So it's not even working here. Why
would it be working in the Muslim world? Well, looking at new atheists, in new atheism, in
particular, people like Richard Dawkins, people like Sam Harris. And when we look at the the
interaction, or the engagement or the numbers, because Joe Rogan use that term, then the metrics,
the actual internet metrics, with, for example, 10 years ago, 15 years ago to now, you realize that
actually, people are losing interest in their arguments. It's like, old arguments that have been
regurgitated, returned to Jordan Peterson and yeah, meaning of life and nihilism. And these people
		

			are irrelevant. No, I mean, Richard Dawkins, is a 78 year old man, who now has produced a book
called out, is this your new target? No, No, No, he's not. He's not. He's not a target. Because
really, and truly, he's an irrelevant person. I mean, we have to be honest, 78 years old, has just
produced a book, I'm not gonna even named a title. And if you compare that the hits that he has on
that book, and we've used Google Trends to do so, before and after, compared to The God Delusion,
you realize that it's not even one fifth the amount of interest that he got before. Yeah. So people
are not interested anymore. They've heard what he has to say. Some people were convinced who
		

			probably were agnostic in the first place.
		

			But most people are not. And his broken record arguments are just becoming a thing of the past.
They're gonna go to the dustbin of history, really. So what about this Joe guy? I mean, he's just
nodding along, like, you know, one of those puppets and you know, he's also been trying to promote
atheism a lot. I mean, do you do you see him as an atheist evangelist as well? I don't know if he's
an evangelist. I actually mentioned Joe Rogan in my book as a point of comparison to show the
irrelevance of people like Richard Dawkins. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I mentioned him in some of the
the the
		

			internet data that I picked up because he's he's a cultural figure now. And I think he is an
influencer. And I think he is extremely relevant. like comparing Joe Rogan with Richard Dawkins is
like comparing Michael Jackson with I don't know one of these people who have started a YouTube
channel smashed agenda or something. Yeah, something example. Yeah.
		

			But the point I'm making is that Joe Rogan, though he's an atheist, and for the most part, he's just
brought atheists into his podcast. He's spoken to Sam Harris books and Richard Dawkins. He
		

			He's engaged with Ben Shapiro,
		

			you know, softly on Judaism, he's not really had someone who represents the religion and Abrahamic
religion, talk to talk to them through their rationale, which is why we say it's very important that
you know, that he calls someone you know, to to his podcast who is a Muslim, and we're always here
our services always. Absolutely. So as you heard from hijab for us as a hobby, we really asked you
to make sure you turn up again on the Joe Rogan show. Yes, and do a good job of representing Islam
he did Lhasa, Mashallah.